Jolteon

Never. I'll be around when BO3 hits, I just have so many things going on right now eventually I had to sacrifice a couple of things, and unfortunately CoDz was one of them. Thanks for the kind words everyone, I'll really miss being staff. It really has been a blast. -Jolteon

Damn right. My Catacombs theory has been floating around for too long without reward -Jolteon

Hello CoDz folk! The day has been full of excitement and anticipation with our official Black Ops 3 Zombies reveal, however with the good news, as so often happens in life, must also come the bad. Today marks the end of an era for CoDz Forum, as our longest standing Moderator, Ehjookayted aka eyecntspel, or as some may know him Paolo, has retired from the CoDz Staffing team. I hope you will all join me in wishing Paolo the very best for the future of his gaming career, wherever it may take him. All jokes aside, Paolo has been an integral part of CoDz Staff for an incredible amount of time, joining the team in January 2012, a mere five months after joining the site, the shortest amount of time in CoDz history for somebody to make the climb from member to staff. In his time as a CoDz member, he made one of the biggest and best threads ever seen, the Master Zombies Guide, a culmination of all the best strategies of the time, and despite being over three years old, a lot of it still hold up to this day. However, Paolo wasn't only known for his outstanding theories. During his time here at CoDz he became one of the kindest and most approachable members to ever grace these forums. He constantly offered advice and help to anyone who needed it, and there was one guy in particular who needed his help a hell of a lot. Those of you who were around back in 2011/12 will remember that one of the CoDz Staff had some mental health issues, issues that got particularly bad after the loss of his girlfriend in March of 2012. That mod was little old me. And without Paolo, to be completely honest, I would not be here today to write this thread. In the almost four years since Paolo joined CoDz, and the three and a half since I've been friends with him, he has not only become a part of my life, but a part of my family. I have the enormous pleasure of meeting the man that became my best friend and my brother last year, and without this little forum and his immense kindness my life would probably not be what it is today. From CoDz to YouTube, to our podcast Across the Pond, Paolo is the epitome of life, and an incredible human being, and he will truly be missed as a member of the staffing team. Carry on my wayward son. -Jolteon

Today marked the release of the Official Black Ops 3 Reveal Trailer. As well as our first glimpse of the new Zombies, we also got an extensive look at the campaign for the game.

This is a very early version of everything, we will restore the vast majority of the features from the old site in due time. Also, likes and brains are effectively the same thing for now. Just click this little arrow button here: Hope this helps! Any more issues, I'll be hanging in the Chat for the next few hours, just come and talk to me! -Jolteon

To follow on from the idea of a potential like to the Soviet Union and the Soviet War, I've been doing some reading on the Russian Woodpecker. I think the idea behind the "mind control" is very prominent with the viral thus far and I think there is a lot of potential for a link. Here is a little about the Russian Woodpecker: Before sentencing Ira Einhorn to life in prison in 2002, Judge William Mazzola called him an “intellectual dilettante who prayed on uninitiated, uninformed, unsuspecting, inexperienced people.” Judge Mazzola also berated Einhorn for mentioning psychotronics, a word he stated that was not in his dictionary and therefore did not exist. Despite omissions from dictionaries – including Microsoft Word which continues to underline it in red – psychotronics is an interdisciplinary science concerned with the interactions of consciousness, energy fields and matter. There are thousands of references to it on the internet, and, especially, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) used the word in introducing “The Space Preservation Act of 2001” (H.R. 2977), on October 2, 2001, well before Mazzola’s judgment. Kucinich described “psychotronic” devices as weapons that were “directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of ... mood management, or mind control.” And whereas Mazzola seemed to think Einhorn had invented this “pseudo-science,” in truth, Einhorn was merely one of the first promoters of the potential dangers relatively new technology was posing to the nations of the Earth. Writing in the Winter 1977/78 edition of CoEvolution Quarterly, Einhorn wrote about the exact synchronicity between the so-called Woodpecker’s shortwave pulses and naturally occurring alpha brainwave frequencies. In his article A Disturbing Communiqué, he advanced the opinion that the Russians were engaged in a sinister mind control experiment of Orwellian dimensions: they were sending out a specific “beam” across the Western world. Were they trying to brainwash the non-communist countries? Posing the question was sufficient for “the Russian Woodpecker” to become associated with Einhorn. It was, for the Woodpecker, an unfortunate situation to be in, as soon, Einhorn would become the subject of a high-profile murder investigation. From the late 1970s onwards, the Woodpecker signal was thus primarily used to “prove” that Einhorn was largely “an intellectual dilettante;” research into the signal itself became marginalised. The Russian Woodpecker was a Soviet signal that could be heard on the shortwave radio bands worldwide between July 1976 and December 1989 – the latter date marking the collapse of the communist regime in the Soviet Union. It sounded like a sharp, repetitive tapping noise – giving rise to the “Woodpecker” name. The signal could be replicated by tapping a pencil on a table between eight and fourteen times each second. The random frequency was heard on disrupted legitimate broadcast, amateur radio, and utility transmissions and resulted in thousands of complaints by countries worldwide to Moscow. The complaints were however non-specific: it seemed that whatever the Russians were doing, was interfering with “business as usual” in the West, and could the Russians please rectify the problem. The answer was “njet,” but also invited another question: what was the signal? Today, it is known that the signal came from the Duga-3 system, which was officially part of the Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missiles early-warning network, also known as an over-the-horizon radar (OTH) system and it is this that the Soviet Union post 1989 gave as the official explanation. In principle, it therefore seemed to be a mundane cause and purpose, tied in with the Soviet’s defence system and not with a global mind control technology. However, though Einhorn’s name has become mostly associated with the conspiracy theories of the Russian Woodpecker, he was not the first to put these thoughts to paper. In The Zapping of America, published in 1977, Paul Brodeur wrote that “a report published in The New York Times on October 30, 1976, revealed that in recent months a mysterious broadband, short-wave radio signal had been broadcast intermittently from the Soviet Union. "The signal was so powerful that it disrupted radio and telecommunications through the world […] Dr Zaret is concerned about the Russian signal […] because of its potential hazard to human beings […] It was very clear that such an encoding impressed onto carrier wave-lengths could have a central-nervous-system effect.” Dr Milton Zaret had previously been retained to investigate the so-called “Moscow signal,” in which the US Embassy in Moscow was found to be subjected to a microwave beam by Soviet authorities. Today, most researchers tackling the Woodpecker refer to Einhorn’s article, and not to Brodeur’s book. Even though Mazzola argued Einhorn often tried to pass himself off as a legitimate scientist, when he was not, Einhorn seldom if ever made unsupported allegations. In this instance, he was not merely agreeing with Brodeur, but was also supported by his good friend and former military intelligence officer Lt. Colonel Thomas Bearden, USAF (Ret.), who – in retrospect correctly – claimed this signal emanated from the Soviet Union and had been traced to an installation in the cities of Riga and Gomel – near Chernobyl. He added that it was emanating from a “Tesla Generator” and even claimed that the signal was responsible for weather modification wars covertly waged upon an unsuspecting United States citizenry by the wily and unscrupulous Russians. Specifically, he held the machine to be responsible for a drought in the western states, which ostensibly caused severe effects on farming and the economy in 1976. As far as “conspiracy theories” go, Bearden’s went beyond the scope of Einhorn’s. Another very interesting point to note is the fact that the Black Ops 1 multiplayer map Grid had a lot of reference to the Russian Woodpecker. I'm still readin up on this stuff, but it's crazy interesting and I am seeing lots of potential links. Hopefully we will get some new information soon. -Jolteon

