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Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ezekg 1y agoAnybody got a working archive link?
- slater 1y agohttps://archive.ph/g049r https://archive.ph/g049r
- urda 1y agoGift Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/arts/counter-strike-half-life-minh-le.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fE8.ALz-.zVGDkw-_41_N&smid=re-share https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/arts/counter-strike-half-...
- k0ns0l 1y agoty
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ViktorRay 1y agoI’m glad Valve never sold out with Counter Strike. The game still has that raw brutal aesthetic that works so well with the gameplay. It’s a big part of the reason the game feels the way it does. Other games have lots of wacky skins and stuff but the Counter Strike games never had that and hopefully never will. Some of the unofficial servers are pretty wacky which is fine as they are unofficial.
- dominick-cc 1y agoNewer versions of counterstrike have skins/loot boxes
- ViktorRay 1y agoYes but they aren’t wacky or silly
- sitzkrieg 1y agoumm... have you seen them lately?
- coldfoundry 1y agoHonestly, I’ll take what CS2 is giving any day of the week over the Bevis and Butthead/Nikki Minaj/Terminator anime laser skins that call of duty has been putting out lately. At least they stick to the standardized models.
- mrguyorama 1y agoInstead they are a transparent system that enables literal children to get addicted to gambling and valve takes a cut of every payout and they are well aware of this. CS is not a billion dollar game. CS is a fairly unprofitable game with a giant tumor of a marketplace attached, a significant point of which is being a faux currency that escapes most currency controls
- nsilvestri 1y ago"Fairly unprofitable [if you ignore all the parts that generate revenue.]" I will admit that gambling $0.16 in skins on pro matches when I was 15 was a lot of fun. Maybe I'm lucky to have gotten away (relatively) unscathed, but I do have a little nostalgia for those days.
- snapcaster 1y ago
- alexjplant 1y agoI 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 without DLC meant that people got good at it on their own merit without worrying about dropping money on upgrades or grinding long hours to get drops or whatever. Maybe I'm old but I feel as though there's still a place for shooters of this nature. Every time I hear about new seasons dropping for some ultra-popular game I lose interest; I've no desire to keep up with the evolution of a game coordinated by a billion-dollar company to extract money from my wallet after I already paid for it.
- Insanity 1y agoModding and mapping were what made CS great in my opinion. Since CS:GO, Valve has been quietly killing that scene by making it harder and harder for people to find these game modes. But to be honest, I think it's an artifact of our (or at least my) generation. I've played CS for thousands of hours, same with l4d and cod2/4, and I don't _need_ a battle pass, seasons, constant updates etc. Though when chatting with my ~14 year younger cousin about this some months ago, he said it'd be "boring to play a game that doesn't get updates". So.. different times :)
- Loudergood 1y agoThe disappearance of the ability to run your own Dedicated Server is a real tragedy.
- Insanity 1y agoAhh, I started playing CS back in 2004. I go back to it every year for a few weeks / months, but the latest iteration (CS2) leaves some things to be desired from the 'community server' perspective. No good surf ("TDM") style games anymore, seems like that game mode has mainly died in favour of the timed surf game-mode. So now I stick to the 'vanilla' game much more, but without a group of friends that plays regularly, it's a bit of a frustrating experience at times.
- Simulacra 1y agoI can't quit, it's the only game I love but my hands are getting old.
- newsclues 1y agoYeah, I started playing it on vacation in a German lan cafe. Came back to Canada and asked EB games for a copy but they didn’t know what counter strike was, and I didn’t understand that it was a mod for half life
- angrydev 1y agoYeah I dabbled with the “competitive” play in 1.6 back in the day when it was finding matches on irc but most of my fun came from the communities I played with consistently. Maybe you can find these in some form but it’s not what most people are talking about these days if they say they “play counter strike”. I don’t really like the seriousness of ranked play so I never got back into it.
