The pressing question that has plagued the minds of competitive players for months is: will AA3 be viable for competition? For once a member of the America's Army Development team has been straight up and has painted a picture of what the competitive community should expect in AA3. This and many other quotes from various developers have allowed us to realize what will be present in 3.0's initial release.

Quote from:[Dev]AceKilla

OK, I want to address competition support in AA3 because it is important to the community and important to us. To be completely honest with the community, the initial release v3.0 will not have any competition specific features other than some admin commands/server configuration options. That's not to say v3.0 cannot be played competitively, just that many of the advanced competition specific tools will not be present in the game, yet. Tournament mode, Demorecs, AATV, Advanced Admin/Captain support, Integrated Unit/Clan support, etc. - these are all features we want to do and are on our list for AA3. But we want to do them RIGHT, not rushing something in at the last minute (which would be the case for initial release). We're already overloaded trying to finish the AA3 base core of which was pretty ambitious considering the design assumed most AA2 functionality (6+ years dev) and added to it. To put things in perspective, AA v1.0 didn't even have a server browser! :P There's also the desire for the game to get some 'seasoning' before really focusing on competition. That is to say, it will likely be a release or two past 3.0 before we've completely addressed all exploits, balance issues, bugs, etc. that are inevitably going to come up once you have thousands of players hammering on the game. Now, the good news is that our distribution model for AA3 (Steam/Deploy Client) facilitates the process of giving the competitive community tools over time, and addressing pressing needs immediately rather than waiting for the next big release. So, if right after initial release the competitive community needs a new admin command or way to disable something server-side to help in matches - we can get that out sooner rather than later. We're listening to you and encourage you all to continue to let us know what the competitive community needs are going forward. I've very confident you will see the competitive specific features you want come online MUCH earlier in the AA3 lifecycle than they did in the AA2 lifecycle.

Here are some of the main issues that have been addressed:

• There will be no kill messages in AA3 and kills will be confirmed via inspection or at the end of the round.
• Tournament mode will not be present in the initial release of AA3
• Demorec support will not be nonexistent as well.
• Steam will be used as the distribution platform for AA3
• There will be no jumping in AA3
• There will be ingame voip in AA3
• Tourney mode and demorecs are on the dev team's to do list
• Shots fired in AA3 will be subject to ballistics

One of the main concerns right now is the removal of death messages. How can a parser or even a cast be possible without them. Just Imagine a cast without them: "whiz moves into break room and I think he gets a quick pick on 12ampage wait nevermind 12ampage is alive and now whiz has been downed." How could anybody possibly follow a cast if the casters don't even know what is going on? Lastly, take from Acekilla's quote what you will but just remember that you cannot judge the game until you have played it... So don't give up hope yet.

The main question when a new league pops up is whether or not that they have an Anti-Cheat client or not, and if they do is it any good? Well with the new UGL AC that was put in place it seems to be doing it's job and the only week that has been played so far is pre-season.

Just last night I was contacted by a UGL admin and was given some very interesting screen shots. It seems anon and HelioS from Public Execution were caught cheating in pre-season of UGL Season 2.

The following screen shots have been given to me from UGL.

Now we know that so far the new AC client for UGL does something. Hopefully it will continue to be kept up to date and keep catching all them cheaters.

With preseason over and done with TWL winter league 2009 is finally under way. I expect to seem some teams rise above the pack and dispel any doubts that they belong in open. One such team is Latin Fusion who is often the victim of racist remarks and bashing in general. But, this team definitely does not belong in open as can be seen by their performance last season and in the pipeline tourney. Another interesting development is that chris from mediocrity is now playing for iD. This might make iD into a powerhouse this season. Lastly, we have IceNine. and overRated who are most likely going to end up facing each other in the playoffs for a spot in the finals.

Click "read on" below to see the predictions

          Unlimited Gaming League has announced their new site and their very own Anti-Cheat system. The new site (http://www.unlimitedgamingleague.com/) is a big improvment from the last one and things just keep looking better and better for the new league. With a new season starting up and last seasons winners (jCp) not playing this season, only time will tell who will take the top seed for UGL Season 2.

The team list as of 2/23/2009 follows

• n3 - Non-Sense
• -Lf.^ - latin Fusion
• .vi- - Team Vigilantes
• -v3. - Version 3
• .si - Severe Insomnia
• -syN. - syNdicate Gaming
• -blight. - Blight Gaming
• -w!P. - work !n Progress
• i9. - IceNine
• fc - FightClub
• fd. final destination
• [.crU] - crUcial gaming
• -Lc. - Lost Cause
• ^yCs- - Your Clan Sucks
• -sm; - SlowMotion
• .exe- - Public Execution
• up. - Unknown Project
• -nc; - NerVocity
• -jCp. - just Cause project

Update: So apparently Stan doesn't know how to talk to his team and jCp did sign up for UGL Season 2.

Source: http://www.unlimitedgamingleague.com/index.php?l=1&s=1&mod=team&view=list

The new AC has been posted up on the front page. Fromt he looks of it (and that's just form looking at the screen shots) it looks like an normal AC. Hopefully it will be as good as they say it is and be updated on a normal basis.