What is Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S)

counter-strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in rounds of competition won by completing an objective or eliminating the opposing force. The latest incarnation of the game, counter-strike: Source, is based on the Source engine developed for Half-Life 2. counter-strike is widely acknowledged as the most successful and popular of the tactical shooter genre. Signs of counter-strike's wide influence can be found in mods for games such as Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, and other standalone shooters such as Global Operations and Soldier of Fortune II.

As of May 2006, counter-strike is still the most widely played online first-person shooter and has over 19.5 million legal owners. In 2002 there were over 30,000 counter-strike servers on the Internet (second place was Unreal Tournament with about 9,800. In 2004, GameSpy statistics statistics showed over 85,000 players simultaneously playing counter-strike at any point in time, and in 2006, Steam regularly shows over 200,000 players for counter-strike (this includes counter-strike: Source, counter-strike: Condition Zero and counter-strike); accounting for almost 70 percent of the online first-person shooter playing audience. According to statististatistics gathered by Valve's content-delivery platform, Steam, these players contribute to over 4.5 billion minutes of playing time each month,[1] solidifying its position as the most popular online first-person shooter in history. counter-strike was originally played online through the WON gaming service, which was shut down in 2004, forcing players to switch to Steam (to which a section of players responded by creating their own WON network, dubbed WON2). 
 
2.  Gameplay  
counter-strike is a team-based first-person shooter in which players join either the Terrorists or the Counter-Terrorists. Server settings may automatically balance teams when one team has more players than the other. Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously, as one of eight different default character models (four to choose from for both Counter-Terrorist and Terrorist. counter-strike: Condition Zero added two extra models, bringing the total to ten). Each player generally starts with $800, two magazines of ammunition, a knife, and a pistol: a Heckler & Koch USP .45 Tactical for Counter-Terrorists, and a GLOCK 18c for Terrorists. Players are generally given a few seconds before the round begins (known as "freeze time") to buy equipment, during which time they cannot move in any direction or attack, although they can jump in place. Players may buy equipment whenever they are in a buy zone for their team (some zones can be for both teams, depending on the map) provided the round has not been in session for longer than a specified time (90 seconds is default). Once the round has ended, surviving players retain their equipment for use in the next round; those who have died begin the next round with the default pistol and knife. 

Standard monetary bonuses in the game are:

Win a round: $3500 (awarded at the beginning of the following round)

Lose a round: $2500 (awarded at the beginning of the following round)

Kill an enemy: $300 (awarded instantly)

Instruct a hostage to follow: $150 (awarded instantly. Only works once per hostage, per round)

Rescue a hostage: $1000 (awarded instantly)

Plant the bomb: $800 (awarded at the beginning of the following round)

The scoreboard shows team scores plus data for each player: name, score, deaths, and ping (in milliseconds) on the map. The scoreboard also shows whether each player is dead, carrying the bomb (in bomb defusal maps), or the VIP (in assassination maps), although the player must be dead during the round to obtain this information about players on the opposing team.

Players killed become "ghosts" for the duration of the round; they cannot change their names, text chat cannot be sent to or received from live players; and, while voice chat can still be received from live players, it cannot be sent to them. (unless the cvar sv_alltalk is set to 1, in which case voice chat can be freely exchanged between dead and living players). They are generally able to watch the rest of the round from multiple selectable views, although some servers disable some of these views to prevent dead players from relaying information about living players to their teammates through alternative media (most notably voice in case of Internet cafes and players in the same rooms of their own homes, playing on the same server). This technique, known as "ghosting", is considered cheating in many tactical shooters.

counter-strike is meant to be more realistic than futuristic first-person shooters such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament, but is also built to keep the action flowing faster than more realistic tactical shooters such as the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon series. For example, relatively few shots will kill a player, and shots to different parts of the body inflict varying amounts of damage, but damage has no permanent bearing on ability to run or jump, allowing a player with just a few hit points remaining to keep fighting just as well as any other player. Movement, however, is restricted while taking damage from gunfire, and a player cannot run at full speed whilst taking damage.

There are several game types in counter-strike which define the objectives of each team in the game, and rules which determine which team wins. Each map is of a single game type. 
 
2.1 Bomb Defusal  
In bomb defusal missions, a member of the terrorists plants a bomb while counter-terrorist members attempt to prevent its detonation.