- sfn42 1y ago> I don’t really like the seriousness of ranked play I see a lot of people say this type of thing and it's strange to me beause it doesn't have to be serious. You can do whatever you want within reason, as long as you're not griefing or something. I have a group of friends who I play Overwatch 2 with occasionally, but they always insist on playing quick play instead of ranked and especially in that game quick play is just worse. Rankings are just a way to match you with people of roughly equal skill, you don't have to chase a higher rank all the time. I actually like losing ranks because it just means I'll have an easier time for a while until I go back to where I start struggling. Meanwhile I see others get legitimately emotional about dropping a rank and I just don't get it. Relax, it's just a game. We're not playing for money or fame or anything. If you're really at a level where money and fame is on the table you probably don't care about your matchmaking rank anyway.
- hackitup7 1y agoSo many great memories growing up playing this game decades ago, but you can still pick it up and have a blast. Counterstrike is a great example of a simplistic concept executed flawlessly, in a way that a lot of modern games choose not to match. It's the video game equivalent of soccer or beer pong, you can pick it up in 10 minutes and play forever.
- princevegeta89 1y agoRecently I stumbled upon an online port of CS 1.6, called play-cs.com. It's just great - exactly the same game and works very smooth in a browser. I played it briefly for a few months and was happy I was able to get into the top rankings overall. Just sharing it here if anyone wants to try it out.
- roflchoppa 1y agoDude i love play-cs, I feel like there is a slight lag in the browser compared to the native app that I was playing on Windows back in the day... maybe i gotta switch over to Chrome from FF.
- Loudergood 1y agoTimely, I was just wondering yesterday (as I was launching the BF6 beta) if there was a current FPS with a mod scene like we had for Half Life and BF 1942. I can't seem to find anything.
- redwall_hp 1y agoThe conclusion I came to is that this is due to the availability of game engines and game distribution, which have made modding pointless. Why expend countless hours building a game mode for someone else's game, in a world where that has copyright implications, when you can just build your own game? The indie scene blew up, modding is less popular.
- justinrubek 1y agoEven if you get by the legal implications, you still have to deal with building a sandcastle on a surface that wasn't designed for it. Yes, that has always been the case to varying degrees, but I think it can make a big difference, too. Factorio has a good modding scene, and it's in part because it was wholly and intentionally embraced by the developers in their engine design.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoModding is hugely poplar in RPGs like Skyrim and Baldurs Gate.
- angrydev 1y agoA very real impact was that modders got hired for their work. So there are less around from that generation that made literally free games for fun.
- Rohansi 1y agoModding is a lot more approachable than making a whole new game. The only issue is most games aren't moddable. Some people still try to mod games that don't support modding and that's where you're likely to run into copyright issues.
- lbrito 1y agoThe background video looks like an AI video for "generate a video of Counter Strike 1.4 gameplay" Fond memories of 1.4 and 1.5, when it was still a Half-Life mod.
- zedascouves 1y agoI Started with actionquake (aq2). check it out. Minh “Gooseman” Le, one of CS’s creators, was a fan of AQ2. Counter-Strike (first released in June 1999 as a Half-Life mod) built on AQ2’s ideas but refined them with better hitboxes, buy menus, maps, and more tactical pacing. AQ2 is often described as “the bridge between Quake and Counter-Strike”.
- dtjohnnymonkey 1y agoAQ2 was such a fun mod. It's been a while since I played, but if I recall you could some real John-Woo style moves as if you are in an action movie. The article says that Le created it though: Two years later he created Action Quake 2, a fast-paced game inspired by “Die Hard”
- Melatonic 1y agoSo many good mods back then - "the specialists" I remember being particularly fun as well
- jameslk 1y agoTS was severely underrated. I think it was inspired by Action HL, which of course I can only imagine was inspired by Action Quake. There were so many good ones though, like Natural Selection, Sven Coop, Firearms. It was incredible the quality of mods that were available, all for free
- joncrocks 1y agoAh, I just Ctrl-F-ed to see if anyone else had mentioned. That mod was a little mad!
- xatxat 1y agoThe AQ2 community perceived CS as way too slow though. No wonder when you are used to strafe jumping through team jungle and urban :-)
- Marazan 1y agoI loved aq2 so much, just an incredible mod with so many gaming moments seared in my memories. Leaping off the cliff on "cliff" straight through the hatch in the cable car breaking my legs but right next to my opponent and blasting him with the double barrelled shotgun as they turned round. Classic .
