What the hell? It looks exactly the same as CS:S....
My thinking behind the game is as follows:
CS:S is getting on a bit now. It's been out since like 2004, and it's seen as an 'old' game now. It seems Valve are just re-vamping the graphics (albeit very slightly) and calling the game new again just to keep their player base. Correct me if I'm wrong!
Well before tf2 went free to play, cs 1.6 was the first and cs:s was the second most played game on steam. Actually since the main flood of people playing free tf2 is coming to an end I wouldn't be surprised if they are back at 1st and 2nd.
I'm not convinced that having pc and console gamers matched up in the same servers is a good idea. Also if it's going to be released on consoles what price is it going to be? The default £40-50 range for only multiplayer?
As much as I like CS I might not buy this, because if theres one thing the game requires it's a pristene internet connection, and I get a lag spike everytime I turn a corner.
well seeing how it's going to be on the xbox live arcade/psn aswell as steam. I'm thinking it'll be $20 dollars maximum
1: the environments are nice, but they're really being bottlenecked by source at this point and it shows. full BSP just doesn't cut it anymore.
2: the weapon models have the typical valve problem of being mismatched due to them letting anybody in the studio do anything. some weapons are fully dynamic (and look like crap) and others are diffuse lit? what? the animations are subpar and in ways look worse than the ones gooseman did back in 99'. that in combination with the sounds and the onscreen weapon size really contributes to the wimpy weapon feel in my eyes. (but hey, i haven't played it yet)
3: the movement looks like left 4 dead, which has always felt "slippery" to me. esports games require extremely tight and precise controls, which left 4 dead doesn't have IMO. (again, haven't played cs:go yet)
4: i'm really glad they are focusing on 5v5 and the changes to dust1 seem smart, but we'll have to see how the competitive players take to the new weapons and i'm afraid it will split the community even more than it already is. not only will you have a split between 1.6, source, and GO, but now you'll have a split between console and PC.
5: counter-strike has always had gameplay shaped by its players. the community was given a game and was told "here you go" without any changes for years. players figured out how to exploit it to their advantage and THAT is what made the game what it is. i'm concerned that valve/hidden path will step in and keep changing things after it's released, something that happens with almost every game these days. patching the game every week and making "balance changes" or fixing exploits that make the game what it is will quickly kill off the competitive scene--it did exactly that when hidden path did it with cs:s.
CS:S I'll agree with, but 1.6 has more major international (and strongly sponsored) tournaments than basically any other competetive game. It isn't remotely dead.
yeah, it seems in europe 1.6 is still going strong (note how many european pros valve brought in to see the alpha) but here in the US all the LANs have moved over to playing random games in tournaments, starcraft 2, or one of the COD games. even ESEA's popularity here has been slowly declining.
well seeing how it's going to be on the xbox live arcade/psn aswell as steam. I'm thinking it'll be $20 dollars maximum
Hmm that'd be nice, thought I wonder if that 75% off CS:S is on there permanently otherwise it's normally £13.99, which is over $20 and if that's $20 then the new one would be more.
yeah, it seems in europe 1.6 is still going strong (note how many european pros valve brought in to see the alpha)
Is there a list somewhere of the players who were invited? I understand they were mostly the dregs that are still playing CS:S after all the actual good CS players went back to playing 1.6 (which coincidentally happened after the CGS cash-cow hit the dirt). I wouldn't trust people like that to balance a game, most of the "pros" who are still playing CSS, were never top-tier 1.6 players and hence don't have anywhere near the same understanding of the game.
For being a 2012 release, it's pretty far behind. "Gameplay first" doesn't seem valid. You don't have the game designers making art so that's not an entirely legitimate excuse.
It's just the limitations of the Source engine. Some rendering is a little nicer, but the art just can't compare to other FPSs out there.
BF3, for example.
I think I've just grown out of the whole FPS scene. Even though I used BF3 as a point of reference for art, I might not even get that either.
This may be a good business decision, though, to rehash some old game and generate some $$$ from it.
Well MS is Valves biggest competitor with their Windows Live games so Valve/Sony try to oppose that. Even with this absolutely retarded cross platform thing. They should do cross platform 360 - PS3 and MAC - WIN. Now that would be fun!
Really? Valve, atleast to me, seems to mind design and visuals A WHOLE LOT.
