There has been a lot of discussion on the forums as to why things have been banned / removed and why the server should / shouldn’t be hardcore. Hopefully this explains it all.

PROmod was chosen for a few reasons...
1. It is a good in-between normal and hardcore modes due to stopping power coupled with reduced player health.

2. The every one using the same perks and with the removal of spray weapons such as P90s, SAWs, RPDs and M60s the games will be about who are the better shots and more accurate rather than who can spray the most bullets in a players general direction.

3. No UAVs, Air Strike or Choppers = More fun for everyone. No one likes being spammed from the air.

4. PROmod is the most widely used competition mod out there. It was used at the WCG nationals as well as WGT, plus many more. Think of it as practise for the big leagues.

Answers to frequently asked questions...
1. Why can’t you shoot through walls?
a. You can shoot through walls in PROmod, it doesn’t tag (Acknowledge the hit with a cross around the crosshair) the hit if your shooting through a wall.

2. Why are we not using Hardcore mode?
a. PROmod makes the matches more about who is more consistently accurate rather that the fastest hip shot or spray.

3. Why are the matches only 24 rounds long rather than 32 live last season?
a. Due to the quantity of matches versus the number of servers we have to run them and the fact that matches seem to start over 30mins after they are supposed to we have reduced the amount of rounds so that the games don’t take as long and the admin staff aren’t up past midnight finishing games ect.

Please find below a list of the PROmod changes from the base game and PAM4.

Allowed Weapons & Classes
Assault – M16, AK47, M4, G3, G36C, M14 & MP44 Allowed
Spec Ops – MP5, AK74u & UZI Allowed
Sniper – M40A3 & R700 Allowed
Demolitions – Winchester 1200 & Benelli M4 Allowed

Locked Perks – Everyone Has & Can’t Be Changed
Bandolier
Stopping Power

Grenades
1x Frag
1x Flash or 1x Smoke

Weapon Attachments
Iron Sights
Silencers

Class Restrictions
1x Sniper per team
3x Spec Ops per team
1x Demolitions per team

Sounds and music
All maps have ambient noise removed
Leader dialog has been removed from the game
Music has been removed from the game
A neutral commentator has been added

Gameplay and Balancing
The SMG class has been reduced in power
The snipers hitboxes will now tag less
The AWP fix has been implemented
The nosway fix has been implemented
Registration has been optimised for all classes
Flash bangs now are more direction dependant
The bomb can now be dropped in SD
Knife automelee and lunge has been removed
The shotgun grip was removed
Muzzle flash has been removed

Menu Optimisation
The new promod controls have been distributed throughout the control, options and quick commands menus
Weapons can now be ‘fast selected’ using the keyboard
The Desert Eagle is now the default pistol for all classes
The AK74u is now the default SMG
The AK47 is now the default Assault Rifle
Non-used features have been removed from the weapons menu
You no longer have to flick into spectate to unlock classes

Visuals and FPS
Guns now have camouflage available
Camouflage can be removed using the new menus
All maps have ambient particles and smoke removed
Fog has been further reduced throughout the game
The games desaturation has been removed, resulting in more colour
Walls now contain less detail, improving fps and visibility
The game no longer greyscreens inbetween rounds
Player ‘bob’ has been removed when sprinting, e.g
Weapon flash/smoke has been removed
Dynamic lighting has been disabled
Shadows have been disabled

Shoutcasting
A new map overhead view is available
(Action replays may be available)
Scores are now given while shoutcasting
Points awarded for events have been made more appropriate

Bug Fixes and Anti Cheating
Timeouts will no longer break the defuse mechanism
You can no longer view the whole map when connecting late
The chances of IWD mismatch have been reduced
The compass cheat is now always detected
You can no longer free spectate without joining a team or going into shoutcast mode
The server will now warn of ‘devmap’
The ready up status indicator now correctly shows half time, overtime
Servers will now detect illegal server-side cvars, and warn.
The 7 second defuse bug has been fixed
The 4 second plant bug has been fixed

Additional Improvements
You can now kill during the ready up period
You now receive accuracy data on request or at the end of the game
The MR system will now accept any number
Grenades are now unlimited during devmap
The plant/defuse bar has been made more accurate
Attack and Defence have replaced Opfor, Spetsnaz, etc
The demo name placing has been fixed
Numerical ammo information has been implemented

Edited 3 times, last edited 18/10/08 - 12:56am.