- Melatonic 1y ago1.5 was peak CS in my opinion. No shield bullshit and massive amounts of customization and maps and servers. as_oilrig ftw
- ToDougie 1y agoUsed to play CS1.6 for 30-40 hours a week in a DFW-based server called A Better Place to Play. Every time as_oilrig showed up in the rotation, people would scramble to join me on the CTs. We had so many great strategies, we could win almost every round. (And mind you this was a 32-person pub.) Greatest of times, and only possible because the server had a dedicated community and our clan was meticulous. Also there were some killer WC3 mod servers out there. My goodness the fun that was had....
- Melatonic 1y agoThe AS and CS game modes were a bit janky and I believe included in the very first versions (or early on). I started playing way before 1.0 and I think they just fell out of favor because of that. A solid VIP game though was a blast !
- Nemi 1y ago1.5, where pulling the knife made you run faster. I really missed that when they removed it. Pulling the knife in CQC when you emptied your clip was a valid strategy before they changed it to keep the run speed the same in laster versions.
- jccalhoun 1y agojeepathon2k was peak CS. Seriously though, I miss the VIP and hostage rescue modes. I guess hostage rescue is still there but hardly played.
- hed 1y agoI loved coming home from curfew in HS and firing up the server browser to find a 24+ person as_oilrig. Such a fun time
- dvno42 1y ago
- Simulacra 1y agoMy favorite game. It has singularly kept me fully entertained for 11 years.
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- simlevesque 1y agoHeads 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.
- number6 1y agoThat's already over ten years ago... Wow CS:GO is still the new CS for me, that never catched on and everybody played 1.6
- simlevesque 1y agoIt's a new game now, CS2. CS:GO isn't accessible anymore. But the loot carried on to the new game.
- piperswe 1y agoYou can still access CS:GO, by selecting the "csgo_legacy" beta on CS2
- emsixteen 1y agoSource was the game that never really grabbed the 1.6 playerbase, moreso than 1.6.
- ManlyBread 1y agoI was looking forward towards the Classic Offensive mod but then Valve DMCA'd it just a few days before the release. Awful move considering that not only they've okayed it before but also completely ignored the developers when they were trying to contact them. 8 years of development for nothing.
- andrepd 1y agoValve gets away with murder for some reason even though the "gAMeR" community loves to get the pitchforks out for several minor controversies per month.
- EamonnMR 1y agoGotta be a sunk cost thing right?
- wiredpancake 1y agoNo. Valve explicitly says you cannot use that version of the Source SDK to make games on Steam, yet Classic Offensive did just that and subsequently got blocked for it. Play by the rules and you can public just about anything you want mod-wise for Source. There is no company that comes close to allowing the sheer content and modability than Valve. They literally give you a full SDK, near full editor tools for both Source 1 and Source 2. Ability to publish games using some of these tools and for free, host the Steam Workshop and its likely PB's of modded content. I don't see Activision given rights and modability to CoD Games, they DMCA instantly. I don't see EA/Dice letting people use the Frostbite engine.
- GlobalElite 1y agoI 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 now an entire third party ecosystem for skin trading and worse, skin gambling. Lootboxes inside lootboxes. And now it feels like every CS YouTuber, streamer and even teams at lower tiers is sponsored by a skin casino. I remember dropping into a stream of a professional player only to watch him throw $500 (God knows where the money comes from) away playing what is basically a CS skin roulette. WTF. And there is also the typical sports gambling shit. HLTV the main news source of the pro CS scene is full of gambling ads. Higher tier tournaments often give a segment to gambling people talking about odds between matches. And as you would expect in a scene with rampant gambling there is match fixing. The serious media and the authorities will not look into it because esports is not serious stuff, but people know it’s there. Whenever you see a tier 2 team throw a most winnable match in the weirdest fashion you can see a stream of Twitch chat messages calling it rigged. People know but nothing will be done against it. Check out Richard Lewis if you want more information on that. https://richardlewis.substack.com/p/prologue-no-one-really-cares-about https://richardlewis.substack.com/p/prologue-no-one-really-c... I would love to see a modern shooter with nice graphics and self hostable servers in the same niche as the old CS. But all we got is Valorant and its kernel spyware (oops I mean anticheat). Guess I should just keep player CS1.6 until I die shrug
- pityJuke 1y ago> I would love to see a modern shooter with nice graphics and self hostable servers in the same niche as the old CS. I mean, that is still CS: you want one without gambling (which is reasonable!)
