Why are there 100,000 people playing Counterstrike _right now_

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Yogi
04-11-2003, 15:58
I have a sign on my monitor that says "Why are there 100,000 people playing Counter-Strike right now?". The moment I can say why for sure, I'll roll that essence into Tribes, but I'm not holding my breath. Alex just keeps saying "Because it's free, stupid", and maybe he's right. It still perplexes me though.


Perhaps this is the big question.

Why do people play Counterstrike besides being free. Soldat was free and doesn't have a huge following. America's Army is free and doesn't have that following. Those are completely free. For CS you still have to own a license for the HL engine.

So what is the key item or items that draws people into CS?

Azra3l
04-11-2003, 16:01
You can be the best. The inherent draw, and perhaps the inherent flaw in Tribes/2 is that the learning curve is theoretically infinite, whereas in Counter-Strike, you can be the best on the server.

Tribes is a multi-faceted game, with different strengths of each position. Counterstrike, if you are 150 - 0, you are undeniably, insanely good.

Concrete measure on a single scale: Counter-strike
Fluid Measure on a multitude of scales: Tribes 1, 2, and perhaps TNTG.

Buk Naked
04-11-2003, 16:11
I just answered a big part of this in the original thread

1. free
2. runs on old machines

Think of the kids out there playing on P1, P2, P3 machines that still won't run T2. I can just picture penniless high schoolers explaining how they NEED an $800 box to play the latest Tribes, and their parents telling them to save all their money. They scrape together $200 and by an Xbox.

Azra3l
04-11-2003, 16:12
It's NOT free.

Buk Naked
04-11-2003, 16:19
Marweas says it is and that makes it so - HE'S THAT INCREDIBLY POWERFUL

Quote:
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Originally Posted by Thrax Panda


I have a sign on my monitor that says "Why are there 100,000 people playing Counter-Strike right now?". The moment I can say why for sure, I'll roll that essence into Tribes, but I'm not holding my breath. Alex just keeps saying "Because it's free, stupid", and maybe he's right. It still perplexes me though.

BTW, you get no points for spelling my name wrong.
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PyroTeknik
04-11-2003, 16:23
Free.

The first one to actually use that idea/setting (and ya'll know that he who strikes first strikes twice - or something like that).

Easy to pick up.

Widely distributed & runs on pretty much any machine.

Easy to hack (:o).

Locke355
04-11-2003, 16:23
Answer:
- people inherently know how to play it before they even load the game
- it is not difficult to play as a newbie, but has a lot of range in order to master it
- it applies to current times and situations (just like the desert combat mod is going to go retail and is so popular)
- is not too far fetched, and is believable.
- it is based on a game that a large portion of people already had. Like getting 2 games for the price of one.

It is something people *could* go out and do on the street, if the end results weren't a million dead people. It is cops and robbers, elevated to a virtual playing field.

Here is a better question:
Why the **** is this topic sticky?

Got Haggis?
04-11-2003, 17:24
teamsizes are small , games are fast pased, and the gameplay is very basic...which makes it very easy to get into.

Da_Timsta
04-11-2003, 17:55
fast paced? :rofl:

as people allready said, its a very basic game where achivement of success happens fairly quick. Also people get to use REAL guns!!

Got Haggis?
04-11-2003, 18:04
instead of fast paced i should have said "games are over fairly quickly"

shtbreakd
04-11-2003, 19:03
You can be the best. The inherent draw, and perhaps the inherent flaw in Tribes/2 is that the learning curve is theoretically infinite, whereas in Counter-Strike, you can be the best on the server.

Tribes is a multi-faceted game, with different strengths of each position. Counterstrike, if you are 150 - 0, you are undeniably, insanely good.