Halflife 2 is still beautiful and the design is really clever and they constantly seem to be able to create visually appealing characters in their games that aren't dumbed down to the usual ; chicks with giant teeeeeets and thin waists or muscly homo erotic hunks that grunt and touch each others bums and kill stuff.
Team fortress 2 and their 50s Cornwell and Leyendecker inspired art and style is equally brilliant and well designed.
Portal, Left4Dead, both of which are very well executed both visually and gameplay wise.
If you think Valve isnt about the visuals then go buy Viktor Antonov's books and the Halflife2 artbook.
I can think of few other companies that display such a wide variety of styles in their games and to such a quality as the Valve titles.
With that being said, I can't say I'm super impressed by the graphics in CS:GO but I still hope that it's going to be a fun and highly competitive game. I think the balance and feel of the game is key if its going to be played by the pro's or not. I think games like cs 1.6 and q3 arena are still the two best competitive shooters out there because of their balance and feel.
Well what I mean is, graphically visual, real stunning textures, lighting etc whereas you're referring to style which you're right, Valve are masters at.
Man, I just took a break from my current project just to come here and hate on this god damn game. LOL, Valve needs a new engine! I'm afraid about what half-life 3 will look like. This looks super dated. animations are an eye sore... And It's LITERALLY the same thing with a lighting change and some new textures. WTH!? Such a shame... it doesn't even seem like Counter strike, to me it's like a counter strike left for dead half breed... i dont know
Yeah but portal 2 has some great animations and the writing carries the dated engine. I played thru that game loving the jokes, it presented me with writing i had never experienced in games before. This tho, is just shooting people there's not much else in the package.
I've been an avid CS player since BETA 7, so I can definitely look beyond the visuals and the "blocky" maps. Because that has never been the big hook of CS. I remember when CS:S was released, I rarely played it because it just didn't play as well as 1.6. It actually felt like a completely different game (and in a way, it still does). So I'd be interested to see how CS:GO plays once it's released.
Boring? Really?
Don't really understand the CS:S hate. Been playing CS 1.6 for a long time, but I do think CS:S is superior. The gameplay is a bit slower and sometimes not as clinically precise as 1.6, but its nonetheless a great online FPS.
Late on the quote here, but I think slower gameplay and not being as clinically precise as 1.6 is a great reason to call CS:S boring in comparison to CS 1.6. I really felt like they killed my CS experience with CS:S. I really hope CS:GO fixes these issues.
I liked CSS, didn't mind the changes. I wish they kept the riot shield, I loved that
This new one looks alright, but there's something weird with the hand and gun models, the animations, dunno. Feels weird
I've been an avid CS player since BETA 7, so I can definitely look beyond the visuals and the "blocky" maps. Because that has never been the big hook of CS. I remember when CS:S was released, I rarely played it because it just didn't play as well as 1.6. It actually felt like a completely different game (and in a way, it still does). So I'd be interested to see how CS:GO plays once it's released.
+1000
I'm a huuuuuuge 1.6 noob (been playing since 0.5beta-ish), never really liked CS:S and while sceptic, I'm still looking forward to GO.
I still remember the good old days of CS 1.5 when everyone I knew was crazy about the game! It was like a revolution, all computer gaming clubs in town were filled with people (high school kids mostly but lots of adults as well). It will never be the same.
its in there, I saw like a 2 second clip of it somewhere in one vid. its confirmed that there will be office, aztec, nuke, italy, dust and dust 2 and I think one other.
I stopped playing css because i would find hitting was so random, sometimes i would unload a whole clip into someone at very close range with 0 hits :S
Lets hope they dont put in a casual mode where health regenerates too...
I think I'm a minority here but I really want to play this. But man, they should really get rid of tha HL2 van. It's like the most overused asset in valve games.
Ok sorry Ganemi I thought you were trolling honest. so there are several differences from MW2 and Counterstrike
Counterstrike is a sport and has a huge e-sports scene, MW2 does not, and when there is games the original game rules have been altered almost beyond the games recognition. (you cant have this and you cant have that perk etc)
In counterstrike you can play lan, in mw2 you cannot, you cannot have your own server unless they patched it and I dont know atm. so there is always the ''host'' who have a huge advantage over the other players, in counterstrike there is a dedicated server and everyone are on the same terms as much as humanly possible.
in MW you level up in CS everyone start with money and depending on your decisions and how you do and the teams success you can buy the stuff you want.
in mw you have spawning depending on where your team is (usually, it depends on game mode) in counterstrike you spawn once with your team on one side of the map and the other team on the other and you can start planning together before the round starts.
because of this, in counterstrike you have strict timings and many different strategies to choose from and to know to counter your enemy.