- stillthat 1y ago#priming Uhm, wow. Most winnable matches often enough end when the drugs wear off for hundreds of reasons. You are looking at it from the wrong angle. From what I have seen, it's rarely a whole team that fucks up while winning. Also: often enough: they don't seem to be aware of the pattern that just occurred in their brains (are not, as far as I learned from Paul E.). I believe these kids are put on drugs without consent. I have no proof, of course. I noticed it first in soccer back in '16, I think. Which surprised me because it was not boxing or wrestling or the UFC, where such things are the standard.
- TheAceOfHearts 1y agoSomething 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 something like Fortnite or some other shooter map. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWWhxfGq_yk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWWhxfGq_yk
- 1-6 1y agoI can't recount how many times I've bunny hopped out of spawning on de_dust2. I'm pretty certain that there are modern FPS's that have gotten inspiration from that legendary map.
- ViktorRay 1y agoThanks 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. But yes I would say de_dust2 is very likely still the most played FPS map and it will likely stay that way.
- spacecadet 1y agoYeah 2fort damn, servers been running 2fort only games 24/7 for decades...
- slickytail 1y ago[dead]
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoFY_iceworld maybe, if we count number of rounds played?
- pityJuke 1y ago> At the end of June, Le was asked to join a handful of professional gamers onstage for a round of Counter-Strike at a game conference in Austin, Texas. Conference isn't really the right term here: it's more equivalent to a sports tournament (it was the BLAST Austin Major, with a $1.2 million prize pool). Also, round is confusing given the dual usage, he played for an entire showmatch.
- scheisshausDan 1y ago[flagged]
- jameslk 1y ago> After several other versions, Valve released Counter-Strike 2 in 2023 without Le’s direct handiwork. This is closest the article gets to mentioning css and csgo. Both of those games were like 90% of my teens Lots of history glossed over. Like the maps and plugins/addons. The mappers were legends in their own right
- thinkingQueen 1y agoBeta 5.2 was when I had the best time with Counter-Strike. de_dust with a Colt was fun. Never forget the AWP snipers lurking near the big front door in cs_assault. There were some weird maps like cs_siege — I think it had some sort of a moving vehicle there somewhere in a tunnel.
- 2w3e4r 1y agoi started beta 6 but i remember on siege i managed to get the APC stuck in the elevator located in the mining cave - i was a legend that day
- rimunroe 1y agoI 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. Without a small community it becomes much harder to ensure you're not playing with people who make the game less fun by whatever metric you care about. I used to be an admin on a group of about 18 or so connected Counter-Strike 1.6 servers called T3Houston*. We ran modified versions of various Warcraft 3 mods which added persistent XP/leveling, as well as integration with an external item store and player database the owner maintained. Most of those servers were filled to the brim during peak US gaming times, and our forum was quite active. There aren't many games these days where you could do something like that. I discovered the community because one day I was just looking for a server with open slots for me to join. I was fairly skeptical of whatever a Warcraft mod would be like, but ended up enjoying it so I added it to my favorites. Eventually I got to know the regulars and joined the forum. Notably, the place felt far less toxic than the average server I'd join back then. I can completely believe this is just me looking at the past through rose tinted glasses, but it feels like the general toxicity has gotten worse at the same time as we've lost a lot of tools to manage it. * If anyone else here remembers the name T3Houston: hi! I'm Stealth Penguin
- spacecadet 1y agoI was involved with the Quake/HL modding community in the late 90s and I fully agree! I hate matchmaking, but I get it too... but nothing compares to finding that dedicated server and joining regularly until you notice other regulars, and then you have friends... Shout out to #PVK and #Mastersword, great mods that had awesome dedicated server based communities.
