12-03-2004, 12:37 PM
i relize that this is frickin long but it has some humor to it and all so try to read it if u havent read about the history of CS yet:
Possessing such 1337 skillz, it's hard to believe that this individual didn't actually start playing CS until about 1.3. I remember it like it was yesterday, the entire structure and gameplay of CS had been implemented and the thing was at a prime for giving people a break from the monotony of single player games. All the weapons were there, the game didn't crash that much and if it did, it was usually down to the users PC being crap! But anyway, I don't want to be starting this article in the middle of the development of CS, I want to start in the most obvious place; the start, cue nostalgic distorting wiggly lines and let's go go go!
CS BETA 1.0  [6.19.99]
Ahh Beta 1.0, where it all started, the beginning of a franchise that not only changed the world in terms of multiplayer gaming, but induced small quantities of malicious acts within the community members, but we'll talk about THAT later!
Now, I must tell you that I haven't actually played a lot of these versions, I may know about them, but I definitely have not played them so first hand experience is somewhat of a dream right now!
You'd be surprised at how little the original (but not best) version of CS included as opposed to its current state. It sported very little maps, very little weapons and crashed more than a pissed woman in a car with greased tires. It didn't even have any defuse maps so all you could do is rescue the stupid hostages on maps like 'siege' and 'Manson' which might I add, are pretty bad. I'm not going to lie to you; it plain sucked.
Despite this though, the game was of a considerable threat to single player games and developers across the globe were wetting their pants at the fear of being out-done by a bunch of bedroom coders.
What more can I say? Although being the basis, the foundation for glory, the beginning of a mighty game, it sucked, I mean, it really sucked. In terms of stability and overall features I mean, but then again, it was only the start, I'm not knocking that!
CS BETA 1.1  [6.27.99]
It wasn't that long until beta 1.1 was released (you probably got that with your ability to read the headers), a mere 8 days in fact, and although there weren't many exterior differences, those of the interior simply blew your mind, metaphorically speaking of course!
To the pleasure of all those who beat the crap out of their systems as a result of the game crashing after they obtained a l337 score, the stability of the game was increased MASSIVELY and gamers could play 'til their eye balls crusted over and their hands fell subject to random arthritic-based diseases! And they did! Don't be fooled though, they didn't stop the crashes totally, then again, give me a game that never crashes ever!
One thing that surprised me was that there weren't actually any added weapons in this patch, you'd think that they'd be one of the development focal points, but to be honest, new weapons weren't added until beta 2.0.
The only thing related to weapons in this patch was the extra firing mode added to the Glock, not that it made much of a vast improvement. You bag yourself a Glock and face a guy with a USP and we'll see who wins, then again, you could be l3370R... Ah well.
We also got the usual extra maps and fixes added, but there's STILL no sign of anything but hostage rescue, it must've got boring after a while. But "FEAR NOT!" I told them, and they didn't. In time to come extra gameplay modes were added, but that's a subject for later! One map that you'll no doubt recognize is cs_siege. You may know it because it's a really crappy map that has a brain-crippling echo in it, or you may know it because the author killed himself shortly after making the map.
There's some other crap in there that you're probably not interested in like the addition of the friendly fire command for server admins. There, I told you anyway, despite being heavily vague about it!
CS BETA 1.2 - [7.20.99]
Unfortunately, this version once again didn't deliver any diversity in game modes, it was a very upsetting time and I for one cried myself to sleep on several occasions. In fact, there's almost nothing to say about 1.2, it didn't add any new maps, it didn't add any new weapons, all it did really was refine what was previously there! What more can I say? No really?
CS BETA 2.0 - [8.13.99]
I'd like to point out (no doubt you already noticed) that there has been a substantial jump between updates (1.2 to 2.0). No, I wasn't cutting some out to decrease my workload because I'm not that dishonest, in fact, the reason there's such a gap is because the releases that fill the gap weren't actually betas, they were just versions, so I thought it'd be better to separate them in order to avoid confusion which may result in offence or violent outbursts towards me!