In bomb defusal, one randomly selected Terrorist begins the round carrying a bomb of Composition C-4 plastic explosive. The Terrorists' objective is to plant the bomb at a bomb site (of which there usually are two in a map, Bombsite-A and Bombsite-B, commonly referred to simply as "A" or "B"), and ensure its detonation, or eliminate all Counter-Terrorist forces. If the bomb has not been planted, and if all the members of one team have been eliminated, then the surviving team wins. If the bomb has been planted and proceeds to explode, the Terrorists win, but if a Counter-Terrorist defuses the bomb (Counter-Terrorists can purchase an optional kit to speed up defusal times), the Counter-Terrorists win. When the round time expires without the bomb being successfully planted, the Counter-Terrorists win. Deaths due to the detonation of the bomb do not increment the player's death count. Maps of this type are prefixed with de_ (e.g. "de_dust" and "de_inferno"). Professional tournaments are normally only played on Bomb Defusal maps. Usually, the time required for the bomb to explode after being planted is about 45 seconds. 
 
2.2 Hostage Rescue  
Hostage rescue maps have hostages (usually four) that are generally placed near the Terrorist spawn point. The Counter-Terrorists' objective is to escort the hostages to a hostage rescue point on the map. If all the members of a team have been eliminated, the surviving team wins. If all the surviving hostages have been rescued, and that number is at least half of the initial hostage count, then the Counter-Terrorists win, and each Counter-Terrorist is awarded $2500. When round time expires, the Terrorists win. Therefore, the game may effectively become a timed 'Terrorist hunt' if enough hostages are killed; in order to prevent this from happening, servers can be set to automatically disconnect a player after they have killed a certain amount of hostages. When a Counter-Terrorist instructs a hostage to follow them, the Counter-Terrorist is awarded $150. Upon successfully escorting a hostage to a rescue point, $1000 is awarded and each of the rescuer's teammates gets an additional $1000 at the start of the next round. Killing or injuring a hostage incurs a penalty of $2250 times the fraction of the hostage's health that was taken away, up to a maximum of 1. Maps of this type are prefixed with cs_ (e.g. cs_office). 
 
2.3 Assassination  
In this mission, one Counter-Terrorist member becomes a VIP, a player with 200 units of Kevlar and nothing more than the Counter-Terrorist standard-issue USP pistol with one extra magazine. The VIP may not pick up dropped weapons other than the VIP's own pistol. The VIP's objective is to reach an extraction zone (one, normally), in which case the Counter-Terrorists win. If the VIP dies, the Terrorists win. As usual, if all Terrorists die, the Counter-Terrorists win. When time expires, Terrorists win. The lack of ammunition for the pistol means that a VIP should not expect to escape without the team's assistance; however, the pistol in conjunction with the special armour provides adequate protection. Maps of this type are prefixed with as_. Assassination maps are the least played of the three types of counter-strike. There are several assassination maps for counter-strike: Source, and a VIP mod has been produced by the community. Members of the community who dislike the scenario argue that the Terrorists would just camp at the VIP's escape destination, shooting the VIP dead as he attempted the run to the exit. For this reason, auto-sniper rifles are often banned on VIP maps. 
 
2.4 Escape  
Discontinued in the late-beta releases of counter-strike, this gameplay style put Terrorists against Counter-Terrorists in an escape-before-the-clock-expired mission. The Terrorists started in a position relatively far away from the Counter-Terrorists, armed with only knives and Glocks and unable to purchase additional weaponry or equipment. Weapons, armour, and grenades were placed in hidden locations near or around the spawn point of the Terrorists; the objective was for the Terrorists to secure weapons at the hidden location and then have all living members of the team reach an escape point before the clock ran out; eliminating all Counter-Terrorists would not complete the mission by itself. The Counter-Terrorists' objective was to prevent the escape of the Terrorists. Escape was discontinued because such maps gave an edge towards Counter-Terrorists. Maps of this type are prefixed with es_. While not included in the current counter-strike distribution, this mode can still be played. The most popular maps of this type are es_jail, es_riverside, es_frantic, and es_trinity. This mode is not found in counter-strike: Source. 
 
