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Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

nytimes.com

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Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#271

Post by shawabawa3 »

rimunroe wrote: post #72

I will forever mourn the general demise of server browsers. Too many games require you to use matchmaking systems, which means it's very hard to build up a small community in-game anymore. You either have to rely on forming small parties with people you've stumbled upon one by one, or you have to seek out people from some much larger area like Reddit or Discord. It takes a lot of the serendipity out of the experience…

As a counter point

I absolutely hated server browsers. Spending ages waiting for slots to free up on decent servers. Trying a new server only to find it had 100 shitty mods installed. Servers where the admins randomly kicked or banned people, or blatantly cheated

Even just joining mid game was annoying

Give me matchmaking any day

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#272

Post by gxs »

rimunroe wrote: post #72

I will forever mourn the general demise of server browsers. Too many games require you to use matchmaking systems, which means it's very hard to build up a small community in-game anymore. You either have to rely on forming small parties with people you've stumbled upon one by one, or you have to seek out people from some much larger area like Reddit or Discord. It takes a lot of the serendipity out of the experience…

The problem is with monetization

Whenever/wherever a crowd of a certain size assembles consistently, you’ll soon have a giant corporation frothing at the mouth to monetize it

Why let these people organize communities for themselves? How on earth would we capture metrics and sell them shit?

This is why everything is awesome until corporations show up - social media is the perfect example

I don’t mean to come across as some anti corporate lunatic, it’s just the reality of the situation

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#273

Post by goosejuice »

rimunroe wrote: post #72

I will forever mourn the general demise of server browsers. Too many games require you to use matchmaking systems, which means it's very hard to build up a small community in-game anymore. You either have to rely on forming small parties with people you've stumbled upon one by one, or you have to seek out people from some much larger area like Reddit or Discord. It takes a lot of the serendipity out of the experience…

I remember that mod. Quite fun. Along with surf, rats, ice world and all the other weird stuff from that era. Probably played on T3Houston!

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#274

Post by lukan »

TimByte wrote: post #254
dev0p wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of interaction is what makes me miss the "old internet" the most...

People just made stuff for the fun of it

That still happens. You just have to look a bit more for it.

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#275

Post by vaylian »

1-6 wrote: post #232
epolanski wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I legit miss early 2000s gaming. 1) People interacted, they truly did. Dramas, friendship, everything. Where? Quakenet, Forums. Every clan had their channel, some easily reached 1000+ people. 2) People genuinely played together in teams: CS, Day of Defeat, you name it. You had your clan and spammed #5on5 on quakenet. 3) Those clans actually met in lan! At Smau Italian Lan Party 2002 there were more than 60 Counter St…

In the late 1990s, living in South Korea during the fallout of the IMF financial crisis, my friends and I discovered PC bangs. These gaming havens offered titles like Rainbow Six, MechWarrior 2, and the legendary StarCraft. As a teenager, those moments were unforgettable—sitting in a buzzing PC bang, immersed in epic battles, sparked a lifelong passion for computer networks that I still pursue today. In the 2000s, I…

What are "PC bangs"? Are they like internet cafes, but meant for gaming?

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#277

Post by vjk800 »

baby wrote: post #192
xtracto wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with sites like reddit, HN and the like is that they don't promote "identity" like IRC, forums and others. Like, I'm replying to you, we are being "social" , but mostly we will interact in this thread and call it a day. There's no push to form community or some longer term interaction. In the late 90s early 2000s I was very into a game called Tactics Arena Online, and we had several great communities.

Whoever can recreate this community feeling is going to be rich. Why did people spend so much time in specific phpbb forums? Maybe the problem is that there are too many communities out there now and so people just give up because you're in all of them and you're part of none of them at the same time?

Communities don't scale. This is the reason why nobody has done and why you couldn't get rich forming communities. Communities are handcrafted to accommodate the unique personalities of the people involved. Communities involve activities where a handful of people can socialize and bond. A service with a million users can never become a community because our social/grouping instincts don't work on that scale. A community should always be a few dozens of core people, with maybe a larger number of non-core people participating occasionally.

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#278

Post by goosejuice »

baby wrote: post #192
xtracto wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with sites like reddit, HN and the like is that they don't promote "identity" like IRC, forums and others. Like, I'm replying to you, we are being "social" , but mostly we will interact in this thread and call it a day. There's no push to form community or some longer term interaction. In the late 90s early 2000s I was very into a game called Tactics Arena Online, and we had several great communities.

Whoever can recreate this community feeling is going to be rich. Why did people spend so much time in specific phpbb forums? Maybe the problem is that there are too many communities out there now and so people just give up because you're in all of them and you're part of none of them at the same time?

Indeed, I think the size of the internet these days is partly the problem. The community in GameSpy and Zone were super small from my memory. We had crappy websites that tracked singles and team ladders. Then Steam came along.

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#279

Post by ultra2d »

kubectl_h wrote: post #144
brummm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always enjoyed de_dust more than de_dust2. But I am clearly in the minority on that one.

I also liked de_dust more because a well executed T rush to site A was as fun as it got on random servers before voice chat. Was awesome when it all came together and everybody worked together.

I vividly remember the thrill of taking out the entire T rush to site B myself in about two seconds during a clan match (not that high level ;)). It was like dominoes falling down in a neat row. It was quite unexpected to rush to site B; the other four of my team were already at site A.

Re: Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room

#280

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

I have fond memories of CS, but I have more memories of the cheats making it miserable to play. Perhaps it was a good thing, as it drove me to find more mods and alternative games. Q3:RA and Q3:UT became my happy place, as well as DoD and others. I played newer games but they never felt as fun.
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