Counter-Strike

[Digital Scyther]

Counter-Strike

[DeeBye]

Huh?

[TaiDaishar]

Given this post being his first post after signing up today, I vote for kicking this idiot in a place where the sun don't shine.

[[wcip]Angel]

*cough*

[yangman]

The long-lived, and still living, Half-Life MOD we all love (or love to hate) was created by a few formor students at the university I currently attend. Let it be known that we, the computing science students of said fine establishment do not encourage nor support the above mentioned modification or the grabage of society it has helped to bring to the mainstream internet.

A remedy to our shame and embarassment is currently in the works.

Actually, no, we're too busy with school work and procrastinating said work.

But, we'll get to it. I think...

[Nystul]

Let it be known that we, the computing science students of said fine establishment do not encourage nor support the above mentioned modification or the grabage of society it has helped to bring to the mainstream internet.


If you are like computer science students at most major universities, you are too busy playing Counterstrike to worry about supporting or encouraging it....

[yangman]

The topic of Counter Strike is a taboo, at least among us who are active in the computing science student society.

Well, maybe not so much, but we do make fun of it whenever it is brought up, and sculd the player who brought it up.

Hm... indeed we might be an isolated case. The "other" university on the opposite end of the city has an internet cafe where, you gussed it, CS is played regularly. <_<

[kandrathe]

LOCK ME!!! LOCK ME!!!

[Dozer]

Me thinks that the thread, while started with spam, is already led to a mature discussion. I'm not going to participate in the Counter-Strike bashing (namely because I play it regularly and am active in its community; arguing about the sociological impact of it in respect to internet culture is not going to lead anywhere, nor change anyone's opinion), but it certainly is a valid thing to talk about. :P

[Nystul]

Is it CS specifically, or FPS games in general, that are taboo in your department? If it's just CS, then why?

It does seem a bit odd to me. I tend to think computer science students are much more likely than average to be serious gamers, and the FPS genre does appeal both to serious gamers and also to people who like to do things like build and run dedicated servers (preferably on university bandwidth), create or use scripts for games, and so forth.

Eons ago when I was a dorm student, the game was Quake, the mod was CTF (thanks again, Zoid), and the computer science students were very much at the heart of the action.

[[wcip]Angel]

Taking into account all the inaccuracies of nostalgia, I still think CS was better before it 'went mainstream' - which I consider to be fairly late in its timeline, right around the end of the betas. I started playing in beta 4, which I still consider to be one of the best ones. Where AWPs killed in one shot, where your M4A1s had a scope and where "1337" was just a number.

To be honest, CS hasn't changed all that much, in my opinion. A few new weapons, some updated graphics and team-commands and somewhere along the line the aim went haywire if you held your fire-button in too long.

So what changed? Where did the tingly feeling go whenever my cursor would hover just slightly over the Cstrike-icon? The inevitable happened: CS got popular - really popular, real fast. An onslaught of pimple-faced dweebs and wannabe-military strategists overran the servers and filled them with their ominous presence. "1337"-speech didn't start all at once, but was built "word" for "word" increasingly by every mindless drone wanting to "|<1ck @zz" and "b3 c00l". Of course, with the appearance of the mute-function, one could simply ignore these pesky additions to your one-time favourite game. However, one could spot one of these people far away without even having to look at the way he expressed himself.

If you were to say the word "teamplay" in today's CS-community, you would be ridiculed. "OMG LOL PUBLIC FFS!!!111" meaning something like "Excuse me, sir, but I would have to disagree with you on the matter. When playing with strangers, one cannot expect any level of selflessness or team-spirit." Counter-strike is no longer a game with two teams pitted against each other but rather a chaotic jungle - a server filled with 16 people, all out to fullfill their own needs - their "stats".

If you help out a teammate dispatching an enemy, you no longer receive a "thank you for your help" but rather "OMG N00B FRGSTELER!!!!!11". The fact that your opponent died means nothing - nothing - if he didn't die by *your* hands. Why? Because there is no such thing as "a team". It's every man for himself and the goal is not to aid your team to victory, but to kill as many people as possible regardless of the outcome. If you kill 4 people in a round, but your team still loses the round, you don't get any sense of defeat, but rather one of victory, even though you did in fact die and lose the round.

What's really annoying is that CS-players are gods - they are infallible. They never do anything wrong, and act accordingly. Try to reason with them, and you're a "OMG NOOB PLZ STFU", whatever that means. They are not people, but rather the Mindless Drones of The Internet (the MDotI) we see everywhere else, but only more so. Not are they only better represented in the game of Counter-strike than anywhere else on the web, but being in a situation as testosterone-filling as a combat-situation; it has a tendency to bring out the worst in people. Everyone's an expert. They've played more CS than anyone. They haven't been in the army or received any special education in the training of arms, but did I mentioned they've played lots and lots of Counter-strike? That makes them an expert. On everything, apparently. They know what to do, and if anyone tells them differently, they're an "OMFG PLZ STFU NOOB2K2", etc.
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Rant over! Time for another:

Bolty, where are you? Ol' Pete and me turned our keys simultaniously several hours ago.

[yangman]

[wcip]Angel pretty much outlined why it is.

Yes, it is specifically against CS, but, as alluded to, more against the community that plays it fanatically than the modification itself.

Personally, aside from all the "n00b l4m3rz", I don't have a liking towards Counter Strike because it holds a middle ground between fast-paced action and tactical strategy that is too compromized to be fun as either. It's not quite Quake, and no where near Rainbow Six, and as far as I'm concerned, the middle ground isn't good enough.

On a related tangent, we consider outselves to be computing rather than computerer science. Infact, some profs will spend a good portion of their first lecture making the disctinction known to first-year students. Our focus is more on the underlying theories of computing rather than the techonolgy of computers. It is -- at least from the impression I get -- more important for students in the program, to understand why and how a piece of software works rather than creating it.

[kandrathe]

Oh, I like CS, am in a not so 1337 clan, and I play it often. I used to have a server dedicated to it. My twitch muscles are not that of a 12 year old hopped up on Mt. Dew, but I am still crafty and get enough kills to not embarass my mates.

The thread would be fine if the initial post was moderated to despamify it.

[pakman]

I play counter strike quite regularly and maybe a little more. Team play does exist but only in the CAL and CPL environments. I started playing when the Colt m4 carbine had a scope on it, I think that was beta 4. Yes, whenb v1.1 hit stores, the age of people playing dropped along with the maturity level. However, I think things might be different when HL2 comes out and people create a counter strike mod for that. Not everyone will be able to handle it, as was the situation when CS came out the first time.