3.   About counter-strike: Source (CS:S) 
In 2004, original counter-strike developers Minh Le and Jess Cliffe, along with members of Valve and the Day of Defeat team, brought counter-strike into the Source engine as an obvious choice for the multiplayer component of Half-Life 2. Following a period when the game was available to select "beta" testers, the alpha version of the game was released on October 7, 2004.  CS:S was released to ATI Radeon Voucher holders, in Half-Life 2 bundles available on Steam, and with the boxed retail version of the game. Changes include the improvements inherent to the Source engine (such as better graphics and physics) as well as updated models, animations, maps, sounds, and some small gameplay changes.

For what counter-strike and its popularity is concerned the new Source engine heralds a new beginning for the most popular first-person shooter in history, a game which has been played throughout the world for more than six years.

Changes and additional features

The updated counter-strike came with a few changes, some welcomed, others questioned. The riot shield introduced in 1.6 is gone, and dead players now drop grenades just like other weapons (as was introduced in Condition-Zero). The popular maps, such as de dust and de aztec, have approximately the same layouts and size, but are revamped with many aesthetic additions such as glass bottles and 50-gallon drums. Other maps such as de inferno appeared noticeably different.

At this point, Valve hasn't given the ability to make assassination maps (prefix "as_"), however, LDuke has created a server plugin so you can play the VIP scenario on counter-strike: Source.

Counter Strike: Source includes the "Official counter-strike Bot" for both online and offline gameplay. The AI of the bot is carried over from counter-strike: Condition Zero and offers 4 difficulty levels, from "Easy", "Normal", "Hard", and "Expert". For most casual players the "Normal" setting will offer an adequately challenging game and using keyboard commands can operate quite effectively, the level of difficulty chosen affecting reaction times, accuracy and tactical play.

Additionally, holstered weapons and grenades are visible on player models when not in use. This is a useful addition as a player can scope out what his team mates are carrying during the initial seconds of the game as most players "rush" with small arms, knives or grenades and their primary firearms are attached to their back. This new feature enables players to consider strategies and plan accordingly.

Screenshot from counter-strike: Source. A screenshot of a typical firefight seen in a multiplayer server on the map CS office. Pictured is the GIGN skin along with the original SEAL Team SIX and 'Phoenix Connection' Terrorist skin.

The implementation of the Source engine and the promise of Havok physics in CS:S led to much speculation about the increased tactical opportunities opened up by the use of physics objects.

It was originally believed that because objects in a map could be moved and had realistic properties, this would provide greater gameplay flexibility; for example, in the map CS office, the Terrorist players could "camp" in a room and barricade the doors with cabinets or chairs. In reality, however, physical objects are rarely used for such strategic purposes. The manipulation of them is hindered by coding which causes players to 'bounce' off any physical items and the inability to pick up any objects (as a player could in Half-Life 2). There is a limited server side command, sv_turbophysics, which allows minor manipulation of the physics , however players can only 'punt' objects around rather then pick them up.

However some hardcore fans have pushed aside this fact and created some appealing maps, such as de_soccer1_knives, which places Ts and CTs on opposite sides of the field and they use knives to "kick" a soccer ball into goals. The team who scores causes the opposing team to be subjected to a series of instantaneous deaths. The Havok engine has also been useful in the making of the semi-popular "glass" maps, where most of the battlegrounds are made of breakable glass. Creators place objects such as walls that can be tipped over, causing all the glass layers underneath to break under its weight (and causing anyone unlucky enough to be standing on that glass to fall to death).

There are several reasons that objects have been coded to keep players at a small distance away. First, computations by the server would be extremely complicated when several people interact simultaneously with the same object. Secondly, network traffic to clients would have to increase by quite a bit to reflect the current state of the object(s). Thirdly, and the most problematic, the client-side prediction of objects would suffer to the point where visible and player movement anomalies would constantly be causing serious issues for players. For example, an object would seem to go in one direction for a short time and then suddenly appear right in front of a person thus causing the client to reverse that player to a previous position.

Prior to the March 1, 2006 update, some critigraphics noted that the muted physics in the standard configuration of graphics:S were causing player death animations to be limited and predictible, affecting the immersion of the player in the game. The March 1 update to graphics:S's ragdoll physics created more random death postures.

In addition to regular gameplay, you can also surf. Surfing using sv_airaccellerate 100 to let you ride slanted walls. Surf maps have the "surf_" prefix. 
 
