The multiplayer team knew it wanted to give the player more control in Create-a-Class. It also wanted to fix longstanding issues, like the dense text menus in previous games and the limitations of what a player can and cannot carry into battle. Rough edges that couldn't simply be polished away.

"Why don't we get rid of all the [weapon and perk] categories entirely?" says Vonderhaar, recalling the big questions they began to ask. "Why don't we just put everything in a giant bucket. A big pile. What would that look like? How would that work? We built some early prototypes and realized we needed to iterate on that idea rapidly."Around this time, Vonderhaar and Nelson had their idea for a Create-a-Class card game.

"WHY DON'T WE GET RID OF ALL THE [WEAPON AND PERK] CATEGORIES ENTIRELY?"

"We like to wire-frame things," says Vonderhaar, "to put them on poster boards and hang them on the walls. But we never really looked at the game systems that way. Those are usually big Word documents and long Excel sheets with lots of tabulation and math. Pretty boring. You couldn't play them." A board game was just what they needed: A way to visualize the Create-a-Class experience, to make it playable without losing days to intensive coding.

On a board, they would draw a number of available slots, dividing them into categories. Cards, representing everything from a primary or secondary weapon, an attachment or perk, would then be placed on the board until it was full. The rules and layout would change daily. "We'd just print out a new posterboard," says Vonderhaar.

"WE LIKE TO WIRE-FRAME THINGS, TO PUT THEM ON POSTER BOARDS AND HANG THEM ON THE WALLS. BUT WE NEVER REALLY LOOKED AT THE GAME SYSTEMS THAT WAY."

Two design problems were apparent almost immediately:

One, the bucket system didn't work. Some sort of categories and limits needed to remain, and categories were added on a grid design, making it so only so many cards could be played per category.

Two, the system lacked something akin to a bonus card, a card that when played would "bend, break, or mold" the rules of create-a-class. They came up with Wild Cards, a special type of Create-a-Class content - not actually like a gun, an attachment, a perk, or a grenade - that allowed for an unusual bonus to the player. These cards allowed players to fiddle with the system's restraints.

Vonderhaar gives an example: In previous games, you can have only one perk from the Perk 1 category. In BlOps 2, there is a Wild Card, called Perk 1 Greed, that gives you the ability to choose a second Perk 1.