"Every single server I logged onto last night had some twat, or two, or three, running around like The Flash. Meaning, while you�re still buying guns and ammo at the start of each new round, Death quickly comes and pays you a visit. Imagine how fast Superman moved to reverse time after Lois Lane died. Sure, someone got off a lucky shot or two and occasionally killed the cheater, temporarily ending the madness for a few seconds. But that still made the starting team numbers 16 vs. 2, 10 vs. 3, etc. And to think this actually amuses some people."

From Gordon Berg's guest editorial.

What do you think? Should we take up a collection and hire Lorena Bobbit to pay a visit to these bungholes who cheat in online games? What cheats have you encountered in your online gaming?

I really don't understand the mentality where people want to cheat in a multiplayer game like Counter Strike. It's like playing through Quake with godmode turned on. These are games of, for lack of a better word, skill. It requires you to actually have some talent for the game. Obviously these are kids who are either so short on talent or so self centered that they would rather ruin the game for everyone then to learn to play it properly themselves.

This is the same reason that I stopped playing Diablo and Starcraft. Diablo had these people running around that could cast 1 fireball and turn your body into a small pile of vaguely human shaped ash. Starcraft had a cheat that would completely remove the Fog of War for the cheater. It doesn't sound like much of a cheat, but trying to win against someone who can see every little expansion you establish and unit you make while at the same time still not seeing what he's doing is pretty rough. It's just not fun anymore.

There really isn't an easy way to fix the problem. These games are basically annonymous so public embarassment doesn't work. Appealing to their conscience is a waste of time and effort. Until games like this go to a subscription based system (which would be a bad idea in most cases), cheating is just something we have to deal with.

"Until games like this go to a subscription based system (which would be a bad idea in most cases), cheating is just something we have to deal with."

That's what I'm worried about. Diablo 2 is server-side and free, but last I heard Blizzard was losing money on battle.net, so don't be surprised to see them try to figure out a way to squeeze more money out of it.

This very issue is the reason I never got into Quake or Diablo online. I have a friend who plays both, and he has told me countless times about the cheaters on there. (He's a cheater himself, but mostly just to stay competitive. If nobody else cheated, I don't think he would either...)

I'm surprised StarCraft allowed stuff like that. I know that Warcraft 2 -- years before Starcraft -- all cheats affected all players equally. I thought that was pretty cool. If you enemy cheats for gold, you get gold, too. If he removes the fog, you can see him, too. I wonder why Blizzard didn't keep this for Starcraft...Or did they, and someone just "cracked the code?"

There's a difference between the built-in cheats you mention and the hacks that cheaters use. Blizzard controlled the official cheats. The hacks are impossible to control in games that store info client-side.

Even if Valve fixes this hack, someone will come up with a new one.

Now see this is a good business model for someone like Gamespy -- a subscription service for play on a network that guarantees no cheating. I'd probably pay $5 a month for that if it included a variety of games. Unfortunately, Gamespy would probably have to modify the code of the games it supported this way.

Hi, I'm Rob Merritt and I'm a counterstrike addict. I don't really enjoy counterstrike anymore. Maybe I never did. However I some how play it most nights. Sometimes I'll get a cocaine like rush for leading a map but those fixes are few and far between. They are getting fewer and father between. I quit my first true multiplayer love of my life, Team Fortress Classic, because of cheaters and the horror that was the 1.5 patch. So now I play counterstrike and cheaters work me over.

A list of known counterstrike cheats

*higher speed via clinet priming
higher speed from kernal hack.
*aim bots
*invisible
*invicible while underwater
*see thru walls
*teleporting
*skin hacks
strafe jumping
*skin sever crashing
*map cheats where players can hide in walls
higher hit points
less damage
*money cheat (actually cost since everything cost 0 dollars)
*No sound while running

The * are ones that I've tried on a close server sucessfully and thus I know they are real. ei everyone on the server knew what I was doing. We were finding out which cheats were real and how to deal with them. The truth is you can't. I don't know what to do. I really should be thankful. After all I finally might get around to finishing the latest monkey island. But but.. I need another hit...

Rob Merritt -- www.moonbasetycho.com

"Now see this is a good business model for someone like Gamespy -- a subscription service for play on a network that guarantees no cheating. I'd probably pay $5 a month for that if it included a variety of games. Unfortunately, Gamespy would probably have to modify the code of the games it supported this way."

But is something like Gamespy able to stop something like a speed cheat?

"But but.. I need another hit..."

You're giving me the shakes, Rob.

Gordon they could stop it by banning someone from the service.
Rob Merritt -- www.moonbasetycho.com

It's funny, but I came across the speed cheat last night. I played two or three rounds and then quit the server. What was gratifying was that I actually killed a couple of the speed cheaters, which probably really pissed them off! Then I thought about it and realized I was probably more pissed off because an experience I enjoy was ruined.

The speed cheat is one I don't get because it's sooo obvious. You can't argue that 'I'm just a really good shot' because I can see you moving at six thousand miles an hour. Most of the other cheats require significant observation to detect, but you can't hide a speed cheat. So there must be some powerful emotional incentive to cheat so brazenly. The cheaters on the server I joined last night were being cursed out like you wouldn't believe and I would bet that that's the reason they cheat. They want to get a rise out of people, to taunt them into a state of apoplectic rage. The best thing to do is leave. Fuck them.

I've never understood the concept behind cheating, and as a developer (I work at Relic Entertainment) you take it a bit personally if someone is cheating in the game. You might ask yourself if your game is really providing enough entertainment for people, and if it isn't, is that why they are resorting to cheating? In Counterstrike's case, I can safely say that that is not the case. CS is an awesome game. Some people just suck. The same people cheating today would have been that guys that threw sand in your face in the Roman Coliseum before they stabbed you in the back. As developers, we can try to counter cheating through various technical methods, but you're rarely successful at predicting everything and inevitably the cheaters will pop up again. Like cockroaches.

There are a couple of things we can do. The real gamers among us can try to preserve the experience of testing skill on skill [all pings being equal of course :)] in an unsullied game environment or we can leave online games to the anarchists. Self enforcement, peer pressure, the clan system, naming names.

Instituting a pay to play service (or monthly fee or something) might have the advantage of keeping some of chaff off the net but that business model has been tried before (mplayer, TEN) and failed.

Cheating won't force us into pay for play, economics, however, might. It may be an inevitability considering the cost of developing games and maintaining servers these days. As a side effect, cheating may be easier to control when you can keep track of players, close their accounts, call their parents and provide some justice but it might make it harder to find other people to play against. Which would be a shame.

Quinn

"Gordon they could stop it by banning someone from the service."

That is being heatedly discussed as well, but here are the problems with that from what I can tell:

The interface doesn't lend itself very well to banning. This is in terms of doing so on an individual server basis. Server admins do love the idea of the speed cheat in the sense that they now have a definitive target to go after -- it's obvious who's doing the cheating, unlike the other ones you've listed.

A favorite tool out there right now that some admin's use is something called "Punkbuster." It's great for certain hacks, but evidently doesn't work on a speed cheater.

I think banning works on a few levels: identifying the IP (not certain about this), or the CDKEY, or the WONnet ID. But all three of those values can be variables. IP's are often dynamically assigned, and CDKEYs and WONnet ID's are often created and changed via cracks. And people keep talking about some sort of utility out there called the "unban" hack, which I gather defeats a lot of these efforts.

Yes, it's a solution, but banning appears to be a temporary one at best. Besides, many of these servers are often without an admin present. All I see lately are the constant complaints of "Where's the admin???"

"Gordon they could stop it by banning someone from the service."

Just re-read what you wrote, obviously I missed the context.

Yeah, I guess once you're out of Gamespy, that's it (short of paying them $10 again and changed your user info enough to avoid suspicion).

Not just Counter-strike its TFC too! I was playing today and some guy went by me like 200 mph!!

The problem with TEN and mplayer was that they were simply mating tools. Once companies started providing their own free services (WON, Westwood Chat) and inprogram matching systems (Unreal Tournament) there was no reason to use the fee based systems.

The flaw that makes all these cheats so easy is that most games now are all client to client systems. In the case of Diablo, all of the character information is stored on the player's client, so if they can crack it at home they can do anything they want with it. Diablo II tried to fix this by storing everything on their servers and turning the whole thing into a medium client/medium server system, but that's just too expensive for a free service to handle.

As Interplay said in their press release, it costs roughly $3 per account per month to maintain the servers, pay for bandwidth, etc... Admittedly it will be less for a non-MMORPG, but this makes it very cost prohibitive to try to create a game that has central servers that prevent cheating.

I think what Mark was suggesting is that Gamespy creates a $5 a month service that behaves as a client-server-client relay that can detect and prevent cheating. This probably isn't going to happen unless they can start signing agreements with game companies so that this capability is built in. Hmmmm, you know, that might not be a bad idea to set up. Get a group of game companies together and offer to serve as their matching systems if they agree to integrate your system into their games. Then you have this nice list of games that people can play, cheat free, on your servers in exchange for $5 - $10 a month. I think people would be willing to do that is enough companies were on board.

Then again, I'm not in that world, so I don't know how they all think.

"Get a group of game companies together and offer to serve as their matching systems if they agree to integrate your system into their games. Then you have this nice list of games that people can play, cheat free, on your servers in exchange for $5 - $10 a month. I think people would be willing to do that is enough companies were on board."

Yeah, that's what I meant. Then when you have a fee-based gaming network you can start adding value by having websites that you can't otherwise access, etc. You could have one with custom skins, one with the latest patches so you didn't have to use an overloaded public server, etc.

Obviously, TEN and MPlayer tried fee-based and it didn't work, but they didn't really add much value. If the cheating really does make playing popular games like CS and TFC impossible, there could be a fee-based business model that might work as a result.

That's really a great f'n idea. So get off your asses and start calling venture capitalists. I'd do it, but I'm uh.. busy.

Who gives a shit. Counterstrike sucks, anyway. Damn, Gordon, I thought you'd have more taste than what you've displayed in your choice of games.

Then again, anyone who unapologetically riffs on my Trademarked, Patent-Pending Material [tm] (C) (R) (P) (K) (Pareve) must suck, anyway. Suck, suck, suck.

:)

Turn down the prime time. Shut those guns down.

