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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.
I'm sure I'm not going to be the first to mention, but I felt a sudden surge of excitment when I read 'Counter Strike Source'... bah, why must Valve name their engine after what every geek loves?
Yeah, at first I was also misled by the title of the article. Either way though, I think that the steam engine is horribly flawed. I really dislike "launcher" engines for games. I really wish that they could have the old WON servers for playing, however, I suppose this is their way of battling piracy for their games. I'm not sure how much it's worth to protect from piracy when it creates problems for legitimate users, but then again, since when has any company really cared about the end user?
Well, my site is still suffering from a slashdotting from a few days ago, but check out CS-Nation's CS: Source info section for an FAQ and of course plenty of CS: Source media.
Shameless enough? Heh.
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.
More info about Counter-Strike source:
CS Banana FAQ
CS-Nation info page
Video
HL2.net forum post about the Seoul apresentation.
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.
I joined the CS community right around CS BETA 6 (or whatever people called it) -- when you had to buy a copy of Half-Life and install the mod and wait for the headshots. Even became part of a clan -- a local mix of teenagers and 20/30/40 somethings like myself. It was all good. We reveled in the light of several thousand servers and players.
Then, my clan went "pro" -- joined CAL and started going through the trials/tribulations of competitive gaming. "Sorry, Non-CAL Player X -- we can't 'pub' anymore because it would hurt our competitive reputation" excuses for not hanging out and just playing the game became common. But Counter-Strike seemed to remain the shiznit.
I left that clan and sought another group of people that seemed to just want to play the game, and then this new clan started losing "pubbers" to CAL and other leagues. And then it broke in half w/ the teenagers playing in the higher-end leagues and the 20/30/40 somethings getting pissed about the kids leaving them behind to play in lower-end leagues. And then the clan broke up.
This was all about the time that Steam came out of BETA and into real-world use. When I heard that CS was tied to the Steam engine, I tried it out, only to go through the initial debacle of the whole setup. And I wondered why in the world did Valve do this. I heard horror stories of LAN parties gone terribly wrong as people found they had to have the last mod version 1.5 installed + Steam in order to play at a LAN party and online. Many of the 20/30/40 somethings with whom I'd played in the clans had moved on to other games, coming back to CS when they tired of BF1942, Star Wars: Galaxies, etc.
CS: Condition Zero and Half-Life 2 kept getting pushed back. When CS: Condition Zero came out, it was...well...eh. That's it. Eh. And HL2 continues to be in the oft unforeseen future, from what I can tell.
After all this -- how can CS still be the most popular online FPS? I'm looking now at HLSW.net's search engine, and I see 24K+ Steam CS servers and 5K+ WON CS servers running. Total of about 70K players. And not a single other searchable online FPS game from this engine comes anywhere close to those numbers.
So -- I repeat the original question -- is CS still THAT popular? What keeps it going? I mean, Half-Life can be had for less than $15 now, which I would assume still earns you the license rights to download Steam and get all the games associated with Half-Life (that's how it was when I did the Steam upgrade last year).
Is it still just THAT accessible? Are the 5:00 minute team-based rounds w/ a post-mortem waiting period still the keys to the game? What keeps it alive? As great as BF1942, DesertCombat, UT2K4, and other MP FPS games have been, how has CS remained on top? Particularly with the major issue of cheating (if it's still a major issue) hovering over the game like a black cloud?
One last thought -- if CS IS still as popular as it has been in the past, do other gaming companies shudder in fear at the thought of a REVISED, REVAMPED CS game coming out with HL2? Is there concern that semi-full BF1942 or UT2K4 servers will start losing players in droves as everyone flocks to CS to see what's new?
IronChefMorimoto
P.S. - Keep in mind, I've not played the game in months, so if I've gotten something wrong here, please chime in. I'm just expressing surprise that CS is STILL getting this much attention.
Actually, valve didn't make Condition Zero. Well, they did, and they didn't, and then they did again-- this does a better job of explaining than I. The Condition Zero that's out now was co-produced by Valve and Turtle Rock Studios. Some of the missions were created by Ritual, with whom Valve had also worked. Before that, Gearbox and Rogue each had a go at making it. At this point, it's probably a little difficult to determine how much work Valve specifically has been doing for the project, as opposed to how much they've paid other studios to do, or are just taking from the mod itself. Plus, Valve isn't in the business of releasing new stuff, they're in the business of making money, so your last comment is a little bit awkward.
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. -Henry David Thoreau