Counter-Strike culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The popularity of the first-person tactical shooter computer game Counter-Strike, most notably Counter-Strike 1.5 (WON2), has resulted in a large community of players dedicated to the game.
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[edit] Professional gaming
Since early in the development of Counter-Strike, players have competed fiercely amongst themselves, many forming clans with one another. When the mod was acquired by Valve and changed development status from beta to public release, this opened up the game to a much wider audience, and since the retail sales gave the game a very large player base (in addition to the experienced players of the beta versions), this permitted external organisations the ability to confidently hold Counter-Strike events with monetary prizes. The already running Cyberathlete Professional League, among other pro-gaming organisations, saw Counter-Strike as a game that had the potential for professional play, and held their first professional Counter-Strike tournament at CPL Copenhagen from October 26 to October 29, 2000.
The game was already popular throughout Europe, and the growing availability of broadband internet access combined with the close proximity of players to one another within Europe created an environment in which professional-level Counter-Strike could thrive. Low pings between players and servers allowed the formation of serious online leagues for Counter-Strike such as the Clanbase NationsCup. Many notable European clans dominated the early era of professional Counter-Strike, including Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP), Team-9, SK, mTw, SoA, and DkH. European players, especially those from Scandinavian countries, were largely more skilled than anyone else during the early days of professional Counter-Strike. In the United States, the players were more spread out, so the formation of online leagues was difficult, although Texas was a Counter-Strike hotspot.
With the introduction of the Cyberathlete Amateur League in the United States in March 2001, American clans were given the ability to compete against clans of a similar skill level every week. The system of multiple divisions, with the top division featuring prominent CPL teams, and the bottom division open to anyone, was and still is successful overall. Many American teams that have won CPLs were previous CAL veterans. Past CAL teams that have seen CPL success, and consequently worldwide respect, include Check-Six, Domain Of Pain, Team EG, CyberGlobe, GB, x3, Team 3D, and most recently, compLexity. CAL, which is officially affiliated with the CPL, is accredited with being a major part of the rise of professional Counter-Strike gaming in the United States.
Despite CAL's harsh punishments to those found cheating within their league, claims of players and clans cheating have been around as long as CAL itself, especially in reference to lower divisions. The events that create the most drama are those in which particular players are found or suspected of cheating outside CAL sanctioned events, then those players go on to play in CAL. Many people hold the attitude that those who cheat, regardless of how much they may disregard or deny the seriousness or even existence of their own actions, will always have an affinity for cheating and will do it whenever they are given the opportunity.
2001 also saw what is still named by many the greatest Counter-Strike match of all time, X3 vs. NiP at the Dallas CPL World Championship. At the time, X3 was widely regarded as the greatest American team, and NiP as the greatest European team. NiP managed to win, but only by a very small margin, and the game was an excellent exhibition of the skill of both sides. Soon after, X3 disbanded, but three of their core players joined Team 3D. Likewise, NiP disbanded, and their core players joined Schroet Kommando. These two new teams saw out the maturation of professional Counter-Strike through version changes, and attitude changes from the game's fans.
The release of Counter-Strike version 1.4 shortly followed by 1.5 caused a major disruption in the Counter-Strike community at large. Primarily, many fans were dismayed at the complete removal of the infamous and popular bug which allowed players to "bunnyhop". Movement speed was also reduced. These changes contributed to a slowing of the game, with the apparent intention of the game's designers of putting more emphasis on player positions and general strategy rather than super-fast action à la Quake or Unreal Tournament. However, there have been huge outcries by the community at every major version change since 1.3, especially at Valve's wishes to move their games to Steam with the release of the so-called Counter-Strike 1.6. The last version change, different than the previous ones, sparked a new community to restore Counter-strike 1.5, dubbed WON2.
