Counter-Strike worthiness

Shocking fact: I've never played the original Half-Life, but I've mapped for it.

Since I bought Half-Life 2 with Counter-Strike Source, I thought I should consider playing CS:S. Maybe at least once. I already finished HL2 twice already, and I have mapped for Source.

I don't even know what CS:S is all about. I know it's a multiplayer online game with Source, but it's not exactly like HL2DM. That's the extent of my knowledge.

What do you guys think? Should I even bother learning more about it, or is it a waste of time?

Sure, its a fun game. To fill you in on the basics...

CS:S is a team game in which half the players (idealy) play as
terrorists and the other half play as counter terrorists. Each map has
objectives for the teams...

Defusal (eg. de_dust, de_chateau) maps see the terrorists trying to
plant a bomb and ensure it goes off at one of two bomb spots around the
map. The CT's have to defend the bomb spots and if the bomb is planted,
then defuse it.

CS maps (eg. cs_office, cs_havana) see the CT's trying to rescue some
NPC hostages that are held in the terrorist area of the map, and get
them to one of the extraction points (normally around the CT spawn
point).

At the beginning of each round all players have the ability to purchase
weapons and equipment, with money that they earn through killing the
enemy and completing objectives. The choice of weapons is different
depending on the team the player is on, but most weapons have fairly
well balanced equivelants for the enemy team. Weapons can be picked up
from corpses, and if you survive a round then you will keep your
equipment for the next round.

The game is quite realistic in that you can't take much
punishment before you are killed. If that happens you have to spectate
the rest of the round, and you will respawn at the start of the next
one. Rounds end when the objective is completed, or when all the people
on one of the teams are killed.

I thinks its a fun game. I play the orignal cs for more than a year straight. Source is tens times better than that. Now i pretty mush balance my time between CS and DM.

An all those stories of 6 yr olds be ass holes aren't really that true, 75% of the time you will connect to a good server with non-asshole people.

I think its good, you should play it and make up your own mind.

ReNo said:
you can't take much punishment before you are killed

in other words, you see a shadow (if you'r lucky) appearing round a corner halfway across the map as you fall dead to the ground. not that anyone playing cs would be using aimbots or anything.

I played counter strike source when it first came out. Then after I got
good (or so I thought), I started playing on servers where the good
people were. There I learned what cheating was all about, and cheap
shots (AWP). Honestly I dont think you should play it, because it might
ruin the way you look at the half life engine.

BTW you should play the original Half Life, just to see how the craze
was started. At least before Black Mesa source comes out, IMO the
models/monsters look good, but the mapping sucks (I mean from the
screen shots there is nothing new, no new brush work or models.....but
hopefully that will change)

Rumours of cheating are greatly exaggerated - I've played a fair deal
of CS and CS:S, and almost all the time I've seen accusations of
cheating its been entirely unfounded. I don't think I've come across
more than half a dozen cheaters in all my time playing the games, and
even those I couldn't be certain of. If you find you enjoy the game,
its best to try out some clan servers or something, and you'll normally
get decent games that way. Public servers are more often filled with
kids or troublemakers compared to clan servers from my experience. I
see no reason why playing any game would ever ruin the way you look at
an engine :biggrin:

In the course of my shortlived run as a cheater, I learned that most cheats, when actually present, are more than obvious. There's no such thing as a subtle wallhack or aimbot. When people possess unusual advantages, they will do unusual things, whether it be scoring headshots through brick walls or happening to know which particular shadow the last terrorist is crouching in.

Rumours of cheating are greatly exaggerated

Yeah I exaggerated a bit. Cheating is a common thing in CSS though,
mainly because there is no VAC2 yet. I think the thing that pisses me
off about CSS the most is you get worse the more you play...unless you
devote 16 hours a day to hone your skill like many do.

omegaslayer said:
I think the thing that pisses me off about CSS the most is you get worse the more you play...unless you devote 16 hours a day to hone your skill like many do.

So true...

I thinks its a fun game. I play the orignal cs for more than a
year straight. Source is tens times better than that. Now i pretty mush
balance my time between CS and DM.

An all those stories of 6 yr
olds be ass holes aren't really that true, 75% of the time you will
connect to a good server with non-asshole people.

I prefered the original to the CSS in terms of game play, but the
graphics are so kewl in CSS, and yea, those stories aren't true, in the
past few months I have come across 1 person like that and I joined
another server in about 10 seconds.

I have played for about 4 years on and off and it's still not boring.

Never got into original cs, but since losing all interest in tfc
recently after playing that on/off for 5 years, css has really grown on
me for some reason. Find it quite good if you just want a casual play,
cause when you die and go into spec mode i just do some browsing, chat
on irc, get cup of tea etc :biggrin:

I played the original counterstrike pretty intensely for a couple years and then off and on for another 2.

