Day of Defeat - History

History

Version history (Complete)

• Alpha 4 (April 8, 2000)*
• Alpha 6 (September 27, 2000)
• Alpha 6.5 (October 15, 2000)
• Alpha 6.5 (October 16, 2000)**
• Alpha 6.7 (October 28, 2000)
• Alpha 6.8 (November 06, 2000)
• Beta 1.0 (January 12, 2001)
• Beta 1.1 (February 14, 2001)
• Beta 1.2 (April 5, 2001)
• Beta 1.3 (June 4, 2001)
• Beta 1.3b (July 27, 2001)
• Beta 2.0 (February 6, 2002)
• Beta 2.1 (May 10, 2002)
• Beta 3.0 (July 11, 2002)
• Beta 3.1 (August 8, 2002)
• Version 1.0 (May 1, 2003)†
• Version 1.1 (November 14, 2003)‡
• Version 1.2 (May 19, 2004)
• Version 1.3 (July 7, 2004)

• *Alpha 4 was the first public release. The readme.txt file lists "fixes" from previous private versions.
• **Alpha 6.5 was re-released under the same number with some "missing wads and sounds"
• ↑First available for retail purchase, but still available (and always) available as a free download add on to half-life. Retail purchase eliminated the need of owning half-life.
• ‡First release on the Steam content delivery system.

DoD began as a Half-Life 3rd party mod in 2000. Later, the DoD team joined Valve Software and produced a standalone version published through Activision. DoD (ver.1.0) was officially released in May 2003. It was converted over to the Steam delivery system in version 1.1. Steam is now required to play DoD. Day of Defeat: Source was released on September 26, 2005.

With the initial release of the game (when classes included only Support Infantry, Sergeant, Rifleman or Sniper), choosing a class determined your speed. Rifleman moved the fastest and Support Infantry moved the slowest. Sergeants moved at a medium pace.

With the release of Beta 2.0 in October 2001, players witnessed the expansion of character classes and the speed differential was eliminated. This version added the Allied Staff Sergeant who carried an M1 Carbine. The Axis Sniper Rifle from the Beta 1.x releases (the Gewehr 43) was replaced with a scoped model of the Karabiner 98k, to more effectively balance the Axis and Allied sniper classes. Furthermore, both sides now received machine guns (.30 caliber for the Allies, and the MG34 and MG42 models for the Axis), which added a new tactical element to the game. Also, so called head-bobbing or gun-sway was introduced, so players could no longer simply point and shoot while moving, but now had to stand still for improved accuracy. Gun recoil was also introduced, and kneeling and lying down alleviated this and made a player's shot more accurate.

Beta 3.0 was released in July 2002 and added the Allied Sergeant, who carried a M3 Grease Gun, as well as the para gameplay mode which was similar to Counter-Strike in that players did not respawn until the end of the round. The Germans could now also choose between two models of the powerful and deafeningly loud FG 42 (bipod/scope) and the Gewehr could now be selected as a class, to compete with the semi-automatic Garand rifle the Allies used. Valve then made Day of Defeat an official valve mod and released 1.0v in May 2003 which featured a lot of changes. Activision distributed a retail version of the game though it could still be downloaded for free if you had Half-Life. Later version 1.1 became the first Steam release. 1.0 included quite a few new features - the pace of the game was increased. Friendly-fire was made non-default, an on-screen map where one's allies and thrown grenades were displayed was added, as was a Battlefield-style flag hanging over the head of friends and foes for identification. Pop-up help messages, spoken by a dog wearing a helmet (in the same vein as Microsoft's Office Assistant), also appeared in v1.0. Bleeding - a key feature of the betas - was removed,. Night time battlefields were removed as they tended to be the least-played of the beta maps. Version 1.0 also included auto-reload (which defaulted to "always on"), some new maps and major modifications to some old maps (e.g. Anzio). British Troops were also issued in 1.0, but were only featured in 3 maps and had only 5 weapon classes. The American Bazooka, German Panzershreck and British PIAT became independent classes in 1.2v and Mortar-classes were proposed, but never got released. Para-maps were kept, but the special gameplay was removed and replaced by the traditional Flag-capture or objective gameplay. Version 1.0 also introduced the bipod for the BAR, allowing for it to be deployed in the same locations as the machine guns and FG42s. In September 2005 Day of Defeat: Source was released.