And so here we are, where are we dR? We're at a troubling cross roads for the Day of Defeat community, that's where we are! To fully explain what this wild Canadian is talking about its worth looking at both forms of the game we all love, DoD. Day of Defeat has been around the block and new update problems are nothing new, and frankly they come as no surprise. It has come to the stage however where Valve have moved to the new "Source" engine, for what is, a completely new game. No longer is DoD just another one of the available games on your Valve list, its now a big bucks game that Valve want to bring places.

Day of Defeat 1.3 (DoD) is one of those games your mates got you into because CS was full of hackers and whines, and by christ didn't you get addicted quickly! For the hardcore clan gamer (thats the majority of us!) we didn't care for especially sexy graphics or out of this world effects, nope we love the game play and addictive nature of what is undoubtedly one of HalfLife's greatest mods. The game had a certain air of "Can't-put-down-ability". Leagues such as CAL and CDODL were dotted with the best of European and North American clans. DoD leant itself to clan gaming in a massive way, the game was even added to the CPL games list, with a damn big purse! DoD it seems had it all, a hardcore group of gamers, international recognition and a community spirit which far surpassed that of Counter Strike.

Personally I can't express my love for DoD1.3 enough, it has grabbed my attention in a way MarioKart did back in the 90's!The game flows and is mesmerisingly addictive. DoD it seems couldn't fail, it was the preverbial perfect cake, in my opinion it had all the ingerdients, the gamers, the game play and of most importance, it's bloody hot to play! Long live DoD1.3 eh?

Maybe not. Valve it seemed had other plans! On Sept 26th Valve unleashed its most anticipated game of 2005, Day of Defeat Source.

Day of Defeat: Source (DoD:S) is a graphically outstanding game, the new HDR effects are simply outstanding, and the water looks drinkable! The new soundpack is as realistic as it can possibley get!Valve's maticulous detailing of models and maps was outstanding and I still feel in a real world enviorment when I play the game! This however is the point just about where I feel Valve thought gamers would be happy. From here the engine leaves the game down, the physics of 1.3 are long gone, the weapons are changed, those quirky things about DoD1.3 that made it the game that it is (stopsound, priming nades with "E") are out the window. Valve has brought the WW2 concept full circle and into the main stream. Its blatantly obvious to all that Valve has released Source wih the soul intent of crushing CoD2! The games now bear similiar graphical elements and I also feel they play alike also.

By bringing DoD: Source so main stream Valve instantly alienated many of those fans who made the original DoD what it was. Many of Europe's top gamers have turned their backs on source claiming the lack of pistols with rifles, bad accuracy, iron sights, rifle-propelled grenades and general slow down in game speed to be to the detrement of the game. Not only this DoD: Source is a massively taxing game on your computer! People with 128mb of gfx, 512mb RAM will struggle to get 30fps in what is a sapping game computer resource wise. This prices people out of playing the game also, many people, including myself, forked out some big cash to upgrade systems, some for genearal use but many upgraded simply to play Valve's new Wonder Game!

So its becoming clear, Source is far and away a much better looking game, the game oozes of realistic surroundings and buildings. It sounds like real life itself, from far away you can hear your team mates being mowed down by an MG42, you hear the pinging of helmets as they get blown off by awesome headshots and the all round ambienve is nothing short of amazing, but, is that enough?

Of course not, looks are one thing but gameplay is another and this is where DoD1.3 is light years ahead. 1.3's gameplay lends itself to competitive play. Having played plenty of source PCW's I find myself bored and struggle to get in anyway exceited, the speed of 1.3 is griping. On top of that it seems maybe 1.3 is where Valve's WW2 competitive gaming may be, with the official line being; "Competative gaming is not our priority, but it's not ignored either. When we heard about the demo thing and how it was causing problems for CAL, we got to work on finding the bug and getting rid of it. We will support the competative play of DoD. We will not support changing the game to make it better for a tiny minority of players." This point couldn't be more compounded by the fact that ClanBase will hold a CoD2 cup and not a DoD: Source cup, CoD is a very recent release, highlighting how unsuitable DoDS is for clanning.

The thought however, had occured to me that maybe I'm so self centred I haven't factored in other people's thoughts on the matter, maybe my pig headed ignorance needed to be questioned. I asked a couple of Europe's top players in their respective codes a short and easy question, which version?

Here's what cZar's Niko "Zamurai" Silvennoinen had to say;

"Main reason that cZar stays playing 1.3 still, is that we don't feel like enjoying when playing Source. We are waiting for some few minor updates, specially to accuracy and fps problems. After that we are kinda ready to move on Source I think, but that also means that some of us wont continue with us so that also keeps us playing 1.3 still. We just hope that it will last as long as possible, cos' we like it much more than Source ATM."

On the other hand, top Belgium clan =[SoG]= have switched version, these are Bart "souL" Van den Bergh's thoughts;

"SoG lost the motivation to keep playing 1.3 wich was the result of some players going inactive. During that time there were no plans for restarting when DoD:S would be released. Until about 1 month before the release everyone was very interested in source so we decided to get our clan up again, despite some players not being interested we took a few people in. When we played our 1st DoD:S war we were all very motivated so we kept playing it and hope one day the bugs will be removed and more & more clans will start liking it and will make the big step from 1.3 to source."

Wow, thats all fascinating dR^, but now we're still at the troubling cross roads! Never fear my friend, there may be light at the end of this tunnel!

Thankfully its the oncoming train of Valve's Dev team. Recently we've seen an update for Source, its not quite there yet but its certainly a step in the right direction for this game. In my opinion a return to the 1.3 type physics and giving back pistols with rifles is vital, also Valve, sort out the accuracy of guns!

It all looks relatively rosey for DoD: Source then, with these updates. But what about 1.3, hmmmm well I'm afraid thats a different story, unfortunately it looks like there isn't a big or indeed strong enough community for the two forms of Day of Defeat to work alongside each other, ala CS 1.6 and CS: Source. Unless Valve make the concious effort to update 1.3, give the old girl a tweak, we may be seeing the departure from the gaming scene of one of its best multiplayer FPS's.

It does seem however that there is no plausable way of pleasing everyone, which is a shame, because up until the release of DoD: Source, the community couldn't have been much happier. The main problem in my eyes is that Valve implied that DoDS was going to solve all the problems with DoD 1.3 and in effect would be merely a DoD2 of sorts, but alas this wasn't what happened. DoDS isn't a new version of DoD, its a new game, its a new game which Valve has forced upon the community. Were this merely a different game by Valve we might all have been slightly more surprised and please, but its not, Valve is trying to appeal to to many people at once and they have left down the competitive gamers in a massive way. Only time will tell how DoDS will fare against CoD2, the reality is however that DoD1.3 maybe destined to rust away in Valve's online scrapyard.

Lets however hope there are better things to come, but if I was a betting man I'd advise you all to look forward to a future of Source based Day of Defeat.