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Games Entertainment

The Rise Of Counter-Strike 231

Posted by michael from the bang-you're-dead dept.
b0r1s writes "Business 2.0 is running a story about Minh Le, and his now famous Counter-Strike mod for Half Life. The article explains the origins and motivation for the development of the mod, as well as explains the virtues of making code freely available for those who wish to hack games."
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The Rise Of Counter-Strike More

The Rise Of Counter-Strike

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  • This article basically explains what a mod is, briefly touching on counter strikes conception but most of it is jut bragging about it's success.

    Not sure this was really worth posting on slashdot.

  • Counterstrike is dying (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gnillort ( 617577 ) <myslashdotemailaccount@yahoo.com> on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:32PM (#4485811) Journal
    Most of my gaming friends have moved on to more technologically advanced games such as Medal of Honor: Allied Assault or Return to Castle Wolfenstein from Counterstrike. Recent server data shows that this shift is reflected across most servers, as Counterstrike population is decreasing, RTCW is up a little, and MOH:AA is up dramatically.

    The new Counter-strike:Blue Zone may help increase the number of gamers, but only in the short term as games such as No One Lives Forever 2, the new RTCW expansion pack, and the much-anticipated Doom III come out.

    So, don't look for much more success stories like Counterstrike, because the technological fickleness of gamers will cause mods based on old engines to become unpopular quickly.
    • I just got MOH:AA, but it seems to me that there are only FOUR team-based missions! (Omaha, Bridge, Rocket and 1 other I forget). I think you can deathmatch a lot of others, but only four counterstrike-like boards. Am I wrong here? I sure would love to be...

    • Re:Counterstrike is dying (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Really? Looks pretty alive to me... [gamespy.com]

    • Re:Counterstrike is dying (Score:5, Informative)

      by lewp ( 95638 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @04:09PM (#4485988) Journal
      I wouldn't say this is the case. One of the biggest reasons for Counter-Strike's success is the fact that it's based on an old game. There are a few major reasons for this:

      1) Half-Life was a great game in its own right. It was also one of the best selling FPS games ever. As such, most PC gamers already owned everything they needed to start playing once CS came out. This is the power of a good mod being in the right place at the right time, and it is not to be overlooked. UT2K3 is supposed to be a dream to mod for. Much more so than Half-Life was. Be on the lookout there.

      2) Many people have been playing CS for quite a long time, and as such have gotten very good at it. Most of these people hate the idea of trading in all their skills to begin again as a newbie in one of the "pretty" new games. This is a bigger sticking point than you might think. Also, ladders and leagues have fairly complex rulesets that have been tweaked to create the best possible competitive experience. Doing this with a new game is not easy and takes time.

      3) Half-Life is based on Quake technology and has years of development behind it. The game is rock-solid stable. The few bugs in the engine (physics, etc) are well known and compensated for automatically by decent players. Contast this with something like Battlefield: 1942 or UT2K3. They'll get to the same level, but by then they'll be old.

      4) The development tools are mature and there are plenty of map makers, coders, modelers and skinners that know how to use them. CS has some great maps, and to my knowledge pretty much every one of them has come from an unpaid third party mapper. The tools these guys use can be quite complex, and learning them for a new engine can be quite difficult. Not only that, but once you know how to use them, you need to spend a lot of additional time finding out what "works" with the gameplay. This is non-trivial and so these guys tend to stick with a game as long as they can, moving on to a new one only when they're fairly sure it's good enough to ride for a while in the future.

      5) Most importantly, pretty means very little to gamers. Sure, they like to gawk at pretty pictures as much as the next guy, but they're not going to give up a great game just because something comes along that's prettier. You can still find a few raging NetQuake battles out there if you want. Why? The game rocks. Also, just because the hardcore among us (myself included) just must have the latest and greatest hardware doesn't mean all of us are that way. I constantly hear people in CS games complaining about how slow the game is on their P2-300/TNT. How do you think these people would fair trying to play RTCW? I get a little pissed at the framerates on that game myself, and I have an Athlon XP and a GeForce4.
      • I still played Quakeworld, which is Quake with physics bug fixes and an optimized network protocol. I just got done playing today. It runs no slower than 72 frames per second on my 4 year old PC! Even in heavy action.
    • Were there recent upgrades to MOHAA's network performance? Georgeous maps weren't enough to make up for the crippling lag. It didn't approach the performance of the HL engine online. (RTCW played very well.)

    • On the contrary (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rui del-Negro ( 531098 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @04:36PM (#4486085) Homepage
      So, don't look for much more success stories like Counterstrike, because the technological fickleness of gamers will cause mods based on old engines to become unpopular quickly.

      On the contrary; as engines become more advanced, their lifespan will increase. And with more and more games supporting mods, chances are we'll see more and more user-created games like Counter-Strike (or Team Fortress, etc.).

