Date:
Tuesday , November 16, 2004
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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Valve's Counter Strike:Source – Beta at Best

There are many Counter Strike:Source players out there asking a lot of questions about the recent release of CS:Source. Many of us think that it is a BETA release at best, and at worst, just a Half Life 2 marketing tool. The following editorial addresses our concerns and grievances.

Written by: Brian Holmes

Introduction

It is entirely HardOCP’s opinion that Counter Strike:Source, in its current version, is not ready for an official launch and at best should still be considered “BETA Software.” Even worse, many gamers and Counter Strike server admins are seeing the official launch of CS:Source as an atrocity and a virtual thumb in the eye to the serious online gaming community, in which Counter-Strike is based.

Who are we and why do we have the right to voice our opinion on this topic? Many of us here at [H]ard|OCP.com and [H]ard|Gaming.com (formerly [H]ard|CS) represent the gamers that made CS the single most highly played multiplayer First Person Shooter game on the planet. We are Counter Strike enthusiasts. We have played Counter Strike since version 1.0. We have administered our own servers for over 2.5 years now; so we are very much in touch with what we will be discussing here. And lastly, we love to play Counter Strike and are saddened by some of the issues that are negatively impacting the online game.

Tens of thousands of Counter Strike servers and admins are responsible for the longevity that the game Counter Strike enjoyed. A player anywhere in the world can purchase Counter Strike and immediately find servers with other Counter Strike gamers on them close by and with low pings. In this article we will attempt to explain not only why we think CS:Source was released prematurely, but also why we think that Valve has been systematically ruining the game of Counter Strike over the last two years. Our opinions here are based on six years of combined experience of Counter Strike server administration and well over 16 combined years of experience as Counter Strike players. We administrate Linux based Counter Strike servers and are religious daily followers of the Half-Life Dedicated Server Linux mailing list and we try our best to stay on top of Counter Strike cheating and other serious flaws in the game.

From here on in our editorial, we will refer to Counter Strike:Source as "CS:S" and the original Counter Strike as "CS". Now let's move on to why we apply the term "BETA" to CS:S.