[CS:S Update]

Hello all,

This week I, together with many others it seems, noticed the Counter Strike: Source update. There have been enough topics full of people complaining, this thread wasn't meant to only complain though.

As we all know, Steam doesn't care much about the opinion of their members. Therefore we should learn to deal with the updates that have taken place. However, we can ask Steam to improve certain things that have been changed.

After a few conversations, with fellow members of the CS:S community, I made a tiny list with improvements.

1. Nicknames: it is quite senseless to remove the 'option' menu, to change your nickname. After the update we are forced to use our nickname used in the Steam chatwindow. The chatwindow however often has nothing to do with the nickname used in-game. Clans are threatened with extincition, simply because it looks idiotic to have your clantag in your chatwindow. Some people have to keep adapting their name to the game they play (yes, some people play more than one game), because they have different clans for different games. This is one of the main reasons for me, to find these changes quite unacceptable.
Solution: Bring back the old menu, where you could simply change your in-game name. Simple but effective, since nobody will notice any disadvantages of these changes.


2. Player list: many of us bought this game, because of the realistic feeling. This is a tactical first person shooter that knows succes thanks to its competitive gameplay. The player list looks really nice, for a game like Team Fortress 2. Counter Strike is another series of games though. Funny pictures of a skull, pictures of gamers, large cartoonic fonts, ... Those are all characters of the new player list, that might disturb that realistic feeling.
Solution: Give people a choice to pick the style op player list they want. I would pick the style of the old player list for example, whereas younger gamers will pick the new fancier style. (Look at the server list for example. You can remove the pic of the map aswell, in order to get the 'normal' server list back)


3. Low violence animations: I personaly don't notice the way the characters fall on the floor when dead. Some people keep complaining about this though. There are certain communities that use footage of the game, to make movies out of it. These movies get an extra value when the characters die in a more violent way. The game is marked 16+, so there is simply no need for these filters at all. Third parties like these, are the reason some 'elder' communities stay alive for a long time. I have noticed Steam doesn't think/cares about these third parties when they plan future changes though.
Solution: simply remove this filter, or give people the choice to either turn the filter on or off. That way you harm nobody in this community. Also, people who force us to bring filters to a game, barely play games. These people are hypocrites and shouldn't be encouraged by your company in any way. (NOTE: I've read people are working on this 'problem', but due the amount of people complaining about this, I've let this problem in the list)



As you can see this is a small list of things that might affect the gameplay for some players. I am not talking about bugs, since there is already a topic for this. They will eventually disappear aswell. I'm only here to talk about improvements and solutions.

I left out the 'achievements' part, since you will always find pro and contra arguments for it. I disagree with the argument that you can simply "turn them off if you don't like them" for example. You can counter that argument easy, since it doesn't stick to the point. People who don't like the achievements, don't like them because other players will only look at the achievements as an objective. This does affect the original gameplay, since it takes out the competitive part of the game. You also lose the teamwork envolved with the competitive way of gaming. And as you know, nobody can turn off the achievements of the other players (duh). Some achievements are in contrast with the original gameplay (e.g. defuse a bomb when there's one second left, knife expert, ...). It's a competitive (team)game, so many of the achievements go against this main purpose of the game. Also, achievements based on luck (Blind an enemy player who then kills a teammate, Kill two enemy players while you are blinded from a flashbang, ...) go against the main purpose of the game and are therefore useless.

I would like to remind Steam (and all people that work on the updates of this game) that this is a competitive, tactical shooter. This game is a one-of-a-kind in this industry, hence why you get such a large amount of players. Games like Team Fortress, Half Life: Deathmatch, ... These have another sort of gameplay/atmosphere/feeling, so certain aspects of these games, cannot merge with the concept of Counter Strike.
(e.g. the 'fancy' new scoreboard in CS:S will not be appreciated by all players, where it will be tolerated in TF2)

Further than this, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this update. I don't look at it in a conservative way. I'm glad people still care about this game and want to make the community start growing again by keeping the game up to date. Changes however, have to be made with a clear and well considered state of mind. Changes cannot affect the concept of a game, since this will result in negative comeback.

I would like to thank you for your time etc.

Kind regards.