HardOCP's "Valve's Counter Strike:Source – Beta at Best"

After reading through several posts I think many people are missing the whole point as to why so many people are upset over this shoddy release by Valve.

CS:S did go through a beta cycle, from which many serious problems were ignored. The seriousness of some of the bugs are so severe that it makes the game frustratingly unplayable for many players.

I don't think anybody expected a flawless game out of the box (well okay maybe some did), but having CS:S (and HL2 for that matter) fall below an expected basic level of quality is unacceptable.
 
Well first full acc! to most of the statements in the article.

Ive been running HLDS since HL DM and early CS days, and i am now running a gameserver hosting comany.

I think the basic problem with CSS is that valve never thought about fixing stuff CS players complained about for years, they needed something to show the huge online community to create an even bigger hype around HL2 (since HL2 lacks MP completely (who would have thought that after HL1 gave online fps gaming a real kickoff)).
And because they needed to push HL2 to stores in a rush, they obviously had no time to beta test CSS, result is the (i call it) alpha version we now see in the retail release.

Problems i see from my admin point of view (server related):

- glibc2.3 needed to run SRCDS, meaning for example u have to upgrade your debian to unstable/testing (try telling your comp. admin to switch OS on your DB server with uptime near 500 days from freeBSD to suse linux), a great move from idiots @ valve.dev -

1.) pre alpha SRCDS, a "dedicated" server you have to restart constantly because of mem leaks (claimed to be fixed but still server gets worked up after time and gameplay becomes choppy) is just no where near what u need to run a "retail" game like CSS.

2.) close to 0 reply to dedicated admins trying to support vavle by pointing out critical bugs

3.) pre alpha SRCDS, no DEBUG output, still false log output making it impossible to create any sort of accurate stats processing (hlstats, psycho and so on)

4.) having steam overwrite your customised motd.txt and mapcycle if you do not set them read only :confused: (WTF?!)

5.) SDK incomplete/missing/not documented -> no admin tools, administration almost impossible if you do not have access to the server shell, very hard for the mod cummunity (wich basically formed CS untill ~B1.0) to create any kind of mods.

6.) rcon console gets worked up (server replys cannot connect to rcon console) 0 statments from vavle to this problem tought it has been reportet since release of the SRCDS, if you consider 5.) you can image what that means for company trying to supply CSS servers to customers.

To sum up, CSS was no where near a "final" release at its day of release.
Lets see what new bugs will come up with the next "server patch".

so far Meth0d
www.server-sales.de
 
I've played CS for quite a while, and I can't stand CS:S. Every time I fast switch from the awp to my pistol, it doesn't shoot and even the next click with the awp out doesn't shoot. If I do the same with a grenade, I just lose the grenade completely. Those two bugs alone have kept me from playing the game.
 
Wow, what a terrible article.

As far as I can tell, the only major Valve faux pass was blocking thrid party anti cheat software and not enabling VAC, apart from a few bugs. Other than that, the majority of the problems the author associates with CS:S are caused exclusively by the players. He should have re-titled the article "Valve's Counter Strike:Source - Beta at Best(thanks in no small part to the fanbase)".

Maybe someone should write an article about how the CS community is ruining CS, but unfortunately these types of articles are written for the community, and it is never a wise idea to criticize your audience.
 
The community is more than happy to police itself... If they're allowed to, with no admin tools and no built in anti-cheat the community can't do anything to deter the slezier sections within it to take over though.
 
Now I thought this was a great article, but I really tip toes around the magnitude of the utter FAILURE of HL2 as it was promised for years.

As the successor to HL, the most played and arguably best FPS game ever, HL2 is an absolute piece of crap. Sure the single player is great! Wow! Far Cry was awesome too! Was Far Cry in the same class as HL? No. Did Far Cry change the FPS world? Not even close bud. Sure it pushed our pixels like never before, but there's nothing left after the 1UP is over.

After nearly 4 years of development, buying up the Teamfortress and Counterstrike teams. Releasing years of images and PR BS about the ultimate teamplay and bringing multiplayer FPS to the next level “Brothers in Arms”, we got a carbon copy of CS on a new engine with a few levels?!?!?!