      One of the problems with this is that game developers prefer to release games that are complete crap "out of the box", hoping that someone will make a "killer mod" for free, and that they (the game's authors / publishers) will profit from it.

      By contrast, HL is probably the most polished action game I've ever seen. Very few games released since then come even close to its balanced and addictive single-player gameplay. I hope Valve are dedicating the same amount of time to TF2's playtesting and refinement.

      RMN
      ~~~

    • Re:Counterstrike is dying (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      CS is dying? That is totally false. What 'recent server data' are you basing this on? The online numbers of people playing CS is still hitting new peaks every week. For actual numbers and not just, "My friends and I quit CS for whatever reason, therefore I conclude that it's dying." check this page:

      http://www.gamespy.com/stats/ [gamespy.com]

      Games like MOH:AA and RTCW have not been "up dramatically." In fact, over the past few weeks with the coming of BF1942 and UT2K3, those games have actually been the ones to experience a decrease in numbers, not CS.

      PS: What is Counter-Strike: Blue Zone? Maybe you're thinking of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero?
      • > CS is dying? That is totally false. What 'recent server data' are you basing this on? The online numbers of people playing CS is still hitting new peaks every week.

        I don't think CS is dying at all, but it isn't reaching new peaks either. I've been tracking it's popularity for a long time, and I've been playing it since the first few betas. It's greatest peak in popularity was around Oct-Nov 2001. It consistantly had 80,000 players at a time then. After that, cheating became quite prevalent online. For most of Spring 2002, CS's popularity was down to 60,000, and was stagnant there. However, it seems to have resuccitated as of late.

        Of course, CS is still more popular than all other network FPS games combined.

    • Re:Counterstrike is dying (Score:5, Informative)

      by rizzuh ( 594786 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @05:07PM (#4486214) Homepage
      You have no idea what you're talking about.

      NOLF2 and DooM III are single-player games. Counter-Strike: "Blue Zone" doesn't exist. I think you mean "Condition Zero," which is also a single-player game.

      At the time of this post, CS has 85320 players (source [gamespy.com]). Medal of Honor: AA is in second place. With less than a tenth of the players that CS has.

      Recent server data shows that this shift is reflected across most servers, as Counterstrike population is decreasing, RTCW is up a little, and MOH:AA is up dramatically.

      You're probably not lying, you're just totally ignorant. I've been following HL for ever (see my site), and today is the first time I've seen the game break 100,000 players largely due to CS.

      You can use your anecdotal evidence all you won't, but there is no "shift across most servers." You are absolutely wrong, I'm sorry.

      • Hey, Rizzuh wrote the most popular CS scripts around, in fact its the one everyone uses at all the lan parties. (And I'm totaly stoked that he reads/posts to slashdot...)

        Went to a lanparty last weekend, Not everyone could play Unreal 2003, but everyones PC could play CS. With upgrades from weapons and player skins with Anti-aliasing enabled, CS looks very good. Plus its stable, its mature, new games take a couple months(or years) to get the bugs worked out.

  • ...are his parents charging him rent? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:32PM (#4485815)
    "But his main goal has been accomplished. In the two and half years since he left college, he hasn't set foot in a cubicle."

    BUT, he still lives in his parents basement. That Valve buyout must not have been anywhere near the $5,000,000 figure.

  • What about the fall of CS? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:35PM (#4485825)
    The majority of players are annoying 12 year olds. At least, that's how they behave. And of course there's always the everpresent cheat/aimbot/wallhack (l)users. Online games are fun for the first month or so after release. Then when the hackers get up to speed or the kiddies find out about the latest game, it all goes to hell.

    • If you don't go looking for paradise [xlii.com], you won't find [deadmen.co.uk] it [fnfclan.com].

      Seriously. If only all the people who wanted to play semi-serious non-frag-fest 12-year-old Counter-Strike could get together in one place, it would be *wonderful*.

      http://www.xlii.com/csfaq.cfm [xlii.com]
      http://www.xlii.com/pstandard.cfm [xlii.com]
      http://www.xlii.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=17 [xlii.com]
    • Coming from one who plays another HL mod, Firearms [firearmsmod.com], there is something I find even more amazing about cheating. Even with options out there to help prevent cheaters, like Cheating-Death [cheating-death.com], people would rather bitch about the cheaters than play on servers which require such programs. Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too....
    • Whine, whine, whine. You sound like one of those holier than thou Counter-Strike players I always run into. "CS sucks so bad." There're easy solution to everything you just complained about:

      1. STOP PLAYING PUBS!

      2. Find a good server that challenges you and is well-admined (and not just that admins are on, but that they're willing to deal with cheaters). Get to know the admins and the regulars, etc. Playing the public servers all by yourself isn't fun at all, unless your planning on 'pwning some n00bs.'

      3. Play with friends. Since you have a personal connection I know I can count on them to watch my back and work as a team.

