Counter-Strike Source Beta Set for Late Summer

fistfullast33l writes "Valve has announced via Steam that a Beta version will be launched for Counter-Strike: Source, the multiplayer counter-terrorism mod that will now be updated for release with the Half-Life 2 powering Source engine. It is expected to be kicked off around late summer. Apparently: 'The beta will first be open to subscribers of the Valve Cyber Café Program, and then extended to owners of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero.' Seems like a good time to find out where the nearest gaming parlor is." This move is interesting in light of allegations of Valve bullying cybercafes - we also recently covered the South Korean unveiling of Counter-Strike: Source over at Slashdot Games.

Comments

Sounds good.

[xOleanderx]

The videos ive seen look very promising. But if the beta release date is anything like HL2's release date then it will be more like late spring instead of late summer...

Re:Sounds good.

[C0rinthian]

I agree. It's really pretty bad-ass that they're porting Half Life to the Source Engine, and packaging it with HL2. Will be great to relive Half Life with updated graphics and physics. Also nice that people new to the franchise can play HL1 without tracking it down and purchasing it seperately.

Essentially, you're getting at least 2 games for the price of one. (possibly more if CS: Source, and other popular mods are included as well) Will definitely be worth the money when it finally comes out.

Too much trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to get back into CounterStrike with the new engine and release. I quit playing CS a long time ago due to all the cheats (not that there won't be any with the new one).

Unfortunately, it sounds like knowing when, where and how to get it and play it is going to be too much of a hassle.

Just tell me when the game will be released and where I can buy it for how much.

Re:Too much trouble.

[Deathlizard]

I would like to say that Valve does a good job stopping cheats, but as it stands right now, it's a joke.

I'm the head admin of the "[SmD]Anarchy Server". just about daily we have to deal with cheats. Lots of them. In fact, at this point in time, we are catching about 3-5 script hacks a day using HLGuard, and thats not counting the aimbots, wallhacks and the like.

The big problem with this is the way that Valve handles cheats. The first thing that you will learn as a CS server admin is VAC is basicially useless and will not stop cheats. I wish that Valve would just bite the bullet and give the entire VAC system to Punkbuster, pay them, and let them handle it, but since that will never happen we have to deal with third party apps that either work some of the time, or require a third party client to be run before you play CS that will cause problems, a drop in the playerbase and will not necessiarly stop the cheaters.

I do know that when VAC is updated, it works, the problem is that Valve will basicially declare a "Cheat Free Month" as I call it and for one month update the thing almost daily, then after the "Cheat Free Month" is over they will do nothing for two to three months and let cheats run rampant. Currently it's been over a month since they last updated it. Meanwhile, punkbuster updates almost daily, and keeps most of the games it protects cheat free, and UT2k4 is cheat free by design as well as their updated in house Cheat system that works.

Unless they decide that VAC is what they should be focusing on, and hire a dedicated staff of people that will update VAC daily, there will be cheats on both HL and HL2 based games and the situation will never improve. This is especially true when I've already seen HL2 beta in action (IE: the actual game, not Videos) at one of our LAN parties and that there are cheats already for the beta code that work.

Re:Steam

[xOleanderx]

What will come next with steam though?? Built in client side anti cheat tools? Complete control over your games and your rights when playing them? Only being able to buy games through steam? What will happen if a company like ea makes a program like this and then every other game maker does the same? Do you want 6 different programs that you have to run in the background to play your games?

The next genre

[Infonaut]

Am I alone among Slashdotters in not being addicted to first person shooters? I'm not saying that this story is not a worthy one, or that everyone should be like me, or anything like that. I sincerely am curious if I represent a miniscule minority, or if anyone else here finds FPS games unappealing.

Does anyone have any idea what's next after FPS games? Massively multiplayer games are obviously staking their claim, and casual games that rehash offline games are bringing in big money, but when are we going to see an innovative new game format?

Any ideas? Or am I totally off in left field?

Re:The next genre

[Bobartig]

A new subgenre to the FPS is the massive military simulations like battlefield, joint ops, and the like. Dozens of players go up against each other, attacking with an entire arsenal, such as tanks, planes, battleships, guide missiles, helicopters, etc. etc. It is certainly derived from more traditional FPS's, but when the new generation of FPS's come out (Doom3, HL2, etc.), there will certainly be more to create a distinction between these and their predecessors.

Re:The next genre

[Deltan]

You're not alone.

I used to be quite addicted to Quake and subsequently Quake 2 and Quake 3. It was great fun, everyone played it. When you'd go to a lan party, there was no pre-requisite questionaire about what games you had and wanted to play. It was understood that the game would be Quake. Once the market filled up with other FPS titles friends didn't play the same stuff anymore. Everything just got unnecessarily difficult for some reason.

Then there came the cheats. Through Quake there were cheats but it reached its peak in Quake 2 and extended into Counter Strike and other FPS titles. Left a sour taste in everyone's mouth.

With the announcement of nVidia's SLI and Doom 3 on the way, it really feels like 1998 all over again and I'm anxious to get back into FPS gaming for some reason. Funny how every major id title does that to a lot of people.

Re:The next genre

[RollingThunder]

Well, not always.

WW2Online is, broadly speaking, a FPS. It's one where a single mission can take three hours and not have you firing a shot - or else getting plugged by some guy you never saw in one hit.

Those who love it, can't stop playing it. It's the ultra hard mode of FPS play, certainly not for everyone.