I think the gameplay is great for this one reason: Death actually means
something. When you die you have to sit out for the rest of the
round until either one team is completely wiped out or the objective is
completed. This means in the beginning you're not going to
survive for more than a few seconds after you see the enemy, and you're
going to have to sit out for as much 2 minutes. This is
frustrating at first, but just as frustrating as it is for you, think
about how the other people feel when you kill them. CS gives you
a lot of satisfaction when you kill someone, because they have to sit
out a round, and they lose all the weapons and equipment they bought
that round. Furthermore, the better you get, the longer you
survive, and the more people you kill. Once you start getting
pretty good, it wont be uncommon to survive a situation where it's you
VS 3 or 4 enemies. In these situations where you're the last one
left, it gets pretty intense, because you know your team is watching
your every move and hoping you pull it off. The adrenaline kicks
in.

Sure, there are some weapons that some people dislike (the 1 hit kill
sniper rifle aka AWM), and since there's more "realistic" bullet spray
you can get some really lucky shots. This levels the playing
field a bit, because a completely new player can spray randomly and
come up with a kill every once in a while. This wouldn't happen
in TFC or HLDM. Some people gripe, but then again it makes CS a
little easier to get into.

The lows are lower and the highs are higher in CS. That being said, I'd rather play TFC most of the time.

But satchmo I'd definitely give it a try. Why not? It's
free. If you do, then give it a real chance. Play for an
hour or two, try different maps, and different weapons. However,
I'll tell you right now all you're going to need is the Desert Eagle,
the AK, the Colt, or the AWM.

I started playing CS when beta 5.2 was out, about 4 years ago. The fact
that the game was being constantly updated, receiving new weapons maps
and models made it interesting to play. It was pretty fun too, very
different from the TDM mods I was so used to. Beta 6.5, 7.1, 1.1 final
and 1.5 final came and went, as I started to get bored of the same o'l
4-3 vs 4-1 slaughter, so I stopped playing and haven't even bothered
opening up CSS (ok, I did run it once to see the maps; dust looks
lovely!).
In Romania and i'm pretty sure that things are the same
in other places, CS has become something of a drug! Enter any I-cafe
you want and everyone will be playing CS. No warcraft, no generals, no
NFS, only that f**king CS! Many people praise it for the idea of
teamplay...bulls**t - each team-member goes his own way. Communication
is unheard of.

So how do I search for those clans server instead of public server? Would they be properly marked on the server list?

I guess you'll have to trust these strangers as your teammates. I feel bad for any team that's going to have me on their side, because I would probably suck in the beginning. I just hope the learning curve wouldn't be too sharp.

How do you know where the buy zone is located? Are things labeled accordingly?

When you spawn each round you will be in a buy zone, and you can tell
because of the little green shopping cart sprite underneath your
radar. If you wander far enough away from where you start out,
the sprite will disappear signifying you've left the buy zone.
"Buy Time," ie the amount of time you're allowed to buy things after
the start of a round differs from server to server, usually ranging
from 15 seconds to 60. A lower buy time usually prevents people
from buying and throwing grenades repeatedly (you can only hold 1 frag
grenade at a time, but you can also have 2 flashbangs and 1 smoke).

As for searching for servers, look for one that has a name something
along the lines of "[AAA]Generic Clan CS:S Server" and not "Ugly's
FragFest Custom Sounds FY_ICEWORLD 24/7 Max Gore WC3.x", and before you
join a server check the server info to make sure there aren't any bots
and if any of the clan members are present on the server.

I would offer to join a server with you and help you get the hang of
CS, but I've recently uninstalled steam for the duration of the
semester (and yet I still come to Snarkpit...).

People will probably criticize you for being new, but don't let that
get to you, everyone was new to CS at one point... but most people
don't seem to remember that fact.

Dude I can't believe you have not played CSS yet!
You are missing out and it is great fun when playing LAN or online with your friends!

A few maps though are really lame such as glass trap :/
Good maps are the default Valve ones and Rabids etc

i love the game and would definitly say you should play it.

personnally i think it is incredibly realistic, the gunfire is loud the combat intense and only two bullets can kill you

if you liked the physics in HL2 then all of that are in CSS

definitly try it

Thanks for all the input and recommendation. I expect to be "newbified" in the beginning, and I don't mind that. It's part of the learning process.

It reminds me of the days when I was just beginning to train as a doctor--a fresh intern, bright eyed and scared. Full of enthusaism yet with absolutely no real-world knowledge, life was kinda exciting and horrifying at the same time.

Thanks for all the input and recommendation. I expect to be
"newbified" in the beginning, and I don't mind that. It's part of the
learning process.
It reminds me of the days when I was just beginning to train as a
doctor--a fresh intern, bright eyed and scared. Full of enthusaism yet
with absolutely no real-world knowledge, life was kinda exciting and
horrifying at the same time.

But I bet all the other doctors gently corrected you if you did
something wrong or silly, instead of cursing at you or your mother.

instead of cursing at you or your mother

Heh, you'd be surprised. Any doctor who had ever trained for a
surgical or gyn-onc rotation would tell you that sometimes it's not
just verbal abuse, but physical abuse as well.

Fortunately, it's not prevalent, but abuse of junior trainees by senior
ones are not unheard of during residency. I've had plenty of true
but sad stories to share. I survived relatively unscathed,
perhaps due to my bodybuilding physique.

So how do I search for those clans server instead of public
server? Would they be properly marked on the server list?

www.gametiger.net is good.