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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

#411

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

viridian wrote: post #326
o11c wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, I've replied to several people using physical thumbs up/down recently. This can be caused by several variations on voice not being viable at the moment: * sore throat * eating * having another conversation * context demands silence (often requires the question to be nonverbal somehow, but not e.g. if the context is "sleeping baby right next to me") * noisy room (often asymmetric) * target is deaf

I use nonverbals frequently as well, but I think what 0xDEAFBEAD is getting at is more like if everyone were to walk around with a touch display hanging from a lanyard where you could like or dislike every comment. The simulacrum would cheapen the real experience by its very presence.

Exactly. These metrics are supposed to help filter for "quality", but popularity isn't that great as a proxy for quality, and the metrics have the side effect of turning social interaction into a constant status competition.

https://xcancel.com/AliceFromQueens/status/11280356337279303...

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

#412

Post by butlike »

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…

Absolutely. The unique flavor the admins of your server added were something completely special.

As an aside. I always appreciated the street justice the admins would sometime enact. Running through the level with invincibility and godlike mods just gibbing everyone left and right.

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

#413

Post by fho »

carynh wrote: post #243
fho wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just got back from a goth music weekend this weekend > the mean age would be 40-something At least in Germany the "black" scene has a serious "recruitment" problem. It's basically the same set of people for decades now with very little additions to the pool. It strange to me that I am amongst the youngest attendeds at concerts and "disco" events at 40.

seconding this.. went to Mera Luna a weekish ago (going there yearly) and in my early 40s I felt like such a child compared to many other festival goers even though it was like my 16th or so time.

Been there for 10+ years as well. Recently decided that it has gotten too money grabby and started our own privat festival :-/

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

#414

Post by astrobe_ »

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…

This inspired me to check on Cube2: Sauerbraten. Still alive? Yep, barely. I guess some online games never die. In the case of Cube2, the game isn't really competitive (servers have no lobby, players can join and leave games anytime, even switch teams in the middle of the game sometimes when it's not the server itself that moves you to the other team on respawn in order to balance the game a bit) and it is one less toxic component of online gaming. People were having a break and talk about various topics in the chat while watching the ongoing game.

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

#415

Post by shigawire »

somenameforme wrote: post #292
firesteelrain wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh better to stay anonymous as those were the days of not having to worried about being “cancelled” or “doxxed”

Yeah, exactly this. No idea exactly what happened but people at some point seem to have stopped accepting other people having different views or perspectives. With basically every community there was invariably some sort of oddballs. I remember a BBS with this guy called 'Nihilist' who was a total insufferable asshole that'd make glory days Linus look like the world's most gentle man. But as is the nature with commun…

This does not scale. If you have eccentric sure it's fine. If you have millions it degrades the experience and is impossible to moderate.

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

#416

Post by footlose_3815 »

In its current form, the game is a shell of its former self. They took away a lot of features and maps. They even combined the reviews of CS:GO and CS2 to make CS2 look better.

You can't even play CS:GO anymore. It was all moved to CS2, with cosmetics as the highest priority.

The hostage map rotation used to be 5 maps, with variety. They've cut it to 2 maps, and are outright neglecting any variety. You can play some other maps but only in private matches.

They even got rid of the very fun drop-in mode where you could do Last man standing in pairs.

It's like they don't even care. I've completely stopped playing since CS2 and I hope they can see the metrics of other long-time gamers who also stopped.

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

#417

Post by owisd »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #357
viridian wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually significantly worse now. The video game Roblox alone is awash in tens of thousands of cases of attempted grooming or child endangerment, according to their own metrics, and that's just what they have detected.

This is a parenting issue. The internet doesn’t need training wheels. No offense to those children, but their parents are complete failures.

20+ years ago kids would play out on the street unsupervised with their friends from the neighbourhood from the age of 6-8 and all the adults would look out for each others' kids. It's only recently that everyone's retreated inside onto their screens that all sense of community has been lost and you get comments like this.

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

#418

Post by iotku »

kkukshtel wrote: post #383
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 OP comment itself is funny because Counter Strike itself still has a server browser lol.

The server browser is deliberately hidden, neglected, and full of spam on the modern versions of CS.

It's no longer the "default" way to play, and only a select amount of people get around to using it. Despite a much larger playerbase, there is far less activity than there was in the past.

There's still community servers out there (and niche communities like surf and bhop when still possible), but they're only still around for legacy reasons. If there wasn't any lineage there it would have been removed entirely in GO.

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

#419

Post by pluto_modadic »

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…

what is a server browser? is it like how on disboard you can find discord groups?

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

#420

Post by timeinput »

dfxm12 wrote: post #380
dev0p wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

We used to all have our nice own gardens. If anyone was happening by we might say hello, and invite them in.

It was easy to walk around your neighborhood, and find someone with a nice garden, who was having a garden party. You could present yourself by your handle (which was probably, or at least possibly globally unique), and join in, and maybe have fun at their garden party.

It was difficult to find gardens that you didn't care about.

When you found someone in the "gaming" garden, and then found them again in the "rally driving" garden (and you know they were the same person due to the nearly globally unique handle), it was fun and exciting.

Now there are a handful of giant gardens that I don't really want to go into for the most part. They're owned by old royalty, they're uncomfortable (for me), the only reason the garden owners want me to be there is so that they can make me look at ads, not appreciate the garden. Maybe my friends are there too, but all I see are people yelling about their small section of the (private) garden.

Sure I may still find my old friends in these weird giant gardens, but ben3212 is probably not my friend Ben who happens to have the favorite number 3212.

Hacker News is a relatively "smaller" community that is closer to the old internet.

Also the top streamer on tik tok / youtube shorts / ... are not likely posting here trying to get massive up votes on their content, as there aren't very many ways to monetize having the top post on hacker news, so while this interaction happened on the "current Internet" I know of one or two places like this on the current internet. I used to know of more, and I think I liked that better.

I know this isn't so different than "Also the clouds used to be different. They used to be whiter, and puffier! It was better then!", but here I am.

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