- ToDougie 1y agoPlayed an insane amount of WC3 mod with you guys. Thank you for all the memories.
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- daviding 1y agoI had a mild addiction to this game about 7 or so years ago. Purely casual but lots of hours. I found it sort of a stress relief. On the upside it gave me all sorts of free items as in-game 'drops'. I ignored them all at the time as didn't care about buying keys or cosmetics. Last year I saw that they'll worth a bunch of money now (!) and had about $1500 if sold on the steam marketplace. I got a Steam Deck with money from some of them, and it's basically my C:S 401k for steam games. What a weird world.
- hvgenrbrbdh 1y agoI feel like a modern CS1.6 clone that is open-source, community run servers (only), no match-making, modable by design, could actually work. Even in 2025. Just needs some internet meme magic and a few dedicated devs
- IncreasePosts 1y agoThe problem with mods is that there will be a million different mods with a million different rules A million different levels and behaviors, and you won't get good traction on any any specific style of gameplay, and people will not keep coming back.
- zokier 1y agoThere is not only one but actually two separate CS 1.6 recreation projects floating around. CS: Legacy and Classic Offensive
- ethan_smith 1y agoCheck out "CS2D" - it's exactly what you're describing and has been running successfully for years with an active community and regular updates.
- Thedarkb 1y agoCS 1.5 has been clean room re-implemented GPL Quake engine, just need assets to make a fully free Counter-Strike. https://github.com/eukara/freecs https://github.com/eukara/freecs
- tpae 1y agoI 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!
- softwaredoug 1y agoI used to do homework while waiting for the next round to start. Homework, round, homework, round. The game was perfect for a few minutes of excitement than enough time to solve the next math problem. I don’t know but it was less intimidating than trying to focus JUST on the homework. It’s always made me wonder if there are kinds of multitasking that actually work to overcome the when to work feels intimidating.
- PicassoCTs 1y agoCounter-strike is a industry nightmare. Endless fun, with almost no need for upgrades, hat-sales etc. A game like that eats int a whole industries subsections revenue for years and years.
- skeaker 1y agoI can't really agree. If you mean specifically the tac FPS industry, similar games have since broken through and do plenty well, such as Valorant. If you mean the games industry in general, CS isn't really relevant to its current state in the grand scheme.
- PicassoCTs 1y agoYes, it is not relevant for the larger industry. But minecraft for example is.
- wiredpancake 1y agoHow can you honestly say bullshit like that, fuck me. It is the most played game on Steam at basically every hour of the day, without fail and has been like that for a decade. It is one of the most popular games on Twitch and has been for almost a decade. It is one of the biggest eSports in the world and is the most globally diverse eSport.
- charcircuit 1y ago>It is the most played game on Steam at basically every hour of the day It is currently at 185th place. You are probably thinking of Counter Strike 2 which is a different game full of microtransactions and gambling which is what the grandparent comment was saying Counter Strike didn't have. Gacha is the strategy in the gaming industry that makes the most money.
- cush 1y agoIt's just a platform to allow children to gamble at this point
- reilly3000 1y agoIt’s survived a generation and I really enjoy playing it with my kids. Even though they can run circles around me with their reaction times, I still can win on strats sometimes. Good times.
- halfcat 1y agoIn late 2000 or early 2001 I got into CS with some guys in Austin. Our leader knew some other clan’s leader, and we scrimmaged against them every week for a while. I thought I was decent, but, damn…this other clan destroyed us every time. I start following the CS leagues, CAL, RiTD, STA, CPL, and look at that…there’s this clan we scrimmaged every week: CK3 So that was my intro to competitive gaming, unknowingly playing one of the best clans in the world.
- baby 1y agoObligatory: https://cryptologie.net/posts/some-unrelated-rambling-about-counter-strike/ https://cryptologie.net/posts/some-unrelated-rambling-about-...
- nutribueno 1y ago> I never had any experience come close to it since then, and miss competition dearly. This person hasn't seen competition. Take Starcraft on ICCup for example. CS/DoD where you can rely on others for team games are much easier psychologically than a one-on-one duel where it's just you and nobody else but you to fuck things up.