In MW the winning team gets an easier times because of killstreaks in counterstrike its team money management to get the upper edge.
MW you can play casual, CS you can play casual and competively.
MW anyone can pick up and spray their weapons and kill everyone, you cannot pick up counterstrike and expect to have any success with your k/d. MW2 is a lot more accesible to beginners while in CS in general there is a skill level you will have a hard time with understanding how the game mechanics work.
But then I guess quake3, cs, mw, bf3 are all the same, twitch shooters.
Am not. The movement and weapons feel similar to me. : O Perhaps I'm crazy.
Yeh you have modern weapons in first person and you can move so you might think its similar I agree but I think its like saying all action movies with a hero who wins in the end is the same also. My advice would be to play more, more of both games, get to learn some of the people you are playing with and try to work together as a team under a longer time and you will know the difference.
BOTH ARE GREAT GAMES but in my opinion they are very different other than that they are called FPS and its only my opinion and maybe you know something I dont and if you do, please let me know.
Yeh I know, the last thing I said was just a joke, I kinda contradicted everything else I wrote before. Sorry I dont proof read what I write and sometimes it just comes down on paper in a different way than what I intend it to.
I see why a lot of people dont like to play in rounds and have to wait until they respawn like in CS (because they cant be arsed and if you take your time to play computer games you should be playing not waiting) but I do think it gets more exciting knowing you have 1 life and you dont generate health so the play style is completely different and the game pace changes depending on what happens in that round (if you manage to stay alive that is). Do you have little health? full health and close to the end of the round? is your whole team dead and you are protecting the hostages? In MW its the same the WHOLE time making it bit bland after a while. (it got its different game modes but meh)
CS is popular because in the end its a solid shooter with a very high skill ceiling (just like in Q3) and it happened to become big back in the day because of Halflife(same engine) (& timming) and now there is a big competitive scene. + the social aspect keeps it so popular.
I'm really pretty surprised by all the Source Engine hate here (at polycount, specifically). I think it's pretty well known that Valve do a very thorough job of knowing their audience, down to what specs they can run.
I am certain that the visuals of Source are restrained by the need to scale to a really, really wide variety of machines and look great on all those machines. This is not a trivial task. Deferred rendering, realtime lighting solutions, higher polycounts, abolishing brushes.....none of that comes for free, and comes at the price of eliminating part of your market. Show me another modern engine that can scale as well as Source engine can all the way back to DX8.0, you know?
Counterstrike in particular is played ALL OVER THE DAMN WORLD, including many countries that are behind the tech curve and don't have the same machines you guys do. They want to build a game with a huge audience, and they have traditionally done that by catering and capturing a corner of the market that is largely ignored, as well as the mainstream. This game needs to be playable on crappy machines in internet cafes, or walmart e-machines...that's part of what makes their games ubiquitous.
I'm not going to argue that this is more than a re-skin/upgrade, visually. Obviously that is true. But I am surprised that you guys expect Valve's strategy to drastically change. The bottom line is that as a company, they don't follow the same strategy that other companies follow (moar graphics!), so why are you surprised?
I'm really pretty surprised by all the Source Engine hate here (at polycount, specifically).
When your engine has some of the worst content pipelines EVER, masked by only hype by those who never experienced the troubles, Source gets a terrible rap for every technical artist here. It's a no brainer.
This isn't about the backwards compatibility due to the legacy baggage carried from the Goldsrc era, that's not a feat.
Also, it's most likely they'll make DX9 a minimal requirement for CS:GO like they did for L4D anyhow. Cutting off some of the legacy rendering baggage helped L4D2 a lot, and then there's that sound cache system that improved performance even more since Source tends to be much of a CPU hog than anything else. Theres really no point to support DX7 only hardware when your game needs a dual-core 2GHz at the minimum, and there's DX10/11 capable video cards affordable all over the place, it's hard to NOT get one these days.
