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The Rise Of Counter-Strike
b0r1s writes "Business 2.0 is running a story about Minh Le, and his now famous Counter-Strike mod for Half Life. The article explains the origins and motivation for the development of the mod, as well as explains the virtues of making code freely available for those who wish to hack games."
According to the article, Valve bought the rights to CS. If there's a lawsuit, it's probably because the original author is working on a second mod - and valve is concerned that he's using some of the code he had already sold.
Wow, it's amazing that halflife was so open to let their fans freely modify their code and give them all the tools to do it. This flies directly in the face of corporate logic, where companies sick their lawyers on their most loyal fans for copyright infringement or DMCA violations for modifying their products. And how did their fans react?
"We've actually sold more of the overall Half-Life family of products each year since we shipped back in 1998, which is very unusual in a market typified by three-month shelf lives"
It really is in corporate best interests to let their fans run with their products, create communities around their products and thereby add value and promote their products for them. I wish they'd understand that the fastest way to kill the very communities that support them is to send lawyers after them.
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Not needing the game CD stuck in my box is what sucked me in. I could play half-life, UT, and a few other games, but most would require the CD to be in the box. CS did not. I could jump in, it checked my CD key over the net, and I was off getting pasted by people who were way better than I.
After scratching a couple CD's and having oodles of hard drive space, I just don't like to play games that require the media. Granted, I can wander and get the no-cd 'fix' for the game, but you end up looking for a fresh crack every time the game does a service pack. As someone who actually pays for the bloody game - this pisses me off.
I'd say no media 'copy protection' was key for me...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Economist Article: Counter-culture
I'm not sure if anyone's heard, Oprah Winfrey had an 'expert' on the other day, who tied the recent sniper killings in the D.C. area to Counter Strike. The 'expert' said that Counter Strike had trained this individual to kill and how to handle a gun.
;)
Excuse me, but how does playing a game teach you how to properly handle a gun? I've told my friends that Counter Strike isnt a game, it's a simulator. But a gun simulator it is not. I view it as a very good tactical simulator. But no-where during its gameplay does it teach you how to properly handle a gun, let alone teach you how to shoot someone at great distances.
I guess I just needed to get that off my chest. Oprah Winfrey is ugly too.
*DrugCheese rants*
The #1 problem with this mod, cheating, wasn't mentioned anywhere.
This would be a bigger game if that was fixed, personally I have zero intrest in it because I constantly hear those who play bitching about cheating.
Too bad.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
My favourite memory was exploiting the map cs_siege. On this map there was a room with hostages that the CTs had to rescue. If the terrorists started losing and couldnt buy good guns, I would take all the hostages into said room. The only way into that room was a door. There was a window to that room that was unbreakable. I would spray a black spray over the window on the outside so the CTs couldnt see inside. Mind you, due to halflife mechanics, the terrors could see out of it fine, thus we had a sort of one way viewport. We would camp out there and just wait until a CT would bumble in (this first CT is usually the "rambo" who had a cable modem back before they were as common and he has a good gun and no time for teamplay). Voila, their LPB is down and we have his gun. Chances are, his gun shoots through walls and we just mow the rest down as they come into the room our window faces.
Later on, the window was made breakable and a vent was added to make another way into that room, but that was some of the funnest gaming I've ever had.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
Upon further checking on http://www.gamespy.com/stats, CS is alive and well. To all the naysayers proclaiming that CS is "dead", they are not looking at the simple numbers of people playing it. As of the time of this post, there are over 92,000 people playing this game. How far does that eclipe MoH (~8,000 players), the next closest competitor?.
The numbers speak for themselves, CS is alive and well. It'll take another "CS like" game to take people away from something they like.
I'll tell you this, if Valve ported the base client to Linux, I'd say their install base for CS (and other mods) would grow even further. Being that the engine is mainly Quake2, it can't be too difficult to port. Let Valve create the linux client and the numbers for their games will grow even further.
That being said, the people who play Counter Strike should be beaten over the head. I've never seen a more contentious, petty, jealous bunch. Anyone who is even moderately good is *obviously* cheating. God forsake someone would forsake their precious little egos and admit to themselves they lost a round legitimately. If you beat someone, it *must* have because they were doing something unscrupulous.
Worse, are the people who actually do cheat. I don't know what their deal is, but they suck even more than the people who accuse everyone *else* of cheating. Tipping the board in your favor defeats the purpose of playing. How can you say you won if you didn't win fairly? It's much more satisfying to beat the pants out of another team knowing it was just your own skill and strategy that did it, not some goddamn program you downloaded off the internet. Those people should be rounded up, put on barges and set adrift into the pacific.