Anyway, cheating. I play a game -- UT CTF -- where cheating is actually kept down. There's a few goofballs who think that modifying their ut.ini to make the shock rifle a scoped weapon is kewl, but most of the people who you'd accuse being aimbots are just really, really good.

I played CS and it just annoyed me more than anything else. The cheating was so obvious and blatant in the games I played I quickly left in disgust.

But what the hell do I know? I'm playing JA2 -- again -- lately.

--scharmers
--awaiting abject apologies from Gordo

I did play CounterStrike but not so much now with all the cheats. The hassle is you have no way of knowing if a server will be infested with cheating punks until you join.

I once played on a server where everyone was cheating and when I questioned them about the situation they all told me to fuck off and I was banned from the server.

It really is no different to real life gangs. These guys have no morals, are not interested in being fair.

Your only bet is to join closed servers with known players.

Your all right, everyone of you. This cheat has ruined CS and if your article is right, then it could go on to ruin many more games >:|. The valve fix will no doubt work. I remember the last HL patch they rolled out. Users in gamespy arcade had no probs at all. But where does this leave other games, i mean think about quake3 with this thing!!!!! It's fast enough already!

As a Gamespy Arcade Admin i hear lots of "this is how to fix it" from people and most dont work. The only surefire method to stop cheaters is this (IMHO), join PunkBuster. www.punkbuster.com that might not be the right URL, but search it on www.gamespyder.com if it's not. This is a server and client side piece of software that supports a few (HL,Q3,etc) games, they're are regular updates to the code to deal with new cheats. Really we all just have to stand up to these *&^%$�!"��ers and say we wont let you, using things like punkbuster and of course the helpful vote commands in HL.
(If you dont know how to vote someone out in HL here's how: type listplayers in console, find the players name, get the number the next to their name, type vote **,i.e vote 45 )

Lets just hope it doesnt take too long for valve to get that fix out :).

Buck_Rogers25
www.gamespyarcade.com
"The sun always shines in space"
[email protected]

Slightly Off Topic but I really think the biz model for quake style client-server architecture is going to have to change very soon.
Why?
At the moment CounterStrike absolutely dominates. Why an amateur developed mod, albeit funded by Valve to some extent has such a monopoly over so called "professional" multiplayer games should perhaps be left for another discussion. My answer is simple: it's better, way better.
Anyway back to the point. What is going to happen when TF2 is released? Are all these kind people who host free servers and bandwidth going to kill off their CS servers, I doubt it very much, but I also doubt they can afford to host a whole new set of servers. So the success of TF2, which as I understand is fundamentally a multiplayer only game, may be compromised by the huge success of CS. Now wouldnt that be ironic :)

Does anyone here play Tac Ops (UT mod)? I swear that people cheat on that game, but it is hard to tell. When a player goes 40-2 it looks kinda obvious, but he could be just good. What some of the UT and Tac Ops servers use is CHSP, CHSP2, CHSP3, etc.. It's anti-cheating software, so I think it keeps most cheaters out of those servers. Tac Ops also has a voting method, where if a player is being an idiot (player killer, cheater) we can vote his ass out of the server! Why doesn't CS have this? Anyone here ever catch anyone cheating in Tac Ops or in a UT deathmatch?

I haven't played much CS in the last few months, as the 1.0 patch torqued my ability to join games. I hear that is fixed, but now I'm on to other things.

Anyway, there are two ways I have dealt with cheaters. First, the Masada way. I was on a public server, and after a while, it became obvious that several members of the other team (who happened to be running the server) were playing on computers in the same house, and were ghosting big time. I tried poliely asking them to stop, explaining they were ruining the game, but they blew me off. So, I started talking to the other members of my team, explaining how these guys really, really, wanted to win, and were seeking that winning feeling at any cost. That cost included our team's enjoyment of the game. So, the only thing to do was to turn the taste of victory to ashes in their mouth.

I was able to convince our team to all suicide at the start of several rounds. Then we would praise the skills of the cheating team. "GG! You guys are amazingly good!"

We got back a bunch of stuff that sounded like it was from whiny little schoolgirls, and then they shut down their own server! I like to think they learned something, but likely not.

The second method is to stay the hell off public servers. I am a charter member of the Crusty Old Fossil Rockers. CoFR is a clan made up of old fart gamers - I think you have to be at least 24 years old to gain full membership. See www.fossilrockers.com. We've got enough people with access to enough hardware that we have private servers. You cheat, and you are banned from CoFR. Play like a good sport, and you are embraced with open arms. Nothing beats that, and it brings an enjoyment of the games that the cheatin' punks can't even comprehend.

"Then again, anyone who unapologetically riffs on my Trademarked, Patent-Pending Material [tm] (C) (R) (P) (K) (Pareve) must suck, anyway. Suck, suck, suck.

:)"

Other than spelling speed as "sp33d" or inserting the occasional "pr0N," you're right, I did my absolute damndest to blatantly rip you off. Yes, I very well might suck, but at least I don't swallow. :)

"But what the hell do I know? I'm playing JA2 -- again -- lately."

Grrrreat game, but so is CS. ;-) I had restarted a campaign in JA2 myself a few months back. It was even better the second time through. BTW, I never did tell you your Giant Robot piece here on Q23 was *awesome.* I even fired up a few of those titles afterwards and kept mumbling to myself, "Damn, he's right."

"--scharmers
--awaiting abject apologies from Gordo"

Not a fucking chance in hell. :)

that's it ...now I put up my own linux CS box..
everybody welcome...even cheaters (let me make ur life miserable.. :)
domi1kenobi clanserver up this weekend....


thx to the none cheating CS community for having a great time !!!!

awwwww,i feel so bad for you poor babys,did someone come up with a better cheat than the spiked model you use,do you die before you can squat in the water like a little girl taking a leak,it makes you mad you can see him thru the wall but hes too darn fast to hit,quit yur bitchin cause someones using a better cheat than you.just do what cs players all do go get the cheat and use it,to even the field.i luv this shit it just shows how lame cs is

I think that cheating in multiplayer games is far more fundamental than simply augmenting repuation or skill but a desire for naked power. Imagine being mugged by someone with a gun. You can make justifiable and defensible arguments to him about how guns don't really represent power, or appeal to his "man-liness" and challenge him mano-y-mano, ect... but the fact is he has the power, you don't.

Cheater have tangible and real power in multiplayer games. At the same time anyone with an ounce of competitiveness will do everything possible to win, and have been doing this with "soft cheats" for years; hardware upgrades, complicated aiming or firing scripts and somesuch. If there exists a way to get an advantage, and you don't use it, then your not competing for 1st place.

Cheating is power, plain and simple. If you choose not to cheat, good for you, but expect to be owned by those whom do. I hate cheating but it will always be a large factor in any popular computer game, and the more popular the great drive to find cheats.

"I hate cheating but it will always be a large factor in any popular computer game, and the more popular the great drive to find cheats."

Well, yeah, people seem to think that if they can win at a popular game then they'll be seen as gods or something, but the opposite is true. If you see someone with a 390-1-0 record in Starcraft and you know they cheat, are you going to have any respect for that record?

To expand on your mugging analogy; if you are a friend of the mugger and he comes up to you and shows you a spiffy new Rolex. The next day you see another of your more honest friends sporting a much cheaper but still high quality Rolex. Which person impresses you more? The one who stripped if off of some poor sucker who "should level the playing field" and buy his own gun to defend himself? I'm guessing you'd respect the guy who worked his ass off to get what he has, even if it isn't as nice as what another person broke the law to get.

Maybe I'm the only one who sees cheating as just another symptom of the decline of our society. Kids and some adults think that it's all about the destination, not the journey there. The ends justify the means and all that jazz. Just because you finished first in the kill list doesn't mean you won the game, it just means you were willing to break the rules to get what you want. In the mean time, you just ruined it for everyone else in the game with you.

er, sorry, touched a nerve for a second there.

I agree that cheaters should be banned or maybe even worse they should have there computers taken away from them by the U.S. government. I say why not! If the U.S government can catch hackers (which I feel should be executed) I think that they could find these cheaters and then take there computers away from there crying eyes! I bet everyone here that cheating would definitely stop! It would be extreme, but I feel that it could happen.

GO CHEATERS

I myself just got hold of this crack, and since then I have had the most fun with CS since I started playing it during Beta3. I bet 90% of you whiners started playing no earlier than beta7, when all the morons started playing CS because it was so popular. Playing it since beta3, it gets OLD, ok? So this cheat is a release from the sluggish movement of players.

LONG LIVE THE SPEED HACK.
w00t

I'm new to the world of Counter Strike. I've been hearing how cool it is for months and I'm finally able to play it. But last night, which was maybe the third time I'd played it, I ran in to a spineless cheater calling himself sh*t (except unedited). An appropriate name. I don't mind getting killed, which happens a lot since I'm new, as long as it's a fair kill. But morons like this really piss me off. I really hope something can be done about this because I feel like I've missed out on the opportunity to enjoy this game.

"I really hope something can be done about this because I feel like I've missed out on the opportunity to enjoy this game."


They've released some beta fixes for server admins who want to give it a try. So far, it seems successful and those with system clocks not matching what the server deems valid gets booted. But in some cases, it's been a little *too* successful. Several admins have reported half their clients getting booted when they clearly weren't speed cheating. So, it needs a little more work, but it's a step in the right direction and I'm optimistic.

As for the few of you who posted here about how kool this speed cheat is, if you'll just hold still and keep your eye socket about yay high...

The whole point of CounterStrike is to re-enact a real life police action using real strategy and techniques. When played the way it was designed to be played it is a far better game than UT or Q3.

I also find "Anonymous" comments patently ridiculous. If you are tired of playing CounterStrike then move on to something else. Don't squat in someone else's game and ruin it for people who want to enjoy a legitimate gaming experience without cheating.

Not to go on but to respond to Jim Frazer:

"WTF does it matter to me?" Thats how a cheater would respond to your comments. I think your missing the point because your an honest guy: reputation isn't the issue. He has a 320-1-0 record, he cheats, and he has no rep, but guess what? You can't beat him either. He has -real- power, and your SOL. He has the power, and the only way he'll stop is if he feels some guilt/shame/inferiority or is caught and punished. Without either/or....

At least some people have the good goddamn sense to know a GOTY candidate when they see it.