Arguing a defense for Source supporting 2001-2002 hardware in 2011 seems kind of silly looking these days especially when the countries supposedly behind this 'tech curve' somehow can run games more demanding than CSS (WoW, SC2 and soon DOTA2). Funny thing, this thread wasn't even about an engine pissing contest until you brought it up...
I think I'm a minority here but I really want to play this. But man, they should really get rid of tha HL2 van. It's like the most overused asset in valve games.
Ahh yes, i used all sorts of configs in the time i played it , and one of my biggest gripes with the net code is something that is turned off in that config,
cl_interpolate 0
Its a really silly system, as far as i remember it takes someone position in the map , and based on their direction/position between the last x amount of packets makes a guess on where the player model should be next.
Basically smoothing net packets , so you get a seeming constant update even if someone is not sending enough packets.
This is however NOT the actual position of the player, just where the model is displayed. So you are probably shooting at the wrong place (hence the seeming bad hit reg)
Trouble is , almost every server you go to will demand that this is turned on(or auto turn it on for you) as well as changing your rates to some arbitrary figure), because people dont understand what it does mainly i think.
If you ever played and had someone tell someone else they are rate hacking, this is where someone has deliberately set their command rate too low, so the interpolation between packets is almost always wrong.
Interpolation is also the reason moving left and right (dancing) is effective, or partly, as again interpolation will display the other players model inaccurately.
Setting cl_interpolate 0 makes the game look jerky but at least it is showing you exactly what is there.
Ahh well , rant over
If they can somehow fix all the net issues i would love to play css, but there is so much to fix in that old engine...
Replies
Well before tf2 went free to play, cs 1.6 was the first and cs:s was the second most played game on steam. Actually since the main flood of people playing free tf2 is coming to an end I wouldn't be surprised if they are back at 1st and 2nd.
1: the environments are nice, but they're really being bottlenecked by source at this point and it shows. full BSP just doesn't cut it anymore.
2: the weapon models have the typical valve problem of being mismatched due to them letting anybody in the studio do anything. some weapons are fully dynamic (and look like crap) and others are diffuse lit? what? the animations are subpar and in ways look worse than the ones gooseman did back in 99'. that in combination with the sounds and the onscreen weapon size really contributes to the wimpy weapon feel in my eyes. (but hey, i haven't played it yet)
3: the movement looks like left 4 dead, which has always felt "slippery" to me. esports games require extremely tight and precise controls, which left 4 dead doesn't have IMO. (again, haven't played cs:go yet)
4: i'm really glad they are focusing on 5v5 and the changes to dust1 seem smart, but we'll have to see how the competitive players take to the new weapons and i'm afraid it will split the community even more than it already is. not only will you have a split between 1.6, source, and GO, but now you'll have a split between console and PC.
5: counter-strike has always had gameplay shaped by its players. the community was given a game and was told "here you go" without any changes for years. players figured out how to exploit it to their advantage and THAT is what made the game what it is. i'm concerned that valve/hidden path will step in and keep changing things after it's released, something that happens with almost every game these days. patching the game every week and making "balance changes" or fixing exploits that make the game what it is will quickly kill off the competitive scene--it did exactly that when hidden path did it with cs:s.
yeah, it seems in europe 1.6 is still going strong (note how many european pros valve brought in to see the alpha) but here in the US all the LANs have moved over to playing random games in tournaments, starcraft 2, or one of the COD games. even ESEA's popularity here has been slowly declining.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr68FZE85VM
Hmm that'd be nice, thought I wonder if that 75% off CS:S is on there permanently otherwise it's normally £13.99, which is over $20 and if that's $20 then the new one would be more.
Is there a list somewhere of the players who were invited? I understand they were mostly the dregs that are still playing CS:S after all the actual good CS players went back to playing 1.6 (which coincidentally happened after the CGS cash-cow hit the dirt). I wouldn't trust people like that to balance a game, most of the "pros" who are still playing CSS, were never top-tier 1.6 players and hence don't have anywhere near the same understanding of the game.
Epsilon-PHP
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ESEA's Torbull
i'm still extremely skeptical and refuse to get excited about this until i try it myself.
It's just the limitations of the Source engine. Some rendering is a little nicer, but the art just can't compare to other FPSs out there.