Now THIS release was very exciting, I'm struggling to keep my trousers dry over it all. Not only did 2.0 have extra weapons (Sig SG-552 Commando , AK-47 , Desert Eagle), it also adding some things that you don't know how you'd live without in CS, like the round timer, how on earth did we live without that? Before we were simply stumbling around in a disorganized and untimely manner probably knocking into walls and shooting everything but the other team.
From what I believe, the M4 originally had a scope on the top of it bound to secondary fire, but unfortunately, this was replaced with the silencer in 2.0. Now, despite popular belief, the silencer on the M4 doesn't make it more accurate. Many a time have I had arguments with people who will remain anonymous who claimed that they were shooting more accurately with the M4 after being silenced when this is actually quite stupid. Although, in real life and in theory the gun SHOULD be more accurate with the silencer on purely because the barrel is lengthened, in CS, this type of logic doesn't apply for some reason unbeknownst to me. Follow me carefully, go into CS, bag yourself an M4 and stand still with the weapon still as well. Take a good, long, hard look at the crosshairs for the M4 with the silencer off, and then put it on. If you have vision atleast slightly better than a moles, then you'll no doubt notice that the crosshairs separate ever so slightly meaning the gun is getting less accurate! In your face!
Going back to the things that we just couldn't live without in CS now, the other thing I was intending to mention was the round win score. When you hit tab in CS, you probably know that to the right of the 'Counter-Terrorist' or 'Terrorist' labels, there is a number showing the amount of rounds the specific team has won! How DID we live without that one? I for one have NO idea! That splendid contraption known as the night vision goggles was also introduced in this update. They opened up a whole new world of buying them on perfectly lit maps and turning them on and off just to hear the funky noise they made, well, I thought it was fun.
Other than that, 2.0 once again just updated the existing things, making improvements and/or changes where they felt necessary to gain a better performance or experience for the player.
CS BETA 2.1 - [8.17.99]
Well, Beta 2.1 was about as exciting as the Myst games, not only did it add hardly anything of interest, it took something out that I think is pretty funny! Now, for you people who've played Unreal Tournament (UT) or any other game that involves some sort of user-enabled teleportation device, you should be familiar with what's known as 'telefragging'. For those 'n00bs' out there though, I'll just fill you in. Basically, (using UT as my example), if you get the Translocator, you can teleport yourself around the map by firing this little disc thingy. It's normally used for getting to high places in a map or for getting your busted-ass away from some Flak-sporting monkey! In this case though, if you fire the little disc thingy (technical name) between the legs of your foe, then hit the teleport button, you get zapped inside your enemy and they exploded in a shower of red mist and giblets! Beautiful! You see, you're fragging, with the teleportation system! Tele-fragging! Yeah? Yeah? Well anyway the terrible map cs_alley used to do this. It wasn't actually telefragging because you've probably noticed that there isn't a teleportation system in CS. This is how this one works, in the mapping process, you have to lay down certain functions that show where the player will spawn and if you get a map that telefrags, it simply means two of these functions have been placed in the same vicinity and we all know that two beings can't exist in the same space at the same time don't we? Therefore one of them dies, leaving whatever team it happens to with one less player, and that's just plain unfair! So yeah, they removed that from cs_alley.
Once again there was also some additional fixes, AK price, assault sky texture etc. Stuff that's not that interesting!
CS BETA 3.0 - [9.14.99]
Now 3.0 is the stuff that dreams are made of. Also, you know that feeling you get when you wake up thinking you've got work/school/college etc, then realize it's the weekend, turn over and go back to sleep? Yeah, 3.0 is made of that!
