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For the uninitiated, CPL stands for Cyberathelete Professional League. This story is about the recent competition (indeed, world championship) for the uber popular Half-Life modification, CounterStrike.

I'm mostly involved in the Half-Life mod scene, though I can reccomend a few I've played for UT. Planet Half-Life is the best place to go for information on mods for Half-Life. A few mods I would suggest for Half-Life would be Front Line Force, Team Fortress Classic (which comes free with Half-Life), or the most popular online game in the world (its very highly rated, though I don't care for the gameplay style, basically team death match) Counter-Strike.

For Unreal Tornament, check out Infiltration or Strike Force. For a list of mods and general Unreal news check out Planet Unreal.

I have heard many good things about various Q3 mods, but I have yet to play any of them so someone else would probably be better answering this one.

I agree with you on many of those counts, but the issue is still you or me.

I don't have driver problems all the time, and I don't get error messages when I install my games. I too, like to play games sometimes for only 5 or 10 minutes, so I play:

Quake 3 Arena

CounterStrike

Ghost Recon

And for the kids we like:

Nick Jr.

PBS

Now I can image when my son outgrows those sites, he might be ready for a console. No one has really made that point here- they all cite drivers issues, error messages, etc. But my point is that many people may be buying into marketing and thinking they somehow need a console.

It occurs to me that a real terrorist would be using elaborately hidden, near-undetectable codeword systems about now. Counterstrike players, on the other hand, will cheerfully keep talking about terrorists with AK-47s planting bombs, taking hostages and assassinating the President... I wonder how the Carnivore operators cope with that one?

Seeing that CounterStrike has the largest online community, killing both Q3 and UT communities, and that quality mods are still coming out of Halflife, wouldn't it be smarter to target the bigger audience??

Games do not need a GeForce 3 of any race in my experience. I have a GeForce 2 MX (the cheapo one) and an Athlon 850 and have had no slow-downs at all.

First, almost all on-line 3D gaming is Half-Life mods such as Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike (and the under-rated GlobalWarFare) as most of you probably know. I get a solid 60 frames per second, no matter how many explosions or close-up models. (I use OpenGL. There seems to be a quirk with close-up models and DirectX.)

I cannot speak for on-line RPG gamers, but I assume they are sitting pretty as well.

The most detail rich, awe-inspring, gorgeous game I have played in over a year was Serious Sam (which only costs $20 and don't let the cheap price fool you. It is great!) This game has pool reflections on the walls around the pool and in the pool, glowing monsters, lens flares, dusty light rays and a portal showing another world with waving flags all at once! I have had in excess of 50 monsters on screen chasing me down. (Yahooooo!) My set-up plays it flawlessly. (Also, I tried it on a P3 600 Mhz with a GeForce (1) and it stuttered.)

If I haven't made my counter-point, it's that these new cards are fine, but not the next level that may be needed once a new generation of games come out (if ever). Having worked in 3D graphics, my feeling is that most of the tricks from research have finally been used up and it will take a new generation of crack programmers to get much farther, like the good ol' days. So, until then, have fun with a GeForce 2 (or equivalent) and an Athlon 850 (or equivalent)!

I'm a student and part time web designer. The advantage to this is that I work for myself and can play all the Counterstrike I like when I get bored. The downside is that I haven't been paid any actual currency yet, and my school won't let me have a kool designer goatee beard.

er0ck asked:
"If you are you forced (as I am) to get your fun on the side what are some good projects to get involved in?"

I think the best thing to do is to get a job doing something you like doing, or get paid lots of money for. When you can get both, it's an added bonus. The best kind of project to get involved with is something you find interesting, and something you're good at. It really depends what kind of job you've got and what projects are available.

Failing that, get a job that pays more money. Eventually you'll be promoted to a millionare cushy desk job, Bill Gates-like, and will be able to play Counterstrike and Team Fortress all day. See you there.

er0ck also asked, "What do you to unwind and have a bit of 'fun' in the workplace?"

That's easy. Pretend you're working and play Team Fortress a lot. :)

I'm a student and part time web designer. The advantage to this is that I work for myself and can play all the Counterstrike I like when I get bored. The downside is that I haven't been paid any actual currency yet, and my school won't let me have a kool designer goatee beard.

er0ck asked:
"If you are you forced (as I am) to get your fun on the side what are some good projects to get involved in?"

