Many of us avid Call of Duty fans have fantasized about what guns, perks, kill streaks, etc. would appear in Black Ops 2.  Finally the time has come to slightly ease our minds and give us a little taste of what direction the franchise is moving in.  Although not everything has been revealed, Treyarch still gave us fans a whole lot to take in about the multiplayer of their new upcoming game.

One of the most exciting changes that they are releasing has to do with multiplayers’ Create-A-Class feature.  They are sidestepping from the normal class structure and moving forward to expand our ability to customize.  Instead of having the original labeled slots (such as Primary Weapon, Secondary Weapon, Perk 1, etc.), there will be a new point structure known as the ‘Pick 10’ system.  This system gives players 10 points in order to buy weapons, equipment, and perks.  Here is the twist; you can pretty much spend these points however you want.  Let’s say you never even use your secondary weapon.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to get rid of it and replace it with something else?  Well with this ‘Pick 10’ system you can do just that.  You will have the ability to scrap your secondary weapon for some points, which you will then be able to spend on something else like a second weapon attachment.

Also, players will be given the opportunity to buy something known as ‘Wildcards’ for a point a piece.  These wildcards will allow you to further customize your classes.  For example, the ‘Perk Greed I’ Wildcard gives you the chance to pick two perks from Tier 1.  Wildcards can also be used to carry more grenades or have three attachments on one gun.  My first thought was to just use these to be an unstoppable force with eight perks.  Luckily, there are some guidelines that will keep everything balanced, which is probably for the best.

Another change will be applied to Kill Streaks, which will now be known as Score Streaks.  Every single Score Streak will have a point value, forcing you to get a particular point value before you can use that streak.  For example, if you wanted a UAV, you would have to get a total of 300 points.  This can now be achieved in a variety of ways; you can kill one person (100 pts.), grab an enemy flag and return your team’s flag (total of 200pts.).  Or you can simply kill three people which would give you 300 points as well.  Any combination of getting kills or capturing an objective will work, just as long as it ends up being enough points to equal the score streak that you want.  Some of the Score Streaks that you can get have cool twists that we haven’t seen before.  For instance, if you call in an AGR (a tank with four legs and two mounted canons), you have the opportunity to control it from a first-person viewpoint.  The difference here is that you also have the chance for it to move on its own.  By simply pressing a button, you can switch between controlling it yourself and having it venture around on its’ own.

Within this reveal, there were also some really cool weapons that were said to make an appearance in multiplayer.  The Assault Shield is similar to a normal Call of Duty riot shield, except with this one you can stick it into the ground for cover.  My favorite attachment that was talked about is known as the Millimeter Wave Scanner.  What this does is it gives players the ability to look through walls and identify stationary enemies.  Campers are now going to have to get a little more creative if they want to stay in one location for extended periods of time.  Some other legit weapons are the War Machine (small grenade launcher that shoots explosives into the air) and the Death Machine (a Gatling gun that many of you may recognize from playing Zombies in previous Call of Duty games).

The final thing that stood out to me was a new playlist called Hardpoint.  In this game type, players need to control a portion of the map.  Seems simple enough right?  Oh and I forget to mention, this zone switches to different parts of the map at random.  So Hardpoint is essentially just like King of the Hill, except for that the hill moves around throughout the game.  On top of that, the game can now include up to four separate teams fighting against each other.  This is going to add a whole new dynamic to how Call of Duty will be played and I can’t wait.

Amazingly, Treyarch has even more multiplayer information to reveal as the release date (November 13^th) of Call of Duty:  Black Ops 2 rapidly approaches.  Don’t forget, they also have yet to talk about what we should expect with the extremely popular Zombie Mode.  So yet again, Call of Duty still has us hold our breath as we wait for more details to be revealed.