- dkga 1y agoGod I miss playing CS all night long in a LAN house with my friends, and then exiting at 06:00 and going all of us to a type of Brazilian bakery (padaria) to eat freshly-baked bread with butter and a cup of coffee…
- insane_dreamer 1y agoStill remember playing CS1.5/1.6 with my friends in early 2000s. Haven't gamed like that since then. Good times. Now everything is set up for money-grabbing. There's sadly nothing quite as good these days for my kids to play.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoI 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, which wasn't fun at all (for me, at the time). I didn't want to simulate anything, I want(ed) chaos, instant respawn, lightning reflexes, constant motion. Maybe I do have ADHD. CS has stood the test of time though, so respect for that.
- emsixteen 1y agoFor 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.
- keyringlight 1y agoThe 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
- bashwizard 1y agoYou 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 patience. Got to respect that. Quake requires more skill btw.
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- black_13 1y ago[dead]
- SirMaster 1y agoAnd I still play CS2 all the time. Great game.
- scudsworth 1y agowow. the new york times, writing about counter strike. i dont know if i've ever seen a more powerful no click zone
- b8 1y agoI started playing CS:GO back in 2013 and it was a lot of fun. I played nothing except de_dust_2 and sometimes mirage. It was a big leap from BF and CoD.
- crossroadsguy 1y agoEven today I sometimes yearn for those good old days of CS 1.6. CS was never the same again after that. Until 2022 I played it. Then on Apple Silicon macs somehow I never got it work, besides I doubt anyone would be playing 1.6 anymore. I did try in browser couple of times but the links I got were riddled with popups and I am sure malware. Thanks for all the shots, CS. Among og, de_aztec was my favourite map, but somehow ended up playing de_inferno and villa piranesi the most. But the real fun was the go bonkers world of custom and modded maps.
- slickytail 1y ago[dead]
- sub7 1y agoI've played the WCG finals in Counterstrike 1.3 and what they've done to CS with the skin economy is tragic. The game got big because it was lightweight and accurate - a guy with better aim and low latency could take out 5-6 people on an opposing team with good strategy. Today the hitbox and damage taken is all dependent on things that do not include aim i.e. if you're one game away from losing, you will likely hit jumping pistol headshots across a map and if you're 4 v 1 trying to close a round, the first person to engage will likely die and you will win with 2 or 3 left standing. You're basically playing an RPG and paying Steam to make it look pretty. Good for Valve stock, bad for gaming
- mullsork 1y ago> Today the hitbox and damage taken is all dependent on things that do not include aim i.e. if you're one game away from losing, you will likely hit jumping pistol headshots across a map and if you're 4 v 1 trying to close a round, the first person to engage will likely die and you will win with 2 or 3 left standing. What? Who told you this?
- Hikikomori 1y agoThis is just not true.
- TimByte 1y agoWild to think one of the most influential shooters of all time started as a dorm room mod. And love that Valve didn't crush the mod but embraced it
- enahs-sf 1y agoStay up late playing Scoutzknivez low gravity A youth so well spent
- npteljes 1y agoIt seems like many Valve classics began as mods. Team Fortress and Dota also saw the light first as mods.
- gethly 1y agoGood times. I think my first CS was 1.0 beta. I played thousands of hours of this game, even seriously considered going pro back in the day, haha. Well, i was actually on that route, not just considering it - i was actually doing it. Clan wars, tournaments, lan parties...yeah, it was great. Though looking back, I think they killed the joy for me with version 1.6 where the guns started firing all over the place and precision became more of a random thing than anything else, unlike previous versions. I never understood the newer versions, like Condition Zero, Source and others. They look nothing like the original CS and played differently as well. Anyway, good times :)
- Tade0 1y agoMy first experience with CS was in early grade school back when it was just a Half-Life mod along with Team Fortress Classic - both broadly available in internet cafes. Connection speed an ping was absolutely terrible back then, so I didn't really get into it.
- gethly 1y agoYeah, man. The golden era of the internet when only nerds like us were online :)
- 0xbadcafebee 1y agoI have fond memories of CS, but I have more memories of the cheats making it miserable to play. Perhaps it was a good thing, as it drove me to find more mods and alternative games. Q3:RA and Q3:UT became my happy place, as well as DoD and others. I played newer games but they never felt as fun.