I think the best thing to do is to get a job doing something you like doing, or get paid lots of money for. When you can get both, it's an added bonus. The best kind of project to get involved with is something you find interesting, and something you're good at. It really depends what kind of job you've got and what projects are available.

Failing that, get a job that pays more money. Eventually you'll be promoted to a millionare cushy desk job, Bill Gates-like, and will be able to play Counterstrike and Team Fortress all day. See you there.

er0ck also asked, "What do you to unwind and have a bit of 'fun' in the workplace?"

That's easy. Pretend you're working and play Team Fortress a lot. :)

When I think about what makes a a particular game fun to play, I think very little of the storyline. For most of the FPS games that people play nowadays, the storyline is just something we notice taking up space on the screen while waiting to connect to a multiplayer server. We'll take halflife for example. The reason the original halflife game didn't flourish was because of the story line getting in the way of the gameplay. It seemed every 5 minutes you would have to stop and wait for a character to talk to you for information on how do complete the mission. But if you look at all of the sucessful halflife mods out there (counterstrike, firearms, paintball), It shows that the creation of the halflife engine was a great success, and that is why halflife was game of the year for the past few years. So depending on the target audience, games with really strong storylines dont fly well with the FPS game movement.

http://www.counter-strike.net

Bots are your friends, dude. I've been playing Counter-Strike for a while using RealBot when I want a quick game for practice.
--
PaxTech

One of my friends is a Counter Strike fan, plays in clans, plays clan/league/practice matches. These guys are good, and watching a clan match is really alot of fun. They actually have IRC bots, which can broadcast an entire game in text (ie. "-LaMer killed John. -LaMer threw granade" etc.) Supposedly several 1000 ppl 'view' the most interesting matches on IRC this way already.

You can actually download high profile matches, and run them under CS, just to view what went on. Demo Player and matches here.

But this is just the beginninge.... think: watching the Quake finals at home with your friends... or Game Bars broadcasting the European CS finals! With pro sports commentators! And beer!

-Kraft

-Kraft

From someone who was raised Adventist, lives in Indiana, and is currently a hopeless Counterstrike addict :) this article definitely caught my eye. Ashcroft isn't an Adventist. He's an Assemblies of God member

Umm... no. There should be no confusion about the difference between permutations of the following (CS degree/no degree | hacker/cracker | self-taught/schooled). Just because people gravitate toward where the money is doesn't mean all geeks are equal. CS degreed geeks are certified geeks! CS degreed geeks are assumed to have intimate knowledge of computers at every level of detail; down to where the Physicists and Material Scientists take over. That's the whole idea behind accredited engineering degree programs. That's why I switched majors from CS to CSE
That's Computer Science.
NOT:

• CounterStrike
• a 6-week seminar, were everyone gets an "A"
• a For-Dummies (TM) book
• something you can find in a cereal box
• a Napster(TM) download

I know that people need something to pay the bills; so IT/Computer-related work seems to be the quick and easy solution. Pretty soon, geek jobs won't be cool and the mainstream (and money) will shift. I don't care, I'm in for the long-haul.

School is really my plan to avoid work. Maybe I should get into research! Then, I won't have to produce anything of marketable value!

Is there any chance they'll port halflife so i can play counter strike in unix? :>
©o,,o©©o,,o©©©o,

Well, it's worth maybe ... 25 bucks a year. If PA were a monthly magazine, with everything it has in it, I would probably subscribe for that much. On the other hand, it works so much better as a web site.
PA introduced me to CounterStrike. Though this has largely been regarded as a poor move in my wife's mind, my friends and I are pretty happy about it. Not to mention Bejeweled! And this great comic, which still elicits laughter.
Heck, I used to pay 30 bucks a year for PC Gamer, and it sucked. And it was chock full of ads. At PA, there are no ads. It's just great content, seemingly tailor-made for my consumption.

Should PA be their full time job?

Why shouldn't it be? If they're good enough at what they do, and the economy can support them, why not?

I've gotta say, I wouldn't really call myself a gamer.

I'd much rather spend my spare time driving my car, hacking something apart, or putting something together (hardware or software - doesn't matter to me, same level of enjoyment). In fact the only reason I bought a 3D video card with 16MB of ram was cause my old 2D card died, and I had a $200 (australian) gift coucher for the local computer superstore.

...

That was ofcourse, untill I played counter strike. This has to be one of the best FPS I've played ever. I'm constantly amazed at the clarity of play capable over a 56K dial up internet connection.