      I've played CS for over a year and a half on and off (Mostly on, I took a 3 month break over the summer), and it continues to be fun as long as I stick with a tried and true server and play with friends. If you're seriously sick of the gameplay, then fine, no ones forcing you to play it; but the argument that the community sucks and all the players are immature only stands up in almost every gaming community if you play random pubs.

    • Yes, it is a problem with 14 years old people that think they own the world. Buts that not only a part of the game CS, but more like a general problem with 14 years old people. The Counter.Strike community is maturing and the skill level its higher than evver before.
      The problem with cheats is an evergoing battle between cheatmakers and those who make tools trying to get them. Whois having the "upper hand" goes in waves as both realease new versions. The anti-cheat people have released Punkbuster, Jedi, CSGuard, Cheating Death and latest the official Valve Anti Cheat, VAC.
      Note that it took Valve almost 3 years before they recognized the problem, but until them there were allways someone else who made the anti- cheat software. [a special thanks to Olo who made and maintained the CSGuard untill the makers of OCG, a well nown aimbot gave up] These tools have banned _thousands_ of WONids. The server i play on have actually a banlist with 17000+ id's from all over the world. Although cheaters can get a new key and continue playing most of them leave the server alone. In the latest year cheating has been reduced drastically. If you stick to servers who have admins who now what they are doing, you'll be fine.

      Most of the people I have talked to agree that the problem with _whining_ players who thinks everyody is cheating is a far bigger problem... No offens, but those who dont play that much, as the Anonymous Coward in this tread, fail too see that its possible to become incredible skilled in hitting others players heads. After all some people play CS full time; 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.
      I recomend that you take the trip to www.sogamed.com and download some demos so you can see by your self. Or you can go to esreality.com, they have both demos and movies from the latest CPL event.
      -------

  • His previous mod.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by irc.goatse.cx troll ( 593289 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:39PM (#4485847) Journal
    Before counterstrike, he was best known for a little quake2 mod known as ActionQuake2, a mod that makes q2 play more like an action movie. great fun if you can find some active servers. There was eventually an ActionHalfLife, but as far as i know he didnt take part in the development of it.

    • Re:His previous mod.. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Before that, Navy Seals TC for Quake 1.

      worked with him on that.
    • Yes, that mod was very popular. In fact, I ran a popular AQ2 [telefragged.com] server (Ant Farm's Action Quake2 Movie Set) when team play was introduced in this mod. First at LAN parties (before teamplay), this mod wasn't popular. Eventually, it did (two full Linux servers!) :). Ahhh, the good old days.

      I dislike the new AQ2-related sequels (Action Half-Life [telefragged.com] and Reaction Quake3 [reactionquake3.com]). I am currently into these mods: Day of Defeat [dayofdefeatmod.com] (HL), Urban Terror [urbanterror.net], and getting into Navy Seals [ns-co.net] (Q3A) :)

  • It's a beautiful thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yorgasor ( 109984 ) <.ten.shcetirt. .ta. .nor.> on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:39PM (#4485850) Homepage
    Wow, it's amazing that halflife was so open to let their fans freely modify their code and give them all the tools to do it. This flies directly in the face of corporate logic, where companies sick their lawyers on their most loyal fans for copyright infringement or DMCA violations for modifying their products. And how did their fans react?

    "We've actually sold more of the overall Half-Life family of products each year since we shipped back in 1998, which is very unusual in a market typified by three-month shelf lives"

    It really is in corporate best interests to let their fans run with their products, create communities around their products and thereby add value and promote their products for them. I wish they'd understand that the fastest way to kill the very communities that support them is to send lawyers after them.

  • Er...thanks Minh (Score:5, Funny)

    by igor_p ( 263951 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:39PM (#4485851) Homepage
    I almost flunked out of college because of you ;)

    Thanks for a great game and many wasted hours.

  • True Intentions? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thakandar2 ( 260848 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:41PM (#4485861)
    Personally, I know he's not out to create a fun game and uphold ideals of sharing code and such. I mean, have you played Counter-Strike?

    He's out to conquer the world, and with each new person who plays, it's one less person who can operate normally in life. I mean, I started playing CS 3 years ago, and while I havn't died of any marathon sessions, I've come awfully close.

    Sounds like a bad Pinky and the Brain episode, but... it's too scary not to consider.

  • No CD was key for me... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by (H)elix1 ( 231155 ) <slashdot.helix@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:44PM (#4485873) Homepage Journal
    Not needing the game CD stuck in my box is what sucked me in. I could play half-life, UT, and a few other games, but most would require the CD to be in the box. CS did not. I could jump in, it checked my CD key over the net, and I was off getting pasted by people who were way better than I.

    After scratching a couple CD's and having oodles of hard drive space, I just don't like to play games that require the media. Granted, I can wander and get the no-cd 'fix' for the game, but you end up looking for a fresh crack every time the game does a service pack. As someone who actually pays for the bloody game - this pisses me off.

