Ben "Insane" Riopelle: Since we've given birth to CAL-main once again, how likely do you think it will be to have the return of CAL-Invite next season?

Errick Beaulieu: It really depends on the level of signups as well as the level of competition that we can generate within the community. For a return of the Invite division we need enough quality teams to run both the Main and Invite division as well as a stable enough base of teams in Open to prevent the bottom from falling out.

BR: How can the community help to make this happen?

EB: Really the best thing I can suggest is just trying to get the word out so people start playing again. Even if it is just a CS team joining the division to play once a week and have some fun any little bit we can get will help.

BR: Rosters are locked at 12 players right now, are we going to see a roster limit of 10 to help make more competitive teams or no limit at all?

EB: We are still toying with this idea. Main will carry either a high or no limit since the team limit will be capped. For Open it will either remain at 12 or be increased similarly to Main. Frankly I feel it is unlikely the roster limit will have any effect one way or the other on teams within the division. If someone just wants to join a roster to idle or because their friends are on the team how likely were they to make or join a team as a starter in the first place?

BR: How many teams will be put in CAL-main?

EB: Depending on the signups in Open and the number of competitive teams, I won’t be moving someone up just for the sake of it so they can go 0-8 and have zero fun, I am hoping to run a 10 or 12 team division.

BR: Will CAL-open be divided into 2 or 3 divisions or will you simply leave it as 1 big division?

EB: Unless we have an unwieldy number of teams there will most likely be a single large division since that way the best teams in Open get a chance to play each other during the season.

BR: Most people enjoyed the double elimination playoff this season but thought it was a bit too long, will we have another double elimination playoffs this season and how many teams would make it?

EB: I agree that the double elimination was a fun alternative; however, the number of teams making it in Theta made it a rather extensive proposition. If we run double elimination this season I wouldn’t for-see more than 16 teams making in the Open and 8 in Main.  It is possible that we may run something like CS is doing this season where the first couple rounds are single elimination and it seeds into a double elimination tournament.

BR: "The difference between each team's average pings to the agreed server can be no greater than 35 ms." Will the Ping Imbalance rules change?

EB: This rule will remain the same for the upcoming season.

BR: What happened to the rule where teams were able to use their own server for one half because the other team didn't like the opponents server, will we see a come back to this rule?

EB: Yes, after many long years this rule will be returning to Day of Defeat. In addition to this we will be enforcing Central (Dallas / Chicago) servers only in the Main division. This will strictly be to prevent “spite” switching if a team has to use a server in a location they don’t like for the first half.

BR: Does CAL-DoD plan on raising the bar on the rates again or do you think that cl_updaterate "75" and rate "20000" is a well set level.

EB: The rates will remain frozen at the 20000/75/75 level. We felt that this was a good setting and going any higher or lower didn’t seem necessary. What is being adjusted is the overturn/replay rule when someone has rated. We are completely removing a point value to the rule and doing something completely different with it. We just didn’t feel that assigning a point value to the rule was fair because of the diversity in Day of Defeat maps. For example a 40 point Harrington match would be an extremely close match that could’ve possibly been affected by someone rating whereas a 40 point Donner match could be nowhere near close.

BR: A lot of people have always wanted a set number for ex_interp, will CAL-DoD enforce ex_interp "0" or another value this season or maybe the next?

EB: We really shouldn’t even have to tell people to be using ex_interp 0. If you don’t use it you really aren’t helping yourself out any and you are making the game harder for yourself if you ever try to LAN. As far as enforcing it we may just have to tell people that it is in their best interest to use it. With the number of people in Open who really aren’t into competitive play it wouldn’t be fair to them to enforce something they have never heard of and probably don’t understand.

BR: Can the CAL-ACS even detect the user defined value of ex_interp?

EB: Yes.

BR: Since CAL-ACS has now been introduced to the DoD community, what will you do about cvars that the majority of the community use like lightgamma?

EB: Sean Kalas and I are working on a cvar list for the community.

BR: Will you simply stick to the default value or will you determine a maximum value it can be set to.

EB: It really depends on the cvar itself. Some commands will have ranges whereas most commands will be locked at their default value. An example of a locked command will be gl_monolights which will be locked at its default and use of which will result in a suspension.

BR: Is it possible for CAL-DoD to release a list of cvars we may use to clarify what is and what isn't legal?

EB: Prior to preseason we will release a list of cvars that will need to be locked either at their default value or will have a range of acceptable values.

BR: Can this AC system pickup your rates, interp, lightgamma, gamma, brightness cvars?

EB: Yes.

BR: Assuming it can detect most cheats, will it also detect the BnG skill pack (sound pack, coloured models) ;)?

EB: Yes.

BR: Can it detect power strip or other 3rd party programs like that?

EB: It detects any and all 3rd party programs.

Thanks to Errick for this interview.