When i first jumped on, it was like the feeling I got the first time on IRC, talking with peopl from a different world. Except on a higher level. THis time I was working with people asa a team to to kill other people.

The fact that there was limited aural (ie direct spoken or typed messages) communication made the experience even better. It was like in real life skirmishes, you have to know the signs and what they mean, as well as applyiong a little intuition.

That was my rant about networked games any. I just gotta say because of Counter Strike I haven't touched my 3 month old PS2 in 4 weeks.

I might also add that many very popular mods are also freely available.

It's all there including maps of terrorist bombing targets and hostage locations!

Emulated Half-Life

plus

Counter-Strike!

The number 1 multiplayer fps runs under Linux!

My current gaming addiction is Counter-Strike - undoubtedly the most popular and IMHO the best online FPS in existence.

For sheer time wasting I would probably nominate Warcraft in its various incarnations, and before that Doom.

... my latency on Counter-Strike is awesome!

I'll teach them razzafrazzit LPBs...

Jay (=

Um, I'm pretty sure Half Life *was* ported, and has been for a while. There are a LOT of Linux-based Counter-Strike servers.

Right now, I don't see any PSX2 titles I would want to buy. In November, Star Wars: Star Fighter will be released and I'd have to wait til 2001 Q1 for the game I truly desire...Gran Turismo 3.

BTW:

I have a friend who got two PSX2 and he plans to sell one for $1000+ on eBay. He waited in line for eight hours so if you break it down, he got paid $80/hour to wait for PSX2. That's not bad at all.

Oh yeah, tell that to the makers of Counter Strike, or Gunman Chronicles. Both are amateur efforts created by teams on the Internet who with 1/1000th of John Romero's $40 million and 1/4th the amount of time he had, have made games that are more playabe, better looking, and more professional.

In fact, general reaction to Daikatana seemed to be that it merely represented a poor mod, and with the quality of mods out there, such as Counter-Strike now being played more online than Q3A and UT - that isn't saying very much at all.

When it comes right down to it, Daikatana's ultimate failure is the amount of money thrown at someone for their track record. That money will not teach someone to be a true, innovative designer, nor will it teach them the skills necessary to run a large team in modern game development. Hopefully this ridiculousness in the industry is over, and the next time someone gets $40 mil for a game it's Warren Spector.

For doing things like word-processing or Power Point, the Crusoe chip should be fine. Most laptops are used in the corporate world for taking demonstations on the road - often times, you don't need massive computing power. (Except for one project I saw which had something like SQLServer, an HTTP server (dunno which one), and a Java client as the demo, all running on one laptop. One expensive laptop.)

Don't forget, for most corporate people, their laptop is where they write up next quarter's report on, and what they use to explain things to their investors and peers. It's not a development platform, it's not a server. And it's not really any good for some serious Quake-playing. (Or, if you're like me, some Counter Strike action.) Sounds like the Crusoe would do most tasks that you really need a laptop for nicely.

I dunno what you'd do with a laptop, but I know why I want one. It's not for "serious tasks." It's for being able to do development work anywhere I can. I'd love to get a laptop running Linux so that I can work on my current pet project anywhere I am. Crusoe should be fine for that, assuming I'm not doing something with millions of lines of code.

Seriously, it's a laptop. It's not the latest Alpha server from Digit- uh, Compaq. You don't need something overly powerful. The long battery life should make up for speed difficencies.

CS now has a SDK?

First of all, not all games are made for the 13 year old hyperactive destructive kid (and I don't believe all of that media bullshit which tells us that violent games make kids violent; you can tell what is real by the age of 3..). There are actually games which are calm, and require some thought. I'm not saying it's gonna make you a genius or be harder than your Robust Digital Signal Processing class, but they aren't made to be for the twitchy-fingered young-uns.

Second, you might notice who plays the games: there are actually a lot of people in their 20s or 30s who play games, and they play all kinds of games. However, I must say that it is true that most young gamers do play twitchy games....

Oh. And there are Barbie games, as well as, gasp, a Barbie printer! It's sooooooo cute!

Ahem.

Just tryin' to defend us gamers some... Hyuk....

Fnord.

Quake 3 Arena!

Diablo 2

Counter Strike!!!

The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind!

It is only a matter of time before machinema and all the other elements come together and spontaneously create the next Doom2 or even a Final Fantasy and capture the attention of the gaming public in a #1 hit kinda way.