4.  Maps 
As noted, the only two officially supported modes of play for graphics:S are maps prefixed with "defusal" ("de_") and "Hostage Rescue" ("cs_"). At the moment there are 18 official maps available, and most of them are remakes of popular maps from earlier versions. In an update on February 24, 2005 update, the map cs_compound was added, the first original official map to be released for counter-strike: Source.

While Valve may continue to create new maps, Turtle Rock Studios continues to remake classic maps, although it is not known which maps they are working on, Below is the list of official maps for counter-strike: Source. Since the release of de_nuke on December 2, 2005, Valve's policy regarding all future maps seems to be the inclusion of High Dynamic Range (HDR) visuals.

Furthermore, in a news update on March 11, 2006, Valve reported that "We're also planning on going back to some of the older counter-strike: Source maps and giving them an HDR pass. Soon you'll get to play maps like de_dust with full HDR lighting." It can be presumed that eventually, the entire official graphics:S map catalogue will be rendered in HDR.

There is also a group of maps in which less serious players like to fool around or hang out in: player-made custom maps, anything from ag_battleships, cs_justice, and helms_deep to de_simpsons_graphicss and aim_map_duelies. Thanks to Source, many new possibilities have opened up for custom map-making.  Below is a list of maps available to graphics:S players as of today, most of which are maps that have been carried over from counter-strike. de_tides, de_port and cs_compound are of interest, de_tides having only appeared previously for counter-strike: Condition Zero. cs_compound and de_port were first released for graphics:S, making use of the source engine's ability to produce longer draw distances than those of the GoldSRC engine of counter-strike. Both have received heavy criticism.

In addition to the regular maps, players can also play on custom made maps, but instead of doing the map installing manually, the players computer installs the map when it is connected to a server which is using a map the client does not have.

.5.  Player models 
Corresponding player models for both Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists have appeared through development. The following eight are the original models which were to be (or are in the process of being) reproduced in counter-strike: Condition Zero and counter-strike: Source. Condition Zero also added two additional models; the Midwest Militia for Terrorists and the Spetsnaz for Counter-Terrorists.

Firstly, all players on one team should choose the same skin. As Terrorists you should choose the Elite Crew model. And as Counter-Terrorists, the GIGN model. "5 guys popping in and out 1 at a time will look like the 1 guy if you all have the same skin. Elite Crew is the skinniest and hardest to see model most of the time, and the GIGN model has the smallest head for Counter-Terrorists. 
 
5.1  Counter-Terrorist models 
All names are taken from real groups.

SEAL Team 6 - First appeared in initial counter-strike beta - "ST-6 (to be later known as DEVGRU) was founded in 1980 under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Richard Marcinko. ST-6 was placed on permanent alert to respond to terrorist attacks against American targets worldwide."

GSG 9 - Added in counter-strike beta 6 - "GSG 9 was formed out of the tragic events that led to the death of several Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, Germany."

SAS (Special Air Service) - Added in counter-strike beta 5 - "World-renowned British SAS was founded in the Second World War by a man named David Stirling. Their role in WW2 involved intelligence gathering behind enemy lines and executing sabotage strikes and assassinations against key targets."

GIGN - Added in counter-strike beta 3 - "France's elite counter-terrorist group, the GIGN, was designed to be a fast response force that could decisively react to any large-scale terrorist incident. Consisting of no more than 100 men, the GIGN has earned its reputation through a history of successful ops."

Spetsnaz - The Russian counter terrorist elites.  
 
5.2 Terrorist models  
All (understandably) fictional.

Phoenix Connexion - First appeared in initial counter-strike beta - "Having established a reputation for killing anyone who gets in their way, the Phoenix Connexion is one of the most feared terrorist groups in eastern Europe. Formed shortly after the breakup of the USSR."

Elite Crew (L337 Krew prior to counter-strike version 1.6) - Added in counter-strike beta 3 - "Middle Eastern fundamentalist group bent on world domination and various other evil deeds."

Arctic Avengers - Added in counter-strike beta 6 - "Swedish terrorist faction founded in 1977. Infamous for their bombing of the Canadian embassy in 1990."

Guerilla Warfare - Added in counter-strike beta 6.5 - "A terrorist faction founded in the Middle East, this group has a reputation for ruthlessness. Their disgust for American lifestyle was demonstrated in their 1982 bombing of a school bus full of Rock and Roll musicians."

Midwest Militia  
 
5.3 Other models  
Hostage - used in maps prefixed 'cs_' (eg: cs_italy).

VIP - Used in maps prefixed 'as_' (eg: as_oilrig).  
 
