Back years ago, when HL1 mods where the thing, I played a couple of them like Firearms, Day of Defeat, Natural Selection, etc. The first two where by far my favorite, and I was freaking leet on my dial up pwning nubs on 3.1 DoD.

Then they went "retail" with version 1.0, but still offered it for free. I didn't like all of the changes, but still played. After a while I stopped as I found other mods and games.

So a couple months back I bought DoD: S, and I can tell you this is a crappy spin off not worthy of the title "Day of Defeat". Why's that? Simple -- it has fewer options and worse kit layout than the original.

From the top:

In DoD, the basic grunt kit of each side had his rifle, some hand grenades, a pistol, and IIRC a melee weapon. He could also melee with his rifle, too. In Source, you gain the iron sights for better visibility, but you lose the hand grenades for a rifle launched one, which is only marginally useful. You should have gotten both. You can no longer melee and have to switch to your actual weapon to do so, which sucks in CQB, especially for the Germans who don't get a semiauto rifle. You still carry ammo for the MG guy, though, which is nice.

In DoD, there where way more kit options. You had the rifleman with the standard service rifle, a US kit with a M1 Carbine, with the German Gewehr 43 as it's opposite. The US got a kit with the Thompson SMG, with the MP40 as it's German opposite. The US got the M3 SMG, which had the opposite of the STG44. The Germans got 2 MG's, MG34 with slower ROF and smaller drum mag but never overheats, and the MG42 which fired fast and had a long belt, but overheated when you fired for too long. The US only got one MG, the .30, but had the support weapon of the BAR, which could be fired from the hip well enough, as well as deployed like the other three MG's for extra accuracy. Both sides had a sniper. Some maps gave the Germans the FG42, which was a weapon for paratroopers that could convert between rifle and LSW seamlessly. Both sides got a tank hunter with a pistol, but there where no tanks in game so I never fully figured out why you needed this kit at all. There are British kits but they're much like the US one, only with a No. 4, Sten, and Bren covering the differences.

Compared with Source, who only have a rifleman, SMG (Thompson, MP40), Support (BAR without deployment ability, STG44 with no ironsights), MG (.30 and MG42, my fav. little 34 is gone!), sniper, and tank hunter (M1 carbine or some sort of automatic Luger for main arm), you get way fewer options. Some kits seemed redundant but they all had their perks -- MG34 could fire longer for support and never overheat, covering a wider area with less ammunition then the 42. It also deployed faster I think. Also, I miss my M3 :/

Game play wise it's the same stuff, with better graphics but an even more annoying community some times. It may very well be pangs of nostalgia but I really think DoD: S is a step backwards from DoD.

What about you?

I never really played either of the DoD mods for the HL series. I have both of them however. I was always just more interested in Counter-Strike and Team Fortress.

DoD just seemed a little too fast paced for a checkpoint based shooter. I liked the feel better in games like Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, and Battlefield 2142.

There is actually a map (British) that requires Allies to return some secret documents and Axis to destroy the Allies tanks. Much fun, especially when you fire at one of the tanks and your escort runs in the way of your rocket...

I haven't played DoD: S, but I do have (and have played) DoD. I loved it, but really hated the public servers. By chance, I found a gaming community called The Blighty Boys (now defunct), and after playing there a few times, I never went back to the public servers.

They were a great group, who played with sportsmanship, teamwork, and fair play in mind. In short, the "Blighty Spirit". I fit right in. Unfortunately, several years ago, problems started occurring with a couple of the servers (which were based in the US at that time), and the man in charge of looking after them couldn't be reached. It's about that time the founder expressed his worries that the group may have to close down...which is also around the time arguments occurred that pretty much split the community in two, with one group going off to make Blighty Renegades, and another making...I forget, it was possibly Play Hard, Play Fair (PHPF).

A group of us, myself included, stayed with The Blighty Boys as long as possible, but eventually, the site closed. Some of the guys went over to one of the new communities. As for myself, I stopped playing. I went to play on the Blighty Renegades server a couple of months back, and while it was fun to play with the guys again, time constraints which didn't exist as much back when I was in school prevent me from playing there often.

However, one question is left in my mind, and that is how the founder is doing. Having cut myself off from the community, I had (and still have) no idea how everyone was getting on. He gave me some key advice, and I respect him. Hell, I still have a couple of the text files of advice he's given me so that I can read them any time.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with The Blighty Boys playing this game, it was fun while it lasted.

And, er, if any ex-Blightys are reading this and disagree with how it all happened, it was a fair time ago guys, I can't remember every detail!

The maps are very small. Coming from BF2's Project Reality mod, where maps are very large, as large as 4km x 4km, DoD is extremely fast paced.

But hey, look at TF2 :p

EDIT: Hit me up on my IM some time and I'll join you for some DoD.

I thought that the maps in DoD were way to small. I like BF2 way better.

I'm alive and well thanks. What was your username? One of the old members mentioned this post so I signed up here to find out who and how you are.