I thought Counter-strike was the next Doom II? ... sure they didn't make the engine (they modified Half-life, which itself was a version of Quake modified by Sierra), but they made the *game*. I don't find Quake or Half-life all that fun, yet they form the basis of my favourite game. It's even open-source-ish, they encourage people to develop patches to Counter-strike, some of which get included in the next releases.

It's one of the more popular games, yet it has no single-player and no cut-scenes.

Counter-Strike: Half a million active players can't be wrong!

for a co-op/deathmatch combo, play Counter Strike (free mod for Half Life).

of course, you die pretty easily in CS, so if you shoot your teammates in any soft spots, he won't be around to see you look stupid. plus, team kills result in your instant death in the next round, so it's best to avoid TK's (on servers with friendly fire turned on) for your own good.

I beg to differ. Computer games need the multi-player game just as much as the single-player game. You mention Half-Life, which I'll do now. It's got an amazing single-player game and had a decent multi-player. Sure, it wasn't great but, deathmatches aren't good at all (in my opinoin). But, it must have had something good in it because now it is the most highly played game in the world. There are more Counter-Strike players alone than combining all UT & Q3A players. And that's just Counter-Strike. There is also TFC to account for, adding another 1,000 servers easily to the list.

Now, compare the above statement about Half-Life's multi-player to Q3A's or UT's. They're both DM's. Sure, there's CTF and Domination and Assault in UT but, it's still almost all DM. Q3A is starting to come out with some good MODs like q3f and WFA. Now, compare Half-Life's already established MODs. Counter-Strike, TFC, and the rising Firearms. This should be enough proof that Half-Life's multi-player is by far, superior.

Id software can make a good multi-player game as can be seen in Q3A. They can also make a good single-player game as can be seen in almost all of Id's other games. Hopefully, Id software will put the two together to make one outstanding game.

Have a nice day,

It has been my experience that game with One-Player games and an option for multiplayer are far better. Quake 3 Arena is the game that brought be to the "Gaming world." I was disappointed since all there was, was deathmatch and capture the flag. But, since then with q3f and WFA, it's a little more fun but, sometimes you just feal like playing on your own and not on the internet. What are you to do for that with q3arena? Play a deathmatch with bots that just run around and if they see you they shoot (not neccisarily at you either)? Since then, a friend of mine gave me Quake and I enjoyed it a whole lot more. A barely visible plot but, still much more enjoyable. Then, another friend pointed out Half Life to me. I was instantly hooked. A long deep plot for the one player game, and a good multiplayer experience. Then, I got Opposing Force for it and all the fun of the one player game came back. Admittedly, the mods are definately a part of VALVe's success (especially Counter-Strike.). I got, after that, Unreal Tournament. It's a good game but, sometimes a person is looking for more than single player deathmatches. UT is a good game and I can't wait for it's Team Fortress clone. Then, I got Soldier of Fortune. I was definately happier with SoF than UT. A nice single player game and good multi player game.

Following that pattern, in order for the upcoming Doom to be any good is to have a very deep/complex plot for the multiplayer (and good mod support. Maybe better mod tools will help?). Having only Q1 & 3 as my only id gaming experience, I've never tried Doom or any of there older games. But I still look forward to this upcoming release of a new Doom and plan on buying it. Being a big fan of First-Person, Shoot-em-up games, I'll be buying it.

I don't see much of a future for internet only games like q3arena or UT. Hearing about Team Fortress 2 by VALVe might make it a little different though. The way it sounds, it will have scenarios similar to that of World War II and Counter-Strike. Having rescue the hostages, protect the VIP, etc. it sounds pretty good. But, in my opinion, it will never be as big and grand as VALVe's own Half Life. I hope to hear a lot on these companies future releases.

Have a nice day,

Umm..wow...wasn't Daikatana supposed to promise us this much? I personally play Half-Life CounterStrike. great play, and it keeps evolving even more.

JoeLinux

You want playability? Replayability? Play Counter-Strike. 465,271active players can't be wrong.

Although the site uses Quake3 screenshots to showcase these new features, Quake3 is not where the worst problems would be seen. In Quake3, there is an advantage to seeing where another player is, but you can't do anything to them until you go to their location.

A mod for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, which by far is played online by more people than Quake3, features rifles where wall penetration is a factor -- i.e. if you can see someone through a wall, you can probably shoot that player.

--

I wouldn't go too far in promoting them. I have been regretting using Linux Router Project on an old 486 or Pentium ever since I bought my Kingston 7 port switch/router. The problem with the Kingston is that only one computer at a time can use programs like Counter-Strike over the cable modem. The same thing goes for if I want to run a Counter-Strike server. This has become very annoying, and could be solved if I was using the Linux Router Project by simply configuring port fowarding.