BF3, for example.
I think I've just grown out of the whole FPS scene. Even though I used BF3 as a point of reference for art, I might not even get that either.
This may be a good business decision, though, to rehash some old game and generate some $$$ from it.
I doubt it will be popular; xbox v PS3 players though, thats a different story.
Isn't M$ really against the cross-platform thing, and actively blocks it?
Valve have been going on about sony so maybe it's only ps3 for consoles?
Really? Valve, atleast to me, seems to mind design and visuals A WHOLE LOT.
Halflife 2 is still beautiful and the design is really clever and they constantly seem to be able to create visually appealing characters in their games that aren't dumbed down to the usual ; chicks with giant teeeeeets and thin waists or muscly homo erotic hunks that grunt and touch each others bums and kill stuff.
Team fortress 2 and their 50s Cornwell and Leyendecker inspired art and style is equally brilliant and well designed.
Portal, Left4Dead, both of which are very well executed both visually and gameplay wise.
If you think Valve isnt about the visuals then go buy Viktor Antonov's books and the Halflife2 artbook.
I can think of few other companies that display such a wide variety of styles in their games and to such a quality as the Valve titles.
With that being said, I can't say I'm super impressed by the graphics in CS:GO but I still hope that it's going to be a fun and highly competitive game. I think the balance and feel of the game is key if its going to be played by the pro's or not. I think games like cs 1.6 and q3 arena are still the two best competitive shooters out there because of their balance and feel.
How times have changed...
[ame]
Half Life 3 is so far off in the distance it will most likely be on Source 2 anyways.
maybe
it technically still 1.something
[ame]
Late on the quote here, but I think slower gameplay and not being as clinically precise as 1.6 is a great reason to call CS:S boring in comparison to CS 1.6. I really felt like they killed my CS experience with CS:S. I really hope CS:GO fixes these issues.
This new one looks alright, but there's something weird with the hand and gun models, the animations, dunno. Feels weird
+1000
I'm a huuuuuuge 1.6 noob (been playing since 0.5beta-ish), never really liked CS:S and while sceptic, I'm still looking forward to GO.
Whoever modelled the gun from 15-18 seconds should be fired straight away.
There will be office. They released a picture of it a few days ago.
Because you need skill? blah nevermind dont get me started
I stopped playing css because i would find hitting was so random, sometimes i would unload a whole clip into someone at very close range with 0 hits :S
Lets hope they dont put in a casual mode where health regenerates too...
The hitboxes in CSS are a bit of a joke indeed, but there are console commands to alleviate the problem. I'm using this CFG:
http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=36580
Ok sorry Ganemi I thought you were trolling honest. so there are several differences from MW2 and Counterstrike
Counterstrike is a sport and has a huge e-sports scene, MW2 does not, and when there is games the original game rules have been altered almost beyond the games recognition. (you cant have this and you cant have that perk etc)
In counterstrike you can play lan, in mw2 you cannot, you cannot have your own server unless they patched it and I dont know atm. so there is always the ''host'' who have a huge advantage over the other players, in counterstrike there is a dedicated server and everyone are on the same terms as much as humanly possible.
in MW you level up in CS everyone start with money and depending on your decisions and how you do and the teams success you can buy the stuff you want.
in mw you have spawning depending on where your team is (usually, it depends on game mode) in counterstrike you spawn once with your team on one side of the map and the other team on the other and you can start planning together before the round starts.
because of this, in counterstrike you have strict timings and many different strategies to choose from and to know to counter your enemy.
In MW the winning team gets an easier times because of killstreaks in counterstrike its team money management to get the upper edge.
MW you can play casual, CS you can play casual and competively.
MW anyone can pick up and spray their weapons and kill everyone, you cannot pick up counterstrike and expect to have any success with your k/d. MW2 is a lot more accesible to beginners while in CS in general there is a skill level you will have a hard time with understanding how the game mechanics work.
But then I guess quake3, cs, mw, bf3 are all the same, twitch shooters.
Yeh you have modern weapons in first person and you can move so you might think its similar I agree but I think its like saying all action movies with a hero who wins in the end is the same also. My advice would be to play more, more of both games, get to learn some of the people you are playing with and try to work together as a team under a longer time and you will know the difference.