Here's a little story for you; One time, not so long ago, I was having a whale of a time bangin' around on CS. The map was Italy, the team was Counter-Terrorists, and the situation? Well, let's just say we were 0wning them! The terrorists had taken a beating and were down to about 2 people so I took advantage of the situation and thought I'd head over to the house and bag me some hostages who, in the long run, will mean money and guns for me! I ran along the side and jumped up the crates, crouched in the window and 'used' the hostages (my hostage skins are naked women so saying I 'used' them is greatly amusing! For me anyway!) I tore away from the building with little dollar signs rolling in my eyes and hands clenched tightly around the mouse ready to make sudden movements if some punk-ass terrorist comes along with the intent of ruining my money making scheme. For those of you who will understand, I went through the house part and came out at that window thingy that some people find it hard to get into if they're playing as CTs. Making a full-on leap out the building I legged it down the path towards CT spawn running over all the different things I could buy, when I turned round, only to realize that I was being followed by none other than, well, no-one. My hostages had gone. "Someone's killed them" I thought as I stormed deeper into the map with a murderous rage burning within me. I back-tracked the path I had taken that I thought was going to seal my victory, and it would've done, I soon realized, if the hostages hadn't got themselves caught on the wall just behind the window I had previously leaped through. I jumped into the window and poked and prodded the hostages until they noticed they had functional legs and began following me again. "This is it Adam", I thought. "This is where you get loads of money and buy M4s, and Shotguns, and Paras". I jumped down from the window, this time actually being followed by the hostages and before I knew what had happened, some 'punk-ass' terrorist managed to nail me from 20 yards away with a rather sweet, but rather annoying headshot. The moral of this story is, don't trust terrorists... Only joking; Don't go get the hostages unless you know damn well that you're going to make it back to the rescue point because unless you want a little escapade resembling mine, I suggest you let someone else take the downfall!
Now THAT story was in the later stages of CS, and as you've probably worked out, the hostage paths were terrible, and still are, and before Beta 3.0, the paths were even WORSE which no-doubt resulted in a few suicides among the Counter-Strike community. So THAT'S why 3.0 is made of the things stated within the first few lines, because it made improvements on the hostage AI and although it's still pretty damn ghastly, it's workable... Sometimes!
Hmm, yes! Remember how satisfying it is to kill someone with the knife in CS when you hear a clicking noise emanating from your opponents gun? Well, if it weren't for 3.0, you wouldn't be able to partake in such 'lol-inducing' events. It was only in 3.0 that the knife was added and I don't know about you, but I'm quite glad it was!
Those are pretty much the main things that happened in 3.0, on to 3.1.
CS BETA 3.1 - [9.16.99]
Hmm, I must say 3.1 was a tad disappointing whilst being quite good at the same time. Good for little annoying tweaks that you don't really care about, but bad for an article being put on a popular Counter-Strike-based site that requires information that people are interested in! Yes.
CS BETA 4.0 - [11.5.99]
As you can probably see from the content in this article, I'm a fan of new and exciting things in CS like new maps and weapons. They make me feel warm inside! That's why I consider Beta 4.0 to be on par with cookies and milk (full fat milk that is, the creamiest of them all). "Why?" I hear you ask? But yes you've guessed it, more weapons, more maps and one word: 'w00t'!
Now, I've always been a hater of AWPs (AWMs to be meticulous), they're too powerful, one shot kill, and they ruin some maps like Militia for example. I personally believe that they require no real skill, you have to hit them once in the chest, head or abdomen to kill them, and once in the legs or arms to cripple them to just over 10hp. This is where Beta 4.0 comes in, yeah okay, it gave us Dust, yeah okay it added the defusal scenario, but the most prominent thing it did was add the Steyr Scout, probably second most skill-dependant weapon in CS (first being the Glock on Semi-auto firing mode). You see, with the scout, it takes TWO hits to the chest to kill, meaning if you want to remove someone without them pummeling you a bit first, you have to get a headshot and that isn't possible unless you're highly skilled with it. See? SKILL!
As I mentioned earlier, 4.0 delivered us Dust, one of two of the greatest maps out of the rather vast selection made for CS. Some people consider it to be a bit shitty now because it's been over-played and now deemed a 'n00by map', but a lot of people still love it, that's why a Paintball arena is being made out of it, check out http://www.playdust.co.uk. There's going to be C4 bombs and everything! Looks like a bunch of UK geeks are at it again. What WILL they think of next?
