It was such a gratifying experience to build out that server network and the accompanying integrations that attracted so many and built such a great community. I miss the days in college when I had time to work on stuff like that just for the love of it. I hope you are doing well!

1) People interacted, they truly did. Dramas, friendship, everything. Where? Quakenet, Forums. Every clan had their channel, some easily reached 1000+ people.

2) People genuinely played together in teams: CS, Day of Defeat, you name it. You had your clan and spammed #5on5 on quakenet.

3) Those clans actually met in lan! At Smau Italian Lan Party 2002 there were more than 60 Counter Strike teams from *Italy alone*. And it was a bring your own computer event[1].

I know it's part nostalgia but I legit think it is borderline impossible to have anywhere near the same level of interactions with people today. Reddit is just not a good substitute for legacy threaded forums. Discussions die fast, they don't even have the material time to develop meaningfully.

[1] https://www.aspidetr.com/images/immagini/blu/varie/smau02_03...

Counter-strike was my introduction to how the Internet and TCP/IP worked. I built my first PC to play it. I learned linux to run servers for it. It inspired me and my friends to learn C to try and make our own mod. I made a website for my clan, self hosted it, and registered a domain for it.

The community was incredible, partly because of the server browser, as you point out. There was also a massive IRC community around it that was way more cohesive than what exists today. So CS was also my on ramp to IRC and the technology communities there.

I don't play a lot of games any more. Every now and then I'll try something. I have the GPU anyway and everything works great on Linux now. I found out there are third party server browsers for CS2 with modded servers. It is so tiny compared to the old days, but they exist. I played around on a couple around a year ago and had a good time. If you are feeling nostalgic, you should check it out.

I'm afraid that time we long for is gone now as we've all gotten older, busier, and moved on to other things. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Server Browsers make sense in a world in which members of the community are self-hosting their own infrastructure for others to play on. While a great way to build community, it can be a problem when it comes to player retention and competitive mechanics.

Player retention can often suffer over the long-term as such communities establish boundaries and rules, eventually orienting around a small clique of individuals, increasing the friction for integrating new members into the community.

Additionally, the competitive mechanics, which often draw a large amount of players, can suffer as player-run infrastructure can vary wildly in its connection, uptime, speed, etc. and bring a risk of unsanctioned modifications, cheats, and hacks, all negatively affecting the player experience.

Overall, its a tradeoff, the community building aspects of player run servers can truly build colorful and vibrant communities, but this can be at the expense of overall player retention, trading a large and accessible playerbase for a small dedicated community.

Most game companies choose the route of building and running dedicated server infrastructure. Which of course, internally run servers tend to be built with a set image that gets cloned each time more are needed, making each one indistinguishable and fungible. The only problem becomes assigning the players accross servers depending on which ones have available capacity, which is where matchmaking comes in.

My youth was spent on Counterstrike: Source playing zombie mod, and then for years mapping for Zombie Escape, as a way to give back to those communities that gave me so much. I was never a mic user, and didn't use in game chat a huge amount either, but over time those regulars would still greet me and say hello. I rarely play now, but even after 17 years, when I show up once a year or so I'm always welcomed back in by all those who recognize me and admins switch to some fun maps (or some less fun ones that I made...), and we have a short catchup on life. Certainly many of these communities are on life-support, and most are long dead, but in all those people who play in these communities are the remnants of the communities who had just a little contribution in shaping the person I am today. I'll never forget when one community held a birthday event for me; for 8 hours we played every map I'd ever made, and won them all, with a full 64/64 server for the majority.

And I would never have experienced this if I hadn't happened to open Counterstrike: Source for the very first time, and my server browser's first entry just happened to be an early zombie mod server.

Shoutout to some of the old ZM/ZE communities: Syndicate Gamers, Plaguefest, i3D, icannt, ZES, Unloze & many more. ZE drove my interest to mapping, which drove my interest in Sourcemod, which drove my interest in programming, which led me to my career, which led me to my wife. Thank you.

And if you don't like a community, you can leave at any time.

Compared to being toxic anonymously. Unless you get banned by an algorithm, your free to just suck.

However, I was in one CS clan where a girl gave out her real number to a random guy. Within minutes she was getting spam calls and other not great stuff.

I miss my CS clan though. There was some tension and arguments, but that's inherent to any structure with people.

Funny enough one of my mates couldn't believe I wasn't white over voice chat. It was like being in this magic world where race didn't matter.

Good times.

Edit: If someone wants to start an open source realistic-ish multiplayer FPS I'm so down.

Invite only community servers. If you suck and cheat we will figure it out and ban you. None of this kernel level anti cheat junk.

