Title update 8 for Black Ops has gone live and with it comes a long list of changes – including a brand-new, competitive playlist. Check out the full changelog below, and details on the competitive playlist below that.
4/28/11
Title Update 8
• Support for Escalation Map Pack (Releasing 5/3/11)
• Security Updates.
• Addition of banner-style Message of the Day on the MP Main Menu.
• Addition of Hardcore FFA and TDM for Combat Training.
• Additional sniper rifle tuning changes.
• Addition of “Competition” Barebones playlist.
• Replaced RPG with Grim Reaper in Gun Game Wager Match.
• Prevent automatic weapons from jamming if the player is feathering the fire button on “Default Alt”, “Tactical Flipped” or “Nom4d Flipped”.
• Prevented rare invulnerability issue.
• Additional game mode timer options for Custom Games.
• Fixed a minor out of map exploit in Grid.
• General Killcam and death-cam improvements.
• Improved Auto-Assign reliability in Private Match.
• Addressed an infinite “joining session in progress” screen under very specific timing conditions.
• Demolition bombs can no longer explode and be defused at the same time.
• Spy play now activates in One in the Chamber in all cases.
• The “Sprint Kills” challenge for Steady Aim perk now rewards the player with the correct number of kills.
• Contracts purchased but not yet expired no longer count as expired when viewing a friend’s player card.
• Addressed a rare issue where a hacked camera spike would not function properly if the hacker also had a camera spike that was destroyed.
• Recording a clip with the speed mode for 2 cameras set to .1 will no longer increase in speed when switching perspectives back and forth.
• Improvements to Zipline functionality when viewed in Theater mode.
• Settings from custom games are all cleared and no longer carry over from one custom match to another.
• Improvements to map voting reliability in lobbies.
• Nova gas will now affect players that are standing over their tactical insertion.
• Hardcore players who kill another teammate in last stand now lose the proper amount of points.
• Players can no longer transfer emblems/backgrounds from Combat Training to Player Match.
• Player is no longer able to use a primary weapon in Second Chance (rare, specific instance).
• Improvements to “Community” filters.
• Fine-tuned napalm and bombing-run damage indoors.
• Security Updates.
• Addition of banner-style Message of the Day on the MP Main Menu.
• Addition of Hardcore FFA and TDM for Combat Training.
• Additional sniper rifle tuning changes.
• Addition of “Competition” Barebones playlist.
• Replaced RPG with Grim Reaper in Gun Game Wager Match.
• Prevent automatic weapons from jamming if the player is feathering the fire button on “Default Alt”, “Tactical Flipped” or “Nom4d Flipped”.
• Prevented rare invulnerability issue.
• Additional game mode timer options for Custom Games.
• Fixed a minor out of map exploit in Grid.
• General Killcam and death-cam improvements.
• Improved Auto-Assign reliability in Private Match.
• Addressed an infinite “joining session in progress” screen under very specific timing conditions.
• Demolition bombs can no longer explode and be defused at the same time.
• Spy play now activates in One in the Chamber in all cases.
• The “Sprint Kills” challenge for Steady Aim perk now rewards the player with the correct number of kills.
• Contracts purchased but not yet expired no longer count as expired when viewing a friend’s player card.
• Addressed a rare issue where a hacked camera spike would not function properly if the hacker also had a camera spike that was destroyed.
• Recording a clip with the speed mode for 2 cameras set to .1 will no longer increase in speed when switching perspectives back and forth.
• Improvements to Zipline functionality when viewed in Theater mode.
• Settings from custom games are all cleared and no longer carry over from one custom match to another.
• Improvements to map voting reliability in lobbies.
• Nova gas will now affect players that are standing over their tactical insertion.
• Hardcore players who kill another teammate in last stand now lose the proper amount of points.
• Players can no longer transfer emblems/backgrounds from Combat Training to Player Match.
• Player is no longer able to use a primary weapon in Second Chance (rare, specific instance).
• Improvements to “Community” filters.
• Fine-tuned napalm and bombing-run damage indoors.
Competitive Playlist Details (Accessible via the “Bare Bones” category)
Disabled content within this playlist:
Killstreaks
• All
Perks
• Flak Jacket
• Second Chance
• Warlord
Launchers
• All
Attachments
• Rapid Fire
• Grenade Launcher
• Flame Thrower
Equiptment
• All
Tactical Grenades
• Nova Gas
• Decoy
=====================
Frequently Asked Questions
=====================
• No killstreaks.
• No equipment whatsoever.
• The playlist has a subset of the most competitive maps as agreed upon with members of the competitive community. It does include Escalation and First Strike maps. You can still vote.
• Minimum and maximum player counts are set up just like Team Tac. We recommend you go in with a party of 4.
• One might argue that banning Ghost is pointless, since the playlist has no Killstreaks taking Ghost gives no advantage.
• The playlist uses variant game mode rules. For example: Search and Destroy has a lowered game round timer, switches sides, and modifies the game mode timer.
• The playlist will be available with the next game update. As we are not 100% in control of when Microsoft or Sony will release the update providing an exact time is difficult.
• The video contains the list of banned weapons. All secondary launchers are banned; everything else fair game.
• Subject to some caps on the number of restrictions, the list of allowed/disallowed weapons, attachments, and perks is easily modified.
• We believe that both First Strike and Escalation have some competitive maps and want to see online leagues add them to the line up.
• Domination spawn delay should be set at 7.5 seconds.
• The playlist still impacts your stats.
• The playlist does not have it’s own leaderboard. That is out of scope since it’s made up of multiple game modes.
• Search and Destroy, Domination, and Capture the Flag are the principal game modes in the Competion playlist.
• Party chat is currently enabled.
• Search already uses a 1.5 round time limit.
• If the MLG unbans Rapid Fire and bans Steady Aim, we will consider making that change as well. However, it’s important to note that MLG is not the only competitive league. The Competitive playlist will be modified, as necessary, when the ground is common or be somewhere between the extremes.
