counter-strike v1 was released 20 years
ago today on november the 9th year 2000.
you might be wondering why we celebrated
this last year that's because betas for
the game started coming out 17 months
prior to official release
so back in june of 2019 we got the old
version of dust2 to celebrate then later
on in the year received a cs20 weapon
case as well
why valve chose to celebrate the betas
instead of the official releases
anybody's guess but here's hoping we'll
get something nice to celebrate today as
well
regardless of what happens i thought now
might be a good time to journey back and
to see how the game we all
love so much came to be here's the
timeline
the game went through seven major betas
and several additional minor changes
before official launch
but the story of the game begins even
earlier before counter-strike
min lee online nickname gooseman had
been working on a navy seals type mod
for quake 2.
he grew bored of this and passed the gun
models that he had made to some quake 2
developers known as the a team
he ended up joining them and it was
through them that he met
jess cliff they spoke on irc and lee
shared his plans for his own mod
jess liked the idea and they'd later
worked together to make counter-strike
the a-team went on to create action
quake 2
which became one of the most played
quake 2 mods ever
but by then lee had already left the
a-team he wanted to work on a navy seals
2 mod
but discovered that somebody else had
done it already so instead went off to
work
on a half-life mod he was already
familiar with the game's engine
and felt that half-life's realistic
setting made it better suited to his mod
than
quakes was in 1999 min lee would have
been 22
and just cliff would have been 18. both
were born on june 27th
development for counter-strike started
at the very beginning of 1999.
i found this early interview from that
february where min teased some sneak
preview shots of his new mod
you guessed it these are for
counter-strike before even the earliest
baiters had started
and yes the gooseman is left-handed he
first wanted to call it
counter-terrorist forces but jess was
all like nah that's a bit long
and they settled upon the name
counter-strike they mostly got
information on the guns from the
internet and from gun magazines
at one point minh had a chance to fire
some weapons himself and commented on
how awesome the recoil for the magnum
was
he suggested using jess's house as a
mock firing range
but his parents didn't approve they
started teasing the mod in march
with pictures and videos and the hype
quickly grew helped by min's history of
modding for quake 2.
despite having a history of 3d modelling
he felt that it was one of the most time
consuming and tedious bits of the
project
the first beta suffered from many bugs
and crashes and the team had a desperate
shortage of maps
jess worked on the community side of
things encouraging people to develop
maps for their mod
at the beginning they were practically
begging people and legend has it that
jess contacted pretty much everybody who
had ever submitted a map for half-life
over on the old mapping site called
radium despite these problems the first
beta was released on june
19th 1999. here is the original blog
post announcing it
and check out this installation i found
for it
i think the first version of
counter-strike deserves playing it's not
like there's much to see
it sports a grand total of nine weapons
and four maps
all of which are hostage and none of
them are in csgo today
the version i'm showing here must be
slightly newer since there are six maps
to choose from
but before i could do anything i needed
to change the default controls
which in this earliest version of the
game were utterly ridiculous
but even with all of that configured i
couldn't get far with the game
i could figure out how to change teams
but the buy menus didn't seem to work
and i couldn't buy more ammo for my
pistol
the right mouse button triggered the
burst fire with the glock and just
fired the ct pistol because there wasn't
a suppressor option at the time
also check this out the icon for the
ct's pistol still looks like the one
shown in those earliest of screenshots
this first version of counter-strike is
no longer in a playable state
every bit of it is as rough as you can
get and without bots
it's going to be dead forever but i'll
show you the four maps bundled with it
the map siege you might know because it
was remade for cs go and featured in
operation bravo
though i didn't recognize it when i
loaded it up here it's so different in
appearance
this original beta version sports a car
park slash bunker
desert theme kind of like many early
maps for the game which would borrow
their assets from half-life's black mesa
levels
the remade siege for cs go released in
early 2013
did away with all of this and had a
jungle makeover instead
even this version of the map is coming
up to eight years old now isn't it wild
how csgo's been around for so long that
even remade maps can feel like ancient
history
back to the beta version again and it's
hard to know how to describe it when
compared with the finished game because
it's so different
but what stood out to me most was that
in this earliest version it doesn't
feature the things that we've all
assumed
defines what counter-strike is there's
no knife for example
obviously there's no bot support either
that's something we take for granted
these days but without it it renders an
old version of a game like this
well and truly dead we know that
counter-strike started off as a mod for
half-life but in beta 1 it's
more like it's just half-life but with
some new weapon and character models
it's not different enough to be its own
thing just yet
but because of that it's interesting to
see all of the weird options available
like being able to toggle on a
flashlight
or having the choice between standard or
realistic full damage
you can even disable footsteps which i
did at one point then wondered why i
couldn't hear them because i'm stupid
like that
these were all basic server options for
half-life back then but when a game like
counter-strike has had such a long
legacy
and when so few of us have seen it this
early on it's really odd to see
the next map i played is the catchly
named weapon depot
although removed from the game for beta
2 it feels very familiar to play on
possibly because it's just like assault
which actually stole some bits of this
map
so i guess you could call this the first
version of cs assault
it feels like an arena shooter and was
made by a quick mapper so that's no big
surprise
it's an open map with ladders and
platforms everywhere
i actually quite like it but you
wouldn't want to play a match of
counter-strike on it
you can see how horrendous the hostage
support was in this earliest version
they'd sprint after you and jam you into
a corner or get stuck behind a closing
door
i can't imagine many rounds were won
from rescuing these twitching glitching
[Applause]
monsters
i don't know what happened to the map
mansion by the time i got into the
counter-strike series it was long gone
from the game yet i remember i'd hear
people wanting it to return to the
series
which is strange because it was only
around for betas 1 and 3 before being
removed from the game for good
this map was made by a team fortress
mapper and it contained quirky features
like working light switches in every
room
and security cameras at ct spawn which
could be used to observe parts of the
level
but assault later got these features as
well which makes me suspect this was
another early map to be borrowed from
and the last of these four maps cs
prison deserves honorable mention for
being voted the worst
counter-strike map ever and wasn't even
playable for the first release
i gave it a go it's large it's sprawling
has a large sewer system that you have
to crouch through a zen skybox from
half-life 1's campaign
fireball mounted guns dead-end areas
with no reason slow to open doors that
you have to open to get the hostages
through
and at this stage there was no hostage
rescue area
you had to get them back to your buy
zone so if you tried playing this map on
newer versions of the game then you'll
be unable to rescue them at all
as it was even in this early working
version i still got lost and couldn't be
bothered
cs beta 1 not quite ready to be released
just yet
there's no radar no knife there are
apparently grenades but i couldn't find
them
there aren't any bots if you lost the
round you got no money dropping a weapon
made it completely disappear
round times were over five minutes long
there was no buy time
kevlar was useless the weapon models
were all left-handed because gooseman
was
and this is probably why wannabe pro
players used left-handed models for
years
this version of the game is not that
good but i'm happy to say that i've
tried it
single player knowing what beta 1 of
counter strike was like
i'm happy to move on don't bother with
it yourself it's a lot of hassle to get
up and running these days
and it's not actually very good i'm
turning my focus to the later baiters
now with the intention of documenting
how counter-strike changed and developed
on its way towards official release
with hindsight maybe i should have timed
this series that i reached
v 1.0 on its 20th anniversary oh well