Cod Champs To Be Played Online
As the end of the inaugural season of the Call of Duty League (CDL) fast approaches, it has been confirmed that the 2020 Season Playoffs and Championship Weekend will be held online amid the coronavirus pandemic which has put a halt to the vast majority of online events across esports for the foreseeable future.
According to a statement, it has been a "collective priority" of the league to protect all players and personnel involved with the league. Now it has been confirmed that both playoffs and champs will be held online, the CDL has introduced several new measures in order to maintain the highest levels of competitive integrity.
Click to enlargeThe New Features
To ensure the best environment for competition, all players will use a universal camera which will be on throughout the duration of all matches. It will provide league officials to view the console, controller and monitor of all players in order to make sure all rules are being adhered to. The cameras will be in place for the New York Home Series, which begins on July 10th.
For the remaining Home Series events, teams will be provided with a list of three servers from a total pool of nine to test prior to the start of a series. During champs and playoffs, teams will be able to select from a total of five servers for each match. Servers have been a huge talking point throughout the online phase of the season, with a wealth of issues occurring, much to the annoyance of both players and fans.
The third and final change comes with a range of improvements to CDL production and officiating staffing teams in order to deal with any scenario or technical issue which may arise during the event. These changes come after the Seattle Surge went up 2-0 in against the Atlanta FaZe before a 45-minute technical issue stopped the game, resulting in the FaZe completing a reverse sweep, much to the annoyance of Seattle Assault Rifle star Sam "Octane" Larew.
The changes are certainly a step in the right direction for the online phase of the CDL. Preventing any issues and dealing with them quickly when there is over $4 million on the line, does certainly help the competitive integrity of online play, but it will never come close to the more consistent offline gameplay. As much as we would all want the CDL to be back in an offline environment, the safety of players and staff is top priority in the current global climate.
Image via Call of Duty League