After version 1.5 went public, the SK team began to dominate tournaments. Their squad included, at various times, Swedish players Michael "ahl" Korduner, Emil "HeatoN" Christensen, Tommy "Potti" Ingemarsson, Christer "fisker" Eriksson, Abdisamad "SpawN" Mohamed, Daniel "Hyper" Kuuisto, and Norwegian Ola "elemeNt" Moum. In terms of individual skill, this could be a shortlist of the best players in Europe, so when they were to combine forces under the SK tag, it was virtually undoubtable that they would see great success. Starting with CPL Summer 2002, SK won or got a top 3 position in virtually every event they attended. This lasted all the way until CPL Summer 2004, in which they were defeated in the finals by clan EYEballers, of whom Hyper was a member at the time. This defeat marked the turning point of SK, as they became less consistent and lost their status as an invincible juggernaut. The play style of SK favoured precise, low-risk strategies, especially when compared with the more flamboyant and dynamic play of American teams.
Counter-Strike has been linked tightly to its status as a professionally played game. Perhaps the most notable example of this was when former NoA player Griffin "shaGuar" Benger published an article on pro-gaming website GotFrag regarding his opinion that the money system in Counter-Strike was flawed and was leading to the stagnation of the game at a professional level. This article received hundreds of comments of vehement feedback from Counter-Strike players throughout the world, mostly in support of shaGuar's thoughts on the system. Valve listened to the community, roused by a pro-gaming icon, and implemented global changes in the money system not long after they were suggested.
Infamously, Schroet Kommando (SK) were one of the teams to exploit the specifics of the money system to their greatest extents and frequently used the occasionally odd rules of the system to their advantage. Unfortunately for spectators and the opposition, this sometimes eventuated in them taking a "cheap" ultra-defensive strategy ("spawn camping") as the offensive side (terrorists on bomb defusal maps), with clearly no intention of completing the actual objective within that round; instead the intention being to time out the round. Although this would register as a loss for SK (as they were the offensive side), it monetarily punished the defensive side (counter-terrorists) who were not given a chance to even defuse the bomb and thus had no chance of getting the large payoff. There were calls for rule changes to bomb defusal after SK's infamous tactics but none were successful.
[edit] Player controversy
Counter-Strike is considered infamous for the variety of players it attracts. Cases have been reported of players taking the in-game conflict too far and taking their anger out on their computers. These incidents have helped to stereotype Counter-Strike players as being young teen males that seek to vent their aggression through the game. Many players are considered crude and immature, often prone to name calling, arguing, and excessively using Internet slang - known as 1337 (leet) speak. Such childish behaviour has caused some players to abandon Counter-Strike completely.
Concerned, a popular webcomic based on Half-Life 2 and the culture surrounding it commented on the stereotypes that surround the behaviour of the "typical" Counter-Strike player, including unfair gameplay, immature, homophobic insults, and constant complaining as part of its ongoing satirical story.
[edit] Cheating
Cheating in Counter-Strike has a colorful history almost as long as the game itself, and it usually involves the downloading of a third party program that hacks into Half-Life's graphics engine. The most common cheats often fall into two major categories: wallhacks and aimbots.
Wallhacks allow for the cheater to see other players through solid objects (i.e walls,boxes). This grants the cheater the advantage of knowing where other players are located and allowing him or her to shoot or pre-aim at the other player through the wall. Generally wallhacks work by hacking into Half-Life's graphical engine and rendering solid objects semi-transparent.
Aimbots allow for the cheater to instantaneously aim at other players, usually at their heads. Modern aimbots work by reading the temporary data stored in RAM, which stores the location of other players. If the aimbot detects a player to be on the cheater's screen or within a certain range, the aimbot then aligns the cheater's crosshair with the coordinates of the player's head. Some aimbots will even automatically shoot. Since the computer can react much faster than people, aimbotters are nearly invincible. Aimbots are instantly recognizable by players without the need of any detection software since aimbotters will always score headshots, even when they do not wish to. However, skilled aimbotters are far more difficult to detect since they can simply run from a confrontation where he is outnumbered or toggle the aimbot on and off with a hotkey.
Many other hacks exist, such as autofire (also known as trigger bots) hacks which automatically fire the gun when the enemy walks over the crosshair (these are much more difficult to detect). Speedhacks allow cheaters to move and even shoot at a much faster rate than normally possible.