Thanks for that SCSI greatly apreciated.

Still, the last 2 seasons (using PAM 4) went so well, there's lots of resentment out there especially seeing as Promod is non-hardcore.

Wait till next season and we will hopefully have 1 PamMod and 1 ProMod comps going.

There will only be two comps (1x PAM4 & 1x ProMod) if there is enough teams for it. At present, there simply isn't.

The whole argument is quite silly really. This season will remain ProMod and only god knows what may happen next season. Maybe promod will release a version that can be run in HardCore Mode, Maybe we'll use a completely different mod, or quite possibly COD4 won't run in favor of COD5 or something else?????

At the end of the season we'll be calling for suggestions for the following season.

To be quite frank. I will not be setting up PAM4 servers if there isn't enough teams. Teams will have to commit to the season before I'll start working on them. Setting up the servers in an automated fashion is fairly labour intensive.

This whole league is setup and run by volunteers. We don't get paid for it and most of us have full time day jobs. So if you want to change things, how about everyone actively get involved rather than just complaining about it. We need referees and admins to look after the COD4 comp. This is currently done by myself and a mate of mine, Downlink.

We currently spend around 3-4 hours each week just to setup and check the servers you guys play on. This doesn't include the development and testing prior to the start of each season or the time fixing issues if they occur.

The amount of time spent from week to week has been significantly reduced by the use of Cybergamer's system for setting up the servers before each match and the system currently only supports ProMOD. A lot of work has to occur between the end of this season and the start of next one if PAM4 is to be used, and I'm certainly not going to do it on my own, not to mention the additional time required if two seasons are ran concurrently as far as people to ref the games, setup ect.

The idea of using PAM4 was yet to be discussed with the staff from Cybergamer and may be discussed with them once this season has been concluded.

Put simply, either get involved and help out or just play with the servers and services provided.

Ta,
SCSI.

Edited 5 times, last edited 27/10/08 - 10:55pm.

Well I got 2 teams here at Gaming Unleashed that will play Pam 4 and they only stayed in this season because they are friends of mine and I talked them in, because as soon as they played the first promod comp they were going to leave as all it is is a beefed up version of css. If I was closer to where you guys were i'd jump at the chance to learn how to do that admining of the servers, it would be a great learning curve.

I put in min 10 to 20 hours a week just organising teams, making sure connections for the games are working, making sure the players know the times and are going to be here to play on the day to play, not to mention staying after knock off time to all the players to play in the comps and with my guys going into the pro comp I am now stay to 1030 to make sure we have the recordings and the results have been inputed.

I do it because I enjoy playing against other players that you can't see and know that there is no chance of that team using hacks ect and think that everyone should have the chance to play as well.

We only have to find a way the week can make the admin side of thinks a lot easier so the voulenteers don't have so much work to do as I know it can be a drag some days.

I'll second EK on what he said. He puts in tons of time to help the two teams at Gaming Unleashed actually able to play.

I know that many of the players were disappointed that HardCore had been removed (PAM4 mod) as we all play that normally (bar one whinger ). I can see the advantages of both, but so far PAM4 wins due to customisation and tactics. The Promod makes things a little too much like CS: S for my liking, especially considering the broken characteristics of a certain two guns (even if they aren't that popular).

I would be perfectly happy with Promod if headshots were fixed to be single shot kills and body shots kept as is. That would reflect the skill of the player to hit the relatively small head hitbox compared to the spray and pray method of killing.

I do understand that there is a lot of work prepping the servers and admining the event, and it is fully appreciated. Please don't view this as a complaint, more a few suggestions.

Can I just clarify something for everyone here..



PAM4 does 'not' utilise theHARDCORE option.

Any of you that have a team on the GameArena ladder will know hardcores just an extra option



that is all

Aye, true that is.

That said, I've tried to set hardcore with promod on and as soon as you load the mod it turns it off.

thats because promod knows hardcore is the proverbial for competition

love your work scs.

