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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

#371

Post by philipallstar »

doom2 wrote: post #330
999900000999 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between being toxic within a community. The community can self correct, it can ban people. And if you don't like a community, you can leave at any time. Compared to being toxic anonymously. Unless you get banned by an algorithm, your free to just suck. However, I was in one CS clan where a girl gave out her real number to a random guy. Within minutes she was getting spam calls and other not great…

> The community can self correct, it can ban people. The problem is that somewhere along the way, we decided that banning toxic users was some kind of infringement on "free speech". It's wild to me that people think sites like Twitter are a better place with previously banned but now reinstated toxic users.

> It's wild to me that people think sites like Twitter are a better place with previously banned but now reinstated toxic users.

It's because the people doing this had a test for "toxicity" with 100% sensitivity and 0% specificity. It's easy to catch criminals if you lock up everyone ever accused.

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

#372

Post by Oceoss »

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…

Warcraft 3! My favorite game of all time. I got so addicted to it, one has to have self-control

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

#373

Post by fleebee »

meehai wrote: post #291

I've played years of KZ and HNS after years of playing competitive CS on local communities (old PGL in romania!). I got over 6k hours in steam CS1.6 + many more on "non-steam". That game shaped me. I even learned the basics of programming while modding a KZ plugin: https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=130417 Nowadays I code for a living, but for sure this is the game that started the spark for me. It was a…

Now that's a blast from the past. Before we had good one-in-all plugin solutions for solo play, I'm pretty sure I ripped the hook code from ProKreedz for my listen server. Then I got a checkpoint plugin from another guy, LJ stats from somewhere else and so on. I could tinker with my server freely and make it work just like I wanted.

That's what I really loved about CS 1.6. It allowed so much freedom in terms of what kind of maps and plugins you could create. We got amazing community-cultivated game modes such as KZ, HNS, surf and so many more out of it. And what's more, it was relatively easy to whip up your own map in Hammer and get it out there for everyone to play.

Community servers were first class citizens back then, prominently displayed as soon as you launched the game. These days someone getting into the game might not ever find out about the rich variety of experiences provided by community servers because they get funneled right into the default 5v5 matchmaking experience.

I tried TF2 recently and it took me a minute to figure out how to play a game without queuing into matchmaking. It's a bit sad.

I honestly think developers undervalue the power of moddability in adding value and especially longevity for their games. Fortunately, and as you pointed out, CS 1.6 is still there, and there's still a lot of active communities around that game. I believe that's because the game allowed the community to carve out a space for the themselves and build whatever they wanted.

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

#374

Post by Workaccount2 »

alexjplant wrote: post #9

I started with CS: Source and quickly got into 1.6 because of the more expansive funmaps and modding scene. It was like the Wild West (or literally as was the case with de_westwood) - Nipper's penchant for glitchy drivable vehicles, ridiculously huge maps with teleports galore and weird music, fy_iceworld, gun game... it was so wonderfully weird. The fact that the core of the game stayed the same for so many years wi…

There was also the whole branch of Surfing, which exploited a glitch in the physics engine that caused standing sloped surfaces to generate forward velocity. Flying around massive expansive maps gliding on slopes while blasting people with shotguns was so much fun (or sniping them mid air with an awp).

There was also a whole sub-genre of skill surf, with mechanically challenging courses to complete.

Oh and then kz maps too, which was just for climbing up huge structures.

Good times

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

#375

Post by volkk »

999900000999 wrote: post #270
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…

There's a difference between being toxic within a community. The community can self correct, it can ban people. And if you don't like a community, you can leave at any time. Compared to being toxic anonymously. Unless you get banned by an algorithm, your free to just suck. However, I was in one CS clan where a girl gave out her real number to a random guy. Within minutes she was getting spam calls and other not great…

i played CS competitively and the cheating was horrendous. if i had to put a number to it, i would guess that 50% were cheating in some form simply because it wasn't very difficult. I would ultimately be relying on checking the number of digits in your Steam ID to tell whether this account was fresh (higher probability that you bought a new one and were cheating). I think the anon matchmaking is the horrible part, not the anti cheat software.

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

#376

Post by Workaccount2 »

simlevesque wrote: post #32

Heads up to those who played CS:GO years ago and like money. I was a pretty active player from 2012 to 2014. Back then I got dozens of crates that I didn't open, now worth as high as 31$CAD each. I looked it up last week and it's worth over a thousand dollars in Steam. I cashed in on almost half of it and now I have some cash to buy games for my family and friends.

I had a M4 skin that was a rare skin back in 2014. I traded it for a knife back then.

The skin is worth over $2k now, oh well.

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

#377

Post by cynic_ »

bob1029 wrote: post #49
jcalx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll probably like this short series on fy_iceworld if you haven't seen it already: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-legacy-of-fy_iceworld-c... But yes, I was never really a 1.6 player but I felt the same way about Garry's Mod maps. Joining a random server and seeing the maps and assets download and never really knowing what you were going to spawn into... it was wonderfully weird in a way that reminds me of th…

I think there is still a huge market for this stuff. An entire shooter based solely upon the principles of fy_iceworld & gun game would wipe the floor with most other AAA titles on offer right now.

Would they? Gun game has been an official game mode is CS for a long time, 2 of the maps follow the same layout fy_iceworld. COD had/has it as well.

I've even stumbled upon fy_pool_day recreation in Roblox.

Almost anything your nostalgia can think of is available "current" games like Fortnite and Roblox.

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

#378

Post by wink »

strictnein wrote: post #208
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 will forever mourn the general demise of server browsers. I miss GameSpy, the original application, not the service it morphed into later. It was so easy to find a server to play on, playing the levels/mods you wanted to play. Before that, I spent a lot of time (and money from my dad's credit card) on DWANGO. For those not familiar with DWANGO, you dialed in to their servers and then it acted like you were on a L…

Interesting, we had something similar in Germany in the late 90s. Had to dial in with a client and they had a chat, newsgroups/forums and internal mail. - RivalNet http://web.archive.org/web/19980515163616/http://rivalnet.co...

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

#379

Post by cynic_ »

bashwizard wrote: post #259
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #211

I have a (knowingly irrational) dislike for Counter Strike because it fragmented what was previously an essentially single 'Quake / Quake 2" community, making the free-for-all adrenaline frag fests that I most enjoyed less populated, specifically at LANs. I got my fun from balls out running and firing rockets and rails in the chaos of free for all, and CS offered what was essentially the 'we're all campers' version,…

You sound like me. I disliked CS because of how slow and campy it was compared to Quake and we always had this banter in my friend group about Quake vs CS vs Unreal Tournament and which game requires more skill. I ended up playing for one of the best clans in Sweden and competed for a few years until Q3 eventually died. I did try playing CS more serious for some time but I just couldn't stand it and I never had the p…

CS requires more skill considering just mechanical and movement skills... let alone everything else ;)

Competitive Quake is to CS, like bowling is to basketball btw

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

#380

Post by dfxm12 »

dev0p wrote: post #242
racemic wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lurked on HN for years, but I had to create an account just to respond to your post. I operated these servers – perhaps my handle is still familiar. I remember you for sure! I'm touched that you and so many others still have fond memories of that time. It was such a gratifying experience to build out that server network and the accompanying integrations that attracted so many and built such a great community. I…

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

Any particular reason why? This interaction just happened on the "current Internet".
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