It also annoys me to no end that I can't traceroute from my Linux box in my room.

[unrelated] How come all these great "Ask Slashdot" articles never get posted on the main screen?[/unrelated]

it is unfortunate, as myself and many of the people I know are playing counter strike a lot and it will not be possible to play this under linux.
Descent 3 is a great game, I already own the windows version, but sadly I rarely play it, as it requires booting to windows. I'd love to be able to play it under Linux
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May I point out that half-life has been out for PC for well over a year and is just now coming out for dreamcast? I don't want to wait a year to play a game on a console even if it does have better graphics and sound, and I doubt if it really does. And can you use mods with dreamcast half life? Somehow I doubt it. The only reason I still play that game is cause of Counter Strike. I don't think I could do that with a Dreamcast.

You ought to have a look at Counter-Strike for Half-Life. Some of the features implemented:

Realistic damage: there are no LAW rockets, only varieties of pistols, shotguns, machineguns, and rifles, all of which look, feel and sound similar to their real-life counterparts. The damage is definitely toned down from real life, but it's also realistic enough to make you step back and think before you do something (getting a head shot on a person without a helmet on is almost always fatal).

Good teamplay: it's multiplayer only, so you never have to deal with AI. The scenario is terrorist vs. SWAT, and the gameplay is extremely deep with an emphasis on strategy, rather than muscles, to win.

Ammo limits: At the beginning of each round you can buy weapons of your choice, but each play can only carry one gun at a time (along with a pistol and a combat knife), and picking another up off the ground requires dropping the one you have. Likewise guns themselves are balanced. Sniper rifles are heavy and make your character move slower, and are innaccurate when fired from the hip.

As for the directional sound, I would suggest investing in a 3D sound card and a good set of speakers (you'll also want a hefty 3D video card and a decent net connection). You talk like you would like to be serious about FPS gaming if you could find something that appeals to you, well, here's your chance. Don't complain though if you're not willing to make the neccessary investments to do so.

-W.W.

Adding things like LIMITED weapons, ammo & powerups would require people to conserve their ammo and to play strategically, rather than switching over to rocket launcher, putting it on autorun and holding down their fire button.

This is exactly why I have been spending too much time playing the free Counterstrike mod for Halflife. Halflife is already a fantastic game, but the CS mod to it has improved the online play so greatly that I think it easily surpasses the quality of game play of any other online game in this genre. There are no powerups, you can only purchase weapons you can afford - and you get paid for killing your opponents in game cash, so you must be successful to get the good weapons.

If you have not heard of it, Counterstrike pits teams of Terrorists (sometimes with hostages sometimes with a target to be bombed) against teams of Counter-Terrorists in a variety of real-world situations. More recent additions include assassination scenarios (where the Counter-Terrorists must escort a VIP who is armed only with a knife - and played by one of the CT players - to a safe zone on the far side of the map), and escape scenarios (where the Terrorists must escape from a dangerous and disadvantageous situtation to a safe zone on the far side of the map). The maps cover a wide variety of fascinating tactical challenges, ranging from a hostage situation onboard a 747 in an airport to a VIP Assassination scenario on an oilrig. Brilliant stuff.

In contrast to most online shooters, CS requires you to be careful, plan your moves, and cooperate with other players on your team to be successful. You can run into a room with gun blazing but often as not you will be shot dead by the guy with the shotgun in the shadows. It does not have stupidly overpowerful weapons - all of the weapons in the game are realworld items with realistic (sic) performance. Not all weapons are available to both sides either - although a lot of care has gone into ensuring the balance of play.

All round this is an amazing effort on the part of the CS developers, and well deserving of a good look by anyone who owns Halflife.

This was just to say that with the right GFX card you too can join the fun. Your Celeron 433 needn't be half bad, so happy fragging!

I agree with bs, Halo looks incredible, and should be ported to linux. Also Tribes 2 is going to rock, and I'd love to play it on my linux box. Finally HalfLife is huge, w/ like 10,000 people playing it online at peak afternoon/evening times (CS ROCKS!), this should DEFINITELY be ported.

Counter-strike is better than any other mod out for HL IMO :). Can't wait for beta 4 :) Beats crappy q3 and unreal games any day. Hopefully TF2 will be as good as CS is.
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