- colkassad 1y agoI loved Urban Terror and Rocket Arena! Rocket Arena was definitely old school, I think I started playing that in '96 or '97 (the Quake 2 version).
- meehai 1y agoI'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 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 great time and I feel that I can always run this game and get back to that childhood feeling.
- fleebee 1y agoNow 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.
- sfn42 1y agoI played thousands of hours of KZ in CSGO. I knew pretty much everyone in the community back then, was involved with House of Climb as a sort of crew member/moderator and set a couple world records and top 5 times etc. Those were great times, but all the strafing caused some shoulder and arm problems so I eventually gave it up and moved on.
- Pinegulf 1y agohttps://archive.is/nzEEG https://archive.is/nzEEG
- avipars 1y agohttps://archive.md/nzEEG https://archive.md/nzEEG
- k0ns0l 1y agowhat's with the sign-in to read (nytimes) article?! :(
- fantasy4z 1y agoI can somewhat relate as the creator of fy_iceworld (if you believe). The one who commented on the Rock Paper Shotgun article. The quote from the NY Times article, "it allows amateurs to add imagination with limited resources." is exactly what I was feeling at that time. I knew nothing about programming, had minimal art skills, but was able to create CS maps. It makes me nostalgic and wonder, "What if I started making a mod or a game today?" I really miss those golden days of modding.
- colkassad 1y agoNice to see someone similar. I was into the Weapons Factory mod, first for Quake 2 and then Quake 3. I made a map for the Quake 3 version that it still played this day by a small group of die-hards. I think it took me three days to make that map. Draw a brush, slap a texture on it, keep things neat. All there was too it. It wasn't long before modding just became too hard. I remember reading about static meshes being introduced in the Unreal Engine and I knew I was done.
- therealdrag0 1y agoNice! Iceworld was a classic at my LAN parties. Great design for fast action. (Interestingly now you mention it I realize one of the call of duty MW2 multiplayer maps has the same layout).
- ceedan 1y agoShout out to GotFrag
- Oceoss 1y agoCounter Strike is legendary. I spent so many hours playing with friends. That's when I developed my reflexes the most. Games are sometimes an overlooked way of training your mind while having fun
- pyrale 1y agoMore than just counter-strike, HL's modding system spawned a generation of new games: team fortress, day of defeat, Sven co-op, echoes, ricochet, etc. Several of them were good enough for Valve to ship them into later editions of HL, and Valve's experience shipping other people's games definitely helped them make Steam what it is today.
- ge96 1y agoI think it's crazy they sell skins for like a knife and it costs $2,000.00 dang.
- footlose_3815 1y agoIn 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.
- ferguess_k 1y agoI was very into the HL mod scene back in the day (as a player) and chatted extensively on IRC with makers. I was focused on single player mods and Neil Manke was my fav HL1 modder. Unfortunately his HL2 mod never got released.
- colkassad 1y agoI loved the mods for the holy trifecta: Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and Half Life. I consider it the golden age of online gaming. I also spent a lot of time on IRC servers chatting with developers (eventually joining a team myself which lead me to my current career as a developer). My favorite was for Weapons Factory, which was a popular Quake 2 mod at the time. The old dev team moved on with their lives so the community took over...and it was actually released and was even better than the first. High quality, with tons of cool maps, and for an active community of maybe 1000 people? Insane.
- ferguess_k 1y ago> I consider it the golden age of online gaming Yeah exactly, and the golden age of modding, at least for FPS games. In a few years the engine evolves to something so advanced that only professionals can work on them. I consider HL2 the last moddable engine by the commoners. After that you gotta be a professional or someone with the patience of a saint to mod an FPS engine. And nowadays they mostly use UE and Unity anyway. Only some of the boomer shooters are moddable.
- mistat 1y agoiPGN!
- aaronsung 1y agoFull article: https://archive.is/g049r https://archive.is/g049r
- khernandezrt 1y agoI met most of the people that inspired me to continue programming on the CS:S bunny hop servers. This game will forever be close to my heart.