    I'd say no media 'copy protection' was key for me...

    • Re:No CD was key for me... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by grendelkhan ( 168481 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (sttekcirttocs)> on Saturday October 19, 2002 @05:14PM (#4486249) Journal

      Right on the Money.

      I realize it's a small thing, but it's a hassle to dig through the mountains of stuff on my desk, find the CD, and then play. I'm much happier just clicking the icon, and off I go.

    • > I can wander and get the no-cd 'fix' for the game, but you end up looking for a fresh crack every time the game does a service pack.

      Why not use Daemon-Tools [daemon-tools.com] ? Rip the CD to an .ISO, mount the game image, and you're all set. You never have to worry about cracks [megagames.com] or no-cd fixes [gamecopyworld.com] again :)

      I use it for D2 and it works great. Most no-cd fixes don't work as the code does a CRC on the executables. Every patch breaks the latest no-cd fix.

      And before you start complaing about taking up 640 Megs of diskspace per game ... Answer this, first: How many different games do you usually play in a week? 2 or 3 ? That's only 2 - 3 Gigs of drive space your sacrificing for ease of use !

      Cheers
      • Why not use Daemon-Tools

        The recent revisions of Neverwinter Nights can detect daemon-tools and they won't even start if it is installed (even if the real cdrom is in a real drive).

        I've seen cracks for NWN, and honestly it's just too much trouble until Bioware can finally get the annoying bugs worked out (1.24 seems to have finally fixed most of the crashing bugs, but the henchmen still go hostile unexpectedly sometimes).

        What I'm really wondering is what they'll do for copy protection when/if the linux version is released ?

        • >>Why not use Daemon-Tools
          >The recent revisions of Neverwinter Nights can
          >detect daemon-tools and they won't even start if
          >it is installed (even if the real cdrom is in a
          >real drive).

          And that matters?

          Every time the producers of any copy protection scheme tries to prevent people from making their legal backups by black listing DeamonTools, the makers of Deamon Tools update the program to avoid the blacklist - and usually add a few features.

          A bother you say? To keep updating DT? Well, how often do you buy games? Once a month? How often do they update the blacklist? Not that often it seems.

  • Old news: Business2.0 is 2.0 years behind (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zeno_lee ( 125322 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:45PM (#4485878)
    The Economist already had an article on this close to 2 years ago. Surprisingly it was reviewed in the Books and Arts section, assumingly because such a fantastic success comes from artistic genious.

    Economist Article: Counter-culture [economist.com]

  • Think of the children! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DrugCheese ( 266151 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:45PM (#4485882)
    I'm not sure if anyone's heard, Oprah Winfrey had an 'expert' on the other day, who tied the recent sniper killings in the D.C. area to Counter Strike. The 'expert' said that Counter Strike had trained this individual to kill and how to handle a gun.

    Excuse me, but how does playing a game teach you how to properly handle a gun? I've told my friends that Counter Strike isnt a game, it's a simulator. But a gun simulator it is not. I view it as a very good tactical simulator. But no-where during its gameplay does it teach you how to properly handle a gun, let alone teach you how to shoot someone at great distances.

    I guess I just needed to get that off my chest. Oprah Winfrey is ugly too. ;)

    • Ratings, ratings, ratings.

      That's all Ms. Oprah is after. If you want a real news source, listen to the Army Ranger (I think) Sgt Major who dissected the sniper's tactics and such.

      The Sgt Maj believes this is a terrorist action, with more than one person.

      Personally, I believe the sniper(s) are way too organized to be some slack-assed kid with a mod and a gun. She's just saying that to get ratings from the FWNC*.

      *Folks With No Clue.

      PS. Oprah is a terrorist. Playing on the fears of people makes you almost as bad as the people doing the activities.

    • Re:Think of the children! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ridge ( 37884 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @04:38PM (#4486094)
      Hmm, if that's the case, DC area residents should make it a regular practice of shouting "AWP WHORE" every few minutes. If this guy is truly a CS player, he'll surely jump up from his cowardly camping spot, run towards them with an MP5 shouting back "I'll 0wn j00 bi0tch." Obviously, in his 12-year old furor, he'll have forgotten to load his MP5. When arriving at his target area, he'll squeeze the trigger and nothing will happen. He'll shout "Fux0r!@&!" before getting riddled with bullets by 72 year old Mrs. Eileen Mulberry, who goes by the CS handle, "Granny0wnZurBitchAzz."

    • Re:Think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Maul ( 83993 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @04:38PM (#4486095) Journal
      Another example of crappy talk-show sensationalism.
      Talk shows like Oprah tell the audience what they _want_ to hear.

      A guy from MIT (I think it was MIT) who went on the new Donahue show to deliver his findings that violent games had little/no effect on most children was ridiculed on air by the audience. People in the audience yelled at him saying stuff like, "YOU try to raise kids then!" They said this crap not knowing that the guy from MIT DOES have kids.