The ability to introduce randomization of reward around a layer of "skill issue" and plausible deniability for the matchmaker. Elo/bronze hell exists because even the worst players can just swing up and down their rank, whereas if you didn't had any other choice but play with whoever is in your local server (or LAN part, but I digress) then the only solution for you is to observe and adjust.

I'm from Greece and, we used to have lots of LAN arenas before fast internet connections became accessible. I'd get my face pushed by skilled people, and while I'd feel bad about it, the fact that I was playing with my friends and enjoyed myself made it all tolerable. Eventually I gave up feeling bad having negative k/d ratios, and could finally spectate and learn from others. The result was me becoming good enough to join my local CS clan. We never became best in the country, but I have really fond memories both from chilling as friends and highlights from matches.

Nearly all my worthwhile experiences in multiplayer games were related to permanent server communities (CS clan servers, 2fort2furious, SWG emulator servers, ridiculous minecraft servers that were effectively collaborative volumetric databases for external design tools).

I owe much of my career in tech to counter strike. I learned to manage servers hosting clan websites, security and programming making the sites and “borrowing” designs from Clan Templates or whatever the company was that had the awesome animated flash headers. I remember learning about IDORs and SQL injection, before I even knew what it was called.

I learned 3d modeling with MilkShape for custom skins and models. Made dozens of surf maps and a few KZ. The AMX Mod community was so helpful learning to program. I think it was Small to write mods.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. That was a pivotal moment in my life. I learned how to control a computer and found my passion.

I miss GameSpy, the original application, not the service it morphed into later. It was so easy to find a server to play on, playing the levels/mods you wanted to play.

Before that, I spent a lot of time (and money from my dad's credit card) on DWANGO. For those not familiar with DWANGO, you dialed in to their servers and then it acted like you were on a LAN. You could play games like Doom, Doom 2, Duke Nukem 3D, etc against other people. There was a main chat room to talk about what games you wanted to play.

It was also a much nicer place to play, partly because you had to pay _per minute_ in each game. The price wasn't anything crazy, if I recall, but it definitely kept people focused on the game.

Also met some good people and ended up working on a gaming site with one (MeccaWorld.com, on the off chance someone remembers that - I ran the Quake section) and started a company with them a decade or so later.

It's depressing the modern COD lobbies - chucked in with skill matched randoms on a small range of gamemodes, comms kept to a minimum so no one gets offended.

Then don't get me started how 50% of playtime is spent loading / in lobbies so eye balls on store can be maximised - I'll pass.

I was really involved in how serious cs was being played in 2002 or 2003, but valve did not seize the opportunity. 5v5 is the best format.

Even today, the matchmaking is horrendous and toxic teammates ruin the fun.

When you solo queue, individual performance is ignored, so you must carry your whole team if you want to gain rank.

The game is great but generates too much frustration for me.

It's been many moons since I was into gaming, but back in the RtCW [1][2] days there was a bunch of regulars that played on a server run my (IIRC) Charter. There were many servers in the browse list, and I'm sure many had a community of regulars just like we did.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Castle_Wolfenstein

[2] A Linux client was actually released, which is what I mostly used. (Actually running it on FreeBSD's Linuxator.)

We also don't need content roadmaps for these games if you give the community modding and map tools.

People right now are having the same community experiences in custom server, or with official Valve, or third party like FaceIt... From crazy custom mods to try hard competitive games.

From time to time I stumble on some community servers when looking for a better DM warm-up server. Players and admin talking to each other like they were regulars, admin flying around in a batman skin killing a camper with lightning bolt, all the usual admin/community tools and more... also all the laughing, banter, playing songs and crap on the mic...

Would you have tried to join in? Let's just face it we've abandoned and stopped seeking it as we got older.

We played together basically daily for quite some time in the early 2000s. I remember you and CamCam.

My handle here is the same as it was in CS. I spent countless hours in college in this server leveling up every class to the max and trying to break the game with the 'spider man rope'. Great times!

I can't explain how excited I was for the Reforged version of the game and how disappointed I was when it flopped.

My favorite part of games is learning the mechanics and coming up with strategies. Which paired well with an endless supply of new game modes to try.

I have been unable to find any modern game that is both active and has a series of custom maps. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.

There is seems to be lot of negativity against ranked ladders in the gaming community, but isn't that what would be best system to play with people of your own skill level.

While there is still some amount of it around in the Counter-Strike 2 era, there's a strong disincentive for joining random community servers when there have been client vulnerabilities that allow arbitrary code execution.

I still remember invisible humans, elves with evasion, orcs with massive nade damage, undead with life steal… good times. I didn’t know how to spell “ultimate” so it took me forever to actually be able to bind an ult to keyboard.

