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Counter-Strike Promod

A Mod for Half-Life 2


First things first, I’m Al “Drax” Mendoza. I’ve been around this community for quite a long time now and although I am pretty lazy, when the fancy strikes me I try my best to improve things for everyone. I am writing this article mainly to “stir the pot” if you will. I feel that in the current state of affairs, our community is at an important crossroads. I know the future is bright for competitive gaming, but I’m sure many of you will nod in agreement when I say I hope a game called “Counter-Strike” is a big part of that future. My goal here is to try and facilitate that hope into a reality.

Also, as another pointer before we dive into this subject, this article is directed primarily towards the competitive CS community in general, and also the Industry leaders that drive our fledgling sport into the future.


Special thanks also to Mike “Statix” Hughes, who was an integral part in the development of this article and will continue to support the project as our lead PR manager in the UK, and host to our new domain at www.cspromod.com.


Intro:

Why do we need a Promod?


The answer is something like this: We’ve been competing in “Counter-Strike”, for what… 6+ years now? Things have gone well for competitive CS, but at this point there is a major issue holding everything back: Counter-Strike:Source. On the one hand, we have CS 1.6, still the “top dog” for competitive multiplayer games, but old… boring… stagnant… On the other hand, we have CS Source, the “new cs” that is supposedly going to overtake 1.6 for that top dog spot, yet is still riddled with bugs, inconsistencies, and was obviously not intended for competitive play.

So, why a Promod? Because it is exactly what competitive Counter-Strike needs right now. Something we can all look at and say without a doubt “This is THE game we want to compete in. THIS is Counter-Strike”. Something that also satisfies both major problems we have right now that hinder the growth of competitive CS:


1: CS 1.6 is felt by the majority to be by far the better competitive environment, but it’s old, boring, and doesn’t sell new hardware.


2: CS Source is new, pushes the newest hardware to it’s limits satisfying the industry, but the competitive nature of the game is greatly lacking compared to 1.6.


Too many years now has the Counter-Strike community sat back and whined when Valve made unfavorable changes to the game we love. My first real effort to make a difference came after watching a major lan match ruined by the infamous “flash bug”. I said to myself “hey, there has to be a way to fix that”, and I went and did it. It took me all but a few hours to do, and I don’t even have access to the tools and source files that Valve does. Of course, Valve ignores this effort, and I have yet to receive an email from them about it.


With CS:Source, I felt there was another opportunity for me to do some good. I wrote a lengthy analysis about all the known bugs in Source, and how to fix them. I really did try for many months to try to get Valve to listen… to understand what great benefit they could have to improving the competitive aspects of Source. I failed in this effort, and Valve has failed in the many months since then (CS:Source has been on store shelves now for well over 1 year) to make any notable effort to improve the game.


At the rate Valve is currently going, and based on the laughably trivial changes they have made to the game, I just can’t believe they will ever make CS:S anything close to what CS 1.6 accomplished. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to sit around hoping and waiting any longer for Valve to change their ways.

The proposal:

So, how’s this Promod going to work?


The number one goal of CS Promod is to create the most competitive, spectator friendly, and visually compelling incarnation of Counter-Strike ever.


Everything will be created as a mod on the Half-Life 2 (Source) engine, and the “base” version of CS Pro will be entirely based upon CS 1.6 and CS 1.5. Because we do not have the source (no pun intended) code to CS 1.6, we must either reverse engineer or recreate from scratch every fundamental aspect of gameplay from CS.

Before I continue to elaborate on the details of the what’s, how’s, and why’s, I’m going to lay down some ground rules for CS Pro (these are not listed in a particular order of importance):


#1: CS Promod at its current state has absolutely zero funding. Obviously by no means do I have the capability to create something like this on my own, and by accepting volunteers from the community, I would have no way of reimbursing those individuals for their efforts.


#2: CS Promod will by no means replace or eliminate CS 1.6 or CS Source from being played. This project is being created to offer something better for everyone, but this mod will be designed and developed solely for competitive play, and spectator environments, especially tournaments.


#3: CS Promod in its *first* incarnation will be based as accurately as humanly possible on CS 1.6 and/or CS 1.5. Every aspect of gameplay will strive to match 1.6/1.5 with mathematic accuracy. This includes all maps, player models, gun models, sounds, etc.


#4: During the process of development, a group of outstanding individuals from the community will be gathered and assigned the task of debating whatever changes we deem appropriate for competitive play. This meeting and voting process will determine the *default* settings for the Promod environment. This will include things such as the 1.6 AWP delay.


#5: All gameplay changes made after the first release of CS Pro will be assigned a CVAR or “client variable” to allow a “stock” server to be configured however is deemed appropriate for that servers purpose, whether it be a public or match server. This means something like “sv_awpdelay”.


#6: The target audience for this project is as follows (in order of importance):

#1: Competitive players

#2: Spectators and Media

#3: Industry Leaders (Nvidia, Intel, etc)

#4: Casual players


#7: The release of this article serves 2 purposes:

#1: To inform the community about the project, and ask for volunteers (more details on this later)

#2: To ask individuals and companies involved in the Counter-Strike scene to financially back the project. (again, more on this later)

#8: All visual improvements to the texture quality, model detail, map detail, etc, will be configurable. The extent of visual configurability will at its lower limit match the quality of CS 1.6 as best as humanly possible. Performance will be of utmost importance for “playability” settings.


#9: Visually enhanced or “high quality” settings will result in visuals very similar to what we see in CS:Source. The only major difference at the highest settings will be the lower level of geometric and physics detail of the maps.

The Picture:

So, what will this mod look and feel like?


Imagine the following:

*Maps all very similar in visual quality and polygon count as the CS:Source remake of de_cpl_mill.


*First person weapon models identical physically to CS 1.6, with optional visually enhanced textures.


*Third person character models visually identical to CS 1.6, with optional enhanced polygon and texture versions with easy to use CVAR’s.


*Third person ground models (weapons, grenades, kits, etc) visually identical to CS 1.6, with optional enhanced polygon and texture versions via CVAR.


*Movement physics (running, walking, ducking, jumping, etc) identical to CS 1.6.


*Weapon accuracy, reload times, recoil, etc, all identical to CS 1.6.


*VGUI or text based menu system, controllable via cvar, just like CS 1.6.


*Vastly improved match system for competition (automated “live on 3”, score information, referee / administration tools via ingame VGUI or text menus).


*Automated match statistics calculated and stored / streamed real time, and optionally delivered directly to each client for personal player statistics.


*Re-created and improved HLTV-like system.


*Greatly reduced negative effects of online play. No more laggy recoil, no more slow gun switches due to bad ping etc.


*Highly reduced CVAR list. No more strange and questionable configs. Only the variables that are allowed for configuration will be available! No more picmip, polyoffset, etc.

The list goes on.