      Since they don't even know much about the sniper, on what basis was this "expert" making this claim?
      There is none. He is just telling the audience what they want to hear. The audience wants a simple solution why the sniper is doing what he's doing, how he learned to evade police, and they also want a scapegoat.

      The expert says, "It was because of CounterStrike."
      Completely baseless, completely stupid, but it provides the audience with what they want.

      In the audience's eyes:

      CounterStrike makes the guy want to kill people.

      CounterStrike provided the training necessary to handle a real-life sniper rifle properly, and also
      gave him the tactical ability to evade police.

      CounterStrike and other violent video games are
      to blame entirely for these murders.

      In reality:

      The sniper is probably killing for an extremely complex reason, and probably justifies what he does in his own mind as being right through some warped logic. He probably has some severe mental problems, no matter the reason.

      The sniper could have gotten gun training and so
      forth from a multitude of places. He might have trained in a militia. He might be an ex-member of
      the military. He might have trained with a terrorist group. He might just have a natural talent.

      There is nobody to blame for this but the sniper himself. CounterStrike didn't "make him do it."

      • Re:Think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by KH ( 28388 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @05:41PM (#4486359)
        I know this is a bit off topic, but...


        The sniper could have gotten gun training and so
        forth from a multitude of places. He might have trained in a militia. He might be an ex-member of
        the military. He might have trained with a terrorist group. He might just have a natural talent.


        From how far has this Beltway Shooter been shooting? Even an armchair shooter like myself knows that 5.56mm is not at all suitable for real sniping. I'd think the effective range is something like 4-500 meters. Given the accuracy of this murderer, he perhaps has been shooting from something like 200m at best. That's not sniping at all, I think. I have been being puzzled by the use of this type of weapon by this criminal from the beginning. And the news reports I can find seldom mention how far he was when he fired.

        To be on topic, I don't think you can't get anything close to real sniping in CS. The maps are too small. It's more like shooting someone close from vicinity using extremely high powered rifle.

        Going back to off topic, I don't think someone who just has talent can become a good marksman instantly. In other words, however you may have potential of being a good shooter, without training, it is impossible to become one. One could tell someone is talented only after some training. I consider someone talented if he can collect all of his shots in 150mm circle from 300m from prone position. I think this is what an Olympic athlete can achieve more or less.
      • And not only that but if/when the sniper gets caught he can blame it all on CS/Quake/Unreal/Whatever in an attampt to save his skin (which to give credit to the american justice system will not save him) and give these games a bad rap.
      • Have they already discounted the possiblity of Sniper Gypsies [penny-arcade.com] and Miss Cleo?
    • Okay, I'm in the area with the sniper, so the fear here is no joke. Countstrike (yeah, I've played it a few times, fun game) cannot teach you how to shoot a gun. Clicking a mouse on a two dimensional character is not the same as pulling a trigger on a living, breathing being. However, Counterstrike and its ilk may be able to teach a few things outside of this. For instance, most people, when learning to fire at a target, do so in the presence of many other shooters. They all fire at once, as a group response. However, learning not to fire at the same time as anyone else (in the sniper's case, also to only fire once) is a more difficult skill. Secondly, there was a great article in the Washington Post last Saturday by a columnist who participates in sport sniping and sport fire arms competitions. His verdict, the sniper has a minimum of skill (clear view of still targets on windless days, shooting from a range in which he does not have to worry about bullet dropping or rotation of Earth), uses a caliber of weapon noone but a person training might use because its cheap to shoot, and he at least knows how to steady himself and probably knows rudimentary breathing exercises. Also, the criminal makeup of most serial killers is white male between 20 and 30 years of age with a touch of schizofrenia (spelling?). Of course, the sicker person is whoever is driving the van!
    • Oprah Winfrey had an 'expert' on the other day, who tied the recent sniper killings in the D.C. area to Counter Strike. The 'expert' said that Counter Strike had trained this individual to kill and how to handle a gun.

      Anyone play Americas Army [americasarmy.com]? This game teachs you how to breath when sniping, and if you pass the initial target practice you goto Snipers School. Based on the Unreal 2003 engine, its suppose to be as close as you can make virtual training.

      The game was paid for by the Armed Services, and is a free.

      • Americas army is kinda like it but it wont provide "training". It's one thing to think "ok shoot when im nto breathing but thats nto how it works. You dont fire at the same time in real life as you do in Americas army. Sniper training is even further away from reality. As someone who has played the game and fired similar guns in real life i know the two arent connected very much.