Possessing such 1337 skillz, it's hard to believe that this individual didn't actually start playing CS until about 1.3. I remember it like it was yesterday, the entire structure and gameplay of CS had been implemented and the thing was at a prime for giving people a break from the monotony of single player games. All the weapons were there, the game didn't crash that much and if it did, it was usually down to the users PC being crap! But anyway, I don't want to be starting this article in the middle of the development of CS, I want to start in the most obvious place; the start, cue nostalgic distorting wiggly lines and let's go go go!
CS BETA 1.0  [6.19.99]
Ahh Beta 1.0, where it all started, the beginning of a franchise that not only changed the world in terms of multiplayer gaming, but induced small quantities of malicious acts within the community members, but we'll talk about THAT later!
Now, I must tell you that I haven't actually played a lot of these versions, I may know about them, but I definitely have not played them so first hand experience is somewhat of a dream right now!
You'd be surprised at how little the original (but not best) version of CS included as opposed to its current state. It sported very little maps, very little weapons and crashed more than a pissed woman in a car with greased tires. It didn't even have any defuse maps so all you could do is rescue the stupid hostages on maps like 'siege' and 'Manson' which might I add, are pretty bad. I'm not going to lie to you; it plain sucked.
Despite this though, the game was of a considerable threat to single player games and developers across the globe were wetting their pants at the fear of being out-done by a bunch of bedroom coders.
What more can I say? Although being the basis, the foundation for glory, the beginning of a mighty game, it sucked, I mean, it really sucked. In terms of stability and overall features I mean, but then again, it was only the start, I'm not knocking that!
CS BETA 1.1  [6.27.99]
It wasn't that long until beta 1.1 was released (you probably got that with your ability to read the headers), a mere 8 days in fact, and although there weren't many exterior differences, those of the interior simply blew your mind, metaphorically speaking of course!
To the pleasure of all those who beat the crap out of their systems as a result of the game crashing after they obtained a l337 score, the stability of the game was increased MASSIVELY and gamers could play 'til their eye balls crusted over and their hands fell subject to random arthritic-based diseases! And they did! Don't be fooled though, they didn't stop the crashes totally, then again, give me a game that never crashes ever!
One thing that surprised me was that there weren't actually any added weapons in this patch, you'd think that they'd be one of the development focal points, but to be honest, new weapons weren't added until beta 2.0.
The only thing related to weapons in this patch was the extra firing mode added to the Glock, not that it made much of a vast improvement. You bag yourself a Glock and face a guy with a USP and we'll see who wins, then again, you could be l3370R... Ah well.
We also got the usual extra maps and fixes added, but there's STILL no sign of anything but hostage rescue, it must've got boring after a while. But "FEAR NOT!" I told them, and they didn't. In time to come extra gameplay modes were added, but that's a subject for later! One map that you'll no doubt recognize is cs_siege. You may know it because it's a really crappy map that has a brain-crippling echo in it, or you may know it because the author killed himself shortly after making the map.
There's some other crap in there that you're probably not interested in like the addition of the friendly fire command for server admins. There, I told you anyway, despite being heavily vague about it!
CS BETA 1.2 - [7.20.99]
Unfortunately, this version once again didn't deliver any diversity in game modes, it was a very upsetting time and I for one cried myself to sleep on several occasions. In fact, there's almost nothing to say about 1.2, it didn't add any new maps, it didn't add any new weapons, all it did really was refine what was previously there! What more can I say? No really?
CS BETA 2.0 - [8.13.99]
I'd like to point out (no doubt you already noticed) that there has been a substantial jump between updates (1.2 to 2.0). No, I wasn't cutting some out to decrease my workload because I'm not that dishonest, in fact, the reason there's such a gap is because the releases that fill the gap weren't actually betas, they were just versions, so I thought it'd be better to separate them in order to avoid confusion which may result in offence or violent outbursts towards me!