Kudos to Mark and Tom for hosting this article about the REAL game of the year.

Praise the lord, and pass the ammo.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

p.s. If anyone says "it's just a mod" I may snap. I can't make any promises, but you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

"I myself just got hold of this crack, and since then I have had the most fun with CS since I started playing it during Beta3."

What a sad, tiny little person you are. This goes back to my "false sense of mastery" comments in the Q3A thread. If you had any real power, authority, or control over your own life, you would see how shallow and false your idea of fun is.

"So this cheat is a release from the sluggish movement of players."

That's a different game. When we talk about the speed hack as cheating, we mean only some players have the hack active. You should distribute the cheat to everyone on the server, and play an all-speed game. But if you are going to do that, why not go play Q3? Those players move quickly. I'm forced to conclude that you lack the skills to play a game where ALL of the characters move quickly. Like I said: sad.

"Kudos to Mark and Tom for hosting this article about the REAL game of the year."

Counter-Strike is good and all -- you know, for a two-year-old mod -- but it's no Sacrifice.

-Tom

Yes time, unlike Sacrifice, Counter Strike is fun. =)


(Actually its kinda silly to compare a team base first person shooter with a 3rd person action rts)

"If you had any real power, authority, or control over your own life, you would see how shallow and false your idea of fun is. "

We really should be ignoring this guy. That is, by far, the most effective way to deal with wackos like this. They seek attention, so any response means they win.

Sort of like the angry letter I sent to Daily Radar about that hideous Sony boombox review they posted. I got a response, so I won!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"but it's no Sacrifice"

Know what's REALLY funny? The counter-strike retail box outsold Sacrifice. ;) No shit.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

p.s. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Chick!!!!@1!@1

"Know what's REALLY funny? The counter-strike retail box outsold Sacrifice."

And Myst outsold Counter-Strike. So your point is what exactly...?

The Wumpus hierarchy of how good games are:
#1 Myst
#2 Deer Hunter
#3 The Sims
#4 Counter-Strike
#5 Sacrifice

-Tom

Funny how a so-called "2 year old" game that's not even really a game, only a "mod"... can outsell a Tom Chick Approved Year 2000 Retail Game(tm).

That's my point.

Remove head from sand, please. Thanks!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"We really should be ignoring this guy. That is, by far, the most effective way to deal with wackos like this. They seek attention, so any response means they win."

I prefer a different approach. To me, silence just leaves the schoolyard free for the bully to roam. Call mine the Sword of Shanarra approach, where I try to make them face the truth of the empty shell that is their life.

Taunting Daily Radar, well, everyone is supposed to do that, aren't they? I think it is in my ISP service agreement.

"Funny how a so-called "2 year old" game that's not even really a game, only a "mod"... can outsell a Tom Chick Approved Year 2000 Retail Game(tm)."

I suppose if your gauge of a game's quality is the number of units sold, then, yes, this must be hilarious.

BTW, where have you seen this sales data? How many units has Sacrifice sold? I'd hardly be surprised if it has a hard time finding an audience.

And how many has CS sold? And why are people buying CS when you can d/l it for free? Is there something in the box you can't get online?

-Tom

People buy the CS box if they don't already have Half-Life. That's the main purpose of packaging it as a separate game.

"BTW, where have you seen this sales data? How many units has Sacrifice sold? I'd hardly be surprised if it has a hard time finding an audience. "

It's very simple. HL:CS cracked the PC Data top 10 game sales list for the week of Nov 12-18. Sacrifice has never even _appeared_ in that list.

"I suppose if your gauge of a game's quality is the number of units sold, then, yes, this must be hilarious. "

Tom, according to you, CS isn't a game, and according to you, it isn't a year 2000 release. I'm not really comparing one to the other, merely pointing out the absurdity of maintaining that CS "is a mod, not a game" and "wasn't released in the year 2000" in the face of hard data like this. YOU BETTER GET PC DATA ON THE PHONE AND LET THEM KNOW, TOM! Letting 1999 mods on the year 2000 retail game sales list-- for shame! Where is PC Data's sense of professionalism?

"And how many has CS sold? And why are people buying CS when you can d/l it for free? Is there something in the box you can't get online? "

Even more proof that CS is one of the best gaming experiences in YEARS. So good that people will purchase it off retail shelves even though Tom has been playing it since he was five years old*.

Like it or not, Counter-Strike is an absolutely seminal event in the FPS genre-- and it's a year 2000 event, sold in a retail box.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

* Chickian use of hyperbole

Wumpus,

You seem to have a number of misconceptions about me and Counter-Strike, so for the record, let me reiterate:

I wouldn't include Counter-Strike on a list for best games of 2000 for a number of reasons. The primary reason is that it's not one of my favorites.

As if I needed any other reasons, I've mentioned that I also have reservations about elevating mods to the status of retail releases. I've also been playing it for almost two years (yes, I was playing it when the first beta came out). It's hardly a recent release for me.

Having said that, you seem to think I've got something against CS. I don't. I enjoy it very much. It's been a regular at Shoot Club for some time now. I've regularly put it at the top of mod articles I've written for various pubs. I'm not bearing your precious CS any grudges. There are simply several other games I prefer.

Why this bothers you so much is a mystery to me, but you can stop beating your drum now and rest assured that I actually *like* Counter-Strike quite a bit.

-Tom

One word for you cheaters>>>G A Y<<<<<

"It's hardly a recent release for me."

I think this is the key to the raging semantic battle (not that it isn't fun to watch). Many hardcore gamers started playing CS in 1999, not 2000. When I got new hardware, it was not one of the new releases I bought to ooh and ahh at.

However, because CS doesn't fit the standard game development/release model, it seems to me that the only way the systems associated with game releases (like PCData) can fit CS into their systems is by counting it as a 2000 release. Really, CS has had several major releases via each new beta, but when it comes counting sales, none of those count. The retail release makes a good touchstone if you are forced to account by the standard release model, but many of us know that isn't REALLY when CS came out (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

On an analogous movie front, I just read (in the LATimes, I think) that the first Left Behind movie is going to be released into 800 theaters soon. Funny thing is, it has been out on video for three months already, so the industry isn't sure what to make of it.

"Having said that, you seem to think I've got something against CS. I don't. I enjoy it very much. It's been a regular at Shoot Club for some time now. I've regularly put it at the top of mod articles I've written for various pubs. I'm not bearing your precious CS any grudges. There are simply several other games I prefer. "

Tom, understand that I've *NEVER* downloaded a mod prior to this. I had no desire to. Heck, I still don't. Your two mod articles (I did read them at the time) didn't convince me in the slightest. What _does_ convince me is GameSpy stats-- number of players. Mods are popularity contests, pure and simple.

When CS reached a peak of popularity with beta 5.2 in January-- wtf, people are playing this more than TFC?-- I realized that all these gamers *had* to be on to something good. CS is the only mod in the entire history of gaming to transcend its very "mod-ness" into a bona fide game phenomenon. Isn't the retail box proof enough for you? The GameSpy stats? Like I said, a seminal event in FPS gaming.

That continued to snowball throughout 2000, culiminating in the retail release. The player base is still growing, in fact.

This isn't "just another mod". This is the friggin' Michael Jordan of mods-- it changed the entire industry's perception of what "mod" can mean. I feel like Tom came along to a basketball forum and was telling everyone how he thought Jordan was merely an "okay" player. Not only is it sacrilege, it's downright.. well, ignorant.

So my apologies for being offended, but if you want to miss out on a D.L.E. (Doom Level Event), you can't at least say I didn't try to drag you kicking and screaming into the future.

C'est la vie.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"So my apologies for being offended, but if you want to miss out on a D.L.E. (Doom Level Event), you can't at least say I didn't try to drag you kicking and screaming into the future."

Do even realize what you're arguing here? How is me not choosing Counter-Strike as one of the best games of 2000 being "ignorant", calling CS "just another mod", and "[missing] a Doom level event"?

You're being silly. I like CS. It's just not one of my choices for best game of 2000. Get over it.

Speaking of the movie Left Behind, did you guys know that it's about one man who didn't choose Counter-Strike as Game of the Millennium and was therefore left behind when God took everyone else into the Kingdom of Heaven? Chilling stuff.

-Tom

Different strokes for different folks. I apologize in advance for straying back on to the topic.

I actually find myself playing TacOps & Infiltration more than CS these days, due to easy-to-use bot support. CS' biggest strength and its biggest flaw is that you have to play with humans. Bots aren't the best competition, but they take orders and don't cheat. Do any of the HL bots work in CS?

CS does have other problems, as well. I'm also a victim of the "failure to connect" bug that was introduced with the Half-life 1.1 patch. If you've never seen it, it means I can see the list of servers, I can ping servers, but I never can connect, even using Gamespy. Other games (including UT) work fine over the Internet. I tried working through it again last night, but still no dice.

"You're being silly. I like CS. It's just not one of my choices for best game of 2000. Get over it."

Well, I think you're most interested in promoting your personal favorites at the expense of everything else.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just unfortunate for a game journalist, IMO.

Do you want to serve yourself, or your readers? I think it is possible to successfully do both (see the ONI review I referenced earlier). Maybe you don't. That would be the philosophical difference here.

Your Deus Ex review is a good example, btw, though I don't necessarily disagree with it. But the trauma you inflicted on your readers is similar to what you're witnessing here.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

re: connection problem and bots
bots:
http://bot.counter-strike.net/realbot/

Connection problems: i had this as well; for some reason, if you start the game by clicking on any higher level shortcut either on the desktop, start menu, or higher lvl dir, it screws the game up. (i haven't the slightest idea why). Try starting the game by clicking on the hl.exe or cstrike.exe directly (ie open the folder and click on it) AND to get a console make a shortcut in a lower dependant dir and use the -console command line.

>>Well, I think you're most interested in promoting your personal favorites at the expense of everything else.

And what's wrong with that? When our magazine gives our awards, they're based on OUR choices, they're not the "Reader's Choice" awards. If they don't match the taste of our readers, perhaps it affects our credibility with them (assuming they're not open minded, or alternately they're just out there a la Flying Heroes... sorry guys, you're high with that one).

But we're not going to try to guess what every single reader in existence thinks is the "best whatever." Doing that is an exercise in futility; for every person arguing for "Counter-Strike" you'll have another arguing for Sacrifice.