6. Culture 
counter-strike is famous for the culture surrounding it, which includes everything from professional gamers and leagues, to excessive cheating and disruptive behavior. Certain professional teams (such as SK, Team 3D and Team NoA) and players (Ksharp, and HeatoN, for example) have achieved a measure of fame. 
 
7.   Legacy of counter-strike  
While counter-strike is nowadays perhaps the most professionally played computer game in the world, something to the degree of StarCraft in South Korea, most players simply ignore the professional side of the game and play for fun. The success of the game among both casual and competitive players highlights the wide appeal of counter-strike's simple game model. counter-strike has had a colorful and dramatic history which reaches far beyond what this document could hope to cover, and still remains extremely popular to this day. There are currently professional online pay-to-play leagues that support counter-strike, such as GetGosu.com.

Half-Life and other contemporary games took full advantage of the advent of hardware graphigraphics acceleration in the late 1990s, replacing earlier software-rendered games such as Quake. Likewise, gamers were expected to abandon the DirectX 5.0 Half-Life and its mods in favour of games utilising the hardware T&L capabilities of DirectX 7.0 graphigraphics cards such as the Nvidia GeForce and ATI Radeon. However, the universal shift to the DirectX 7.0 level and beyond has not happened, and the continued popularity of counter-strike has given older video cards such as the 3dfx Voodoo 3, ATI Rage 128, and Nvidia RIVA TNT2 continued usefulness. Indeed, one possible reason for counter-strike's continued popularity is that almost any PC made since 1997 can play it since the game does not need the powerful CPU and video card required of many current first-person shooter games.

But as the criticisms of Condition Zero showed, many players feel that the GoldSrc engine has reached its limits in its capacity to evolve and to stay updated. counter-strike was realistic for its time, but is dated in comparison to more recent first-person tactical shooters. There is a growing frustration that the developers are unwilling to make official changes or add new features, maintaining the same map layouts and weapons to appease longtime counter-strike players. Even counter-strike: Source has been criticised for not progressing the gameplay enough and failing to take full advantage of the Source engine.

There have been a multitude of games claimed by their developers, reviewers and fans to be "counter-strike killers," but none have seriously been able to dent its overall popularity. Server statistigraphics in 2002 showed that counter-strike servers outnumbered their Battlefield, Unreal Tournament 2003 or Quake III first-person shooter counterparts at least 3 to 1. The prohibitively expensive cost of an up-to-date gaming PC makes it unlikely that another game will become as popular as counter-strike has been. 
 
8.  Mods and scripts 
Even though counter-strike is itself a mod, it developed its own community of script writers and modders. There have been many different mods and scripts to:

1.Add bots to make a LAN game multiplayer although there is only one computer

2.Improve gameplay

3.Remove features of the games which players felt were annoying

4.Give players superhuman powers (powers from units in Warcraft III, for example.)

5.Make the game more humorous

6.Create different modes of play

7.Control players not following set rules

8.Keep track of player statistigraphics and scores

9.Provide options for weapon improvement (AKA Skinning: Affects the way guns look and sound to the user but remain unchanged to anyone else in the game. Only the user sees the differences. The weapon's attributes remain the same.)

10.Give server administrators more flexible and efficient control over his/her server. "Admin plugins", as they are mostly referred as, have become very popular. One of the most successful, if not the only one, "Mani Admin Plugin", is met on nearly every dedicated server nowadays. Features include: varieties of teamkill punishes, auto-kick by certain triggers, rank system, advanced map changing and voting etc.

11.Give server administrators the ability to make players gaming experience less enjoyable, for example the famous 'slap' which is a feature on nearly all admin plugins which allows the server administrator to make players jump around the map, basically making their game unplayable.

12.Run rcon commands on the client to annoy the player and making their gaming experience more stressful and difficult and in some cases closing the players game or even crashing it.

See Metamod, AMX Mod and AMX Mod X for more information. 
 
 9.  Servers 
A counter-strike game can be hosted in three different ways:

Inside the Windows counter-strike client, using the "New Game" button

Using a Windows dedicated server (HLDS)

Using a Linux/FreeBSD dedicated server (HLDS)

Most high-performance servers use the two latter cases. The Windows Dedicated server can be run in both GUI and CLI mode. The Linux version runs only in CLI mode.