Now THIS release was very exciting, I'm struggling to keep my trousers dry over it all. Not only did 2.0 have extra weapons (Sig SG-552 Commando , AK-47 , Desert Eagle), it also adding some things that you don't know how you'd live without in CS, like the round timer, how on earth did we live without that? Before we were simply stumbling around in a disorganized and untimely manner probably knocking into walls and shooting everything but the other team.
From what I believe, the M4 originally had a scope on the top of it bound to secondary fire, but unfortunately, this was replaced with the silencer in 2.0. Now, despite popular belief, the silencer on the M4 doesn't make it more accurate. Many a time have I had arguments with people who will remain anonymous who claimed that they were shooting more accurately with the M4 after being silenced when this is actually quite stupid. Although, in real life and in theory the gun SHOULD be more accurate with the silencer on purely because the barrel is lengthened, in CS, this type of logic doesn't apply for some reason unbeknownst to me. Follow me carefully, go into CS, bag yourself an M4 and stand still with the weapon still as well. Take a good, long, hard look at the crosshairs for the M4 with the silencer off, and then put it on. If you have vision atleast slightly better than a moles, then you'll no doubt notice that the crosshairs separate ever so slightly meaning the gun is getting less accurate! In your face!
Going back to the things that we just couldn't live without in CS now, the other thing I was intending to mention was the round win score. When you hit tab in CS, you probably know that to the right of the 'Counter-Terrorist' or 'Terrorist' labels, there is a number showing the amount of rounds the specific team has won! How DID we live without that one? I for one have NO idea! That splendid contraption known as the night vision goggles was also introduced in this update. They opened up a whole new world of buying them on perfectly lit maps and turning them on and off just to hear the funky noise they made, well, I thought it was fun.
Other than that, 2.0 once again just updated the existing things, making improvements and/or changes where they felt necessary to gain a better performance or experience for the player.
CS BETA 2.1 - [8.17.99]
Well, Beta 2.1 was about as exciting as the Myst games, not only did it add hardly anything of interest, it took something out that I think is pretty funny! Now, for you people who've played Unreal Tournament (UT) or any other game that involves some sort of user-enabled teleportation device, you should be familiar with what's known as 'telefragging'. For those 'n00bs' out there though, I'll just fill you in. Basically, (using UT as my example), if you get the Translocator, you can teleport yourself around the map by firing this little disc thingy. It's normally used for getting to high places in a map or for getting your busted-ass away from some Flak-sporting monkey! In this case though, if you fire the little disc thingy (technical name) between the legs of your foe, then hit the teleport button, you get zapped inside your enemy and they exploded in a shower of red mist and giblets! Beautiful! You see, you're fragging, with the teleportation system! Tele-fragging! Yeah? Yeah? Well anyway the terrible map cs_alley used to do this. It wasn't actually telefragging because you've probably noticed that there isn't a teleportation system in CS. This is how this one works, in the mapping process, you have to lay down certain functions that show where the player will spawn and if you get a map that telefrags, it simply means two of these functions have been placed in the same vicinity and we all know that two beings can't exist in the same space at the same time don't we? Therefore one of them dies, leaving whatever team it happens to with one less player, and that's just plain unfair! So yeah, they removed that from cs_alley.
Once again there was also some additional fixes, AK price, assault sky texture etc. Stuff that's not that interesting!
CS BETA 3.0 - [9.14.99]
Now 3.0 is the stuff that dreams are made of. Also, you know that feeling you get when you wake up thinking you've got work/school/college etc, then realize it's the weekend, turn over and go back to sleep? Yeah, 3.0 is made of that!