Valve Licensing for CyberCafes

[The Importance of]

Valve wants to charge $10/month/PC for access to all of Valve's games, which right now is the original Counter-Strike. This may not seem like a lot, but multiply this charge by every major game publisher and pretty soon you've strangled the nascent cybercafe industry. Valve should be encouraging cybercafes with generous licensing terms, rather than trying to squeeze every last dime of profit. The worst part is that Valve is targeting high-profile cybercafes that are trying to act as responsible members of the community, while fly-by-night strip mall cybercafes continue to fly under the radar.

Counter-strike is mildly cool, its players suck

[rd_syringe]

I tried Counter-Strike no more than three times. Each time, I started to get into the game, but the maddening immaturity of the players completely turned me off after five minutes. "EAT SHIT ASSDICK LOLOL!! PWNED" got old, and when I encountered a cheater, that was the last straw.

As a matter of fact, I haven't really been into online gaming since. Nothing intrigues me. Looking forward to single-player Doom 3 and Half-life 2, thank you very much.

Re:Counter-strike is mildly cool, its players suck

[jrockway]

Yup I've played CS about 3 times (because I've used Linux on PPC forever, I've had to use other people's computer, and they usually don't want to give it up for more than a second...). Anyway, I completely agree with you. It's basically what CS "1337" would call a n00b-f3s7 (or something like that). It's a bunch of 10-year-olds that learned new words like "fuck" and "camper" and want to try them out online :)

Also, what is with that -- "d00d camper unfair!!!1111"? Umm if I kill you, it's a kill. I didn't cheat, so it sounds fair to me. What's with "you're a n00b 'cause you used an AUP!!!"? I killed you with a legal weapon. That's how you play the fucking game.

ANYWAY, yeah I don't really like CS. I don't like "realistic" games, so I play UT2004. When was the last time you went on a Bombing Run with a Flak Cannon in real life? Never? That's the point. It's using the computer to experience something you could not experience in real life. I like that :) Plus it's fun to shred people with flak when you get mad. Anyway.

What was the point of this post again? Right. I haven't played CS much but I don't really plan to. The terrorist/counter-terrorist scenerio is boring (read the newspaper for that) and the weapons aren't that exciting.

VALVe's new way to calm down impatient fans?

[Man in Spandex]

Is this a sign that Hl2 will take more time by giving a taste of their "Source Engine" (confusing name) to put the final touch on HL2?

I wouldn't be too surprised if there's some sort of feedback tool which asks the user why a certain crash occured and send in the report to valve. Actually I'd love to see that cause that would show they are even more serious about their game which may or may not be as fun and "big" as HL1.

We shall see in time why exactly they're taking this move but I don't like the fact of having to buy CS:CZ to get a license for CS:Source since HL2 comes with CS: Source (that's what the valve guy said in the trailer of ~35mb showing de_aztec).

Anybody have thoughts similar to mine, or am I just too suspicious?


.......(impatiently waiting duke nukem forever. #%&@(*&@#%)

That is the stupidest name for an engine

[EMR]

source engine? where did they come up with that.. That has to be the stupidest and most confusing name for an engine.. and "counter strike source to be released" but, they probably did that to get all the people looking for the source for the source engine to get suckered into looking and something called source that doesn't have the source..

What impact this will have on home computers

[Wilkshake]

It'll be interesting to see what effect this has on the average power of personal computers out there.

It's been widely acknowledged that because of Counter-Strike and The Sims, that people have been reluctant to upgrade their machines since they can still play these two games on a relatively low powered system (by today's standards anyway).

So with Counter-Strike: Source and The Sims 2 most likely requiring a lot more grunt under the hood, will we see an explosion in new home PC purchases for these two releases?
-

Being good to LAN centers for a change?

[CeZa]

I think not. A regular over at TribalWar has started his own LAN center and bought copies of retail CS for each machine. After installing and running the operation as usual for quite some time he got a notice from valve saying he would have to pay a rate PER machine for ALL of valve software. This does not change that the LAN centers are still having to pay 300% more for Valve software over competing software. The rate is per machine and PER month. Where it was only a grand or two for Ut2k4 one-time fee, CS was $30k a year. If Valve wants gamers happy, they have to make LAN centers happy. Now this is ridiculous that they expect people to shell out for a beta, and at the same time pay for every other piece of yea ever written.

Not a good sign...

[nobodyman]

Okay, so admittedly I'm a cynic and I still feel someone burned from the original delay, but this sounds like an artful dodge around bad news.

Supposedly "Summer" is the release date for Half Life 2, according to Valve. My guess is that the reason why they chose Counterstrike for the beta test was as a test for the net code (and possibly the graphics engine) so that they could role-up any bugfixes into same engine that Half-Life 2 would be using. With that in mind, it seems highly unlikely that they would release Half-Life 2 before counterstrike concluded it's beta testing. So if the counterstrike beta will take place in late summer, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to go from "Beta 1" (does that imply multiple betas then?) to "done".

Here's my take: Half-Life 2 is going to be delayed 'till fall, but the announcement of Counterstrike: Source is an attempt to stave off the lynch mob. I hope I'm wrong, but Valve doesn't have the best track record. Gabe Newell is probably is probably formulating a press release this very second blaming the delay on the Sasser worm.

Re:Steam

[The Real Nem]

I this is their method of preventing pirated software then god help them. A few months ago I wrote a piece of software called GCFScape to extract resources from Steam Game Content Cache files with nothing but good intentions. Ironically it can be used to extract CS Condition Zero and install it as a third party MOD. I'm still surprised they haven't taken measures to prevent this. Good work Valve...

Re:Blizzard Licenses

[Lord Kano]

Have these licensing practices been tested in court? I mean, if I were running a cybercafe my angle would be that I'm charging for the computer and to share my internet access. Playing the legally purchased games on the hard drives is just a free benefit.

LK