At last, we're given the opportunity to rise from the dreaded experiences of last season and take back what is rightfully ours! Initially plagued by the arrival of DoD:Source and what appeared to be no support from CPL, things slowly began to turn around towards the end of last season and all anybody could think about, aside from hoping that careface didn't win the finals, was getting started on the next season so that we could do it right. With the change towards a more intelligent, responsive, and active group of CAL admins, among many other developments, this next CAL season has a lot in store for the community and many adjustments that should be noted.

CAL

Finally, FINALLY, we've broken away from the previously prevalent trend of admins who didn't play this game competitively, didn't care much about what the competitive community thought, and didn't care much to change what had already been established. Schmiggs is back! InSaNe is amazingly responsive! With the change towards admins who actually care, an array of changes have been made that the community, for the most part, loves. Is it okay to use Platypus's awful rates anymore? Nope! Better registration for all. With the addition of the new configs, featuring a spawn timer of 0 that begins the match or scrim immediately after both teams type "ready", gun spawning and well-timed spawn nades are a thing of the past. Furthermore, cypher took the time to resize the new minimap so that you can actually see things and not be blocked by your fat icon. Not only does this give you better minimap visibility, but it discourages the use of the glitched and flawed DoD Guard. Two birds with one stone.

In more important news, it appears that CAL has decided to experiment with boosting, defined as "Jumping on another player's head to gain access to different parts of the map." In the past, the case has been that boosting is illegal and stacking is legal, though largely useless in Day of Defeat. With this experimentation comes a new tactic that may or may not advance Day of Defeat, and CAL has chosen Chemille as the first pre-season map to test it all out. As far as Main is concerned, you are NOT allowed to boost this preseason - the experiment will be run in Invite - but should this be a success then it may be implemented permanently.

Arguably the most significant, or at least controversial, change of this past offseason is the move of CAL-Open, Intermediate, and Main to Thursday nights at 9 EST, and the move of CAL-Invite back to Wednesday. The announcement was met with a slew of resistance as the change, being the second of its nature in as many seasons, has caused conflicts with many peoples' schedules. The change was made in hopes of boosting Day of Defeat as a spectator sport, allowing the community the opportunity to spectate matches from CAL's highest tier. On a more abstract level, the change should also serve to give meaning back to a division that was largely ignored and given up on last season.

CPL

After the well publicized, and ultimately successful, pursuit of a Day of Defeat tournament at the Summer '06 CPL event, the community has really pulled together to rebuild a level of activity that we haven't seen since the prior CPL tournament. As per CAL's plans, the method for CPL seeding has not yet been determined, but in all likelihood the seeds will be determined by placement in CAL. What does this mean for CAL-M teams? As of now, there are 12 teams in CAL-I, presumably all of which plan on attending the summer CPL tournament. Regardless, Main will step into line immediately behind Invite, with the top Main team taking the seed immediately behind the bottom Invite team.

That beind said, some major changes have been made in the past month on the professional scene. In a move that Angel Munoz called "unprecedented," the World Series of Video Games, owned and operated by Games Media Properties, announced a partnership with the Cyberathlete Professional League that makes the summer '06 tournament a major stop on the WSVG tour. The press release significantly changes the scope of the event and it could all affect the Day of Defeat community. To begin with, the Counter-Strike and Quake4 tournament cash prizes were cut in half to $150,000 and $75,000, respectively. With intended total tournament cash prizes that will reach $1,000,000, the math leaves us with a few questions. In an interview with Angel Munoz, he indicated that there would be an increased focus on console games, replacing the primary attention paid to Counter-Strike and Quake4. Asked whether certain tournaments would be added and dropped with the merger, Munoz responded that "That is a question best answered by Games Media Properties." So, where does this leave our precious game? To begin with, our tournament is far from certain. With a shift in management that cut CS and Q4 prize money in half, and with much more emphasis placed on console games than before, all we can do is speculate until further information is released.