The Heat of Battle, Call of Duty's original "Domination" type game play mod and the oldest surviving Call of Duty mod, undergoes yet another transformation.

Yes, having first appeared just before Christmas 2003, the year of the original release for Call of Duty, the Heat of Battle (HoB), has progressed from CoD1, to United Offensive, missing CoD2, reappearing in Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare and now, for your delight and pleasure, this team work oriented mod is becoming available for Call of Duty:World at War (WaW). Join us in testing it at 66.55.155.89:28960 CoDBoards W@W:HoB5 public Test server.

The following are the changes introduced for WaW, which is still under test, but the following should be available;

1. HoB capture code; Dynamically adjustable, the more players on the server, the more players required to capture an objective. Serverside adjustable, you can have it as only one player needed to capture, or, a minimum of 2 players, increasing to 4 - dynamically.

2. Capture icons removed and replaced with notification of the number of players needed to make the capture.

3. HoB capture bars - These show you the captured areas and if you have team mates there needing assistance to capture. They also show if you are losing a cap to the enemy as well as caps that are "owned" by no one.

4. HoB capture timers: How long do you want it to take before a capture is made? The choice is yours with serverside adjustments. These are set timers, no longer does it speed up with more players on the capture point.

5. New weapon sounds: HoB1 had new sounds recorded by our own team at a firing range - these have now been imported into WaW.

6. Wave respawn - the first appearance of this type of wave respawn appeared in HoB1 and again is incorporated into WaW. Serverside adustable timers.

7. Restricted weapon list; Now you can only choose a weapon that would have been available to your side. No longer will you find an Axis player running around with the Tommy, unless he has picked it up off a dead player etc. There is still an issue with the saved weapon class, which is being looked at.

8. All weapons are unlocked, but as per # 8, you can only choose a weapon appropriate to the team you have joined.

9. Rifle sway; When standing and using iron sights, there will be "sway." This is reduced when in the crouched position and virtually eliminated when prone (but not totally eliminated).

10. HoB capture logic for maps; Bringing back the fixed spawning, specific HoB designed maps will prevent the random spawning evident in the the stock MW and WaW games. COME ON YOU MAPPERS, WHERE ARE YOU? Add the HoB gametype to your maps and give the players a return to the fixed spawn HoB gametype.

11. Admin and competition controls; Yes, in-built admin commands provide the following features;

a. Burn - set a player on fire - player burns to death
b. Slap - Give a "love" tap to get the player's attention
c. Shock - Shell shock a player - admin adjustable length of time
d. Disarm - remove all weapons from a player
e. Uberslap - send the player skywards with multiple slaps - death occurs after the last slap
f. Slay - Hit the player with a direct mortar round - instant death
g. Csay commands - Send a message to all players in large type across the middle of the screen
h. Cwarn commands - Send a message to a single player in large type across the middle of the screen
i. Time out - Place a player in the "sin bin" for an admin selected time period.
j. Pause - pause the game to all players are in and ready - admin selected time period. (this is not yet working properly)
k. Switchteam - cause a player or players to switch teams (also not yet working properly)
l. Chain commands - chain several commands together e.g. burn + uberslap = flaming uberslap, player set on fire and sent skywards = death
m. Variable players selected - Apply commands to 1, 2 or more players. Select a team, or the whole server for each command.

These are the admin commands entered via rcon;

\rcon admincmd "burn name obviously name = player name or unique part of name
\rcon admincmd "burn will set everyone on fire. Change "all" to a player's tag and it will burn all with the same tag

substitute burn for other commands

Some like shock, pause and timeout have a time, so

\rcon admincmd "shock player 10 That will shell shock a player for 10 seconds. Choose the length of time by changing the 10 to suit the occassion

\rcon admincmd "pause 15 No name needed, this will pause the game while waiting for other players to join etc. Naturally, the 15 seconds is alterable, just change it for the number of seconds required. Still undergoing development.

Using the * will chain the command, like

\rcon admincmd "uberslap player*burn player For a flaming uberslap

csay sends a message to the whole server whilst cwarn sends a private message just to that player (or players by using <> round the unique part of name)

If you use a unique part of a name, that is actually shared by several players and you do not surround the name with <>, nothing will happen.

Next on the agenda, is to alter the weapon damage. This will balance the weapons to reflect real life differences between the various weapons, but in a way that does not harm game play and the fun element.

MODDERS - Do you have weapons and the such like that you would like to see introduced to the game? If you do and they are based on historical accuracy, then come and talk to us.