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.
You could include ReplayTV in that comparison as well, but...is it even worth considering anymore? TiVO has become a part of the digital cable and DirecTV hardware offerings now. I don't remember seeing ReplayTV anywhere in the mix.
It's a shame too, since ReplayTV did some things better than the Series 2 TiVO. But -- at the same cost level (for the most part) as the TiVO, is/was it a bad investment? If it ever went completely under?
...what do WikiPedia salespeople wear when they arrive at your door? A lot of various/. and Linux t-shirts + jean combinations come to mind, but I'm not the Slashdotter that 95% of you guys/gals are.
And would WikiPedia salespeople at your doorstep be pushy?
Seriously, though -- I have NEVER used this resource. Can't wait to try it out!
You mention beating up old people. I think something like this would scare the crap out of old folks - patients and family members alike - in a hospital. It's just an invitation to have some crazy old woman come running down the hall dragging her IV behind her screaming, "The machines are coming! The machines are coming!"
This sounds outrageous, but you wouldn't think so if you'd stood in a line of 20 people waiting in a non-moving post office line and listened to a similar rant from a 70+ year old woman. When a US postal worker asked if she'd like to save time and get her stamps from a vending machine only 3ft away, she did everything possible to avoid it.
"Those machines charge more for the stamps."
Sure -- the machines are out to rob us blind.
"Thank you, but I just don't trust those machines."
OK -- you're right, lady. They're out to steal your money AND eat you alive instead of giving you 20 stamps. Run for your life!
I could just see one of these robots getting lost in a geriatric ward. It would be the night of a thousand coronaries! Hmmm...a great idea to get folks off Medicare is brewing here.
I just started my first job in an interactive agency. I could see a policy like this being put in place (if your creative shop is owned by a larger corporate entity) to prevent folks from swiping applications or fonts from Macs or, to a lesser degree, PCs. I mean, if I really wanted to, I could get a sh*tload of rather expensive Adobe fonts from the collection of Macs in my office.
If you're a contract designer that walks into a shop that has a nice collection of expensive Adobe fonts that you can't find online for free (pre-bootlegged), it would be very tempting to grab a few fonts and drop them onto a keychain drive or iPod.
If the company never knows about the fonts getting out -- probably not an issue. But if the company were aware that fonts (or small Mac apps that can be installed by copying folders from an installation CD-ROM) are getting swiped, then maybe such an anti-iPod policy would find a place in a creative environment.
IronChefMorimoto
Are we certain that people dumb enough to send in their iPods aren't actually giving Dell employees a great source of iPod hardware? I can see them all waiting for the daily shipments of used/damaged/dead iPods to arrive at the rebate center.
"Phil! Some asshat sent in a 20GB that works! WOOHOO!"
"That's great, Frank -- hey look! An iPod mini! These people are idiots!"
I can kind of see why the Justice Department might want to regulate these rocket hobbyists, if it's been determined that a reasonably dangerous payload could be added to the rocket.
Some sort of anthrax aerosol or something that explodes in mid-air over a small area. Maybe in a neighborhood or park. I don't know -- I'm just speculating here. Makes you wonder if it could be done.
However, if THAT is the sort of issue that they're raising with these poor rocketry hobbyists, then when will (if it's not happened already) model airplane/helicopter hobbyists have to start filling out government forms? I mean, strap some sort of acid dispersal system onto the bottom of a remote control helicopter and actually CONTROL where you start spraying people (again -- just wild speculation here). THAT sounds to me like more of a threat than model rockets.
...to gaming while driving. Hope they make hands-free joysticks for these phones, or the "driving while talking on cell phone" bans are really going to start ratcheting up.
Frankly, if you're smoking next to a gas pump, the attendant ought to have a button right next to the fire suppression/pump stop button labeled "KILL SMOKER" -- promptly dousing the idiot in gasoline and allowing him/her to set themselves on fire.
Seriously -- a burning object (cigarette) near a gas pump? While your kids are sitting in the minivan waiting on you to get back in the car and further their impending asthma condition with your habit? Great idea!
Especially when they see the vapors from the fuel pump handle ignite and set Mommy/Daddy on fire right before their eyes.
Enjoy your bad habit -- just not where it might immediately kill yourself or other people nearby!
Here's my question -- isn't this sort of "requirement" by a major anti-virus software firm a little dangerous these days, what with rampant worms and viruses tormenting IT departments and dragging down the Internet?
To me, AV software should be, perhaps, the most lenient in terms of licensing these days. While I know it's a violation of the license agreement for a consumer to do so, what is the REAL harm in someone putting a copy of AV software on 2-3 computers at home or in a small office if, in the long run, it helps to prevent the sort of global infections that we saw last week?
Certainly, Symantec has a right to protect its intellectual property and its revenues. On the other hand, is it setting itself up to be the scapegoat if, say, several hundred or thousand users don't get the latest AV software because they don't want to deal with product activation OR they end up only buying it and being able to install it on a single machine out of 2-3 they might have in their home?
When I say scapegoat, I mean in terms backlash if another big (SoBig) virus comes out and trashes computers globally. Someone could easily rant "Symantec made it impossible for me to put AV software on my computer!"
I have really been thinking hard about product activation coming into the AV software arena, and now it's come to pass.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
You could include ReplayTV in that comparison as well, but...is it even worth considering anymore? TiVO has become a part of the digital cable and DirecTV hardware offerings now. I don't remember seeing ReplayTV anywhere in the mix.
