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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

#421

Post by Linkd »

pluto_modadic wrote: post #419
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?

Anything from a simple to filterable list of servers with names and player counts. Most importantly: it gives the player consistent and complete control of their experience vs an auto-match-making algorithm that randomly throws you into lobbies.

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

#422

Post by rimunroe »

nonethewiser wrote: post #370
rimunroe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-Strike was my introduction to actual programming! I learned to write AMX mods to help make administering our servers (banning cheaters and whatnot) mid-match possible without having to interrupt playing to open the console. > I found out there are third party server browsers for CS2 with modded servers. It is so tiny compared to the old days, but they exist. I played around on a couple around a year ago and h…

CS was my intro to programming as well. Although for me it was in a very simplistic form - buy macros. It was something like this in the userconfig.cfg that would load when you start the game: ``` alias "buyak" "buy ak47; buy vesthelm; buy primammo" bind "F1" "buyak" ``` I guess this is more configuration than programming but as a kid it was a significant threshold still. It also delighted me that you could bring up…

The reason I made my mod was that I ran into the limit of how many keybinds I could remember or quickly access, plus I wanted to be able to make dynamic lists of players and whatnot

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

#423

Post by wifipunk »

robin_reala wrote: post #349
viridian wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I love all the maps you mentioned, and could probably sketch their layouts from memory, I think Rust and Nuketown from the call of duty series are probably better known by a wide margin. Rust has been featured in 3 different games that had a combined sales of over 2 billion dollars, but even that is small peanuts compared to Nuketown. Nuketown has been featured in six different games, with 17 total variant…

I’ve played neither Counterstrike nor Call of Duty, but I know de_dust2 by name and can even visualise what it looks like, and I’ve never heard of Rust or Nuketown.

Rust was more of a brawl map than the others. Lots of 1v1 fights, but no where close to the playtime of the other two.

If we count the Nuketown map on Call of Duty mobile (mobile has over a billion downloads) I would have to say that's the winner, but if not de_dust2 is the king. Mirage would also be pretty up there.

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

#424

Post by pxoe »

mervz wrote: post #61
GlobalElite wrote: post #46

I grew up with CS1.6 and spent what must be thousands of hours on it before I turned 18. But I can't stand what Valve did to modern versions of CS. The reason? Gambling. So much fucking gambling everywhere. Other games have lootboxes, I hate them, but they are usually "contained" in the sense that you do not see them in every context surrounding the game. But because CS skins can be traded between players, there is n…

Hate it all you want, but it's the sole reason Counter-Strike still exists today. Without skins, Valve would have shut the door on the game (and quite possibly the company entirely). Skins is literally a money printing machine.

Valve has already pretty much "shut the door" on its games relatively to how much money they have and how much dev effort they could put into it if they actually tried harder, because they're mostly just maintaining their gambling facades (cs/dota2/tf2) and abandoning everything else (l4d2/other stagnant games and ip).

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

#425

Post by zingababba »

jldugger wrote: post #179
zingababba wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't get how dust2 became more popular than the original dust.

Sniper battles from spawn, and no nade hallway of doom?

Yeah just tradeoffs I guess. I mean at one point you could get a kill and buy a mac-10 first round if you were lucky enough.

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

#426

Post by Fuzzwah »

ViktorRay wrote: post #67
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #47

Something that wasn't mentioned in the article is that Counter-Strike spawned the creation of the most iconic FPS map ever: de_dust2. If an FPS supports custom maps, it's inevitable that de_dust2 will get ported to it. There's actually a mini-documentary about the creation of de_dust2 [0] which I think will be of interest to FPS fans. I wonder if de_dust2 is the most played FPS map or if it has been dethroned by some…

Thanks for sharing this! Very interesting! I believe de_dust2 is likely still the most played FPS map. Not sure which other map could have dethroned it. It can’t be Fortnite since Fortnite changes the map every few months and nowadays makes a new one every year or so. I guess Blood Gulch from the time when Halo was super popular was a very popular map as well. Then you also have 2fort from the Team Fortress games. Bu…

I pine for a time pre-CS, pre-QWTF when dm4 would have been top dog in the most played map.

We probably had more fun on death32c though.

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

#428

Post by retrocog »

armada651 wrote: post #296
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…

There's a name for this phenomenon, it's called the Eternal September: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

Never heard of that until now so thank you so much for sharing!

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

#429

Post by shdh »

cynic_ wrote: post #379
bashwizard wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is a silly take. You're comparing apples and oranges.

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

#430

Post by HaZeust »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #190
HaZeust wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Server Browsers make sense in a world in which members of the community are self-hosting their own infrastructure for others to play on. While a great way to build community, it can be a problem when it comes to player retention and competitive mechanics." This just isn't true. The average TF2 player had 3K hours long before any official matchmaking was introduced, and UGC (TF2) and FACEIT (CSGO) were their own ren…

The number to measure wouldnt be average playtime but monthly active users

Both are valid KPIs to measure, “player retention.”
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