Blog FeedCounter-Strike is Broken
I have been playing a bit of CS:Source the past few days, and I’m already longing for the days when the UT2004 demo was popular and had many servers. As far as my experiences have shown, UT doesn’t suffer from many of the flaws which make a game of Counter-Strike such a frustrating event. Come to think of it, I haven’t played any other online games that are quite so addictive and quite so bad for my mental health.
Let’s take a look at the code first of all. For some reason, people feel inclined to cheat with any number of hacks. I’m not sure if the problem is as widepsread as it was in original CS, but in CS:Source it’s definately notable enough, and it makes me quite sick. Other games have vulnerabilities which are also exploited, but in my experience few of them were as critical to the outcome of the game as those found in CS:Source. In this game, a few shots can make a huge difference as to how the game turns out, and as such I think Valve should be pumping out fixes or anti-cheat enhancements for these hacks a bit quicker than they are now. They must know they’re around. How long can it possibly take?
Next up we of course have the morons who populate many servers. You can see the differences in articulation and politeness between a Counter-Strike community and a general gaming community simply by reading a few threads in each respective forum. In other games I play online, the number of times the words “n00b”, “stfu” and other internet-born inanities are kept at quite the minimum. So why is it so much more common in Counter-Strike?
Frankly, I feel that it’s as though the game itself is played more out of addiction than out of the desire to have a good time. It’s about the need to have a higher score, or perhaps kill someone in particular. Of course this isn’t always the case, but I feel that it is played in the mindset of proper goal-oriented teamwork very rarely. I think that the way the game works is what has created people’s desire to cheat, and has turned a lot of otherwise normal people into n00b-bashing assholes.
Let’s run down a quick comparison between CS:S and UT2004’s onslaught mode, both based on two teams each trying to achieve a goal. In UT2004, if you die, you respawn, you get on with acheiving your goal. Hardly realistic, but it means dying is not a big thing. Not many things happen in that game that make you want to slam your fist on the desk. In CS:S, dying is the end-all be-add of each round, and when you die it pisses you off. A lot, infact. So much so that if you’re not mature enough to show some self control, you take it out on other people, name-calling and such. And then the abuse becomes habitual. I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of times an obscenitiy has been used on a Counter-Strike server outnumbers the amount of times Google would find it on the internet.
I think it’s a bit like football, or “soccer” for those who don’t care about it. I can’t think of any other major sport that generates riots as often as this game does. Why do I think there are riots so often? Because the fans are very frustrated at the game because of the small number of times a goal is scored, especially if it’s zero - which happens quite a bit. You don’t see loads of frustrated fans in basketball, with scores up near or above a hundred, keeping the game alive the whole time. In basketball, they only riot for good reasons - like punch-ups with the players.
If the CS community is to improve, it needs to do something to ease the frustration associated with each and every round. At the moment, it seems some players attempt to make themselves less frustrated and feel better by using hacks to excel in the game. In football, simply widening the goal would produce the results I think would be beneficial. For CS, though, I can’t think of anything obvious - respawning is obviously out of the question. Perhaps some form of entertainment for dead players? I dunno. But what I do know is that playing CS:Source is not healthy.
25th January | Reply
To be quite honest, I don’t think CS has ever been good enough to get angry at, although I do admit I’ve had my fair share of hot moments. Immaturity breeds immaturity, which is probably why I was going through so many damn keyboards for a while there. But what good does it do to get frustrated? Doesn’t that essentially neutralize the whole point of playing games in the first place?
What I’ve come to realize from my years of gaming is that games are supposed to be fun, and playing online usually isn’t. People don’t play to learn the game, they play to win it. And since we [typically] mature people have other objectives than exploiting our way to the highest score, there is no common interest in fun. The whole thrill of meeting up with fellow gamers (the very idea that online gaming was founded upon) goes out the window.
The reward should be in eating the pudding, not having the most of it. Single-player games like Half-Life, NOLF2, and Deus Ex are designed to give the player a challenge and draw them into solving the task at hand. Multiplayer games like CS and UT are designed to put players at ends, and make them want to kill each other in as terrible a way as possible. I’m no naysayer of violence in video games of course, but how is such a thing considered “fun”?
Furthermore, what’s the point? So you racked up the most frags by exclusively using the “best” weapon in the game. And…? So did everyone else, or at least they tried to. What makes you special? Did you enjoy yourself because you got to exercise the skills you’ve been practicing, or did you enjoy yourself because other people didn’t fare as well as you? Personally, I won’t even offer a “gg” anymore, because I know the winners are typically too conceited to appreciate the concept anyway.
But truth be told, it’s their loss. While they sit and piss their days away, getting frustrated and trying to ruin other people’s good time, the few of us who remain indifferent through it all are going about our normal gaming lives, honestly enjoying the games that are really good. I jump online when I want to mindlessly kill an hour or so, but when it’s gaming crunch time, my internet connection sees no more activity than that generated by AIM - usually, not even that.
And that’s gaming.
