On a scale of 1 to 10, how nice are cakes? You're possibly thinking 11, I know, I hear ya ;) So what is it that makes a good cake? Well, whats inside it? Its ingredients of course. Now, If I took say the cocoa out of a chocolate cake, how gutted would you be? I know I'd be fairly peeved myself. And so I come to the question within DoD:Source . . . What's the missing ingredient?

Ok, so that was a pretty simple comparison to make, but I hope you can see where I'm going with this? For everything to work you really do need to have all parts equal. A good cake, a good game!

I'm always one for giving my opinions straight up and I don't often mince my words. However, far from it that I should be a lone ranger in my quest to find whats missing in DoD:S, and so I asked a few of Europe's prominent players to give their views on where DoD:S could be improved, maybe pointing to one particular fault.

Here's the views of Copyriot powerhouse light, Per "Azapp" Jorgensen:

I don't think that much is missing in DoD:S - maybe a little bit of reduced cpu requirement for those of us that still have sucky/medium computers, although I doubt that will ever happen. A lot of people complain about the cof (Cone of Fire)... but I kinda like that not every gun is a railgun even when it sometimes pisses me off to miss a shot once in a while. Source is way more fast paced and exciting than DoD 1.3 and the team play that is needed to be amongst the best is what really gets under my skin. I love this game and will forever play this compared to 1.3.

I have to say I fully agree with Azapp here, DoD:S is a resource monster. I myself can't play it on my laptop due to insufficient graphics power, which is really depressing. I enjoy a bloody good game of CS 1.6 or DoD 1.3 every evening with a comfortable 100fps! Different engine I understand, but surely Valve must have known the road they were going down with HL2? To push the graphical boundaries, do you really have to push the budget? I guess the argument can be made that these more recent games, such as F.E.A.R, Doom3, CoD2 and so on are part of this "Third Generation" of games, and upgrades were inevitable enough. The same type of debate is currently going on between the new generation of gaming consoles, will the revolution in game play ie. the Nintendo Wii, be able to recoup its inevitable visual losses to Microsoft's XBOX360 and Sony's PS3 based simply on gameplay?

Also he touched on the fact that the Circle of Fire is very questionable at best, though in fairness it has improved much over the last year of updates. The randomness of some of the shots pulled off within the game probably add to the game play in a strange way, ie. there is much adjustment needed and in essence you are learning a new way of playing, a new method of aiming and this has made DoD:S somewhat unique. Red Comit has released a plugin at the infamous failure Pro DoD. Actually while I'm on the topic, how dreadful was ProDoD? Good idea I guess, but wow, just leave the game be please! I could go on about ProDoD and how its modifications could have made DoD:S a better game, but all the changes this patch made effectively killed much of the things that made DoD:S the game it is.

The speed at which DoD:S is played at is mind boggling. If you play some DoD:S against the skilled clans in Europe you will find yourself quite tired after an hour or so of action, such is the pace of the game. When you maybe sneak into 1.3 to take a look at that game, you'll notice a remarkable difference in the game speed. DoD:S has its ninja cap and campy maps, but even still the game is invariably about attacking, and with 6 men swarming along a map you'll find the rate at which the game moves quite astounding.

I knew there was one guy I certainly had to have a chat with, a guy who was a hardened DoD 1.3, well behind the cause for Day of Defeat at Summer CPL, but has since switched codes.

Here are the views of The Last Resort heavy, Jeroen "4nkor" David Richard;

Well i think the game is fine as it is, its just a little rough around the edges. Like getting stuck at the weirdest places, players being able to manipulate the game with their config is shite too. Depending on ones connection one can set rates to be hit well or not. We have tiwaz to check on this at official matches like the EuroCup but not at pcw's and other cups/leagues if there could be a similar thing like the old dodguard in Source it would be lovely, not just for the officials. Another thing is that more competitive maps should be made, its the same story with anzio/donner/coire/argentan/salerno over and over again, which dissapoints me. Other than that i like the game as it is, and the community is getting bigger and better, with more and more competitive teams and maybe future top teams being created by the day.

4nkor is really hitting at something which is prevalent in most games, but especially obvious in DoD:S, the need for a method to sort out the problems with reg, and rate. CS:S has its Zblock and Cvar blocking methods, whereas in DoD:S the dodgy Cvar block seems to have very little in the way of protection, seemingly blocking only the most obvious of illegal commands. Recently pB has released his Tiwas program based loosely on the ESL Aequitas anti-cheat tool. Simply put it takes a number of random screen shots, check for illegal cvars and also, and this is a bit worrying, publicises the user's config, and archives them in an encrypted file, which the user must upload to an admin after the match. I guess it can be seen as a step in the right direction but most will agree that a new DoD:S Guard is needed, so if you're reading this sNc, get up off your ass and get coding :)

The question of anti cheat is well documented and has been spoken about at length, but DoD:S is a new game and is in need of a crack down, recent issues with players like Shinra, and the cover up story which went with his clan raised certain questions ?

Every decent article needs a winner, who better than the hugely successful rnl, a guy who has tasted success with Adachi in 1.3 and of course the great Cadre.dods squad. He shared his views with me;

In terms of game play, well, the most crucial matter wouldn't really be tweaking the game mechanics - there are some extremely minor things that could be adjusted naturally -, but to get more really good competition maps, the ones you enjoy playing over and over again. The list now (imo) is pretty much like this: anzio, argentan and salerno. That's only 3 maps. Some might argue donner, solitude, coire or perhaps even the currently wip remake(s) of harrington should be included in the list, but not in my opinion.

The other part of making DoD:S a truly great game is naturally having an established and evolving scene, and the growth has pretty much been the trend here in the EU - and more recently also in the US - to my brethren gamers' and my joy. The overflowing interest to participate of the upcoming Playz lan event is just one and perhaps the most concrete examples of just how the scene has grown in the last year, but it shouldn't stop to that, and I think we will see even larger events sometime in the future if the current growth continues. DoD is still only a small game, so there's a lot of work to be done.

Its fair to say rnl has echoed some of the previous points made, the major issue, in what is now a year old game, still seems to be maps! I really do think this is quite disgraceful to suggest that there is limit of around 8 or so playable match maps. It seems some people are too busy making pointless plugins and addons to actually get pro active in making the game in its current inception more competition friendly! The aim of these types of games of course is play them online and beat your opponent, it only makes sense the competitive players should see some effort coming from the development team. After all it is these players which raise the profile of their pride and joy so much.

In essence DoD:S is missing many minor items which seem to be causing some to steer clear still. The expense in upgrading, the irritation of aim, bugs and related problems and also up until recently the relatively fledgling community have led to DoD:S being less popular than some may have predicted. Thankfully with the recent additions of teams such as Lawnmower and Atrocious.dod, the competitive element of the game is growing. Some are even arguing Cadre could soon suffer their first competitive loss! Only time will tell.

I haven't really found what that vital missing ingredient is, but I hope I've delved a bit into the nitty gritty side of DoD:S and opened up a few things you may have glossed over yourselves. To sum up, Day of Defeat source, much like the majority of my end of term school reports, plenty of potential, a lot done, more to do!

Since this is my first News Spot here at InsigniaCadre I'd like to thank you all for reading but especially wAbbit and premi for affording me the opportunity to write at such a well run organisation. Check back soon for regular updates on the Cadre.dods squad.