Black Op's 2 League Play ~ The Watcher

Today I faced a new low point in my pixelated existence, I had to check the date Black Ops 2 was released. I would like to state that this is due to post-traumatic stress disorder. The origin of my 'shell shock' stemming from years of suffering slaughtered, face-less online enemies, whilst bearing the responsibility of appeasing the Controller's irrational complains and outbursts.

It was with Call of Duty 4 that the Controller truly seemed to find 'his' game, and to this day the maps seem familiar and comfortable, although the servers hold little more than tumbleweed. Now 9 games later the franchise has churned out Black Ops, laden with future tech, multiple endings and Zombies. It's fair to say the campaign just seemed more of the same to me, not that many buy it for the single player any more, and the Zombies more convoluted and less enjoyable than previous versions.



It has been a lurker on the shelf, brought out on occasion for the sole purpose of complaining; 'I don't know the maps', 'rubbish gun', 'snipers', 'axes' and my personal favourite ' I slashed him first!'
The games continued existence was primarily down to its ability to rose tint the past and glorify COD4, despite fact that there was just as much shouting at that game in it's day. Anyone exposed to the game would be lying if they claimed they had never uttered violent mutterings about campers and Noob-tubers.

However there has been a momentous occurrence that has restored me to a life of dodging round the
television and being deafened by gunfire. My Controller discovered League Play, apparently the ultimate challenge for today's competitive gamer. I completely blame this revelation on the, very well publicised, UK Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 team Fariko Dragons qualifying for the global finals in the Call of Duty Championship.

It took me a fair bit of googling to follow the set-up for the League play, but the premise of being placed within groups of equal talents is admirable. Unfortunately it can still end up very mixed if you are playing with a group of mixed talents.
Before you can officially be given a placement you have to play 5 Placement Matches, to assess which division you are to end up in. There are 6 Divisions:
Masters: top 2% of the active population
Platinum: next 18%.
Gold: next 20%.
Silver: next 20%.
Bronze: next 20%.
Iron: bottom 20%.
Which are broken up again into smaller subdivisions of 250 players and in theory, it is only the players within you subdivision you directly compete with. This is usually not the case, so take each game as it comes.

The Controllers game of choice is Team Death Match and you receive outstanding XP for simply playing, 7500 for a loss and 10,000 for a win. You also get ladder points added or taken away depending on your result, these are very important as they secure your position in your division. There is also a weekly Bonus Pool awarded for the first few wins of the week which gives extra ladder points, this is reset every Sunday.

The League resets every month, and before the next one there's a period called Pre-season. This is primarily where Treyarch finalize the results of the previous season and mess about with game rules and map rotations. You can play during this time, but the games don't count for league ladders placement. The current season and how much time remains in it is shown to you in-game. At the end of the Season the homepage in game shows the final standings for your ladder. Your highest career Division rank is displayed in your homepage on Elite and your all-time career best Division rank is shown in on your global playercard. When the next season starts you will complete placement matches again to re-establish a Division rank.

My Controller managed to shout and moan his way to first place in his Bronze Subdivision last season, and after the placement matches a new shiny silver badge is displayed on his gamercard. I excitedly look forward to this Seasons Ladder placement, with industrial earplugs and the undying hope that all the servers all fry horribly!

                                                       ......................................

On a side note I'm loving the advertising for the Uprising and the Revolutionary DLC pack. So practical, and very true to how the Controller see's his life! If you've by some miracle missed them they really are worth a watch.                            
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