  • This is mostly old news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:45PM (#4485883) Homepage
    This is pretty much stating what we already know. What it does not touch upon however is that Valve seems unwilling to leave CS (or HL alone). Now, do not get me wrong, Valve has been a great developer, especially when it comes to mod makers; very few companies have done what they have done with their mod community. Nonetheless, its growing irritating to constantly hear about all this updates and new versions of CS when the company's original new flagship product has seemed to dissappear. The product I speak of is Team Fortress 2, which was supposed to come out a while back, but has all but dissappeared off the planet. Everyonce in a while you might hear a slight peep from Valve with the letters TF2 in them, but its next to nothing ('We are working on it'). CS is good, I still play it, but it is definitely time for something new. They should continue supporting HL, but in a much more limited way, and start moving towards a point release patch. Riding on the success of the last game you made 4 years ago gets a little old after a while. I do not mean this literally, but its annoying that they talked about TF2 like it was going to revolutionize (yea, its hype, but hey, it looked cool) multiplayer FPS games, but now all they're giving us is addons to Half-Life, which as I said is 4 years old, going on 5. This is all pretty much hopeless since CS still kills all other multiplayer fps games in terms of pure amounts of players & servers; where there is a demand, the publishers will go. I hope this isn't the result of Sierra's pressure, but from the attitudes of the Valve dev team that does not seem to be so.

  • Movin' Out (Score:5, Funny)

    by PaxTech ( 103481 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:46PM (#4485891) Homepage
    As for Le, he has been working hard on a Counter-Strike sequel in the basement of his parents' home.

    Next step : Move out of your parent's house. I mean, how are you going to use that newfound fame as a hot shit game designer to get chicks if you still live in your 'rents basement?

    He needs to give John Romero a call.. Romero can teach him how to get chicks, and he can teach Romero how to make a game that doesn't suck shit. If a piece of shit like Daikatana can get you Stevie Case, imagine the kind of girl writing a good game like Counter-Strike will get you.. ;)

    • Re:Movin' Out (Score:2, Funny)

      by Nobo ( 606465 )
      Next step : Move out of your parent's house. I mean, how are you going to use that newfound fame as a hot shit game designer to get chicks if you still live in your 'rents basement?

      Chicks dig computer game programmers? And to think I've been wasting all this time studying electrical engineering, when there are much more sexually appealing fields open to me!

  • Cheating - The Number One Problem (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fire-eyes ( 522894 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @03:57PM (#4485928) Homepage
    The #1 problem with this mod, cheating, wasn't mentioned anywhere.

    This would be a bigger game if that was fixed, personally I have zero intrest in it because I constantly hear those who play bitching about cheating.

    Too bad.
    • I've found that the best way to reduce cheating in CS is to play over a LAN. Then you can walk across the room and deal with the cheaters in a much more effective way than anything online...

    • Impossible. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19, 2002 @09:31PM (#4487548)
      It's impossible to 'fix' cheating. John Carmack had a great .plan on the subject where he broke it down to a choice between how much network latency matters and how much cheating will be possible.

      The only way to be completely cheat-free is to turn the client hardware into a dumb terminal. At that point the only cheats possible are things like turning the brightness up on your monitor. But this means that the entire game has to be simulated on the server, including the graphics. If you send polygons down the wire, a malicious client can analyze the polygones and provide visual cues to the user.

      When Valve released the "network patch" for Counter Strike, they introduced client-side prediction like that found in QuakeWorld, and that meant that the client software got to decide whether a hit was accurate or not, and where it landed. They did this because they wanted the game to be responsive for modem users who might have latency spikes as high as 200ms. This makes the instantaneous frame-rate of the game about 5fps. Client-side prediction assumes everything carries on as it was before when the latency is too high, and then re-sync when latency returns to normal. The actual result was that proxies could manipulate the network traffic to give the user perfect aim and perfect knowledge, and sometimes the ability to shoot through obstacles.

      As someone else mentioned, the solution is not technical, it's social. Have LAN parties, or use some form of distributed trust to restrict cheating at the personal level. Refuse to play with anyone who has a poor rating. This is an imperfect solution, like SlashDot moderation, but it's a lot more feasable and efficient than technical solutions.

  • F***ing HL & CS (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19, 2002 @04:01PM (#4485954)
    Ok I don't hate Counter Strike per se, it's a fine game, but I am bitter about its complete dominance in online FPSs. There are countless of very cool mods but you can't find anyone to play with because _everyone_ is playing CS. For example on several occasion I've been exited about some new and innovative Quake mod, but have been unable to find a single human player to play against. Infuriating.

  • "freely available" (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by jdkane ( 588293 )
    [snip] explains the virtues of making code freely available for those who wish to hack games.

    Imagine the virtues if all code (not just for games) was made freely available to developers.
    Then even Microsoft developers could freely use the development versions of software without the large cost overhead. That might spur on Windows development by the masses, just as has been done in the Linux and OpenSource realms.

