So what is this website all about?

Well Call of Duty of course – but you probably knew that. CODV started a number of years ago (early 2005) when my interest was really building with the COD series and I started a website and used it more of a custom map review spot for the new maps that were being released for COD:UO – but also just a place to post my thoughts of things going on in the game and community. It became my public “view” for what was happening in COD and that is how it became titled Call of Duty View. Even more in the distant past I also went down the same path for a game called Red Faction and created Red Faction View which is the largest remaining community website for that game containing over 1,800 custom maps, over 100 custom mods, patches, utilities and more.

So who are you?

I am no one special really; just your average PC gamer that has been playing games on the Mac and PC since the early 1990’s. In game I go by Dr@gon or Dragon – don’t ask me why because there is really no reason behind it. I started using the name when I first got into a multiplayer game back with the original Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six game in 1998 – and believe it or not; I don’t have a thing for dragons or anything like that. I am a member – although haven’t really been active in the last few years – of the Lets War! (LW!) clan that has a ton of great guys (and a few girls) in it and holds the best COD:UO server around. LW! (previously ~TWZ~) was known for running the best Merciless Mod servers in COD:UO and still does. Although the clan has it’s main roots in COD:UO there a number of members from all around the world that play a number of other titles and offer a great experience of camaraderie and fun while playing games and chatting in Teamspeak.

So what’s your background with COD?

In 2003 I downloaded a demo of this new World War II game called Call of Duty and was immediately hooked on it. The demo was pretty short but I played it a few times over because it really felt good and when the game released I was immediately sucked into the multiplayer gameplay and was quickly moving away from Red Faction. Over the years I have pretty much stayed in Call of Duty for my multiplayer game of choice and I have played with a few clans and managed a few servers of my own. I am still playing the game that I stumbled into 13 years ago and at times it can still bring out that “one more game” syndrome. There is just something about the raw Call of Duty mechanics that plays like no other game. Sure it’s lost some features and changed over the last years – but generally at it’s core it still plays smooth and solid. My favorite COD to this day still has to be COD:United Offensive for the raw to-the-point game play and more focused objectives in the game rather than all of the new bling and fluff that is so thick in the current games. I still play a little COD:UO and a little a bit of COD4 every now and then but I generally hang out in a Black Ops title these days. The additional movement mechanics in newer games are a bit different and personally I just don’t think it works for Call of Duty. Along with the advanced movement there is so much other artificial garbage in the gameplay it’s hard to tell what is skill and what is just a bonus from the game. I miss weapons without attachments, I miss classes that don’t include special Perks and I miss that honest boots on the ground gun to gun battle for an objective. I pray for a brand new release of United Offensive to go back to the roots of this game so I can feel my adrenaline rush again.

With the current trend of COD games I am just not sure how much longer my enjoyment in the Call of Duty franchise will last. The yearly reiteration is getting old and the developers just aren’t interested in catering to the PC community too much anymore. However, I have yet to find another game that satisfies my playing style like Call of Duty does so until that happens I will probably just keep playing the series as long as it keeps some of its similarities. I do enjoy a number of other games for the single player content but it’s hard to find the time to even play them anymore. I am the type of person that gets situated in a multiplayer game and community and stays there for a long time without going anywhere else. For the time being that game is still Call of Duty – for how much longer well that’s a question that can’t be answered right now. To this day I have played somewhere around 800 hours of COD, 1,852 hours of COD:UO, 400 hours of COD2, 791 hours of COD4, 282 hours of COD:WAW, 0 hours of COD:MW2, 840 hours of COD:BO, 43 hours of COD:MW3, 2,301 hours of COD:BO2, 42 hours of COD:G, 26 hours of COD:AW, 1,084 hours of COD:BO3 and 0 hours of COD:IW/MWR – almost 8,500 hours total – nearly one solid year of my life devoted to playing Call of Duty. I started playing at age 21 and although a lot of things have changed in my life; and some things have definitely changed in Call of Duty – I’m still playing at age 35 on a pretty regular basis.