Call of Duty: Black Ops PC Multiplayer FAQ

Full feature support: Confirmed
Ranked Servers: earn XP and currency. Wager Servers: gamble your currency. Customizable Unranked Servers. Combat Training against practice dummies. Theater. Create-a-Class "2.0." Contracts. Emblem editor. Everything the consoles get. Implemented in a way that makes sense for PC (*cough* no lobbies *cough*).

PC Features: Confirmed
Dedicated Servers. New Server Browser. Dev console. /record. Customizable game modes, perks, killstreaks, classes, and higher player counts on unranked servers. Map rotation. RCon. Kick & Ban. MOTD. In-game custom Server Banners. And more.

Mod Tools: Confirmed
We will release mod tools sometime post-launch. We need to finish the game first. Then we will make sure any urgent issues are handled. Then we will begin work on tools. The extent of the mod tools package will not be known until this time.

Global Persistent Stats, Profiles: Confirmed
Your profile data is stored on servers for you and is accessible from anywhere on the internet. Stats, XP, COD Points, configs, etc.

Leaderboards: Confirmed
Yes, leaderboards - globally persistent leaderboards (i.e. NOT per-server based).

Steam Exclusive: Confirmed
Millions of Call of Duty fans are already on Steam. Their Friends are on Steam. Steam will provide the ease of auto-updating instead of manual patching. Auto-updating will also help keep the community playing together on the latest version. The Steam cloud will make your profile and configs available to you on any computer.

VAC: Confirmed
We are serious about protecting the integrity of this game from hackers and cheaters who would otherwise ruin the fun for the honest players. Used in conjunction with our own anti-exploit measures, Theater reviews, trusted servers, and supplemented by server admins with kick and ban powers we believe that Valve Anti-Cheat will be an effective solution for Call of Duty: Black Ops PC. We are committed to working closely and diligently with Valve to deal with new threats as they appear.

No “Public Server Files”: Confirmed
Many of these game features are predicated on having a trusted host or server. Otherwise these features would be wide-open to easy exploits and rampant cheating. Also, anti-cheat solutions can be significantly more effective on games that rely on trusted servers. We chose against “public server files” in favor of providing full feature support and protecting the integrity of this title. This doesn't mean you won't have customization or admin capabilities with your servers - because you will. This simply means we've partnered with an exclusive server provider.

GameServers.com Exclusive: Confirmed
We have partnered with GameServers.com as the exclusive provider of dedicated servers for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Every dedicated server for this title will be running on top quality hardware and infrastructure with excellent bandwidth. There will be a ton of official servers at launch for everyone to play on for free. If you want to run your own server you will be able to rent one at a great price (which will never go higher than $0.99/slot). They are actively adding new server locations and staffing up to meet global demand. If you don’t see your location you can suggest it here: http://www.gameservers.com/blackops/

Max Players: Not Confirmed
We have not yet finalized the maximum number of players in ranked or unranked servers. More playtesting is required to determine how high these numbers can go. This happens as late as possible in the project otherwise the game is likely to change in ways that could invalidate the results.

Minimum System Requirements: Not Confirmed
The game is still in development, and the PC team is hard at work making further optimizations. We will announce the min specs in the near future.

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Hopefully that answers the majority of the outstanding questions not answered from our MP Reveal coverage. There are still some questions we do not have answers for at this time, so as always, we appreciate your patience. We will have all questions answered before November 9th.

Regards,
-JD, PC Dev, & the PC Team

"We have a lot of anti-cheating, anti-boosting stuff going on behind the scenes, so we are monitoring that," Bunting assured us. "We're going to have a very heavy hand in the online security of our game."

"We're taking it very seriously. We had an engineer dedicated pretty much from the storat of the project to it."

Cheaters won't be able to hack their hardware to get around this either claims Bunting, "If people hack their hardware, we've got the ability to detect that and report them to Sony or Microsoft."

The Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer reveal event took place this evening, giving gaming press from around the country the chance to see what it’s all about. After a presentation by Treyarch, and the multiplayer reveal trailer debuted, those in attendance got the opportunity to be among the first people to get hands-on time with Black Ops’ multiplayer.

We got a bunch of new Black Ops multiplayer details to share with you from the MP event. The page will be updated with more details as we get more information. Read below!

Competition

* Compete, Customize and Create — the three pillars, says Bunting
* Combat Training is a new multiplayer mode that lets you play with “practice dummies” – bots. Has its own A.I. Different rank progression. Can be played co-op with a friend and when you are ready, you can go online.
* Character model shows up in menus, so you can see customization effects.
* If you are Ghost, you wear a ghillie. If you take flak jacket, it’s shown and you take less explosive damage.
* Lethal, Tactical, Equipment-All things that are Lethal are on right bumper, all Tactical items go left bumper, and there’s now an equipment category for deploy-ables.
* Equipment: Camera Spike, C4, Tactical Insertion, Motion Sensor, Claymore
* Batch of special weapons that players will get in Care Packages — including the Death Machine (an epuc gatlight) and Grim Reaper (a rocket launcher).
* New Killstreaks-Napalm Strike, Gunship, Mortar Team, the Radio Controlled Car, SAM Turret.
* Every time you play, you earn money (COD points)-CP. What you used to unlock by level is now purchasable with the in-game currency. Unlock what you want when you want.
* Contracts-time limited challenges that you purchase with COD Points (CP). Categories are Mercenaries, Operations, Specialist. Each is attached to certain play styles and in-game achievements.
* Wager Match – you ante up and put your COD Points on the line and wager on matches. The top three players split the pot.

Gamemodes

* Four new game modes, separate from your standard rank progression in multiplayer competitive modes.
* Take CP, wager them, and bet whether you are in the top three in the scoreboard for the specific match…
* First mode: One in the Chamber, and everyone just has a pistol with one bullet and three lives. If you kill someone, you get their bullet. If you miss, you have to knife them.
* Second mode: Sticks and Stones where you have crossbows and ballistic knives plus a tomahawk.
* Third mode: Gun Game – A series of progressive weapons, from pistol to shotgun to sniper rifle, granted to the player after kills. Every kill moves you one in level of weapon.
* Fourth: Sharpshooter is where everyone uses the same weapon and unlocks perks per kill. Unlock a better gun with each kill…and lose a “level” with death instead of starting from the beginning

Customization

* Players have a special attachment to their weapons — so they can place clan tags, decals and smiley red dots on their weapons.
* Flamethrowers, sniper rifles, shotguns… everything can be customized.
* Emblem editor-allows you to create you own unique logo.

Theater

* Inside Xbox will have a video tomorrow that features theater mode.
* All recent games played on live can be tagged, edited, and searched with Theater.

Game Modes

* One in the Chamber
* Sharpshooter
* Sticks and Stones
* GunGame

Each game mode is a free-for-all that has a unique set of rules in each.

One in a Chamber gives you one bullet to go at it against your enemies, if you manage to kill them, you can pick up their bullet and proceed to your next target. If you miss, you will have to take them out with a knife to stay alive.

In Sharpshooter everyone starts out with a randomly selected weapon and then everyone switches out at the same time. You want to hit the multipliers with each weapon to score the most points.

Sticks and Stones hands you a tomahawk, a crossbow, and a ballistic knife as your only means of survival. Using the crossbow or the ballistic knife racks some big points, but tossing the tomahawk at an enemy player and hitting them will completely backrupt that player.

In Gun Game, you move up a set of tiers trying to get one kill per weapon until you reach the twentieth weapon to finish the game.