You point out my own Oni review, and while it may indeed represent the views of a lot of people, when I was writing it I was only conveying my own personal view of the game (hell, it wasn't even out yet, so how COULD I know how others would feel about the full game). Other reviewers criticized the graphics, textures and/or dull levels; I didn't have a problem with these parts of the game so I barely mentioned any of them. I knew people would have issue with those features, but I'm not trying to guess what people will like/dislike and tailor my reviews to their tastes.

There's in theory nothing wrong with Tom's Deus Ex review. I think it read more spiteful than I think the game warranted, but many people agree with his criticisms. They just disgree with how much they impacted the overall enjoyment of the game.

"Well, I think you're most interested in promoting your personal favorites at the expense of everything else."

I't not my job to *promote* games -- I am not in PR. It's not my job to predict what people will like -- I am not taking an opinion poll. It's not my job to mirror sales data -- I am not a gauge of commercial success.

My job as a reviewer is to articulate my own opinion. Period.

For you to make assumptions that I am "out of touch" because I didn't pick Counter-Strike as one of the best games of 2000 is stupid and short-sighted and it smacks of fan-boy polemics. I hope it's a charge you're leveling at all the other sites/writers who didn't pick Counter-Strike as best game of 2000. Because there are plenty of them.

-Tom

"I think it read more spiteful than I think the game warranted, but many people agree with his criticisms. They just disgree with how much they impacted the overall enjoyment of the game. "

Which is exactly my point, and I do agree with the criticisms. OMM can get away with reviews like this because they aren't trying to be fair, they're trying to entertain while making a religious point or two. For example, when was the last time you saw a positive review at OMM? Oh sure, they'll write really brief pieces like "NOLF rocks, 'nuff said" or "Half-Life is great" (those are the only two positive reviews ever to appear on that site, AFAIK). But significantly, they _don't_ justify what makes those games good (and in the case of NOLF I would kinda-sorta disagree). Those brief positive notes are far, far from the five-page obsessive lambastings that everything else gets. It's brilliant writing, no doubt, but it's not objective reviewing. It's a thinly veiled attempt to spank game developers who make mistakes. Religion vs. Reviewing.

As entertaining as it may be, that kind of "reviewing" is just not appropriate in so-called mainstream gaming press like GameCenter, cdmag, et al. Which is, I'd imagine, why GC didn't pick up Tom's Deus Ex review.

"For you to make assumptions that I am "out of touch" because I didn't pick Counter-Strike as one of the best games of 2000 is stupid and short-sighted and it smacks of fan-boy polemics. "

But that's not what I'm saying. I don't demand that anyone "pick this game". I just can't understand why a crack game journalist like yourself is completely unwilling to even consider the possibility that counter-strike could be a GOTY candidate-- because, of course.. you didn't think it was. And I quote. A) "It's merely a mod." B) "It's a 1999 game." C) "I've been playing it for two years already."

That reeks of zealotry in the face of some serious hard evidence to the contrary. Where do I begin? The solid PC Data sales figures (fex, outsold Sacrifice); the fact that it's the first mod to ever become a full retail game in anno domini 2000; the huge number of people playing the game, even today, and growing; the huge fan community; the game's continuing evolution well into 2000; and the way it changed the very definition of what a "mod" can be-- it's more popular than any other online FPS.

Disagree with this, fine; but you don't just disagree, you dismiss it out of hand. Cannot be GOTY, you say. Reasons a, b, c. End of discussion.

The point I was trying to make is that these sort of black and white polemics are similar to other things you've written. Example. Can you REALLY not understand why Deus Ex appealed to so many gamers? I mean, I agree it had some major problems, but I absolutely understand the appeal. Hell, I got 3/4 of the way through the game even though I had major reservations about it.

Similarly, your comments that "developers don't deserve credit for trying". Either they succeed completely or fail completely? Can't we objectively isolate what worked from what didn't work without ripping the game a new one, OMM style, as you did with Deus Ex?

That, to me, cuts to the heart of the discussion here.

Who knows, maybe I picked the wrong day to quit mainlining heroin. I should probably just pick up a coke, a smile, and a copy of Flying Heroes.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"but I'm not trying to guess what people will like/dislike and tailor my reviews to their tastes. "

Of course not. I don't expect you to.

But you _did_ do a fabulous job of being objective without being religious or polemic. That's my point.

As I said earlier: if I dislike "turn-left-and-go-real-fast" driving games, do I have any business reviewing Nascar 4? How can I possibly be objective? In the worst case, this would turn into a rant about how much this game sucks because it's boring to race in circles. It's my opinion, so it can't be wrong, correct?

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

>>As I said earlier: if I dislike "turn-left-and-go-real-fast" driving games, do I have any business reviewing Nascar 4? How can I possibly be objective? In the worst case, this would turn into a rant about how much this game sucks because it's boring to race in circles. It's my opinion, so it can't be wrong, correct?

Reviews that involve opinion as opposed to hard data are by definition not objective, so your opinion of NASCAR 4 is compeltely valid and represents a certain perspective, one that may actually be shared with certain readers. It would actually have value to them... if I don't like NASCAR and someone reviewing the game says, "It sucks," I can ignore it. On the other hand, if you say, "Wow, it still rocks," then it has value.

Of course a publication that assigned articles in such a fashion would be doing a larger number of readers a disservice by assigning an article to someone with no interest in the topic, but it doesn't make the review any less valid. It does, however, make it less useful, and could hurt the publication's credibility.

Damn wumpus. You sure do like to bitch and moan, doncha?

I would put a emoticon, but I'm only half kidding. I truly am *amazed* at your ability to bluster on.

But don't let me stop ya.

Well, wumpus, we're obviously not going to get anywhere if you keep manufacturing things from whole cloth:

"I just can't understand why a crack game journalist like yourself is completely unwilling to even consider the possibility that counter-strike could be a GOTY candidate."

I never said there was no possibility that it was a GOTY candidate. I simply didn't pick it and you made various assumptions.

"Can you REALLY not understand why Deus Ex appealed to so many gamers?"

Of course I can. Where did I say otherwise? Lots of people like lots of different games, even the ones I don't like.

"Similarly, your comments that "developers don't deserve credit for trying"."

I was talking about people who review games based on the developers ambition, regardless of whether the finished product lives up to it (i.e. Falcon 4.0).

Anyway, this is stupid. I don't know what you're arguing other than the things you're inventing and taking out of context.

CS is great, but there are plenty of writers who didn't pick it as GOTY. Why don't you go hound one of them for a while?

-Tom

I consider Mods to be like expansion packs. Yes, they fundamentally change the game at times, but at their core they aren't a "new" game.

Counterstrike may have changed a lot about Half-Life, but in my mind it's still a mod/expansion and not a stand-alone game. If I didn't know the history behind it, maybe I wouldn't feel that way.

As for Sacrifice, I have to agree that it was the best game released in 2000. I can see why other people would think differently though. It's a very strange game that some people might not enjoy. Ater all this time it's still the game I load up when I want to waste a couple of hours. The replayability is simply amazing. I've completed the campaign 4 times now taking completely different paths. I can't say that about any other game I have (well, except for a little bargain bin gem called Chaos Overlords that I used to play a lot).

For me though, even if Counterstrike was a completely original game instead of a huge mod, it wouldn't be on my personal GOTY list because I'm not a big multiplayer FPS fan. I like the single player experience for FPS games, but in multiplayer it eventually gets really old for me. I played Unreal Tournament for a couple of hours every day when I first bought it, but after a few weeks it was relagated to my "Still installed but never played" catagory. But, see, it's all just personal opinion. Obviously, judging by the numbers on Gamespy, my opinion isn't "popular opinion", but that doesn't make it wrong.

RE: Sacrifice "Ater all this time it's still the game I load up when I want to waste a couple of hours."

Me, too. It's almost like how some people must play Solitaire or Minesweeper. If I'm just spacing at my computer, Sacrifice is perfect for a quick 20 minute fight vs. the computer to clear my head (or distract me thoroughly).

I can completely understand why some people may not like it, but it satisfies for me a veritable laundry list of what I look for in a game.

"I can't say that about any other game I have (well, except for a little bargain bin gem called Chaos Overlords that I used to play a lot)."

Hey! Good call, Jim! I just spent a few weeks revisiting Chaos Overlords and talking to the guys who made it:

http://pc.ign.com/news/28546.html

I'm curious to check out Arcomage, a card game sort of game they did for one of the M&M games that's also a standalone. Anyone know if it's any good?

-Tom

"'m curious to check out Arcomage, a card game sort of game they did for one of the M&M games that's also a standalone. Anyone know if it's any good?"

I haven't played that stand alone, but the one in MMVII was entertaining. As it stands now, it's a bit too simplistic to hold my attention for long. With the stand alone version where you can build your own decks, it might increase the appeal. I can see them making it similar to the old Magic: The Gathering game where you actually went on quests and fought battles to get new cards.

One thing I like about it in general is that there are 3 different ways to win a hand and you're never quite sure which of those 3 methods your opponent is going to try to use on you.

"I never said there was no possibility that it was a GOTY candidate. "

Well, you did say this:

Tom: "CS is great, but as I mentioned before a) it's a mod and b) I've been playing it for nearly two years now."

That seems to logically preclude CS from ever appearing on a GOTY 2000 list. Q.E.D., right?

"For me though, even if Counterstrike was a completely original game instead of a huge mod, it wouldn't be on my personal GOTY list because I'm not a big multiplayer FPS fan. "

This is what I was alluding to when I made my 'should I review Nascar 4 if I don't like that type of game' comment. I think the issue may be that yourself, and Tom, don't like multiplayer FPS games a whole lot. So maybe you really can't see how big an impact CS is having on the FPS industry. It is literally transforming it. Quite interesting for a mod, eh? Look at Barking Dog's next game, for example.

Also, I'd like to take a minute to thank everyone who has helped me come to grips with my recurring monomania. TIA.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"I think the issue may be that yourself, and Tom, don't like multiplayer FPS games a whole lot. So maybe you really can't see how big an impact CS is having on the FPS industry. It is literally transforming it."

You say Counter-Strike is "literally transforming" the industry, but you sound a little star struck. How is it "literally transforming" the indsutry?