  • Cstrike Beta 1 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jeramybsmith ( 608791 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @04:08PM (#4485986)
    There were probably about 50 people playing CS Beta 1 hardcore. Back then it was a much different mod. The teams for one thing were almost identical. So you would sit there and shoot a guy a bunch of times and then it would turn out he was a teammate (unless of coruse friendly fire was on, heheh). Chance also played a greater role. There was no head protection and a stray glock round from a mile away would kill you instantly. The money system was also very different and it was much harder to buy the best guns (and since chance played a larger role you didnt hold onto said gun very long).

    My favourite memory was exploiting the map cs_siege. On this map there was a room with hostages that the CTs had to rescue. If the terrorists started losing and couldnt buy good guns, I would take all the hostages into said room. The only way into that room was a door. There was a window to that room that was unbreakable. I would spray a black spray over the window on the outside so the CTs couldnt see inside. Mind you, due to halflife mechanics, the terrors could see out of it fine, thus we had a sort of one way viewport. We would camp out there and just wait until a CT would bumble in (this first CT is usually the "rambo" who had a cable modem back before they were as common and he has a good gun and no time for teamplay). Voila, their LPB is down and we have his gun. Chances are, his gun shoots through walls and we just mow the rest down as they come into the room our window faces.

    Later on, the window was made breakable and a vent was added to make another way into that room, but that was some of the funnest gaming I've ever had.

    • I remember the races to get the guns at the beginning of the rounds, back then guns that were dropped on the ground stayed there until picked up.
      • Okay, so guns stayed after you died. If someone with an AWP died near the enemy base, this gave them a big advantage after respawn (guns were expensive). So I started hitting the "drop gun" button which throws your weapon down in front of you and started chain picking up dropping my own gun and the other gun all the way back to my respawn. This kept my team from having to buy guns the next round. Then _everyone_ started doing it and before you knew it a team would have all AWPs and a total beatdown was in progress until the level changed. At one point I was on a team that stockpiled over 50 guns at our respawn. Needless to say after everyone started doing it they made guns dissapear at the end of a round.

    • Re:Cstrike Beta 1 (Score:4, Funny)

      by sheetsda ( 230887 ) <<doug.sheets> <at> <gmail.com>> on Sunday October 20, 2002 @01:48AM (#4488565)
      So you would sit there and shoot a guy a bunch of times and then it would turn out he was a teammate (unless of coruse friendly fire was on, heheh).

      You couldn't turn friendly fire off until after the first several betas, and what make it a bigger pain was that the only difference between the CT and T models was the lack of sleeves on the latter; from the back it was impossible to tell friend from foe. The team killing was horrendous up until then because any player that came in would have no money, and other players had guns he might want, and guns were also much more expensive and money was much harder to obtain. I specifically remember one instance where a guy came into a server and proceded to kill the closest teammate with a good gun (the auto-sniper, called the GSG3 or something like that, been awhile since I played). The moron failed to notice his victim had a 0 ping and was therefore the server owner.
  • Counter-Strike used to be great, and while it continues to provide others with hours of entertainment, I found Day of Defeat to be much, much more enjoyable. If you would like it, its availible here [dayofdefeatmod.com].

  • CS is not dying! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 19, 2002 @04:31PM (#4486064)
    Upon further checking on http://www.gamespy.com/stats, CS is alive and well. To all the naysayers proclaiming that CS is "dead", they are not looking at the simple numbers of people playing it. As of the time of this post, there are over 92,000 people playing this game. How far does that eclipe MoH (~8,000 players), the next closest competitor?.

    The numbers speak for themselves, CS is alive and well. It'll take another "CS like" game to take people away from something they like.

    I'll tell you this, if Valve ported the base client to Linux, I'd say their install base for CS (and other mods) would grow even further. Being that the engine is mainly Quake2, it can't be too difficult to port. Let Valve create the linux client and the numbers for their games will grow even further.

    • Re:CS is not dying! (Score:3, Informative)

      by manux ( 167900 )
      Being that the engine is mainly Quake2

      After far too much digging, I finally found what I was looking for...an old mailbag [planethalflife.com] on PlanetHalfLife that answers which engine HL is based on:

      From: Stupid Newbie
      Subject: Half-Life: Quake or Quake 2?
      Uhh, something has been bugging me about HL. I see in various magazines and articles either "Half-Life is based on the Quake code", or "Half-Life is based on the Quake 2 code". Just exactly which game is it based on?

      Half-Life is primarily based on the Quake engine, although Valve had access to the code for GLQuake, QuakeWorld, Quake II, etc. The game is about 70% original code, and the rest consists of a mix of id code. For example, QuakeWorld code is used in HL's net code, and I believe some elements of Quake II's rendering system is present in the game as well. But most of the id code that remains in the game is from the original Quake engine.

