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

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

#381

Post by throw0101a »

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. Too many games require you to use matchmaking systems, which means it's very hard to build up a small community in-game anymore.

It's been many moons since I was into gaming, but back in the RtCW [1][2] days there was a bunch of regulars that played on a server run my (IIRC) Charter. There were many servers in the browse list, and I'm sure many had a community of regulars just like we did.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Castle_Wolfenstein

[2] A Linux client was actually released, which is what I mostly used. (Actually running it on FreeBSD's Linuxator.)

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

#382

Post by MrBrobot »

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…

Undoubtedly I’ve seen / played with you at one point or another. I spent many years in these kinds of servers, because with active mods they weren’t toxic. You kept the cheaters at bay, and they were reliable places to jump in, frag and chat for hours. I used a handful of different names over the years, but usually bounced between variations of “Trigger,” “Asylum,” and “Shifty”. I miss the days you could bop into a server, meet a handful of people, end up on a CAL team with them, and find friends for the next few decades. Best case today, everyone in online games now might as well be a ghost. They’re just strangers in passing if they talk at all. And worst case - they’re overly toxic, loud, and abusing the mic. The only communities I belong to now are the ones I build myself and with friends I’ve made in real life - and we jump between games together now.

I'm afraid that time we long for is gone now as we've all gotten older, busier, and moved on to other things. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

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

#383

Post by kkukshtel »

arkh wrote: post #269
dev0p wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My intuition is it still exists. This "old internet" sentiment is due to the fact it was mostly academics in their world and geeks in theirs on internet at the time. Then it made it easier for everyone to use so everyone used it. But I bet there are still the same proportion of geeks in the population. Which are still socializing on niche area of internet. We don't see it because we're old farts and have jobs and hab…

The OP comment itself is funny because Counter Strike itself still has a server browser lol.

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

#384

Post by pimeys »

viraptor wrote: post #319
arkh wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My intuition is it still exists. This "old internet" sentiment is due to the fact it was mostly academics in their world and geeks in theirs on internet at the time. Then it made it easier for everyone to use so everyone used it. But I bet there are still the same proportion of geeks in the population. Which are still socializing on niche area of internet. We don't see it because we're old farts and have jobs and hab…

"the old internet" seems to still exist. Today they're the semi-private discord/slack/mattermost/matrix servers that mostly replaced IRC. Some are large enough that separate channels on them are their own communities - for example like Hangops. Or takes a bit of effort to find them, but they're there, with lots of friendly people geeking out about common topic.

I have a few amazing signal groups to add to that.

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

#385

Post by keyringlight »

emsixteen wrote: post #256
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,…

For us the combination of WoW and WC3, then later LoL, are what ruined the thriving LAN centre scene across Ireland. There were 12 or so actual GAMETHEWORLD centres, then other wee franchised ones. WoW especially just didn't lend itself to LAN gaming, absolutely sucked the life out of the centres.

The issue that was noted at larger LANs I used to go to was that matches of DotA could lock in around 12 people for around 45m per game which would make getting participants for other games more difficult. There would be constantly running CS/UT servers where people would drop into to kill time, but trying to get a large game running or something like battlefield required advance planning

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

#386

Post by antonymoose »

echelon_musk wrote: post #111
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.

Did this a few years ago and made close to $350. However, if I reflect on how much time I spent in the game in order to receive that much money it's laughable as it was easily 2 thousand hours of game play. I have two tips: Sell hardware and then you can get real cash. For example, use the Steam Wallet balance to buy Steam Deck Docks which you ship directly from Steam to your customer on eBay. Secondly, use Steam Eco…

Personally, I used my Steam Wallet money to purchase several of the most popular skins on a third-party site and resold them there. I probably took about a 15% hit but who can complain for $400 in profit?

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

#387

Post by evandena »

tpae wrote: post #131

I used to be an admin in CAL (Cyber Athlete League), wrote my own mIRC scripts for support desk tickets and had a janky PHP interface for managing scores. Good times!

Oh man, playing CAL-I was peak adolescence for me. I even had some friends turn pro, and another became a professional shoutcaster.

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

#388

Post by guardiangod »

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…

Oh yeah I used to play on T3Houston all the time, back in ~2003 (as Undead). There weren't that many W3 mod servers that had a consistent player population. I lived in PNW though so the latency was always around ~80ms.

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

#389

Post by orenlindsey »

arkh wrote: post #269
dev0p wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My intuition is it still exists. This "old internet" sentiment is due to the fact it was mostly academics in their world and geeks in theirs on internet at the time. Then it made it easier for everyone to use so everyone used it. But I bet there are still the same proportion of geeks in the population. Which are still socializing on niche area of internet. We don't see it because we're old farts and have jobs and hab…

Yeah, I (a teenager) have been lucky enough to find a community like this. It's amazing but it's hard to find communities like that.

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

#390

Post by edm0nd »

Lammy wrote: post #156
jokoon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toxicity is what killed the game for me. I was really involved in how serious cs was being played in 2002 or 2003, but valve did not seize the opportunity. 5v5 is the best format. Even today, the matchmaking is horrendous and toxic teammates ruin the fun. When you solo queue, individual performance is ignored, so you must carry your whole team if you want to gain rank. The game is great but generates too much frustra…

> toxic teammates ruin the fun Relevant myg0t: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/171762 (2004, NSFW) This Flash was my introduction to Refused though so that's cool

TIL newgrounds is still around
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