25th January | Reply
I don’t have a big problem with the competitive aura that comes with online gaming, otherwise I wouldn’t even like Unreal Tournament. I just have a problem with it when the competitiveness stifles the fun - that, I believe, is what CS:Source does, and which UT2004 does not (at least, not usually - playing a game with consistently unbalanced teams does still get very irritating). Couple that with immaturity and you get some real problems.
Humans are, however, competitive by nature. It’s why sports are such a big thing today. For some, I suppose, their online gaming can take the form of their sport. What they strive to achieve in, and in some cases cheat if it means they can get to the top. However that’s not what games are for, in my opinion. They’re for fun, and competitiveness should only be around if it adds to the experience, not if it takes away from it. Satisfaction for one player should not game at such a big expense for the others.
25th January | Reply
Yeah, I don’t get the whole concept of cheating. Maybe I missed the lesson but what’s the point? You don’t “win” if you cheat and you damned well know it. That said, I haven’t actually come across it but then again I haven’t been much into online gaming in general (a few rounds of UT2003 and a bit of Quake 2 was as far as it went). I’d like to try Halo 2 via XBox Live since that looks kinda cool and the premise of Battlefield 2 looks promising, but beyond that it’s not terribly interesting. Ultimately, I’m a single-player person on the grounds that I like a plot (regardless as to how trite it is) so multiplayer is definitely something that adds-to but certainly isn’t the game. The only exception to this are console multiplayer games like Pro Evolution or Soul Calibur 2 where you really need a mate to play with in order to really enjoy them…
Not sure how bad the CS online community is but I expect there isn’t much that can be done about it unless someone actively polices servers and boots the idiots.
25th January | Reply
Of course, friendly competition can be fun. I’m just saying that most people aren’t friendly. They’re not competing for the sake of competing, they’re competing to prove themselves. And I don’t think anyone would bother trying to prove themselves to people they’ve never even met, so really, they’re just trying to satisfy their own ego.
The fact that these people even feel that they’ve earned the right to an ego is somewhat upsetting… *Smirk*
Cheating doesn’t really bother me. The reason most people cheat is because they aren’t very good at the game. Except for extreme cases, I never really have any problem taking out a cheater. They tend to be overly agressive, and will often charge headlong into any situation. Auto-head-snap is a nice feature, but it only works on one target at a time.
Besides, they’re ruining their own fun, not mine. I’m there to play the game, not crown the scoreboard. It’s not like they earned whatever kills they got on me anyway, so I don’t sweat it. Of course, in CS, dying really is annoying. But the communities all went bad a long time ago, so I personally can’t take it seriously at all, or any other multiplayer FPS for that matter. Maybe I’m just not meant for this argument.
25th January | Reply
As a fanatic multiplayer fan I feel I should reply here. I barely play singleplayer games. They tend to bore me quite quickly, because I simply play for the challenges and competition. As I wrote in my comment on DocHollidays article, I dont feel victorious when winning against bots in UT2004.
Yesterday, I was playing UT2004 deathmatch (I rarely play the real team modi anymore (like ONS and AS) because its frustrating to lose just because the rest of your team sucks) and a guy came into the game, I beat him, but he only entered midway so he probably figured “I can take this [GSF]JohnDoe”. He typed “next round, I’ll win”. I replied “Sure, cool”, and at the end of the next round he had 12 frags, and I had 25. Its purely a game of competition, like tag and other games kids play outside.
A couply of years ago I wasnt nearly as good as I am now (mostly because I could only play offline at the time), and whenever I played multiplayer I played just to enjoy the game, and to get a few nice kills if I could. Now that I’m a much better player I actually play to win. Its a test of my skills against those of the others, and this has only made my game more fun. Humans, or at least males, are generally competitive, and this game works that perfectly.
Obviously cheating is something different, but as Cyrris wrote, I guess thats just crappy coding on Valve’s part, since I cant remember the last time I’ve seen a cheater in UT2004.
One thing I feel I should mention is that the UT2004 and CS(:S) communities seem to be quite different. UT2004 games tend to be no-nonsense fragfests. People get in, try to get some kills, and say gg afterwards, if this was (it usually is) the case. There’s hardly any smacktalking, purely because UT2004 is suck a skillbased game you will never win by being lucky, and security is tight enough to eliminate most (I wont say all, but I’ve never seen any) hacks.
CS:S is filled with people I have no other description for than counterstrikers. And no this is not a good thing. Its also why I havent bothered to re-crack my CS:S after the first patch by Valve. It was amusing to play with the guys from GSF, but I didnt like the game nearly as much as others I had installed.
26th January | Reply
Oddly enough I still play some CS:S and enjoy it. Why? Because I merely ignore the chat. JD is right about UT2004, it has no room for conversations. The game is far too fast and 1 kill doesn’t make the difference that CS:S does. I feel there are lucky kills in UT2004 however. I know I have gotten quite a few.
The difference is though, as Cyrris stated, after you die you are right back in. In CS you are left with no action but to sit there and stew about your death. Actually you do have one action, typing.