  • navy seals (Score:5, Informative)

    by javilon ( 99157 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @05:17PM (#4486265) Homepage
    There is a mod for Quake3 on beta stage called navy seals. It plays and feels very similar to counter strike, except the engine (Q3) is better.
    And they have a Linux version.
    I have played it and it is rock solid and good fun.
    You can find it here:
    Navy seals: covert operations [213.146.162.140]

  • ah yes, Counter Strike, but what about (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rellik66 ( 596729 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @05:28PM (#4486311)
    Counter Stick? [newgrounds.com]

  • CS 1.6 coming out!! (Score:2, Informative)

    by khufure ( 214732 )
    Anyone who thinks CS is dying obviously hasn't seen the upcoming 1.6. Among the new features : 2 new guns (they both look sweet!), a counter-terrorist bodyshield, instant messaging system, demo viewer, auto-update, bugfixes, and more! Click Here To See 1.6 [counter-strike.net]

  • Best game I've ever played. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by goon america ( 536413 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @05:55PM (#4486403) Homepage Journal
    I could write a book about why Counter Strike is so great. The game is like a combination of Quake and chess; you move carefully, thoughtfully, and then blow the hell out of somebody. When it comes down to it, no player has any real advantage over another; all the guns are in the end very similar and you can only carry one at time. Your success depends on both your reflexes and your wits, and the result is an endlessly playable game.

    That being said, the people who play Counter Strike should be beaten over the head. I've never seen a more contentious, petty, jealous bunch. Anyone who is even moderately good is *obviously* cheating. God forsake someone would forsake their precious little egos and admit to themselves they lost a round legitimately. If you beat someone, it *must* have because they were doing something unscrupulous.

    Worse, are the people who actually do cheat. I don't know what their deal is, but they suck even more than the people who accuse everyone *else* of cheating. Tipping the board in your favor defeats the purpose of playing. How can you say you won if you didn't win fairly? It's much more satisfying to beat the pants out of another team knowing it was just your own skill and strategy that did it, not some goddamn program you downloaded off the internet. Those people should be rounded up, put on barges and set adrift into the pacific.

  • UrbanTerror (Score:3, Informative)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @07:21PM (#4486898)
    For those that like CounterStrike, check out UrbanTerror [urbanterror.net]. It's a TC built upon the Q3 engine, and it's quite nice.

  • Offtopic plug for Tactical Ops (Score:5, Informative)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday October 19, 2002 @08:49PM (#4487377) Homepage Journal
    Tactical Ops [tactical-ops.to] is like Counterstrike for UT (NOT UT2k3). The major differences are that you can pogo all over the place because there is no additional movement penalty for jumping, the selection of weapons is arguably more entertaining, the game looks better, and HL has better net code than the Unreal engine of that time.

    I stopped playing HL because too few servers which were fast for me used anti-cheat software, and too many of the players are chumps. Tacops seems to have a better breed of player for the most part (Obviously some CS players are great people) and I just enjoy the gameplay more as well.

    If you have UT, check it out.

  • Valve/Sierra/Blizzard are all cogs in the machine that is the Vivendi conglomerate...to hell with them for suing bnetd

    I don't give a shit how good their games are...when they start to sue legit open source projects I refuse to do business with them or play their products anymore.

  • CS and the business plan (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zhe Mappel ( 607548 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @09:43PM (#4487612)
    What's striking about CS is how its utter dominance has so changed the FPS landscape, inspiring competitors to churn out one military sim clone after another and even altering Valve's own strategic plan. Ages ago, Valve was to have released its new Team Fortress game. But why would it ever wish to to do that when CS is crushing any and all competition (and on outdated technology at that)? Better to just release Steam, sit back, and relish the luxury of a prolonged development cycle; nice work if you can get it! When the fans tire of CS, Valve can release its next (by that time) much-honed product.

    But while CS gives Valve time to fiddle and tweak, in another respect it's bad for the gaming industry. The mod's amazing success discourages innovation even at the very developer whose original great innovation led, inadvertantly, to its one day being out-innovated by a fan. Meanwhile, every kid who's playing CS 24/7 isn't buying new product. Given the quality of most product out there, you can hardly blame them, but it would be nice to see something approaching the mid-to-late 90s period of game creativity; sadly, we probably won't any time soon, and CS is one reason why.

  • On the subject of cheating... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DeathPenguin ( 449875 ) on Saturday October 19, 2002 @10:22PM (#4487800)
    This is one reason why I will never enjoy on-line games as much as LAN games. If someone on-line is cheating, I have to wait for the admin to become convinced and boot him. If I'm at a LAN, I get vengeance by installing Sub Seven on his machine when he makes a bathroom run.

    On-line games require that a player communicates with the admins. I'm an admin for the flagen.com server. When people come to us saying 'ban this person he cheats' then we usually ask the regulars before taking action. When a regular accuses someone of cheating, their opinion is held higher and their evidence is taken more into consideration than people who we've never heard of.
  • I just got MOH:AA, but it seems to me that there are only FOUR team-based missions! (Omaha, Bridge, Rocket and 1 other I forget). I think you can deathmatch a lot of others, but only four counterstrike-like boards. Am I wrong here? I sure would love to be...

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