Valve continue to tweak their classic free to play shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The latest update improves various parts of the game and there's some fancy new weapon skins.
Trusted Mode, the newer feature that's just one small part of their fight against cheating now has the "-untrusted" launch argument removed. Trusted Mode on Linux also now appears to be on by default, so you no longer need the quick fix we wrote about recently, so if you missed that you should find your CS:GO games on Linux to be a lot nicer. Valve also fixed several exploits related to VPK tampering.
For collectors, a new Fracture Collection weapons case went up so you can gamble away some of your monies on their loot box system. This new case features designs from over 17 different community artists and there's even Shattered Web Knives as rare special items. Looking over the Steam Market, there's already tons on there from it so if you're after something really specific you might just be able to grab it right away there.
Also made it into this release are improvements to the 'SDR networking protocol', the Valve-run networking system that handles authentication, encryption, routing and so on. They've improved the routing selection logic, fixed SDR networking sessions to not be reused after expiration and improved stability. What does that mean for players? Matchmaking should work better overall.
The Anubis, Swamp and Mutiny maps all had a fine-tooth comb go over them, to fix up lots of little issues and do some optimizations to improve FPS.
Play CS:GO free on Steam.
Nice skins, but can you aim-down your iron sights yet, or is it all still hip-shooting only except for the scoped weapons?
All snarky CS trolling aside, I had fun with the original CS 1.6 and CS:Source back in the day, but the novelty eventually wore off for me. Played around 15 or so hours of CS:GO but it felt like more of the same, but more toxic somehow.
I don't really think rainbow guns will change that for me. But again, that's just me.
Personally I stopped playing CS:Go soon after the update that added the weapon skin in 2013. I couldn't bare any more the toxicity of the community. That is what happen when you remove the power of weeding out the bad apples from the community and give it to a faceless company.
Since then, I returned from time to time to 1.6 and source. And it felt good not even from the nostalgia but because the games are still very playable and because of the community having the ban power the servers are refreshingly calm and friendly for the great majority of them.
I tried to play Go again a couple month ago and it didn't felt like a CS any more, it just reminded of some bad CoD rip off. A lot of things didn't felt right.
[...] I tried to play Go again a couple month ago and it didn't felt like a CS any more, it just reminded of some bad CoD rip off. A lot of things didn't felt right.
No. WTF.
After 3000 hours in CSGO I must disagree. You can mute toxic players. You can report em. Couter-Strike made some great progress during the last years. Still top notch, there is only one problem: the skill goes away with the years.
Last edited by dude on 8 August 2020 at 12:24 am UTC
[...] I tried to play Go again a couple month ago and it didn't felt like a CS any more, it just reminded of some bad CoD rip off. A lot of things didn't felt right.
No. WTF.
After 3000 hours in CSGO I must disagree. You can mute toxic players. You can report em. Couter-Strike made some great progress during the last years. Still top notch, there is only one problem: the skill goes away with the years.
Yes, you can mute them or report them but it is still annoying and I am not even sure something is really done (I have played counter-strike since the beta in 1999).
I was so annoyed years ago with CS source that I started to rent a server and we developed a lot of plugins and client console with a friend to monitor players, so when flagged it was really hard to come back (IP and steamID blacklist, back up of scores to avoid abuse reconnects, monitoring of weapons to prevent full auto, monitoring of network stability to prevent lag on purpose etc.) and the rules were clear.
Also, the fun was in the tons of dedicated servers with specific mods/community.
When I pre-ordered CSGO I just played few hours and didn't touched it for years. Now I only play in competitive with friends only in my team and Danger Zone that is not bad but was really buggy at the time on linux.
So to me, CSGO is not a Counter-Strike game it is just something else and I can enjoy it that way.
Edit: PS: My audio communication layer is completely disabled in game, so I never hear any of the players talking (because muting players one by one it way too annoying) and it is really nice that way.
Last edited by Bogomips on 10 August 2020 at 7:22 am UTC
When I pre-ordered CSGO I just played few hours and didn't touched it for years. Now I only play in competitive with friends only in my team and Danger Zone that is not bad but was really buggy at the time on linux.
Then you didn't overwatch any player/cheater in CS:GO, right?
Overwatch takes time, but is also fun. You will be rewarded fo giving good reports. However, you must play many matches to get to overwatch.
What is ridiculous, that another game got named "overwatch".
When I pre-ordered CSGO I just played few hours and didn't touched it for years. Now I only play in competitive with friends only in my team and Danger Zone that is not bad but was really buggy at the time on linux.
Then you didn't overwatch any player/cheater in CS:GO, right?
Overwatch takes time, but is also fun. You will be rewarded fo giving good reports. However, you must play many matches to get to overwatch.
What is ridiculous, that another game got named "overwatch".
No, not in CS:GO.
I spent a lot of time in previous versions of CS reviewing recorded demos of "strange" behaviour but at that time cheaters were not really subtle/skilled so most of the reviews were just good/lucky players.
I was often mistaken for a cheater (and I never cheated in my life) and I wasn't that good so I can understand that some people could be pissed off in casual games.
Now, I don't have a lot of time to play, so if it is not fun because of toxicity I just don't bother and do something else…
See more from me