For the immature player playing UT2004 he is soon discouraged from typing. One reason, typing in UT2004 is usually a good way to get yourself killed. Another is that right after you die you are back and you can seek whatever lame kind of “revenge” you want to. Instead of using words you use the game’s guns. So I say that the UT2004 community does not really lack the assholes that CS has, its just they don’t have such an opportunity to be that.
Usually at least. I have yet to play an online game where there is a total absence of assholes. I know every once in a while I see a player explode with an outburst of rage in UT2004. It usually comes at the end of the match though. It builds up throughout the match until it finally pops. But that tends to be an effect of competition regardless.
I also think that UT2004 eventually pushes immature gamers away or (gasp) makes them more mature. Mainly because it deprives them of the attention they so desperately seek. The only way to get attention in UT2004 is to be on top. CS, however, is an open forum where after a minute of the round goes by a good 50% of the players are talking while “dead”. If you consider the age group of the player’s who most commonly display these immature personalities I think that CS really isn’t to blame here. Well at least not as the root cause of such behavior. CS is just an outlet that is more easily exploited by these people.
In CS:S, people hang in a ‘limbo’ upon death where they can talk. In UT2004 you usually die alone. No coherent conversations can be held because everyone else is concentrating on playing (since they are still alive). Most things said in UT DM games are shortened acronyms to take as little time as possible: “gg” “ns” “:)”. So these kids who are at the stage in life where all they demand is attention from others have no way to receive it. Unless they are the top player no one will feed them the responses to their jabberings in chat. Most people don’t even notice the chat in UT since, again, they are concentrating on playing.
CS however, the only choice of the other players is to respond because its the only thing going on in the game if your dead. Now I know why I played CS so long in high school without getting sick of it. The way I used to play CS was while doing my math homework every night. Everytime I died I would go do a few problems until the next round started, I never got involved in the chat.
I actually have a solution to fixing CS:S. But it is big enough to be a blog post and I was already planning on doing it for tomorrow or the next day. So wait and see.
26th January | Reply
I would like to add that lucky kills do happen in UT2004, and yes I’ve had them myself too, but I said that you cant WIN with lucky kills, because you just wont be that lucky. If you’re lucky in CS:S you get a headshot witha deagle half a map away.
26th January | Reply
Playing today reminded me of another thing. Quite a few egotists will intentionally join the winning side because they don’t like losing, or because it’s easier to get more kills and less deaths when you have more/better team mates. I don’t just mean when people join the game, it also happens during (they’ll switch teams), and I think it’s particularly lame that many don’t bother to try and even things up when there is a real imbalance. I’ve seen it happen in UT, and I see it always happening in CS:Source.
26th January | Reply
Throughout my gaming career, I’ve certainly done my fair share of ranting. And why? Because I’ve damn well had my fair share of reasons to rant! I’ve witnessed cheating, exploits, abuse, imbalances, and immaturity in every online game I’ve ever played. CS, of course, is outstandingly guilty of harboring ill-behaved players, but truth be told, the problem spreads far and wide.
The realization I arrived at several months ago is that these behaviors are never going to change. As generations of gamers pass, the online communities will grow increasingly obnoxious. So why sweat it? You can safely expect to run into cheaters and other generally annoying people online. Hell, I embrace it. I play for the strategy, and dealing with serious assholes requires quite a unique one of those. I’m comfortable with my skills, and I don’t need a score to prove myself.
That being said, I’d still probably be overwhelmingly tempted to punch a cheater in the face if I met them in person. But hey, I work retail. That’s what you get from us. lol
30th January | Reply
I’m glad I found this forum. I played TFC and CS back in 2000 (dialup) and just started back recently after *finally* getting broadband. TFC is great fun (aside from the bots) and generally a good gaming community. However, the CS *community* is sadly horrid. I love the game, but hate most of the gamers. I try to find the newbie servers but nonetheless the verbal “n00b” insults are ubiquitously annoying. I’ve been kicked from servers and even banned from one simply because I’ve not mastered the game yet.
Most activities welcome newcomers because it keeps it alive. Considering the CS mentality; however, I predict a slow dwindling death for the game. You are correct. It is broke.
30th January | Reply
Hello TrailBLur, welcome to aelon.
I just finished playing a CS:S match with a friend of mine against a team made of only bots. It was a rather refreshing experience. We had a bot on our team as well and its rather amazing how smart and aware they are. Their radio chatter is extremely useful and nothing like the ear-death I suffer when young excitable kids get on the mic.
These bots will make CS more enjoyable for me. There is a very limited amount of people that I like to play CS with. So when I only have 3 or 4 people for a game I can just fill the teams with bots (I love 4v4). Not only do the bots present a challenge but they are also great to have on your team. While the CS community is definitly screwed up I do not think I am done with the game just yet.
1st February | Reply
I’m currently addicted to CS:S at the moment too. There aren’t too many servers where I am at the moment in Australia, but at least they don’t seem to attract these kind of morons.