CDL Launch Weekend: Day 1 Recap
The first day of the Call of Duty League is in the books, as Launch Weekend is off to a roaring start. Though it started with some technical issues, the day finished with some great matches and a lively crowd for a Friday night. The Chicago Huntsmen, Flordia Mutineers, and Minnesota Rokkr all took home wins, with no series being a huge blowout. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from the first day of the Call of Duty League.
Scump and FormaL get their revenge
After weeks of trash talking online between Seth “Scump” Abner and Ian “Crimsix” Porter, a Modern Warfare series put the conversation to rest. The Chicago Huntsmen, led by Scump and Matthew “FormaL” Piper, handily defeated Dallas Empire by a score of 3-1.
While Dallas took the Search and Destroy with ease, their respawn game modes paled in comparison to how the Huntsmen looked. There was no real nail-biter in any of the respawns, with Domination in game three being a complete mopping.
The victory had both Scump and FormaL fired up as they defeat their former teammate in Crimsix. While the Empire were considered the favorites coming in, Chicago showed why they deserve to be at the top of any power rankings. Dallas faces off against Atlanta FaZe tomorrow and Chicago waits until Sunday to take on OpTic Gaming.
CODCaster needs some serious work
If you were on social media during the event, particularly the first matchup, then you know about the issues in CODCaster. For the duration of the Dallas vs. Chicago series, you couldn’t see a scoreboard on the screen. Casters Maven and Merk were forced to manually call out how each player was doing.
Instead of a scoreboard, we saw each individual player’s face and the number they were on the mini-map. This caused the community to go into an uproar, as virtually no statistics were being displayed. The CDL team eventually fixed this, albeit slightly, and started to showcase the scoreboard more often.
Another huge issue with CODCaster was the constant switching to third-person mode and static camera angles. Fans found it extremely difficult to keep up with the action when they couldn’t see any player’s point of view. At one point, FormaL went on a 10-kill streak in Domination and the viewers only saw one of those kills.
There are definitely some issues to iron out but the CDL has given us reason to believe that CODCaster will improve with time. Other than that, however, the aesthetics of the feature looked fairly decent.
Day 2 of Launch Weekend for the Call of Duty League kicks off tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 25, at 2:30 EST with the New York Subliners facing the London Royal Ravens.
Image via Astro Gaming.