As an aside. I always appreciated the street justice the admins would sometime enact. Running through the level with invincibility and godlike mods just gibbing everyone left and right.

It's still very much alive.

I made so many friends by joining a lobby and just playing a game for a few nights in a row or whatever

Now I don't know how to really connect with people online anymore or build any kind of community

Discord servers don't seem like the right way, they are too busy and chaotic for me

I miss making friends online and gaming with them

At least the matchmaking option is so much better at making real competitive matches with players though now too. I like that both options exist.

I absolutely hated server browsers. Spending ages waiting for slots to free up on decent servers. Trying a new server only to find it had 100 shitty mods installed. Servers where the admins randomly kicked or banned people, or blatantly cheated

Even just joining mid game was annoying

Give me matchmaking any day

I can't remember my handle...I've had so many over the years.

Whenever/wherever a crowd of a certain size assembles consistently, you’ll soon have a giant corporation frothing at the mouth to monetize it

Why let these people organize communities for themselves? How on earth would we capture metrics and sell them shit?

This is why everything is awesome until corporations show up - social media is the perfect example

I don’t mean to come across as some anti corporate lunatic, it’s just the reality of the situation

I believe de_dust2 is likely still the most played FPS map. Not sure which other map could have dethroned it. It can’t be Fortnite since Fortnite changes the map every few months and nowadays makes a new one every year or so.

I guess Blood Gulch from the time when Halo was super popular was a very popular map as well.

Then you also have 2fort from the Team Fortress games.

But yes I would say de_dust2 is very likely still the most played FPS map and it will likely stay that way.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=21021...

I also have a soft spot for Aztec because of the rain. I would join empty servers just to hang out on Aztec for the aesthetic.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yeh5vFG1GK0

I'm pretty certain that there are modern FPS's that have gotten inspiration from that legendary map.

Give me any team vs team games that are played on procedurally generated maps.

I gotta imagine that sucks to play in most of them. Maybe it occasionally 'works' in another game?

Skins is literally a money printing machine.

I mean, that is still CS: you want one without gambling (which is reasonable!)

Uhm, wow. Most winnable matches often enough end when the drugs wear off for hundreds of reasons.

You are looking at it from the wrong angle. From what I have seen, it's rarely a whole team that fucks up while winning. Also: often enough: they don't seem to be aware of the pattern that just occurred in their brains (are not, as far as I learned from Paul E.). I believe these kids are put on drugs without consent.

I have no proof, of course.

I noticed it first in soccer back in '16, I think. Which surprised me because it was not boxing or wrestling or the UFC, where such things are the standard.

CS is one of, if not, the least egregious "loot cases" systems in the gaming industry. Every case you open, gives you a reward, which can be sold. Each case you open has fixed odds and is not manipulated by the gaming companies to psychologically torment you. You get no benefit from using skins or stickers on your gun. It is purely cosmetic. Compared to other games which rely on pay2win mechanics, CSGO/CS2's systems are great.

I think skins are one of the best parts of CS. It blows my mind you can have skins worth thousands of dollars, trade them between friends like collectables, sell them for real life money and make your inventory look cool.

I agree the third party skin gambling sites aren't good, although the whole base concept, within Steam and a handful of trusted selling sites are perfectly fine.

Your gripe with the eSports side of this is also stupid. Have you watched / seen any sport on the planet? Gambling is apart of sports and sports culture, its one of the main revenue streams. Gambling helps grassroot sports and helps get kids into sports.

The whole "often give a segment to gambling people talking about odds" is rubbish. At most ESL, Blast, PGL events, the most that is even talked about odds is a brief mention of the odds, no breakdowns, no match betting options, etc. It's very, very tame. I likely have hours watching CS than I do playing too.

CS eSports is in a weird place because the funding comes from two main places in 2025, Saudi sportswashing and gambling. There used to be tons of VC, although that dried up when eSports didn't take off exactly how everyone expected it to. CS was one of the more safe investments are the game has been around for effectively two decades and has always had a competitive scene, dating back to early 2000s. CS is one of the most enjoyable and easy to watch eSports so its pretty enticing for viewers (and advertisers) although the marketablility of CS is hard due to bombs, guns and terrorists.

eSports needs a pay per view option otherwise the funding is always going to come from sketchy places, but the average eSports fan does not care enough to pay because they are too cheap to pay for stuff, or too young to have the funding to do so. Unlike traditional sport.

You are seemingly fine with killing gambling, so might as well kill all tier 2 and 3 scenes, including local scenes. They are mostly funded by gambling and even so, people throw matches because they get like 1k a month for being a tier 2 pro. People need to live and throwing gets more than their wage.