It's a shame too, since ReplayTV did some things better than the Series 2 TiVO. But -- at the same cost level (for the most part) as the TiVO, is/was it a bad investment? If it ever went completely under?
My 2 cents.
IronChefMorimoto
...what do WikiPedia salespeople wear when they arrive at your door? A lot of various /. and Linux t-shirts + jean combinations come to mind, but I'm not the Slashdotter that 95% of you guys/gals are.
And would WikiPedia salespeople at your doorstep be pushy?
Seriously, though -- I have NEVER used this resource. Can't wait to try it out!
IronChefMorimoto
You mention beating up old people. I think something like this would scare the crap out of old folks - patients and family members alike - in a hospital. It's just an invitation to have some crazy old woman come running down the hall dragging her IV behind her screaming, "The machines are coming! The machines are coming!"
This sounds outrageous, but you wouldn't think so if you'd stood in a line of 20 people waiting in a non-moving post office line and listened to a similar rant from a 70+ year old woman. When a US postal worker asked if she'd like to save time and get her stamps from a vending machine only 3ft away, she did everything possible to avoid it.
"Those machines charge more for the stamps."
Sure -- the machines are out to rob us blind.
"Thank you, but I just don't trust those machines."
OK -- you're right, lady. They're out to steal your money AND eat you alive instead of giving you 20 stamps. Run for your life!
I could just see one of these robots getting lost in a geriatric ward. It would be the night of a thousand coronaries! Hmmm...a great idea to get folks off Medicare is brewing here.
My 2 cents.
IronChefMorimoto
I just started my first job in an interactive agency. I could see a policy like this being put in place (if your creative shop is owned by a larger corporate entity) to prevent folks from swiping applications or fonts from Macs or, to a lesser degree, PCs. I mean, if I really wanted to, I could get a sh*tload of rather expensive Adobe fonts from the collection of Macs in my office. If you're a contract designer that walks into a shop that has a nice collection of expensive Adobe fonts that you can't find online for free (pre-bootlegged), it would be very tempting to grab a few fonts and drop them onto a keychain drive or iPod. If the company never knows about the fonts getting out -- probably not an issue. But if the company were aware that fonts (or small Mac apps that can be installed by copying folders from an installation CD-ROM) are getting swiped, then maybe such an anti-iPod policy would find a place in a creative environment. IronChefMorimoto
Which 133t h4x0r will be the first to rename the QuakeCon venue to the "GHEYLORD Convention Center" and win the free copy of D00|\/| 3?
IronChefMorimoto
Are we certain that people dumb enough to send in their iPods aren't actually giving Dell employees a great source of iPod hardware? I can see them all waiting for the daily shipments of used/damaged/dead iPods to arrive at the rebate center.
"Phil! Some asshat sent in a 20GB that works! WOOHOO!"
"That's great, Frank -- hey look! An iPod mini! These people are idiots!"
IronChefMorimoto
I can kind of see why the Justice Department might want to regulate these rocket hobbyists, if it's been determined that a reasonably dangerous payload could be added to the rocket.
Some sort of anthrax aerosol or something that explodes in mid-air over a small area. Maybe in a neighborhood or park. I don't know -- I'm just speculating here. Makes you wonder if it could be done.
However, if THAT is the sort of issue that they're raising with these poor rocketry hobbyists, then when will (if it's not happened already) model airplane/helicopter hobbyists have to start filling out government forms? I mean, strap some sort of acid dispersal system onto the bottom of a remote control helicopter and actually CONTROL where you start spraying people (again -- just wild speculation here). THAT sounds to me like more of a threat than model rockets.
My 2 cents.
IronChefMorimoto
What the hell plane is that on the Lincoln? From the homepage? Is that a test plane of some sort?
IronChefMorimoto
...to gaming while driving. Hope they make hands-free joysticks for these phones, or the "driving while talking on cell phone" bans are really going to start ratcheting up.
IronChefMorimoto
Frankly, if you're smoking next to a gas pump, the attendant ought to have a button right next to the fire suppression/pump stop button labeled "KILL SMOKER" -- promptly dousing the idiot in gasoline and allowing him/her to set themselves on fire.
Seriously -- a burning object (cigarette) near a gas pump? While your kids are sitting in the minivan waiting on you to get back in the car and further their impending asthma condition with your habit? Great idea!
Especially when they see the vapors from the fuel pump handle ignite and set Mommy/Daddy on fire right before their eyes.
Enjoy your bad habit -- just not where it might immediately kill yourself or other people nearby!
Here's my question -- isn't this sort of "requirement" by a major anti-virus software firm a little dangerous these days, what with rampant worms and viruses tormenting IT departments and dragging down the Internet?
To me, AV software should be, perhaps, the most lenient in terms of licensing these days. While I know it's a violation of the license agreement for a consumer to do so, what is the REAL harm in someone putting a copy of AV software on 2-3 computers at home or in a small office if, in the long run, it helps to prevent the sort of global infections that we saw last week?
Certainly, Symantec has a right to protect its intellectual property and its revenues. On the other hand, is it setting itself up to be the scapegoat if, say, several hundred or thousand users don't get the latest AV software because they don't want to deal with product activation OR they end up only buying it and being able to install it on a single machine out of 2-3 they might have in their home?
When I say scapegoat, I mean in terms backlash if another big (SoBig) virus comes out and trashes computers globally. Someone could easily rant "Symantec made it impossible for me to put AV software on my computer!"
I have really been thinking hard about product activation coming into the AV software arena, and now it's come to pass.