Here's a little story for you; One time, not so long ago, I was having a whale of a time bangin' around on CS. The map was Italy, the team was Counter-Terrorists, and the situation? Well, let's just say we were 0wning them! The terrorists had taken a beating and were down to about 2 people so I took advantage of the situation and thought I'd head over to the house and bag me some hostages who, in the long run, will mean money and guns for me! I ran along the side and jumped up the crates, crouched in the window and 'used' the hostages (my hostage skins are naked women so saying I 'used' them is greatly amusing! For me anyway!) I tore away from the building with little dollar signs rolling in my eyes and hands clenched tightly around the mouse ready to make sudden movements if some punk-ass terrorist comes along with the intent of ruining my money making scheme. For those of you who will understand, I went through the house part and came out at that window thingy that some people find it hard to get into if they're playing as CTs. Making a full-on leap out the building I legged it down the path towards CT spawn running over all the different things I could buy, when I turned round, only to realize that I was being followed by none other than, well, no-one. My hostages had gone. "Someone's killed them" I thought as I stormed deeper into the map with a murderous rage burning within me. I back-tracked the path I had taken that I thought was going to seal my victory, and it would've done, I soon realized, if the hostages hadn't got themselves caught on the wall just behind the window I had previously leaped through. I jumped into the window and poked and prodded the hostages until they noticed they had functional legs and began following me again. "This is it Adam", I thought. "This is where you get loads of money and buy M4s, and Shotguns, and Paras". I jumped down from the window, this time actually being followed by the hostages and before I knew what had happened, some 'punk-ass' terrorist managed to nail me from 20 yards away with a rather sweet, but rather annoying headshot. The moral of this story is, don't trust terrorists... Only joking; Don't go get the hostages unless you know damn well that you're going to make it back to the rescue point because unless you want a little escapade resembling mine, I suggest you let someone else take the downfall!
Now THAT story was in the later stages of CS, and as you've probably worked out, the hostage paths were terrible, and still are, and before Beta 3.0, the paths were even WORSE which no-doubt resulted in a few suicides among the Counter-Strike community. So THAT'S why 3.0 is made of the things stated within the first few lines, because it made improvements on the hostage AI and although it's still pretty damn ghastly, it's workable... Sometimes!
Hmm, yes! Remember how satisfying it is to kill someone with the knife in CS when you hear a clicking noise emanating from your opponents gun? Well, if it weren't for 3.0, you wouldn't be able to partake in such 'lol-inducing' events. It was only in 3.0 that the knife was added and I don't know about you, but I'm quite glad it was!
Those are pretty much the main things that happened in 3.0, on to 3.1.
CS BETA 3.1 - [9.16.99]
Hmm, I must say 3.1 was a tad disappointing whilst being quite good at the same time. Good for little annoying tweaks that you don't really care about, but bad for an article being put on a popular Counter-Strike-based site that requires information that people are interested in! Yes.
CS BETA 4.0 - [11.5.99]
As you can probably see from the content in this article, I'm a fan of new and exciting things in CS like new maps and weapons. They make me feel warm inside! That's why I consider Beta 4.0 to be on par with cookies and milk (full fat milk that is, the creamiest of them all). "Why?" I hear you ask? But yes you've guessed it, more weapons, more maps and one word: 'w00t'!
Now, I've always been a hater of AWPs (AWMs to be meticulous), they're too powerful, one shot kill, and they ruin some maps like Militia for example. I personally believe that they require no real skill, you have to hit them once in the chest, head or abdomen to kill them, and once in the legs or arms to cripple them to just over 10hp. This is where Beta 4.0 comes in, yeah okay, it gave us Dust, yeah okay it added the defusal scenario, but the most prominent thing it did was add the Steyr Scout, probably second most skill-dependant weapon in CS (first being the Glock on Semi-auto firing mode). You see, with the scout, it takes TWO hits to the chest to kill, meaning if you want to remove someone without them pummeling you a bit first, you have to get a headshot and that isn't possible unless you're highly skilled with it. See? SKILL!
As I mentioned earlier, 4.0 delivered us Dust, one of two of the greatest maps out of the rather vast selection made for CS. Some people consider it to be a bit shitty now because it's been over-played and now deemed a 'n00by map', but a lot of people still love it, that's why a Paintball arena is being made out of it, check out http://www.playdust.co.uk. There's going to be C4 bombs and everything! Looks like a bunch of UK geeks are at it again. What WILL they think of next?