You don't seem to be able to differentiate between Valve and Counter-Strike. This "transformation" is a result of how Valve interacts with the mod community. It predates Counter-Strike and probably even the hiring of the Team Fortress guys from Australia, John Cook and Robin Walker. Valve is transforming the industry. Counter-Strike is the *result* of that, not the *cause*.

"Quite interesting for a mod, eh?"

Perhaps you're not aware of the relationship, financial and otherwise, between Minh Le and Valve. Counter-Strike isn't just a guy sitting in his basement. Not to downplay Minh's accomplishments, but spare us the lonely garage developer angle.

Yes, Counter-Strike is good. But what seems to be lost on you is that Valve is the prime mover.

-Tom

"You say Counter-Strike is "literally transforming" the industry, but you sound a little star struck. How is it "literally transforming" the indsutry? "

Did you look up any information on Barking Dog's next game? Example number one of the transformation. I can dig up some more for you if that isn't enough. The future of multiplayer is team-based play, period, and CS is far and away the most popular type of teamplay. Expect to see many, many games with this type of multiplayer.

Heck, whoda thunk that staying dead for an entire round could be fun? Or being killed by a single shot? Certainly not anyone at valve, id, or epic.

"Perhaps you're not aware of the relationship, financial and otherwise, between Minh Le and Valve. "

Sure I do. They hired him, though he was a little evasive as to when that was formalized. He confirmed he's an employee of Valve in a recent (month old?) interview, which was the first official word. And beta 5, yadda yadda, I know all about it. Valve got involved around that timeframe. My recurring monomania really pays off sometimes!

"It predates Counter-Strike and probably even the hiring of the Team Fortress guys from Australia, John Cook and Robin Walker. Valve is transforming the industry. Counter-Strike is the *result* of that, not the *cause*. "

I disagree, considering that TFC, the official valve product, has *never* reached the popular heights that counter-strike has. It's not even in the same league, and it never was. Just go look at the gamespy stats.

"Yes, Counter-Strike is good. But what seems to be lost on you is that Valve is the prime mover."

Who's fabricating stuff now? I never said Valve wasn't a 'prime mover', whatever that means. Clearly epic and id are distant second and third place players in the FPS market at this point-- largely due to counter-strike, and to a much lesser extent, TFC.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

I'll be interested to see if Tribes 2 can thrive in a market dominated by a free mod to a game that sells for $10 for the Platinum edition. Considering Tribes 2 is going to basically be what you were talking about, an FPS designed from the ground up to be about team play. It's going to have some things that CS doesn't have, but it's also going to run ya $50.

"I think the issue may be that yourself, and Tom, don't like multiplayer FPS games a whole lot."

I wouldn't say I don't like them, I'd say they just don't hold my attention long enough for me to consider them hard drive holders. When I first bought Unreal Tournament, I played for a couple of hours a day (which is a huge gaming commitment for me during the week after an 9 - 6 job). After a couple of weeks, the thrill of the new weapons, the new levels, and the new play types (Domination, Last-Man-Standing, and Assault) wore off and I moved on to the next new game. I'm like this with most of my games, unless they have some insane replayability value (most good RTS games) or are just damn long (most RPG games).

"I wouldn't say I don't like them, I'd say they just don't hold my attention long enough for me to consider them hard drive holders. "

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with people not liking FPS games. But for people that do.. counter-strike is the most important thing to happen to the genre in years. No question about it.

"After a couple of weeks, the thrill of the new weapons, the new levels, and the new play types (Domination, Last-Man-Standing, and Assault) wore off and I moved on to the next new game. I'm like this with most of my games, unless they have some insane replayability value (most good RTS games) or are just damn long (most RPG games). "

An excellent point, and precisely why CS is so important. It moves us beyond the tedious deathmatch models we've been saddled with. Even beyond basic no-brainer teamplay like CTF, CS ups the ante. Death comes so quickly and lasts for 3-5 minutes. I never in a million years would have imagined this type of play would be so enjoyable. If you described the gameplay to me I would literally laugh in your face. How can DYING INSTANTLY and STAYING DEAD FOR THREE MINUTES be fun?

I dunno, just ask the 35,000 people playing the game at any given time.

Teamwork with other live human beings in CS just hasn't gotten old to me, even after a full year of play. (Not Tom Chick "years", I mean a real 12 month period.) It's a bit like sex. Sometimes it doesn't work out, which is a reasonable argument for bots (and masturbation), but when it does.. it's incredible.

That's why I say CS-style teamplay is the future of FPS gaming. And, er, sex. You can quote me on that.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Everyone should remember that at it's heart the original HalfLife game is basically a large high quality mod sitting on top of a game engine. As are Unreal Tournament, Q3, and NOLF.

"Who's fabricating stuff now? I never said Valve wasn't a 'prime mover', whatever that means."

Wumpus, you seem to have trouble understanding what I'm writing, so let me distill it:

You're singing Counter-Strike's praises as something that is "transforming the industry". You are wrong.

Valve transformed the industry with their relationship as de facto patrons to mod-makers. Red Storm transformed the industry with regard to realistically lethal one-shot-kills and you're-out-for-the-round. And the team-based gameplay we know today originated in Team Fortess for Quake I.

If I didn't know better, I'd guess by your piling all these spoils at Counter-Strike's feet that you were new to computer gaming.

Counter-Stike is successful. As much as you'd like to think otherwise, no one's arguing with you on that point. It is not, however, the catalyst for this transformation you're declaiming about.

-Tom

"You're singing Counter-Strike's praises as something that is "transforming the industry". You are wrong. "

Did you even look at Barking Dog's upcoming game, my *specific* evidence of the transformation in the FPS industry that I'm talking about? I've asked you twice now, and twice you ignore me. This selective quoting stuff is a bitch, Tom.

And what happened to objectivity, by the way? "I'm wrong?" This is exactly what I was talking about earlier.

"Red Storm transformed the industry with regard to realistically lethal one-shot-kills and you're-out-for-the-round."

Yet, sadly, they didn't have the multiplayer engine to back up this gameplay. The current Zone stats show a little over 3,200 players between R6 and RS. That's 3,200 versus 35,000. Hardly a multiplayer event worth even talking about.

Unlike Spice Girls albums, multiplayer games *ARE* popularity contests. If people aren't playing them, they suck by default-- because there's no "game" left without other players. A chicken and egg problem. There's no single player in counter-strike, or Tribes 2, to fall back on.

"Valve transformed the industry with their relationship as de facto patrons to mod-makers."

Sort of the way id contracted with Zoid to write CTF for Quake II, based on his mod for Quake? Who doesn't know their gaming history now, Mr. Chick? id started this trend, not Valve; you can argue that Valve has done it better, but not that they came up with the radical idea of paying mod makers. Because they didn't.

"Counter-Stike is successful. As much as you'd like to think otherwise, no one's arguing with you on that point. It is not, however, the catalyst for this transformation you're declaiming about."

Counter-strike is the most successful online FPS to date. By a wide, wide margin. Nothing even comes remotely *close* to the number of online FPS players that CS delivers on a daily basis. If that isn't a catalyst for transformation in the genre (examples: Barking Dog's next game; Minh as full-time Valve employee), then I don't know what is, Tom. Maybe you could explain to me exactly what the criteria is.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"And the team-based gameplay we know today originated in Team Fortess for Quake I. "

Sorry, forgot to include this earlier. TF is the beginning of class-based play, but not teamplay. That award goes to Zoid's CTF which came much, much earlier. I remember playing it when there were only runes and Quake 1 levels.

I'm not sure what class-based play has to do with counter-strike, since there are no classes, but what the hell.

"Everyone should remember that at it's heart the original HalfLife game is basically a large high quality mod sitting on top of a game engine. As are Unreal Tournament, Q3, and NOLF."

Sean has an excellent point. Where do you draw the line? One of the primary metrics is popularity, since I think that's the only metric that matters for multiplayer games. The value of any network is equal to the number of nodes, squared. That's true of multiplayer games as well.

Crappy mods are a dime a dozen; breakthrough events like CS come once every few years, if that.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

You're all over the map, wumpus, and I'm not interesting in chasing you from tangent to tangent. I'd sooner herd cats.

Again, I'll try to distill it for you: You claim Counter-Strike "literally transformed" the industry. You are wrong.

CS is just one *product* of the transformation. It is not the catalyst. Depending on what facet of CS you're talking about, that honor lies with Valve, Red Storm, and Quake mods (whether you want to talk about Team Fortress or Zoid, the point remains the same).

-Tom

"Again, I'll try to distill it for you: You claim Counter-Strike "literally transformed" the industry. You are wrong. "

Then we will have to agree to disagree, sans me calling you 'wrong'.

CS has become the most popular online FPS in the entire history of PC gaming. That's a big deal. Neither Valve, Red Storm, nor any Quake mod can make that claim.

Dispute all you want, but read the above sentence again. It's a stone fact.

This transforms the FPS industry's perception of mods (they go retail) and, best of all, transforms the industry's perception of what people are looking for in online FPS play.

I've cited plenty of evidence to support my point (most of which you have ignored and not responded to), so I'll just leave it at that.

"You're all over the map, wumpus, and I'm not interesting in chasing you from tangent to tangent. "

I'll spot you two arrows.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

http://www.gameweek.com/npd_trsts/lookuptrsts.asp?id=15&date=1/21/01

When is a game not a game? When it's a mod. Viva le transformacion!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"CS has become the most popular online FPS in the entire history of PC gaming."

And of course its dwarfed by the popularity of the MMORPGs, so there's your real game of the year, by your criteria. There may be a few CS-type games in the works, but there are dozens of MMORPGs in development, many with budgets that dwarf other games. The MMORPG movement is much more significant than any effect CS has had on the games industry.

So, why weren't you busting on Tom for not including The Ruins of Kunark as one of his games of the year? Could it be because you yourself don't care for games like that? Hmmm....

"And of course its dwarfed by the popularity of the MMORPGs, so there's your real game of the year, by your criteria."

Excellent point. If you're going to go by the numbers, well, I guess you have to go by the numbers.

Wumpus, you seem to think someone is disputing that CS is popular. No one said otherwise. It's just not the alpha and omega you believe it is. It is not magically "transforming" the industry any more than any other commercial success.