BOTH ARE GREAT GAMES but in my opinion they are very different other than that they are called FPS and its only my opinion and maybe you know something I dont and if you do, please let me know.
Yeh I know, the last thing I said was just a joke, I kinda contradicted everything else I wrote before. Sorry I dont proof read what I write and sometimes it just comes down on paper in a different way than what I intend it to.
I see why a lot of people dont like to play in rounds and have to wait until they respawn like in CS (because they cant be arsed and if you take your time to play computer games you should be playing not waiting) but I do think it gets more exciting knowing you have 1 life and you dont generate health so the play style is completely different and the game pace changes depending on what happens in that round (if you manage to stay alive that is). Do you have little health? full health and close to the end of the round? is your whole team dead and you are protecting the hostages? In MW its the same the WHOLE time making it bit bland after a while. (it got its different game modes but meh)
I am certain that the visuals of Source are restrained by the need to scale to a really, really wide variety of machines and look great on all those machines. This is not a trivial task. Deferred rendering, realtime lighting solutions, higher polycounts, abolishing brushes.....none of that comes for free, and comes at the price of eliminating part of your market. Show me another modern engine that can scale as well as Source engine can all the way back to DX8.0, you know?
Counterstrike in particular is played ALL OVER THE DAMN WORLD, including many countries that are behind the tech curve and don't have the same machines you guys do. They want to build a game with a huge audience, and they have traditionally done that by catering and capturing a corner of the market that is largely ignored, as well as the mainstream. This game needs to be playable on crappy machines in internet cafes, or walmart e-machines...that's part of what makes their games ubiquitous.
I'm not going to argue that this is more than a re-skin/upgrade, visually. Obviously that is true. But I am surprised that you guys expect Valve's strategy to drastically change. The bottom line is that as a company, they don't follow the same strategy that other companies follow (moar graphics!), so why are you surprised?
When your engine has some of the worst content pipelines EVER, masked by only hype by those who never experienced the troubles, Source gets a terrible rap for every technical artist here. It's a no brainer.
This isn't about the backwards compatibility due to the legacy baggage carried from the Goldsrc era, that's not a feat.
Also, it's most likely they'll make DX9 a minimal requirement for CS:GO like they did for L4D anyhow. Cutting off some of the legacy rendering baggage helped L4D2 a lot, and then there's that sound cache system that improved performance even more since Source tends to be much of a CPU hog than anything else. Theres really no point to support DX7 only hardware when your game needs a dual-core 2GHz at the minimum, and there's DX10/11 capable video cards affordable all over the place, it's hard to NOT get one these days.
Arguing a defense for Source supporting 2001-2002 hardware in 2011 seems kind of silly looking these days especially when the countries supposedly behind this 'tech curve' somehow can run games more demanding than CSS (WoW, SC2 and soon DOTA2). Funny thing, this thread wasn't even about an engine pissing contest until you brought it up...
Gooseman?
Ahh yes, i used all sorts of configs in the time i played it , and one of my biggest gripes with the net code is something that is turned off in that config,
cl_interpolate 0
Its a really silly system, as far as i remember it takes someone position in the map , and based on their direction/position between the last x amount of packets makes a guess on where the player model should be next.
Basically smoothing net packets , so you get a seeming constant update even if someone is not sending enough packets.
This is however NOT the actual position of the player, just where the model is displayed. So you are probably shooting at the wrong place (hence the seeming bad hit reg)
Trouble is , almost every server you go to will demand that this is turned on(or auto turn it on for you) as well as changing your rates to some arbitrary figure), because people dont understand what it does mainly i think.
If you ever played and had someone tell someone else they are rate hacking, this is where someone has deliberately set their command rate too low, so the interpolation between packets is almost always wrong.
Interpolation is also the reason moving left and right (dancing) is effective, or partly, as again interpolation will display the other players model inaccurately.
Setting cl_interpolate 0 makes the game look jerky but at least it is showing you exactly what is there.
Ahh well , rant over
If they can somehow fix all the net issues i would love to play css, but there is so much to fix in that old engine...
>http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/22/counter-strike-go-gets-arsenal-mode-with-help-from-modders/
Tbh the game doesn't visually look very bad. I'm liking the new look of the terrorists a bit. Though the camo on the CS team looks a bit odd.