I'm not really complaining, was just letting you know how much pro-mod is disliked, especially by people who REALLY get into COD4 (i.e the undefeated team of fanatics that won last seasons league )
Not sure how I can help out (any suggestions as to how I could, throw my way) apart from bringing 2 full teams of people that have barely stepped in to LAN cafe's before into the league for the last 2 seasons, telling every game I know about Truerank and promoting it to anyone who will listen inlcuding other local game centre owners and potential sponsors.
Also being half responsible for convincing the third BAR team to join Cod4 in for this season.
I'm a customer at Barracks ACT. I have successfully brought 2 full teams to the table, these guys weren't regulars and now are.
We pay for the time we use, even if we are sitting there waiting for late opponents to join or a server to get going.
I belive Truerank is the way to go and have supported it from the start.
Part of the reason I thought the COD4 league was so successful was because it wasn't using the same mod as everyone and you could give a bit of a personal touch without using the "broken" guns and perks,instead of just playing generic CSS style matches.
I will happily play this season through, lose drastically (my whole team are allergic to non-hardcore it seems) as we were asked to join Pro league as not having the previous winners would make it seem less credible apparently. When we played our first game we received a huge shock (not knowing it was goign to be pro-mod, lol).
But if hardcore/ PAM4 was an option I'd gladly join a lower skilled league to play it.

Haggis I think you have raised a good point through your comments as has everyone else here. That is: what type of gamer is TrueRank trying to target.

I don't know anything about TrueRank prior to the start of this season so it is hard for me to judge. However at a guess I would say that in previous seasons you'd find players who would have otherwise been playing on the public servers of GameArena or Internode and are starting to play at a lan cafe and a team environment for the first time.

Based on this, these players are more accustomed the PAM and/or Hardcore style of public server play as opposed to the competitive promod format that you see in online ladders and LAN Competitions.

I don't feel that one is necessarily better than the other. Which one is better depends on the individual gamers experience level and what they want out of playing. There will be TrueRank teams out there that will be more than happy to play COD4 in PAM mode and love it. There are those that will play PAM mode, get very good then go hunting for more of a challenge and move to promod. Then there are those who are already more competitively inclined who will only play ProMod.

The main challenge is for TrueRank to be able to cater for all of these gamers and not throw them all into the one bucket. Is TrueRank doing this right now; maybe. Is it going to cater for everyones needs in the future; absolutely.

Scsi and the TrueRank team, togoether with the lan cafes that have supported TrueRank have done an amazing job getting TrueRank to where it is. Especially considering it is a voluntary structure. There are going to be growing pains over time and decisions that turn out to be right and wrong.

TrueRank now being established as a part of CyberGamer will create greater flexibility going forward in the next season. I fully envisage that next season we will have a Pro League and a Hardcore League.

I think the key challenge for the community over the next month or two is how do you keep those gamers who prefer PAM interested in TrueRank and playing at the lan centres when they aren't enjoying it as much as they were. We also need to consider the impact COD5 may have when it is released in two weeks.

I couldn't agree more Momo. (110%)

We will cater for the teams that are around next season, weather that be Promod, PAM4 or otherwise.

We had the exact same thing the first time we ran TrueRank with PAM4 with people wanting vanilla COD4

You never know, maybe people will grow to love promod, or, maybe not.

For now it will remain Promod and we will asked via a poll or something who would enter PROmod and who would enter PAM4 and/or both. Depending on the numbers we'll make the call from there.

Sorry to rage and rant, just tired of getting spammed by promod haters while I'm playing COD4 scrims or CGo matches.

It's all good, we'll just have to see what happends.

AWE4 is better then PAM4. pam4 has some strange bugs in it with hit detection and whatnot.

Plus HC from memory needed more tweaks to get to work with PAM4.

COD4 HC no tubes, choppers, airstrikes LMGs, p90s or auto snipers. With most of perk 1 disabled bar the ammo one, along with perk 3s without last stand and martyrdom

Now THAT would be a fun comp. hahah though the rest of my team will rage at me for that lol

You forgot Dead Silence. Ban that crap totally. i have played in true rank 4 the last 4 seasons With my team winning one of them. I was as momo said an internode playing h/core loving claymore using wall banger. who could easily take down a more accurate player with a quick hip shot or a rando bullet. When i heard that truerank was running promod (NOTHARDCORE) i was hating life. But being loyal to my cafe and truerank i started practising on promod servers. Got smashed at the start/ hammered. But have grown a better player for it. Promod for the win. It is the test of better teams not luckier ones. and thats hat competing is about who is better