It's like someone burbling on about how great Steven Spielberg is with no regard for the influences behind him, the long history of cinema, and the fact that commercial success does not necessarily make a movie the ultimate movie. "I don't care," Wumpus seems to say, "E.T. is the best movie ever!"

Not that I have anything against E.T. Or Counter-Strike.

And by the way, why aren't you busting on *Mark* for not picking Counter-Strike as game of the year? Sheesh, was there anyone who actually *did* pick Counter-Strike as Game of the Year?

-Tom

"So, why weren't you busting on Tom for not including The Ruins of Kunark as one of his games of the year? Could it be because you yourself don't care for games like that? Hmmm.... "

Actually I agree with what you're saying; I'm talking strictly about the FPS genre, and nothing else. The assumption is that Tom is also a big fan of the FPS genre. I could be wrong about that, and if so, I'm sorry I gave Tom a hard time about it.

I enjoy a spirited discussion, but at no point do I mean any disrespect to Mr. Chick. He's a stellar writer and definitely one of my favorite web personalities. I kid because I love.

And you're right, I don't care for MMORPGs, but when was the last time you saw me saying anything about them? I have nothing to say on that topic.

Now normally I'm not about to let mere ignorance keep me from having an opinion on a topic, but FPS is my favorite genre. I've been living, eating, sleeping and breathing FPS games for years. It just seems so.. well, obvious.. to me that CS is a D.L.E., and that's exciting!

Not as exciting as Flying Heroes or anything, but exciting nonetheless.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"It's like someone burbling on about how great Steven Spielberg is with no regard for the influences behind him, the long history of cinema, and the fact that commercial success does not necessarily make a movie the ultimate movie. "I don't care," Wumpus seems to say, "E.T. is the best movie ever!" Not that I have anything against E.T. Or Counter-Strike."

First, I am limiting myself to the a genre here. I explained this above, and I've said it before. So the more proper analogy would be "E.T. is the best friendly space alien movie ever!"

Also, in this case, commercial success has little to do with the game; it's actually a side effect of how great it is. Remember, this mod is available for free. People are buying it because it's so damn much fun, not because they have to. So, imagine a world where people could see E.T. for free, but they paid anyway. Interesting, no?

Continuing with our analogy, E.T. would have to be an independent film, produced over a year long period by unknowns, that went on to become one of the highest grossing "friendly space alien" films of all time, paving the way for all independent films after it.

CS is a very unique situation in the history of FPS gamimg. It will be remembered long after most y2k games are long forgotten.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"CS is a very unique situation in the history of FPS gamimg. It will be remembered long after most y2k games are long forgotten."

I don't dispute that. You can say the same thing about Diablo 2, also.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Tribes 2 for my team-based FPS, though I have to say all the delays and the upheavals Dynamix worry me.

You all are way behind the curve. I started playing a multiplayer-only, one-shot lethality, FPS game in 1984: Paintball. Actually, there was one before that, starting about 1970 for me: Cowboys & Indians. Amazingly, the level of cheating and whining in C&I back then is the same as you find now in CS.

To me, paintball, and all of the multiplayer shooters, are just fancy versions of C&I. Don't get on some hobby horse about how CS or RS or Quake or Doom-over-Kali is some great & awesome advance in gameplay; they are not. Technology has simply provided a new way to play the same old game. That doesn't mean it is any less fun, it just isn't anything new.

"You could say the same thing about Diablo 2"

Diablo 2 wasn't produced by an unknown mod maker. There's hardly anything unique about it at all. Hell, it was a sure fire hit from the day it was announced.

"Anyway, I'm looking forward to Tribes 2 for my team-based FPS, though I have to say all the delays and the upheavals Dynamix worry me."

Tribes 2 seems like MOTS to me. Tribes 1 with a technological facelift and an online CD-key. I'm just not particularly excited about the game. I am definitely glad they're taking the time to get it right and didn't fall into the all too common christmas trap of rushing it out.

I have severe reservations about any FPS game where the jetpack features so prominently. It's great for getting around the map, but it's INCREDIBLY annoying in combat. I had plenty of encounters in Tribes that turned into a bouncing jetpack contests, timing my weapons to fire when the other person runs out of steam and hits the ground, with the other person doing the same. Good god that was annoying. It's so friggin' difficult to hit someone in the air.

The same thing used to happen in Duke Nukem 3D, except as an added bonus, you couldn't look all the way up! Whee! The jetpack was such a bad idea for that game.

The more-prominent role of vehicles in the game could be neat though. IMO that's the way to go rather than this jetpack stuff. We'll see. It's still on my must-buy list.

"To me, paintball, and all of the multiplayer shooters, are just fancy versions of C&I. Don't get on some hobby horse about how CS or RS or Quake or Doom-over-Kali is some great & awesome advance in gameplay; they are not. Technology has simply provided a new way to play the same old game. That doesn't mean it is any less fun, it just isn't anything new. "

Did you have to walk through ten miles of snow each way, too?

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"And by the way, why aren't you busting on *Mark* for not picking Counter-Strike as game of the year? Sheesh, was there anyone who actually *did* pick Counter-Strike as Game of the Year?"

I did (if editorials and not official "lists" count).

http://www.quartertothree.com/features/editorials/counterstrike_cheaters/counterstrike_cheaters.shtml

"Did you have to walk through ten miles of snow each way, too?"

Uphill, both ways.

Actually, maybe I'm on to something. We need a good C&I mod. All of the built-in chat messages would be things like "Missed me!" "Did not!" "Did too!" "I'm telling Mom!"

A note on numbers:
remember that citing accounts is in no way related to actual numbers of people playing at a given time. Counterstrike may well have far more players in total than EQ, only that only on average 33k are playing through gamespy on any given moment. Even during peak times during the Zenith of Starcrafts popularity battle.net rarely peaked over 50k.

Shush! You'll disturb the sleeping game journalists with these tedious facts and figures! Clearly Flying Heroes is the game of the year-- nay, the very game of the millennium itself!!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

p.s. I need the soundtrack to Tone Rebellion. Does anyone here have it? Please e-mail me if so.

http://www.gamespot.co.uk/pc.gamespot/features/goty2000_uk/online-03.html

Then there's that useless tabloid rag the NYT. Honestly who reads that crap?
http://www.counter-strike.net/pics/nyt.html

Also, other examples I don't feel like ferreting out right now. The user poll at Voodoo Extreme for GOTY comes to mind... though Apache had to be harangued into including it due to a very unfortunate Chick-like patriarchal attitude towards the game ("oh no, dear readers. Let me explain something to you: this is a 1999 mod.") But hey, the people demand it.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"Counterstrike may well have far more players in total than EQ, only that only on average 33k are playing through gamespy on any given moment."

Yeah, but if you're talking genres, then you need to include UO and AC as well. And don't forget that CS is a free download and the MMORPGs require a monthly fee. I don't think there's much of a comparison in their respective impact on the game development industry. Just how many CS-like games are in development compared to the MMORPGs in development? Heck, Origin has gone solely MMORPG and Interplay just formed a new division devoted to MMORPGs.

And of course none of this is meant as an insult to CS. I just don't think it's in the same league as the MMORPG games as far as being a force of change in the game industry.

"And of course none of this is meant as an insult to CS. I just don't think it's in the same league as the MMORPG games as far as being a force of change in the game industry."

And for the record I never said that. I have said repeatedly that I am limiting my comments to the FPS GENRE ONLY.

As for money, I would also argue that the continuing sales of Half-Life (need the cd-key) can be attributed in large part to the popularity of c-s. They could certainly start charging a monthly or yearly fee to renew the keys or something.

As for number of players, with 20 players in a cs level (I *only* play on servers with a minimum of 16 players connected, which is something I wonder if Tom has ever done), I have to wonder if anyone will ever manage to put hundreds of players on a virtual battlefield. That would kick ass.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"I have to wonder if anyone will ever manage to put hundreds of players on a virtual battlefield. That would kick ass."

Verant's trying it with Planetside. I'm a bit dubious about them pulling off an real-time MMOG that will have players flee in anger if there are lag problems, but they're aware of the issues at least.

"(I *only* play on servers with a minimum of 16 players connected, which is something I wonder if Tom has ever done)"

Thanks for sharing. I think most of us have played CS on busy servers.

The crusade's over, wumpus. We all know you think CS is not only Game of the Year, but The Single Most Important Factor of All Time (in the FPS genre). Your work here is done. We hope.

-Tom

"Verant's trying it with Planetside. I'm a bit dubious about them pulling off an real-time MMOG that will have players flee in anger if there are lag problems, but they're aware of the issues at least. "

I kinda-sorta put Verant in the same box I put Red Storm in. They got lucky with the right concepts at the right time, but they're basically a third-rate development house. But who knows. At least it's something a little different, not like the swords-to-lightsabers total conversion they're also working on.

"The crusade's over, wumpus. We all know you think CS is not only Game of the Year, but The Single Most Important Factor of All Time (in the FPS genre). Your work here is done. We hope. "

For the children, Tom. The children.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"Thanks for sharing. I think most of us have played CS on busy servers. "

Actually, now I'm curious. How many hours would you estimate you've played CS? And how many of those hours were on servers with more than 12 players?

I only ask the second part because I find the game gets almost boring as the number of players dips near the ~10 level. A big attraction for me is the large number of players, which goes back to my popularity argument for multiplayer games, but I digress.

I told you how long I played Sacrifice before concluding that it wasn't for me, so ante up, pardner!

I have plenty of horror stories from friends of mine playing EverCrack for literally *MONTHS* of 24-hour days (not all at once, but in total). Man. I can't even imagine that.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"Actually, now I'm curious. How many hours would you estimate you've played CS? And how many of those hours were on servers with more than 12 players?"

Jesus, wumpus, how pedantic. Your implicit suggestion -- that I haven't played enough or that I haven't played the *right* way, and therefore my opinion is invalid -- is pretty desperate.

I honestly have no idea how many hours I've spent with CS, since I've been playing off and on since it was released. Unlike you, I've actually covered the Half-Life mod scene across the board from early on. The earliest mention of Counter-Strike I can find in my files was in an article I wrote a year ago last November. At that point, I'd already been playing CS for at least a few months. And, yes, I'm well aware of the difference between the stalking games with fewer players and the covering/flanking/teamwork games with more players.

