For once I am making a video, not out of the goodness of my heart,
but in order to clear up a couple of things which incredibly annoy me online
aside from the pointless every day arguments about how my youtube name is spelled
and how I so was not in the movie, 'synced'. What really winds me up in the Counter Strike
community is how the average player adores the most
pathetic maps. To justify this point I made a map called
aim_5minutes which I deliberately only spent 300 seconds
on. As expected, more people downloaded it than
all my other maps put together including the amazing smash and gib valley
maps. This is the same in all industries, however,
and is the main reason why sims 2 expansion packs
are always topping the ladders over blatantly RUBBISH games like Call of Duty 4 and Crysis.
My aim 5 minutes sequel named aim 50 minutes was a bigger hit
but only received 3 times the number of downloads despite being at least a million times better.
I found the answer on the aptly named 'Noob refuge' .com where I quote,
Come on dude, one's called aim 50 minutes. Take a hint! Games shouldn't take that long.
So there. Discovery one is that people are too stupid
to understand the semantics of names and instead believe that someone is stupid
enough to make a map which takes 50 minutes to play.
However, the fact that they thought it was a viable option leads me to believe that
some map makers are stupid enough to carry out such a stunt.
...Which nicely moves me onto point 2. David Johnson, the maker of Dust 1, Dust 2
and Cobble, AKA CBBL, is supposedly a great mapper.
However, this hasn't stopped him from making rubbish maps like Dust 1
which looks strangely like a Team Fortress map as you can see here
and results in unfortunate terrorists standing absolutely
no chance against the over powered and over positioned Counter Terrorists.
America might approve, but for Counter Strike, THIS SUCKS.
Cobble, uh sorry- CBBL, is surprisingly similar to Dust 2 in all aspects apart from the setting,
and the fact that everything's about TWICE THE SIZE IT SHOULD BE.
But enough of the moaning. Before I go any further please can I just say that
Dust 2 is by far the best map in existence, EVER.
Bombsite A is the pinnacle of human achievement, Short A is a work of art, and
mid section allows for skilled players- like me -
to seriously hurt the other team within 2 seconds of the round starting.
If I was to remake it I would replace Long A
with something a little more terrorist friendly and I would probably get rid in the hole in
the wall in bombsite B and replace it with another entrance from
the tunnels hence making a B rush far less suicidal.
With those improvements, as well as the ability to customise the face
of my player, I believe that I would quit college,
work once a month to pay for my electricity and internet connection,
as well as a month's supply of weetabix and apple cider,
and would sit naked in a darkened room playing Dust 2 for 18 hours a day,
taunting every victim with a close up of my player's customised FACE.
There are a couple of steadfast rules that everyone must stick to when making a
map. Firstly, it must have a catch. Second, a purpose,
and third... ...it must be sunny.
A catch is needed to get people to download your map.
Something that makes it stand out, be it an amazingly intricate piece of architecture,
a large pit, or in most cases,
water. Think of it as a computer game.
Or even a woman. No matter how good the gameplay,
if the graphics don't hook you then you're not going to get hooked
into the nice gooey core of the gameplay. Now when I say purpose,
I don't mean to kill the team over and over again.
Counter Strike can do that on its own, I mean an internal goal.
Something that springs out of the air and sounds like a good idea.
Bit like a tasty biscuit. For instance, Dust 2 makes me think, 'Hide
short A!' or 'Bunny hop down mid and take out those
damn B campers from the rear'. While if I was to play surf maps - which I
don't - I would get all excited about getting to the
end first and knifing all those AFKers.
To achieve this urge your map must be balanced, containing areas with different strengths
and weaknesses. I can't be bothered to describe what I mean.
Just go to bombsite A of Dust 2 to see what a perfect design of excellence
looks and plays like. Height is a fantastic invention
and levels with ladders and platforms everywhere will attract people far more than
a completely dull aim map with no redeeming features.
-Unless the latter includes PORN in the title but that's just an unfair advantage.
The third point, I cannot stress enough.
By far the most important aspect of ALL levels
is for it to be sunny which is why Dust 2 is by far the most amazing
map, ever. 'What about Office and Dust 1?'
you might ask. Office is set mainly inside so it doesn't
really matter, and as for Dust 1, the only reason people
think it's good in the first place is because of the sunny setting.
Replace it with a cloudy sky and watch it drop into the demonic depths
of Havana which I will hastily urge people NEVER to play
due to its complex, confusing layout and horribly worn out walls.
Which reminds me, why the HELL do 95% of Half Life 2's textures
look as if somebody's attacked them with a crowbar?
When making indoor sections I can choose to lovingly furnish them
with CS Office's lovely, neat walls or resort to something
that wouldn't look out of place in a Brothel's basement.
Having had a trek into the darkest depths of competitive CSS,
I've come back thinking that it was a wasted opportunity.
All of the ladders we joined consisted of moaning players
who would use any trick in the book to reverse a 30 - nil win to us-
-including bribery and hacking. Of course, my adept knowledge of all the rules
lead us to repeatedly pounding them until we were at the top of all the ladders,
wondering what all the fuss was about. It's like climbing a mountain,
only to realise that you've got a horrible, boring and relentless journey
down the other side to come. In CSSes case, all the clans we whipped to
within an inch of their lives always cried about how we were NOTHING because
we were not in 'Enemy Down'. For the first time in my life I succumbed
to peer pressure and signed up to this massive league
and for the first time in my life, I completely one hundred percent regretted
doing something. In general, Enemy Down contains thousands
of players, all believing that eternal glory awaits them
if they reach the top of the ladder. Of course, they regret wasting thousands of
hours of their lives that they could have spent doing something
useful- such as juggling or solitaire,
once they realise that there's no golden chalice at the top
and that the next 14 year old clan will knock them off the top,
mocking them all the way. They attempt to balance the karma in their
pathetic little lives by telling every other player in the Universe
that beats them that they are nothing in life, unless they
are in Enemy Down and so beings this horrific pyramid scheme
all over again. Because of this, I consider making de maps
completely useless because the only people who will ever play
them will be the idiots in competitive ladders or those
who like to play offline against bots. The former tend to prefer abysmal maps, like contra
or cpl mill, which both include shoddily tacked on sewer bits when the maker suddenly realises
that their map design is way too simple. And those offline loners might be the nicest people
on Earth, but they won't be able to give me any feedback on my map, classifying them as
useless. In short I am urging any of you who are interested in competitive games to think
twice because it's not the be-all and end-all and you don't want to be classed in the same
group as those who think that Contra and CPL Mill are the only good maps because only CSS
fanatics play them. I do pity those fanatics to some extent. The number of times I've been
accused of being a sad loner in life with no girlfriend almost surpasses the number
of girlfriends I've had. So my advice is to SHUT UP because you're playing the same game
and you don't know the backgrounds of everyone you're playing against and what you're doing
is comparable to going into a juggling convention with balls in their hands and saying that
everybody else sucks because they can't play the guitar. However, unlike that comparison,
you're not going to be anally assaulted by dozens of Jason Garfields, meaning that cyber
insults are for the weak and cowardly. I think that just about covers everything that winds
me up in Counter Strike. For the most part it's a great experience where you get to meet
random people online and play with them. In a good way. Making maps is equally satisfying,
as all it is is just a box of textures and yet it still seems to take on a personality
of its own. In conclusion I think that online gaming is the way forward towards world peace,
but at the moment there are too many people just dissing everyone else on there, which
I think is just RUBBISH. And cut.