There hasn’t been a whole lot of news flowing out of the Treyarch camp this week, but there have been some minor announcements and bits of intel that may have slipped through the cracks. Most notably, some more news that has surfaced from the MP Reveal. If you haven’t had a chance, be sure to check out our recaps here and here.
Josh Olin talks MP
The good folks over at CVG sat down with Treyarch’s Community Manager , Josh Olin, at the MP Reveal and he was able to shed some more light on a few of Black Ops’ MP features. Josh stressed, again, how much Treyarch has been listening to our dislikes and likes when it comes to Call of Duty MP. Notably, the removal of Deathstreaks and the perk Commando; Treyarch couldn’t help but note the communities general dislike for those features and made arrangements to either remove them completely or replace them. Commando was replaced with the Ballistic Knife. When you melee with the Ballistic Knife it gives you just a little extra reach, although the extent of that reach is not known yet.



With Deathstreaks, Treyarch felt that they wanted their Streak Rewards to be interactive and with Deathstreaks, it wasn’t interactive and they opted against them.
“Take killstreaks for example: we wanted it to be something that you controlled. All of our Killstreaks are much more interactive. Deathstreaks have no interaction.” – Josh Olin, Treyarch, Community Manager
Treyarch, instead, opted for Combat Training. Combat Training provides a way for people who are not used to playing Call of Duty to spend some time, offline, getting used to the mechanics and features of Black Ops’ multiplayer. To spend some time training before getting into the thick of the fight online, where they may damage their Kill-Death Ratio or lose their CoD Points.

Another topic Josh touched on was Party Chat. If you aren’t familiar with this, rather controversial, subject: in Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward made the choice to force players to be in the in-game chat as opposed to being in a party with a few of their friends and chatting privately. The move, aimed to improve the ability to work tactically with your team, was met with a lot of criticism. At this point in development, Treyarch is including the option to chat privately with a party for every game mode except Search and Destroy.

Other notable bits of news:

Treyarch isn’t 100% sure on how many maps will ship with Black Ops’ but they are sure that we will have a great variety in size and environments.

Launch - One of the diverse MP maps Treyarch has promised
There are no remake maps in Competitive MP, they are all new original maps.

Players can customize their controls, as well, arranging how the buttons/sticks perform. There is a new default control scheme called “Charlie” that is designed for handicapped gamers.

Sadly, Josh reiterated that there will be no public beta. This supports what we reported previously. Josh also hinted that there are a few small surprises left to be announced, so be sure to check back here and follow us on Twitter if you aren’t already.

Community Chat!

The team here has really been dying to get involved in the Call of Duty community and get a little closer to all of our readers. We want to hear feedback on the site, your hopes for Black Ops and anything else that you want to share with us! Our first community chat is going to be held this Monday, September 20th, 2010 at 6PM Eastern Time (11:00PM GMT, 5:00PM CT, 3:00PM PDT). Mark your calendars!
Our topic this week will be your Most Anticipated Multiplayer Features in Black Ops. We’ll be providing a direct link to the chat, and a reminder, on our main page here on Sunday the 19th of September.
Let us know if you plan on joining us in the comments, or head on over to our forum and share your thoughts!