And it's *still* not my choice for Game of the Year.

-Tom

Frankie says relax, Tom. I'm just curious. I wasn't suggesting anything in particular.

I was honest with you about how much Sacrifice I played, and you accused me of not playing it enough to have an opinion... as I recall. All I'm asking for is a little quid pro quo, baby.

http://www.theclq.com/asp/find.asp?pid=7449161

What user id do you play under? Chickster? Chickmeister? Chickorama? ;)

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"I kinda-sorta put Verant in the same box I put Red Storm in. They got lucky with the right concepts at the right time, but they're basically a third-rate development house. But who knows. At least it's something a little different, not like the swords-to-lightsabers total conversion they're also working on."

Woah woah woah woah woah... Ok, I don't normally leap to the defense of a company, but inslting Verant is like insulting the savior himself. They created the single most popular subscription based game ever. Now if they had put out another 5 games that all sucked (ala Red Storm), then I could grant you that they got lucky. People may insult them and get angry with them, but it's only because they love the game so much that they actually take it personally when a change has to be made. I mean, my god, just think how much work went into making EQ. It makes creating CS seem like a walk in the park.

Their "fee based" game averages 62,000 users on at a time during peak hours. This is individual users. Maybe a small percentage are people using 2 computers, but that number is so small that it isn't worth mentioning. This is compared to 33,000 for a free game with a free server.

Saying they got lucky seems really odd to me. UO was before them and failed. AO came after them and failed (argue if you will, but they maintain subscription rate less that 33% of EQ's). Every game that was supposed to be the next big thing in MMORPGs has failed to take any measurable number of users away from EQ. Diablo II was supposed to halve the number of people playing EQ, but instead there was a drop off of a few thousand people playing during primetime for a month or two. Tt then returned to normal and actually began increasing again.

They have also kept up a stable code base with a very stable server farm. There are almost never any major crashes, and those that do happen are typically caused by faulty routers owned by their bandwidth provider.

And, ummm, you really should read about Star Wars:Galaxies. It is well beyond being just a Star Wars version of EQ. The only thing they have in common is that they are both MMORPGs with people playing characters. Read a few previews and you'll see just how different they are.

You seem to have this thought that if it's multiplayer but not CS, it's garbage. Other games can be revolutionary without taking away from the fact that CS is the most successful Mod ever created.

eee, didn't mean to get defensive, but I get a little peeved with all the unwarranted Verant bashing that I see sometimes.

"You seem to have this thought that if it's multiplayer but not CS, it's garbage. Other games can be revolutionary without taking away from the fact that CS is the most successful Mod ever created."

Well now, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said that, nor do I believe that. I just don't think of Verant as a top quality development house. But you are correct that this is absolute conjecture on my part, since there's little track record to judge them on, unlike Red Storm. I think Red Storm's development record definitely speaks volumes about what kind of development house they are (eg, third rate). As for Verant, time will tell. Just MHO, I might be overdosing on Pepsi One or something.

I don't mean to take away from EQ, obviously a great multiplayer game BECAUSE IT IS POPULAR (hmm, what other multiplayer games can we say this about). I know plenty of gamers personally who played EQ for months. Verant clearly did something right there.

"eee, didn't mean to get defensive, but I get a little peeved with all the unwarranted Verant bashing that I see sometimes."

Er, yeah.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

I'll break in here to say I'm enjoying the mini-debates here, and It'll be a shame when Quarter to Three shuts down. Who knows, maybe someday I'll even forgive Asher and Chick for their Deus Ex reviews.

"I'll break in here to say I'm enjoying the mini-debates here, and It'll be a shame when Quarter to Three shuts down. "

Q23 shutting down? Now you're talking crazy talk. Get outta here with that.

"Who knows, maybe someday I'll even forgive Asher and Chick for their Deus Ex reviews. "

Isn't it just Tom on the Deus Ex thing? Forgiveness is for the weak! I say burn the heretic!!!

Now please excuse me, because I have to go vote for Jennifer Lopez's ass in UGO Underground Open. It's nutty!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"I was honest with you about how much Sacrifice I played, and you accused me of not playing it enough to have an opinion... as I recall."

You recall incorrectly. You can have an opinion whenever you want. But the opinion of someone who only played four rounds of Sacrifce should be regarded with a certain amount of, umm, shall we say, reserve.

"What user id do you play under?"

Check for my stats under "BleatingWumpus".

-Tom

"I have to wonder if anyone will ever manage to put hundreds of players on a virtual battlefield. That would kick ass."

Well, I've played in a few 1,000+ player paintball games, and they pretty much suck. It sounds good on paper, but it is just sheer chaos that removes any real gaming fun aspects of the experience. I remember at one point, the noise of hundreds of paintguns firing around us was so loud I had to shout at the top of my lungs to be heard by my friend next to me. Another time, I was literally dripping wet with purple paint because hundreds of blue and red paintballs had been fired into the bamboo sides of the guard tower I occupied.

Now, reduce your situational awareness to the maximum possible through a computer monitor & a single Roger Wilco channel, and it would get worse. Add in the proportionate number of cheaters, reduce communications and weapon discipline to its usual public server levels, and now we are truly into a DLE of suck. I recommend sticking to relatively small teams (under 50) & small unit tactics - that is where the fun lies.

"But the opinion of someone who only played four rounds of Sacrifce should be regarded with a certain amount of, umm, shall we say, reserve."

As should the opinion of a certain coy game journalist who won't cough up what handle he plays on public servers under. Because if you played on any public server in the last 20 months (6/19/99 beta 1 to now), for any significant length of time, the CLQ recorded it.

Doing a little investigation myself, I noticed that a couple of your Q3A shots feature a character named "Ichabod" from a first person POV. So I did a google search on "Tom Chick Ichabod" and picked up the Emperor of the Fading Suns FAQ-- authored by none other than Mr. Tom Chick! The FAQ lists a return mail address of "ichabod kagass" @ [email protected]. Checking my e-mail address book I see that you also have another primenet account, [email protected]. So that's all consistent. There's also this interesting link:

http://www.werewolves.org/~follies/archives/1Derekometry/1PostsPerWeek/Week0017.txt

Which puts Mark Asher and Ichabod Kagass together for a BC3K flamewar in 1997. Sounds like fun guys! Sorry I missed that one. How far do you guys go back knowing each other, actually?

http://www.theclq.com

Note that CLQ automatically tracks dozens of games on every known public server; Quake1/2; HL; Unreal; Tribes and all known mods for each game. Based on my play record, it's quite accurate.

In the interests of fairness, here's a link to my old play handle "Wumpus|M" which goes way way WAY back to the beginning of 1999, in case you're curious about my play history and how accurate CLQ is.

http://www.theclq.com/asp/find.asp?name=Wumpus%7CM

And here's my new handle "[ZOG]Wumpus" which I started using around March 2000.

http://www.theclq.com/asp/find.asp?pid=7449161

Like I said, this thing is *EERILY* accurate. I mean it's astounding how accurately it captured my play history, and I didn't even know a thing about CLQ until mid-2000! This damn internet. What will they think of next?

So let's look for our buddy "Ichabod Kagass" on CLQ, shall we?

A) No matches on "kagass". Easy.
B) 35 matches with variants of "ichabod".

First, I'll throw out all the ones with clan tags eg "[zzz]ichabod" or "IcHaBod{zz}" because I just can't see Tom as that type of guy.

Next, I'll throw out all the ones with "Crane" or variants thereof since I don't think Tom is referring to the Sleepy Hollow character Ichabod Crane. Who is this Kagass guy anyway?

Okay, so that leaves us with.. well, not much. None of the remaining 10-12 names goes to any significant play history. Most dead-end actually. The simple name "Ichabod"-- which was the name used in the Q3TA shots-- has the longest history, but only goes back to July 2000.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

* Note, I'm not really a stalker; I just play one on television.

Uh oh, PCGamer seems intent on pissing everyone off. I just got my new PCGamer, and in their GOTY awards they give CS runner-up for "Best Expansion Pack" (losing out to AOEII: The Conquerors) and "Best Mod" goes to Firearms. CS didn't even get mentioned under "Best Multiplayer Game."

Their GOTY? Deus Ex.

"a certain coy game journalist who won't cough up what handle he plays on public servers under."

...gosh, you're on to me...through your brilliant detective work, you've found me out for the fraud that i am...i have, in fact, never even played counter-strike so i am forced to admit that it is, in fact, the best game of the year and it is transforming the fps genre into a 2001-esque something wonderful...

Whatever, wumpus. Does anyone know how to set up a killfile on this message board?

-Tom

"Does anyone know how to set up a killfile on this message board? "

More importantly, does anyone know how to get Tom to answer my question?

I haven't been rude about it. I'm not insinuating anything. I'm not even trying to prove anything. I'm just curious. If you've played the game on any public servers, there will be a record of it.

So, could you share with me which handle do you use when you play on public servers? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? I gave it my best guess. I'm not asking anything that I wouldn't gladly provide myself-- and I already did.

Tom, if I am genuinely pissing you off, I'm not trying to, and I apologize. Maybe I'm just brain damaged, but I enjoy discussions like this and there's certainly no ill will intended.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"Now, reduce your situational awareness to the maximum possible through a computer monitor & a single Roger Wilco channel, and it would get worse. Add in the proportionate number of cheaters, reduce communications and weapon discipline to its usual public server levels, and now we are truly into a DLE of suck. I recommend sticking to relatively small teams (under 50) & small unit tactics - that is where the fun lies."

Great points. Check out these upcoming games and let me know what you think:

Barking Dog's Global Ops
http://pc.ign.com/previews/15729.html

Operation Flashpoint (amazing 18mb MPEG movie, *well* worth the download, or my name isn't Sally)
http://www.3ddownloads.com/?file_id=136616

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

p.s. Am I banned yet?

I just did a search for new messages on the Q23 message boards and ended up here. Ouch. I now fully understand the quote, "be afraid, be very afraid," from, I believe, the film "Empire of the Ants." That film starred William Shatner as a man who teleports himself into an ant who attacks Geena Davis. She ends up driving a convertible into the Grand Canyon to escape the Man-Ant while eating a White Castle hamburger.