Concrete measure on a single scale: Counter-strike
Fluid Measure on a multitude of scales: Tribes 1, 2, and perhaps TNTG.
i think that sums of a huge part of it

but thats why i always liked tribes much better than cs :)

HomeSlice
04-11-2003, 19:06
I know that I play CS because when I started playing, the whole concept was very basic, has a newbie, I was still usually 5th in the server. The entire skill part of that game isn't in the shooting, but learning how to ditect people via their foot steps, and such

XY...
04-11-2003, 19:11
(Imo) The primary reason Tribes is not as popular as Counter Strike is because it was poorly advertised. The vast majority of non-Tribes gamers (that I encountered) had never even heard of Tribes, while the remaining few tended to be rather ignorant of how Tribes is meant to be played (the most common misconception being 'Tribes is slow'). If Tribes had been properly advertised, it would have easily dominated the FPS genre; but alas, Tribes was never given that opportunity. Tribes 2, on the other hand, was given a chance to become wildly successful (as it had a massive advertising campaign). However, it failed because of poor gameplay and stability.

SonGohan
04-11-2003, 19:54
Yeah.

I think it's the whole "Hey, my computer can actually run this without me having to go spend 2 semesters of College to update my rig" deal that gets people to play CS.

Edit: But for the love of GOD make T3 good looking.

Thrax Panda
04-11-2003, 20:11
Yeah.

I think it's the whole "Hey, my computer can actually run this without me having to go spend 2 semesters of College to update my rig" deal that gets people to play CS.

Edit: But for the love of GOD make T3 good looking.We just picked our "release" screen shot. I hope you'll all like it. I would guess that it will be on every web site on the 24th.

Natural
04-11-2003, 21:22
Answer:
- people inherently know how to play it before they even load the game
- it is not difficult to play as a newbie, but has a lot of range in order to master it
- it applies to current times and situations (just like the desert combat mod is going to go retail and is so popular)
- is not too far fetched, and is believable.
- it is based on a game that a large portion of people already had. Like getting 2 games for the price of one.

It is something people *could* go out and do on the street, if the end results weren't a million dead people. It is cops and robbers, elevated to a virtual playing field.

Here is a better question:
Why the **** is this topic sticky?

You left out one thing : time balancing. Not only does CS try to balance players based on score (which is directly attributed to skill in the game) but its rounds occur so rapidly and temporarily that anyone can sit down, play for 5 mins, and walk away. There is no time investment to complete a map, or series of maps.

At the same time, the round system hooks players in. The "fresh start" of every new round gives players more energy to go fight--especially if they've managed to pick up or purchase a good weapon.

I believe it is primarily the short attention span required that keeps Counterstrike a long-living mod.

R@ND0M
04-11-2003, 22:10
I'd put money on it being the requirements to run Counterstrike.

You don't need to have broadband to get a kill.
You don't need to have played it for 2 years to have fun.
You don't need to have a 2.5GHz pc to play it.
You don't need to organise matches for 9 other people before you can have a decent game.
You don't need to put much effort into running Counterstrike tournaments (because of the small team size).
You don't need to be great to stand out on a server.
You don't need to bind 50 controls before going into a game.
You don't need to worry about incompatibility with your sound or graphics card causing your computer to crash.
You don't need to go through online registration/logging in before you can actually join a server (WON Auth is automatic).
You don't need 5 CD's or a CD in the drive at all times to play.

What are some other key points that could be listed?

Doaln
04-11-2003, 23:47
It's all the custom booby sprays, vge






Nah, really though, it's most of what's mentioned above (Custom sprays are nice though, you don't know how many people Kim Smith has distracted long enough for me to kill them, it's WS too u perv)

I think an undeniable part of that success is Half Life itself (which I don't think was emphasised enough in this thread yet). It won huge marks with the critics and fans alike. The single player game rocked. When people then hear of a FREE MP mod that involves (somewhat) "realistic gameplay", everyone wants to play. WHO doesn't like playing with real guns? :)

Make sure The Next Tribes Game comes with Arena built in. I dunno how Arena was for T2, I'm just going off of T1 Arena. T1 arena can be more fun than CS.

(and include those other mods I mention in the thread about mods, like Hunter/Team Hunter, which is sure to be a hit among the DM crowds of FPS.)

FSB-SPY
04-12-2003, 02:48
We just picked our "release" screen shot. I hope you'll all like it. I would guess that it will be on every web site on the 24th.

just curious if it will be a real screenshot or something rendered and/or touched up with photoshop??

Thrax Panda
04-12-2003, 02:51
just curious if it will be a real screenshot or something rendered and/or touched up with photoshop??100% Real (with the exception of the watermark).