I fondly remember playing fy_iceworld and minor variations of it in netcafes 20 years ago. What made these maps special was that they 1) removed all game strategy - just walk 2 steps to pick up a gun and go fight the enemy, and 2) there were no hiding spots - so no more campers. For kids who could only afford 1 hour of computer time in a netcafe, fy_iceworld was the obvious choice.
The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
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Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#32iceworld : Counter-Strike :: aram : MOBAs
iceworld was great. Counter-Strike is a big game with lots of mechanics. Multi-round strategy. Sneaking. Shooting. Teamwork. Objectives. Etc. Iceworld takes all that and focuses on basically a single thing: peeking + shooting. It's great.
I love the history of MOBAs. Warcraft 3 was a big RTS with hero units. Hero units are cool! What if a game focused on just them? This led to hero arenas and eventually DOTA. In Dota you only control the hero but there are still some automatic AI creeps.
Dota is cool. It has lots of mechanics. Hero micro, map control, leveling, gear, solo fights, jungle, team fights, etc. What would be neat? What if there was a mode that focused just on team fights! Forget the first 20 minutes, all team fight all the time. Behold all-random all-mid (ARAM)!
Counter-Strike and DOTA have extremely high skill ceilings. They're also very punishing games to poor players. iceworld and aram lower the stakes, increase variability, and decrease downtime. They're all action all the time. And even bad players can get some kills and have some fun.
I love seeing how a game can produce a mod that becomes a full fledged game which becomes a bonafide subgenre... which gets its own mod and the cycle continues. Beautiful.
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
>it's become impossible to make a single simplistic map for an existing shooter that your friends actually play Counter strike global offensive still has a level editor. Though yeah fewer games nowadays ship with the community servers and mod tools you need to have that kind of organic community. Guess its mostly a problem with the changing monetization strategies where you want to sell microtransaction cosmetics whi…
One of the few that does. I think with Counter-Strike Global Offensive some of the better community maps get bundled up into events and... something gets sold I think? I don't think it's access to the map (because anyone can download the map) but I'm pretty sure players can pay for something.
Far cry still ships with level editors. The one in. Far Cry instincts was incredibly cool, especially for the original xbox
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#34In StarCraft Brood War there were normal maps, which were mostly played 1v1. That was the "true" game - it was fun but also quite difficult. Many players played for fun, so they would play team games e.g. 4v4 where skill still mattered but often the results depended more who you got on your team (I think that to a degree this is why MOBAs are so popular - in theory you get close to a 50-50 winrate, or at least win li…
Two UMS ("use map settings" which is what we referred to custom maps as, named after the game settings) maps that I loved and were quite popular on aus-1 (our local non-battle.net server) were variants of "zergling blood" which was somewhat like a tower defence where you had to live against auto-waves of enemies, and various RPG-like games where you controlled one unit to go through a complex map and finish it while levelling up (and changing unit type), often with some choice of upgrades. I have never been someone who liked modding games, but custom experiences like this were so fun. All you had to do was join the lobby and it would automatically download.
Not sure if they work with the recent SC remaster, but I think there was some kind of debacle around it with Warcraft Reforged? It might have been patched in by now.
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#35> This is perhaps the central tragedy of fy_iceworld. The game industry benefits from its legacy, but the conditions that spurred its influence no longer exist. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019 does not offer a freely downloadable level editor for players to make new custom maps, nor does it allow a decentralized network of player-managed multiplayer servers to distribute these custom maps. We can only play what som…
Remember Counter Strike was not an independent game. It was a mod of Halo. Halo did not offer a downloaded level editor.
It was Half Life and people typically used QuArK (Quake Army Knife) an open source tool originally made for Quake 1/2 maps, but Half Life used the same map file format. Later along Valve released Hammer, their own level editor.
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#36In online games, there are generally two necessary aspects to "getting good": game knowledge and understanding your opponent. Game knowledge includes game mechanics, which are obviously necessary, but also includes esoteric knowledge like the specific areas in a map that can be exploited just so, or a complex combo with specific spacing in a fight game, etc. Personally, I don't want to spend my limited game time memorizing complex game knowledge. To me, the fun comes from understanding the opponent and using that understanding to beat them: what are their habits, how do they react, how can I trick them, etc. Levels like fy_iceworld are perfect in this regard.
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#37Offtopic but I'm convinced Minecraft was inspired by fy_breakfloor
Minecraft was inspired by Infiniminer: https://www.zachtronics.com/infiniminer/
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#38Iceworld gave you a random weapon and you had to make do - that was a fun twist on the usual CS gameplay, and that’s all it took to be popular. Another genre in this style (possibly an evolution of iceworld itself) is “gun game”, where you all start with the weakest pistol and every kill changes you to the next weapon. This was popular for the same reason, it was a fun twist on the usual gameplay and you played with…
Gun game servers are where I encountered all sorts of custom maps, including fy_iceworld.
I spent so many hours in high school and into college playing gun game in CS:S. It was very easy to just hop in and have fun. It was a nice alternative to the more serious, team objective oriented modes.
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#39The custom mapping community of CS 1.6 was truly special, and it's incredible to see how much it has shaped the games we know and love today. Back in those days, community building was as simple as spinning up your own dedicated servers and hosting new maps that everyone could enjoy.
I ran a few popular fun map servers, constantly experimenting with new mods, game/gravity settings, and rotating new maps based on community votes. There was a strong sense of excitement around testing out the latest custom maps, and even the quirky bugs added to the fun.
Re: The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive, popular custom map (2020)
#40I also found the linked follow-up article interesting, where the writer tries to find the original author. Including an article comment at the end of the page by someone who claims it was them, with web archive links. Looks somewhat convincing but I doubt we can ever know for sure.