WON2 simply ignores the problem, while Valve's (the so-called "Counter-Strike" 1.5) response to the cheating epidemic was the creation of the Valve Security Module (VSM) or Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC). VSM worked by detecting any programs that hooked into Half-Life's engine. If a person is caught by VAC, he or she cannot play on Secure servers. VAC bans are effective throughout the account, meaning that if a person is VAC banned for using cheats in Counter-Strike, they are also banned from playing on secure servers in any other Valve games, such as Day of Defeat. VAC bans were originally five years long, however after September 2003, they were shortened to one year. Despite Valve's attempts, cheating still remains rampant as cheaters find ways to circumvent VSM. Recently "VAC 2" was introduced. This change is reflected across the entire range of Steam games (the original Half-Life engine, and Source) although it is reported that VAC 2 is not as effective in the original Half-Life engine than the Source engine at banning cheaters. People caught cheating by VAC 2 will receive a permanent ban across all games using the engine the cheater was caught on.
VAC 2 (as well as the original VAC) uses a delayed banning system, which effectively means the user can still play on secure servers, even after they are detected. When detected, they are 'flagged' and banned at a later time. This can be days, weeks or months. It is thought that this method is used so that cheat authors are not immediately alerted to the fact that their cheats are detected by VAC. The database of people banned by VAC has never been released by Valve.
Accusations of cheating are common, and when accused of cheating, one is often said to be using "hax", or a similar leet-speak variation. This is often considered an insult used by players of lesser skill against players of greater skill—a tendency parodied in the Macromedia Flash movie I hate yuo myg0t 2—and is not often viewed as a legitimate complaint. Often experienced players will use it as a compliment for an excellent shot, or in jest ("lol you sure your hax are off?", or "lol at j00r haxz0rs, turn dat off" or even why i do believe you are hacking old boy, please refrain from doing that in this fine gaming establishment).
[edit] Sprays
Sprays are digital images which players can "spray paint" onto walls, floors, and low ceilings. There are several sprays included with Counter-Strike, but they are very simple images and leave much to be desired. However, players can import sprays from their hard drive to get a custom spray. In Source, Players can have any image as their spray. In 1.6 there is no officially supported way to import sprays. A program called Wally is often used to convert regular .jpg or .bmp files into the format required by the game (.wad). The default file in the cstrike directory (tempdecal.wad) is then replaced with the newly created .wad file. This will replace the in game spray logo with the chosen picture, as long as the multiplayer options window is not opened, else tempdecal.wad will be reset to one of the default sprays (this can be countered by setting tempdecal.wad to be read only after it has been replaced). Sprays have become a part of Counter-Strike culture, with many websites that offer stock spray images.
Sprays are often sprayed after a round when enemies are most likely to be spectating players on the other team who killed them. Sprays are also often sprayed in the beginning of the round. Another popular spot is to spray onto the dead body of an enemy player you just killed. Sprays in the likeness of terrorists or counterterrorists are available and are sometimes used as an attempt at distracting the enemy. Pornographic sprays or animated sprays of player models can also be used as a diversion tactic to catch opposing players looking or firing at the images for easy kills. In Source, very large files were sometimes used as sprays so that the first time they are seen by the enemy team they are forced to wait while the image is downloaded, but this has been largely disabled. It's not uncommon for players to post disgusting sprays, such as shock site images, to see the reaction of the players on the chat box or on the mic.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Official websites
- Competitive websites
- Cyberathlete Amateur League — Online League for Counter-Strike
- CyberEvolution — Online League for Counter-Strike
- GotFrag? — Coverage of Counter-Strike-related events in the world of electronic sports
- WON2 - Play CS without steam
- E-Sports Entertainment Association — Online business with Counter-Strike and other gaming related features
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Counter-Strike series
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WON2 • Counter-Strike • Counter-Strike: Source |
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Valve Technology
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GoldSrc engine • Half-Life TV • Mods (Half-Life, Half-Life 2) • Source engine • Source SDK • Valve Anti-Cheat |
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Valve games
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