@Matuzz My mistake, I must've misread you initial posts. I never actually played the BO2 campaign (I know, shame on me) so I wasn't aware of that. Will take some time to check out the video at some point. -Jolteon

To follow on from @Matuzz theory, it's interesting to note this: It's interesting that we have this semi-focus on a helicopter from the images we've received so far and then, should Matuzz be correct, we have an area that was used as a base for the Soviet Union to launch heicopters. I think it's a reasonable assumption that we are looking at a 70s or 80s time period, which this fits to an extent. The only issue being the planes used by the Soviets from this airbase are 100% not the same as the one we have been seeing from Treyarch, being Mil Mi-8, which you can see below: However, I think Matuzz could still definitely be onto something here. We could be seeing references to the Soviet War in the next Treyarch title. Running from December 1979 until February 1989, it would definitely fit within the right time frame. -Jolteon

Congrats, much deserved -Jolteon

Just wait until you have to reintroduce yourself for a third or fourth time. That's when you start feeling REALLY old. Good to have you back, bud. -Jolteon

If sleeping with the staff was what got you into the Hall of Fame you would've been in there a LONG time ago, buddy. -Jolteon

Well you might not be... -Jolteon

@Nightmare Voyager then we would go through the same procedures as we would with any other member. It wouldn't be the first and it most likely wouldn't be the last time. The only difference is that the staff are constantly in contact with each other and hence it happens very much behind closed doors. The thing is, the staff are all appointed as highly trusted members of the site; and hence the chances of any of us stepping so far out of line that disciplinary action has to be taken is next to zero. We all make mistakes, we all get hot headed and say something we perhaps shouldn't, and that goes for staff too. A lot more goes into making a decision regarding something like this than "he's being mean, lets warn/ban them" it is often discussed by multiple staff members before any action is taken. Just be nice to everyone and you will be fine -Jolteon

Congrats everyone, all very much deserved -Jolteon

Does it really matter THAT much...? Nobody is going to look at a guy with nearly 4k posts and assume they are just here to sell lovely appliances to the masses. They're going to see 4k and think "Wow that guy has been here a while, he's clearly one to watch out for!". If you are so insecure about the way people see you then the internet is really not the place for you to be. You want rewards for being active and contributing? That's what medals are for. Simple. -Jolteon

Usergroups are there to clearly define a person or group of peoples role within the community. If we keep adding more usergroups for everything, the purpose of usergroups become obsolete. For example, if a newer member were to come to the forum, they could identify a staff member by the green or the red name. Similarly, they could see the purple donned by Veteran's to know that they are ex-staff and can likely be approached as one with perhaps a higher knowledge of the forum rules. When they see the yellow name, they know they are seeing a post from one of the best; somebody that has become legendary within the walls of CoDz. If we gave a usergroup just for somebody posting a lot or being active, or for people that occasionally make good posts, then not only would it make a large portion of the medals system useless as well as the userbars, but it would also add more to what, in my opinion, is already too many colours on the forum. I was around in the days where we had usergroups for everything and colours everywhere. Believe me, it's not something you want to be bringing back. You say you want everyone to feel like they've earned something? This is EXACTLY what the medals are for. -Jolteon

Pension plans for staff! Make it happen! -Jolteon