Call of Duty/Mods

In its heyday, Call of Duty had a bustling multiplayer packed with servers and mods. Time has taken its toll though; there are typically around 200-300 populated servers a day, most with less than ten people.

Mods

In addition to these, different clans or servers may have their own unique mod or a variation of a mod.

Additional War Effects (AWE)

By far the most popular and enduring mod today, Additional War Effects ramps up the intensity with a bunch of added functionalities, including:

• Cookable grenades. To cook a grenade, simply hold the fire button with a grenade armed. A bar will appear showing the progress of the cook, which is around five seconds. Don't hold it too long, or else you'll blow up. For balance reasons most servers limit soldiers to only one grenade.
• Sprinting. To sprint, press and hold F. You can sprint for around five seconds.
• Spawn protection. It is denoted by a cross over one's head. If you move, your protection will disappear; if you stand still, it will persist for around five seconds. It is advisable to stand still a bit and check your surroundings before moving.
• Dropzone. On many AWE servers, a team (in team deathmatch) or a select few individuals (deathmatch) will spawn parachuting into the battlefield. Spawn protection is offered for the first five seconds down, but expect to be killed very quickly.
• Bleeding. If someone sustains a large amount of damage in a short period of time, a player will bleed. Depending on the severity of the attack, their health will slowly drain away unless they reach a healthpack.
• Player shouts. Although they differ from server to server, they usually involve taunts after a kill ("Adios amigo!" for Americans, "Sig heil!" for Germans, "Have it!" or "Too easy" for British, and "Down with fascism! Charge!" for Russians) or cries of pain upon bleeding.
• Increased chance of shellshock. If you are too close to a grenade blast, fall from too high a height, or are damaged by a melee attack, you will enter a shellshocked state.
• Hit detectors. On some servers, if you hit someone, a circle will flash around your crosshairs. Very useful to see how wounded someone is.
• Screen changes. Upon a "closeup kill", blood will temporarily splatter on your screen. If you are headshotted, there will be a bullet hole in your screen.
• Looting bodies. If you press and hold Shift over a dead body, you will be able to uncover their other equipped items: alternate weapon, pistol, and grenades.
• Alternate weapons. Most AWE servers allow you to spawn with your second weapon slot filled. This lends itself to some great strategies: If you like rifling, grab a rifle and a submachine gun just in case, if you like straight-out run-and-gun, get yourself a submachine gun and a support gun.
• Red dot. Some servers put a little red dot smack in the middle of the crosshairs to better your aim. It is still visible while scoped or while looking down the sights. Very useful.
• Portable MG42s. To pick them up, make sure you're operating one, then press and hold Shift until you pick it up. You can now deploy it anywhere by pressing and holding shift again at your desired position.
• Operational PTRS-41 (the antitank gun in the Pavlov's House mission), flak guns, and mortars. Very rare now.
• Anti-camping measures. If someone has camped in a position for a long enough time, they will be "marked" for 90 seconds, in which their position shows up as a star on the compass and a symbol flashes above their head to give away their position. Eliminate campers for an easy kill.

On most servers, you do not need to install it in order to play a game, because it is server-side. Other servers that use AWE more extensively will require you to download the needed files before you play. You do need to install AWE if you want a server with AWE. Not all servers will have all attributes; each one is often different in which ones they implement. There are around 10-25 servers with AWE currently, making it the most common mod.

Heat of Battle

Often abbreviated "HOB," Heat of Battle offers several new maps and game types. It was the very first total conversion mod for Call of Duty, with features as putting minefields around spawn points. Now very rarely seen.

Breaking 50 Paintball

Because "pb" refers to PunkBuster, the anti-cheating software, it is usually referred to as the ballin' mod. Players battle with paintball guns and paint grenades. There are one or two servers with this mod.

Revolt

Changes the Allies And Axis into a 21st century coalition versus resistance style of gameplay, with modern weapons in more modern maps. The two factions are very balanced; although they use different guns, they work extremely similarly. Maps are often mirror images to prevent giving one an upper ground. Only one or two servers with this mod.

SWAT

In this mod, the Axis and Allies are changed into criminals and SWAT forces. The weapons are replaced with modern weaponry, and new game types are added. In one particular game type, one player on the SWAT team is designated as the "Target" or "Hostage" and must be escorted by SWAT forces to the extraction point while criminal forces try to kill the "Target". Another rarer mod, there are only one or two servers with this mod.