Well as some of you may know, they've just released the Beta for css's update to the orange box engine Unfortunately there were limited spots available for the beta so most missed out Just wondering if any member of the community was successful in entering the beta before it closed and would like to tell the rest of us what its like? I've heard its a lot like TF2 in terms of the kill cam and experience and apparently the rego is fixed (finally).

Well lets all hope they fixed the engine of the game,don't want it ending up like the current one.

Apparently the limited beta slots went very quickly. Have any beta servers been setup in Australia yet?

There's a lot of discussion about the new beta on the STEAM forum at the moment, if you don't mind reading through hundreds of moronic flames and juvenile rants to find a few informative posts.

The thing that struck me as the most bizarre is the addition of a domination-nemesis system. Imagine playing counter-strike and suddenly having a domination message pop up in the middle of the round, or a floating icon over the head of your nemisis. Almost brings me to tears.

They're also adding achievements to the game which will no doubt be just as silly and pointless as the TF2 achievements.

With any luck they'll allow both of those features to be disabled from the client side, but still, what a horrible fate for a proud and noble game!

The good news is possible improvements with netcode issues and hitbox fixes, as well as graphical improvements from the updated source engine.

Apart from that there were complaints about changes to gun recoil and grenade ballistics, and movement speed has been increased (although this is likely just a bug in the initial beta).

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all pans out, but the fact that they think dominations and achievements are a good addition to counter-strike doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

Wow, watch this video, the graphics are amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-l47P5PZCA

Looks pretty good. Seems like they have fixed the Brightness Issues on that map then. Find it hard sometimes to see my X-hair even with my brightness down... (Maybe its my Monitor ).... Cant wait for it to be Officially out for everyone else.

Beta is open?

Yeah, it's good.

GA should have some servers up tomorrow for this. At the moment the client is available again for download through steam, not sure how long that will last.

Hopefully this won't be a massive flop.

I would like to say. this ladies and gentlemen is gona be a ****.. It's basically the same as team fortress 2, for those of who who have played it, it's basically a GUI/interface update I doubt their going to update the REGO and basically when someone kills you it shows their achievements and a picture of them a few seconds after your death. also i would not bother with the BETA
and just wait until next month to download the whole update.

Thanks

guys this is basically a tf2 thing, just an update with the interface and some easy achievements, i doubt the rego will be updated, also its best to download the whole update next month. no difference to be honest, so just wait.

So the port to the orange box engine hasn't fixed the rego issues in css?

probably not (not 100% sure) don't worry, it can't all be bad news, we know nothing for sure about rego until we look at the update list.

They're updating the game to a newer version of the source engine, which is claimed to have much improved netcode over the older version used now.



This is what concerns me, they seem to be targeting the kiddie and casual gamer market with the new additions. Do they understand this game and its players at all?

Probably better than you realise. "Kiddie and casual gamer" was the entire demographic when CS was released, and it seems to have done OK. If they can get the rego right and not entirely break the rest of it, hardcore/pro/angry/sad/whatever gamers will turn off all the new stuff and have a better / newer game to play.

The only other option would have been to do nothing, and while change is scary, I'm sure they've thought about it before spending a lot of their money and time on something they are giving away for free.

You perhaps have a different concept of the terms 'kiddies' and 'causual gamers' than I. They've never been a significant portion of the counter-strike player base. Most players seem to be in their teens at least and that has always been the case. And anyone that can play counter-strike worth a damn is not really a 'casual gamer'.



But will they let players turn these features off? Or will that only be possible on a per server basis?

I play on public servers and I'd like to be able to play counter-strike without being subjected to a barrage of meaningless nonsense intended for 10 year old kids suffering from ADD.



I wouldn't describe the changes as scary. Annoying and silly perhaps.

From what I've read, the reason for the update is to enable the game to run on a mac and enable valve to sell it on that platform. Nothing altruistic going on here.

The new additions don't seem to be driven by the current playerbase, the features they're adding weren't exactly at the top of every (or any) cs player's wishlist.

Look, I'm all for obvious improvements and bug-fixes. And I'd welcome additions and changes that are well thought out and in the spirit of the game. But a domination system in counter-strike? Really?

Of course I may be in the minority. Perhaps current players actually like the idea of adding achievements and dominations? Custom hats anybody...?

It's got that motion blur! While it's OK in TF2 (been there since the beginning) it will definitely be something to get used to in CS: S

Valve have definitely adopted the 'we dont care about pro gamers' attitude - Personally I think they've realised its more profitable to target casual gamers (and deal with the flak they cop from the whinging gamers that take it seriously).

I can see a free-weekend and half-price CS: S coming soon after full release...

I'd like to see how CS_Militia would polish up under the Orange Box engine... it was the best of the old engine...

Im sure that the motion blur, kill cam animations and achievements can be disabled/turned off on both the server side and the client side. At least, I think that's what they're aiming for.

Update released today. We'll get it onto the server as soon as possible.