Anyway, this board scared me. I hope this Wumpus guy doesn't do any Google searches on me! My gaming name is "IRS Audit" just in case he does.

Amanpour

Legal Disclaimer: 'Amanpour' is a nickname and is not meant to signify any present, past or future employees of CNN. 'Amanpour' has never "gamed" "online" because he uses something called a "modem" and is afraid to be "fragged" because of his "lag" thingy. 'Amanpour' has used a "LAN" once or twice, but only for medicinal purposes. 'Amanpour' doesn't think 'CS' is the game of the year, but then 'Amanpour' wouldn't know the game fo the year if it bit him on his ass. 'Amanpour' likes to yell "Crowbar!" in a semi-girlie voice. The name 'Murawski' is a Zulu word for 'virility'. End of legal disclaimer.

"So, could you share with me which handle do you use when you play on public servers?"

I don't have any sort of cool online name like "Chickman" or "Tominator". Half the time I'm online, it's using whatever name the last guy at Shoot Club was using. The other half of the time, I realize I'm using "player" and I pull down the console quickly to change it to something from a movie I just saw or a book I just read. A guy like you will probably even be mortified to know that I don't even keep track of my stats in Unreal Tournament.

Besides, Mr. Gittes, as you discovered with your uncanny sleuthing ability, I've never even played Counter-Strike, aka the Best Game of All Time, so of course you won't find any record of me online.

-Tom

"'Amanpour' doesn't think 'CS' is the game of the year, but then 'Amanpour' wouldn't know the game fo the year if it bit him on his ass."

Hey, look, I think you have a copy of Sacrifice hanging by its teeth from the seat of your trousers!

-Tom

"Hey, look, I think you have a copy of Sacrifice hanging by its teeth from the seat of your trousers!"

Ha! This thread is quickly becoming my best source of entertainment when I'm at work.

As for CS, I will admit that I have never played it in my life. I bought Unreal Tournament and it satisfies any need that I have to turn the representation of others into small cubes of a flesh-like substance. I used to play TFC now and then and I just assumed that CS was very similar to it.

"...eating a White Castle hamburger"

mmmm, White Castle. It has been ages since I've had a half dozen White Castle hamburgers. Welcome to the hell of living in the upper midwest.

"I bought Unreal Tournament and it satisfies any need that I have to turn the representation of others into small cubes of a flesh-like substance."

Jim, be sure to take a look at some of the UT mods out there. It's amazing what's been done with the engine. QIII is nice and all, and H-L has a lot of Valve support, but I'm constantly amazed at the breadth of third-party creativity that gets poured into UT.

Thanks to a GDR article, I just noticed that an old Unreal mod called SWAT has been renamed to Tactical Operations. It's basically a CS rip-off for Unreal Tournament, but it's a very good one. I downloaded it and we'll be giving it a run this evening at Shoot Club.

Get this: you can play with *no* crosshairs! It gives the combat a very organic feel, less like you're moving a cursor over your target and more like you're actually trying to aim a gun. There's also a UT mod called Infiltration (or was it Serpentine) in which you pressed the right mouse button to bring the gun up to the center of the screen as if you were peering down its length to aim. Little things like this can make a big difference.

-Tom

I really prefer SWAT 3: Elite Edition to any other tactical shooter due to its slower pace. My friend and I were playing multiplayer co-op every night for a couple of months. It's a blast; I'm not much of a fan of multiplayer games, but that one convinced me of how cool co-op really is.

I've tried the other mods for HL and UT(Firearms, Tac Ops). I don't think I've tried any for Quake3 yet (any good ones?).

I didn't like a single one of them. I think the biggest turn off for me is how these other mods draw their animations. The first thing I notice each time is how poor and very unlifelike the character models move, at least when compared to CS or the Rainbow6/RogueSpear titles. I have a few friends I game with both locally and in CA and they've echoed the same thoughts.

Am I being too shallow?

Gordon Berg (who's ashamed of proclaiming CS as GOTY, all because of wumpus)

There are some very good Q3 mods, Gordo. Team Arena is one of the better ones. Of course, Jailbreak is really good. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but Q3 mods aren't my forte.

Try Unreal 4 Ever for UT. Excellent wild stuff that completely violates every rule in the book about balance and finesse.

And, yes, you are being too shallow. There's more to mods than character animation.

There are plenty of mods that don't tinker with character or weapon models, BTW. Some of the best mods are just slight twists in the gameplay mechanics.

"Gordon Berg (who's ashamed of proclaiming CS as GOTY, all because of wumpus)"

Well, with friends like wumpus... Besides, what do you know? You don't even fly *real* flight sims. :)

-Tom

"I really prefer SWAT 3: Elite Edition to any other tactical shooter due to its slower pace."

Damn. Another one I'm going to have to try...

-Tom

"I really prefer SWAT 3: Elite Edition to any other tactical shooter due to its slower pace. My friend and I were playing multiplayer co-op every night for a couple of months. It's a blast; I'm not much of a fan of multiplayer games, but that one convinced me of how cool co-op really is. "

SWAT 3 Elite is an amazing and vastly underrated game. Good call. I *hated* multiplayer RS (and R6) but SWAT 3 is a good mix.

Unfortunately Sierra managed to completely bollix up the multiplayer in the Elite Edition by not offering server code to anyone (no public servers), limiting it to 5 players, and "forgetting" basic amenities like letting dead people chat with each other after they die. They seem to be pretty good about patching up these gross oversights, but yet another developer who makes rookie mistakes. Sigh. It's as bad as the lack of save and control remapping in ONI.

Anyway, definitely check out Swat 3 if you haven't. The game has the best level design I've seen in any FPS shooter to date. Everything was created with bog-standard WorldCraft, yet these levels put CS and R6 to absolute shame. I have a screenshot gallery of it here:

http://www.gamebasement.com/pages/home.asp?nav=articles&id=10

Do check it out!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"I didn't like a single one of them. I think the biggest turn off for me is how these other mods draw their animations. The first thing I notice each time is how poor and very unlifelike the character models move, at least when compared to CS or the Rainbow6/RogueSpear titles. I have a few friends I game with both locally and in CA and they've echoed the same thoughts."

Well, exactly. They are the Asheron's Call to CS's EverQuest. Popularity is the _only_ metric that matters for multiplayer games. And 99 percent of all mods are utter crap. I'll gladly let others be the guinea pigs until the mod becomes popular enough to take notice of.

"who's ashamed of proclaiming CS as GOTY, all because of wumpus"

Buck up, little soldier! Someone has to save the world from Flying Heroes!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"Popularity is the _only_ metric that matters for multiplayer games."

Hmm. Your comment speaks volumes, wumpus.

I suppose you're a big advocate of online bingo and hearts?

-Tom

"I don't have any sort of cool online name like "Chickman" or "Tominator". Half the time I'm online, it's using whatever name the last guy at Shoot Club was using. The other half of the time, I realize I'm using "player" and I pull down the console quickly to change it to something from a movie I just saw or a book I just read. A guy like you will probably even be mortified to know that I don't even keep track of my stats in Unreal Tournament."

Fair enough. Ichabod does seems to be a recurring theme. Most people who play online for any length of time tend to use the same name for purposes of recognizability-- so you can put people you don't like in a killfile, for example. Or pick out people you do like to play with.

"Besides, Mr. Gittes, as you discovered with your uncanny sleuthing ability, I've never even played Counter-Strike, aka the Best Game of All Time, so of course you won't find any record of me online."

Forget it, Tom. It's the Internet.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"I suppose you're a big advocate of online bingo and hearts?"

If you're planning to release a FPS version, absolutely. When I shoot the moon I want all my opponents to gib.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Hmmmm, Swat 3, eh? I'm going to have to check that out. Sierra has been offering a lot of nice mailin rebate and buy one get one free deals with Swat 3: Elite Edition included.

Rainbow 6 was fun, but I have to agree with Wumpus that the multiplayer left a lot to be desired. Rogue Spear just seemed like Rainbow 6 with a small facelift, so I didn't bother with it.

Is there some kind of a clearinghouse site for Mods out there? I'd like to see what people have to offer.

Nali City is a good site for UT mods. I'm not really up on the Q3 scene enough to tell. No doubt Gamespy has a whole solar system of planets devoted to the mod scene.

I have been thinking of buying SWAT3:EE. How is the single player game ? I am not really interested in the multiplayer.

>>I have been thinking of buying SWAT3:EE. How is the single player game ? I am not really interested in the multiplayer.

I like it quite a bit. The campaign has a lame maze-like level that lost me (I gave up on it at that point), but you can create multiplayer co-op LAN games and fill out your team with AI guys and play any map. I find it oddly replayable. It has terrific AI overall.

"Nali City is a good site for UT mods."

Nali City is actually just maps. But they rate them, which is an invaluable asset when you're wading through the thousands of third-party maps out there. I routinely drop in and download anything new with a rating of 8 or higher. Here's the URL:

http://www.planetunreal.com/nalicity/

UT Booty is also good for map reviews:

http://utbooty.unrealism.com/

Cliff Bleszinksi also keeps a list of his favorite third-party maps:

http://www.planetunreal.com/cliffyb/

But he's understandably preoccupied with stuff like textures and lighting. I just wanna gib.

To keep an eye on the actual mod scene for UT, just check in periodically at Unrealism:

http://www.unrealism.com/

or Planet Unreal:

http://www.planetunreal.com

Planet Unreal actually has a good database of mods that gets updated regularly:

http://www.planetunreal.com/modsquad/

-Tom

"I really prefer SWAT 3: Elite Edition to any other tactical shooter due to its slower pace."

Well, I'm afraid that SWAT3 didn't go over very well with the guys last night. :(

I liked it a lot, but I need to plan better before I present something new like this. I feel a Shoot Club coming on...

-Tom

"Well, I'm afraid that SWAT3 didn't go over very well with the guys last night. :("

Too bad.. observations?

And dammit, play mototag in Motocross Madness 2*. I guarantee that will go over huge.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

* Not the car game, the motorcycle game.

"Well, I'm afraid that SWAT3 didn't go over very well with the guys last night."

I think the guys thought the weapons were too...uh...consistent.

I liked SWAT3. I think we just need to tinker with it a bit. And I liked the Unreal CS-esque mod too. Wouldn't mind giving it another whirl now that Mr. Utah is out of the way.

Amanpour