Your final point is Twitch chat messages saying stupid shit about match-fixing, I am not sure why this is even relevant. Studying twitch chat is like studying The Onion, not sure why you would.

Richard Lewis has talked extensively about everything I've said above.

But yes, I was never really a 1.6 player but I felt the same way about Garry's Mod maps. Joining a random server and seeing the maps and assets download and never really knowing what you were going to spawn into... it was wonderfully weird in a way that reminds me of the individuality of the Old Internet™. It might be nostalgia talking but there's some crispness and snappiness to the Source engine that games these days don't quite have.

But to be honest, I think it's an artifact of our (or at least my) generation. I've played CS for thousands of hours, same with l4d and cod2/4, and I don't _need_ a battle pass, seasons, constant updates etc. Though when chatting with my ~14 year younger cousin about this some months ago, he said it'd be "boring to play a game that doesn't get updates". So.. different times :)

There was also a whole sub-genre of skill surf, with mechanically challenging courses to complete.

Oh and then kz maps too, which was just for climbing up huge structures.

Good times

I don't really play games anymore. The last one I got into was Tribes: Ascend, and when that died, I never started another one. I enjoyed the community aspect of it, and I was never one for RPG elements in games that weren't RPG games, which seemed to become an increasingly emphasized strategy for driving engagement and retention.

I don't recognize the industry anymore, and while I used to feel sad about that, I've since come to realize that, for me at least, the experiences I had playing those games were as much a product of the time and place as they were about the game. I can't go back and see stormwind for the first time again, but I'm sure kids these days are experiencing their own version of that, even if it's not quite the wild west that it used to be. The gambling aspects can piss right off, though.

There are plenty of sites out there that can give you a value of your inventory. Just make sure your privacy settings for your inventory are set to "public": https://steamcommunity.com/my/edit/settings (though I'd recommend changing it back to private after you use one of the tools, since scammers will try and target you if you have public high value items).

The skin is worth over $2k now, oh well.

However, if I reflect on how much time I spent in the game in order to receive that much money it's laughable as it was easily 2 thousand hours of game play.

I have two tips:

Sell hardware and then you can get real cash. For example, use the Steam Wallet balance to buy Steam Deck Docks which you ship directly from Steam to your customer on eBay.

Secondly, use Steam Economy Enhancer.

Game with cool mechanics and a universe to play it in, that is worth $$$. Making your shirt green is not worth $... it is worth a colour-wheel implementation.

Is there a more valuable one?

I did try playing CS more serious for some time but I just couldn't stand it and I never had the patience. Got to respect that.

Quake requires more skill btw.

The article says that Le created it though:

    Two years later he created Action Quake 2, a fast-paced game inspired by “Die Hard”

Leaping off the cliff on "cliff" straight through the hatch in the cable car breaking my legs but right next to my opponent and blasting him with the double barrelled shotgun as they turned round. Classic .

Connection speed an ping was absolutely terrible back then, so I didn't really get into it.

I'd argue that the only reason Steam survived when it came out was because Valve forced people to use to play Counter-Strike. They've done better in the past 15 years though, I'll give them that!

That's what I really loved about CS 1.6. It allowed so much freedom in terms of what kind of maps and plugins you could create. We got amazing community-cultivated game modes such as KZ, HNS, surf and so many more out of it. And what's more, it was relatively easy to whip up your own map in Hammer and get it out there for everyone to play.

Community servers were first class citizens back then, prominently displayed as soon as you launched the game. These days someone getting into the game might not ever find out about the rich variety of experiences provided by community servers because they get funneled right into the default 5v5 matchmaking experience.

I tried TF2 recently and it took me a minute to figure out how to play a game without queuing into matchmaking. It's a bit sad.

I honestly think developers undervalue the power of moddability in adding value and especially longevity for their games. Fortunately, and as you pointed out, CS 1.6 is still there, and there's still a lot of active communities around that game. I believe that's because the game allowed the community to carve out a space for the themselves and build whatever they wanted.

Came back to Canada and asked EB games for a copy but they didn’t know what counter strike was, and I didn’t understand that it was a mod for half life

The indie scene blew up, modding is less popular.

edit: actually, I got it backwards, just browse nexus mods :)

Arma usually gets the more complex and janky stuff (in a fun way). While the others are more modified experiences.

Like Squad, we're they've re-created star wars battlefront

Also there were some killer WC3 mod servers out there. My goodness the fun that was had....

Seriously though, I miss the VIP and hostage rescue modes. I guess hostage rescue is still there but hardly played.

What? Who told you this?