Now my beef is obviously much larger than the article’s, which mainly focuses on the CS:S iteration, although since that's all there is to HL2 multiplayer, there's nothing else to bash.

Ok here is where I all the bleeding heart ethical weenies jump in... get ready!!!!
Valve does not deserve to rake it in on this game. I’m not buying this crap. I’m sorry for all the loyal fans that already have, you have more faith than I, but don’t tell me you have more ethics.

I’m gonna play this single player game though using a wonderful thing called bittorrent. I can hear the posts already, “that’s not fair, they deserve the money, they spent millions on this.. .blah blah”

Is coming from people who never take anything for free? No. Is coming from people who have already plopped down $60 on the game? Yes.

Take this analogy for what its worth to you:
Beer = Teamfortress

You love drinking beer. Beer is the best thing to drink and it’s an awesome activity. Valve comes along and says:

“Were buying the team that makes all your beer! But were going to make beer 2! With beer 2 you’ll be able to do things you could never do with beer, and we’ll come out with beer 2 next year.”

For the next 4 years you are bombarded with images and news of how beer 2 is coming out soon, beer 2 will look like this, look like that, beer 2 will be the best! Meanwhile you miss your beer, and everyone is drinking all these new drinks, rye and gingers, vodka and cran, you’re still drinking your 4 year old beer. Finally beer 2 comes out! It has great new packaging, shiny and new, although you’re not really sure if you can drink it with other people. After further inspection, your realize beer 2 doesn’t do half the things good old beer 1 did, it just looks better. Plus you can only drink it in a couple places, where you used to be able to drink beer 1 everywhere, in thousands of bars. Beer two also costs $60! We’ll being a die hard beer drinker, you’re a bit pissed off at Valve for buying beer and leaving you without any new beer for 4 years.

Suddenly you realize that you can get a case of beer 2 for free! Do you grab the case? Or do you take your four years of lumps and fork over $60 for the new, disappointing beer 2?

You grab the free beer guy! And if you’ve already bought Beer 2, hindsight is a bitch buddy, your opinion on the whole thing is tainted. That last thing you want to do is think that you didn’t have to buy beer 2 to have a taste.

Because you realize, in the end, beer 2 was only worth a couple sips anyways and you would probably pour the rest out onto the cold, hard, pavement.
 
Other than that, the majority of the problems the author associates with CS:S are caused exclusively by the players. He should have re-titled the article "Valve's Counter Strike:Source - Beta at Best(thanks in no small part to the fanbase)".
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Where are the solutions?

1) Change the world as we know it, make all gamers moral with a huge magic wand?!?!?

2) Realize that people will always try and cheat and hack any game and make it your responsibility as a software developer to address this problem to ensure your loyal customers enjoy the product they have purchased.

Pick one.
 
Whatever guys, at this point I don't even give a damn about valve and CS:S. I'm playing 1.6 and loving it. And hindsight really isn't a bitch, i turned in mace griffin, morrowind, obi wan, and silent hill 2 at EB games and got my copy of HL2 free with an instore deal :D . So HL2 sits here, uninstalled, and i find myself giving less of a shit every minute. Valve can blow me, I'm off to play DBZ budokai 3...... :p
 
Valve disappointed me. Amazing engine, and great levels, but that's about it. The magic of the first Half-Life is gone, and the multiplayer is a joke. For christsake they just copied a game and updated the engine.

And Steam... don't even get me started on that sack of shit.
 
Sabs said:
You have to activate Windows, Office, Norton Antivirus, and many other applications these days. It's not very out of the ordinary. It's simply an anti-piracy countermeasure, and I have no problem with it. I do not know of any PC gamers who have no access to an internet connection. At any rate, HL2 can be played with Steam in offline mode, and only requires an internet connection for activation of the game.
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Yes, but you can activate by phone, not just through the internet.
 
Valve even hides off-line mode for steam through a convoluted procedure that you need to find out on the steampowered.com FAQ.
 
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