Notice the first four variables will allow us to setup "oldschool" servers without the horrible horrible stuff that only children could possibly want because games aren't meant to be fun or interesting!

Counter-Strike: Source Beta
- Added sv_disablefreezecam cvar to turn off the freezecam on a server.
- Added sv_nonemesis cvar to turn off domination/revenge on a server.
- Added sv_nomvp cvar to turn off MVP stars on a server.
- Added sv_nostats cvar to turn off stats on a server.
- Added avatar images to the scoreboards.
- Added stats report to scoreboard to show whether a server has stats enabled or not.
- Fixed achievement tab so it now updates at the time you earn an achievement.
- Fixed bug causing achievements to be listed as earned in July 2009.
- Fixed issue where you couldn't chat during intermission.
- Fixed player stutter while moving in water.
- Fixed player stutter when running into other players.
- Fixed issue that caused footsteps to play when walking.
- Fixed miscellaneous consistency, spelling and grammatical errors in the string tables.
- Fixed grenade velocity problems.
- Updated a few audio effects.
- Updated scoreboard
- Changed layout to make it more readable.
- Changed scoreboard opacity to make the action behind it more readable.
- Supports Unicode and lowercase letters.
- Grayed out the names of dead players.

I'm actually suprised they're DOING stuff to this game (after they said they would!)

Has hell itself frozen over? It is getting pretty cold

Yeah, im surprised at their thoroughness on this update, hopefully it will be a lot of people back to the game once its released from beta

Does the GA beta server get many players? I wonder if many local players got a beta slot.



I'll assume that comment was aimed at me!

Actually I don't mind MVP as long as it doesn't encourage selfish or silly game play, and stats sounds like a good addition.

It's the domination system that really bothers me. I didn't care for it in TF2 and think (even if toned down) it would be out of place in counter-strike. I personally found it an annoying distraction from otherwise fun and interesting game play, that also tended to encourage players to pursue individual rather than team oriented goals.

But hey, I'm sure all the kiddies love it!

Sorta aimed at you Bunny, but also just teasing.

The GA beta server isn't getting a lot of players, but I'm not sure why - it could be the default map rotation, default settings, anything really. I just whacked it up with all the defaults and sorta hoped the GameOps or the community would ask for changes. I just don't know enough about what makes a CS server popular.

That's ok, I'll get over it....


....


eventually.



One obvious possibility is that most of us didn't get a beta slot.

But here are my golden rules on how to make a popular counter-strike server these days:

Map rotation: Two map maximum. One of the maps must be either dust2 or office, and the second map should be either dust2 or office.

Servers with more than 2 maps are confusing and scary. Servers with maps other than dust2 or office are just plain weird.

Server name: Put something distinctive but meaningless (or wrong) in the name, like [dyna prices], to help it stand out. Avoid the term 'Friendly Fire' however (see below).

Friendly Fire: Friendly fire requires thoughtful and careful play. This is bad. Advertising that a counter-strike server features 'Friendly Fire' is the equivalent of advertising that a TV program contains 'Political Debate' or 'Women's Sports'. Unless you're the ABC, just don't.

And that's all there is to it really.

i am part of the beta, it ant THAT good anyway thou :\

I've seen a few videos showcasing the beta and even though there are a lot of complaints about the achievements, it's pretty easy to ignore them (if you don't like them) and in my opinion they can't "ruin" the game or anything.

What interests me is things like statistics related to kills and weapons etc which will be like server rankings i guess but a bit more persistent implemented in the whole game, not just in particular servers.

To begin with I must say the domination/revenge thing did seem like it would be really annoying but in my experience from TF2 it actually just breeds competition and I know that the times I've been getting "dominated" by someone, my desire to get "revenge" has actually pushed me to concentrate harder and to work out ways in which I can beat a player who may be naturally more skilled than I am.......so on that note I think that the domination/revenge system has the potential to be a great tool but whether or not people simply accept/ignore it or rage/cry about it all over servers and forums will decide that I guess....

Bryn.

Anyone know what if the systems reqs are gonna change? I'm still using a 5 year old pc to play cs:s and can't get a new one untill the end of the year... and I can't seem to find info on this. Would it be just the same as TF2?

Edit: I found the tf 2 sys reqs

The requirements won't change, the only thing they've made which is more system demanding is that you can now set the texture detail to "very high" instead of just "high" its pretty much the exact same game except with better rego, achievements, scoreboard, game background and game stats.

oh ok, cause I was watching some clips on youtube, and the graphics looked alot better

You were probably watching some of the aftersource videos, they're not by valve, they're by a 3rd party development team which made the original maps more high definition.

I was reading another article which confirmed the improved rego....

http://www.cybergamer.com.au/forums/thr ... ve-a-look/

I'm hoping that the new update doesn't remove the ability to bunny hop though! I've become a serial bhopper lately

Bryn.

It will remove it, you can't bunnyhop on the orange box engine.

I think they should of released a new version and left source as it was, i would of bought it.
Then those that dont like it could of stayed with Source.. It doesn't seem like source anymore
(post release comment)