Valve released the latest major update to Counter-Strike 2 that brings with it more than 100 new items including weapon charms. These charms are quite popular in other shooters, so it's not a big surprise to see Valve add them in. Plus, it's yet another cosmetic item for Valve to basically print money with.
This brings with it a new battle pass system, which Valve call an Armory Pass. Although they work more a like a ticket, and you can have up to five of them active at a time. Each Armory Pass costs £12.79 so they're certainly not cheap and they each give a total of 40 credits. All the new stuff is gated behind this system too, so you have to buy a pass (or five) and then actually play to earn Armory Credits to then redeem for the items.
The new weapon charms look quite nice, and you can place them anywhere on your weapons too.
In true Valve style, it's all random too. You can select a specific category of items to spend your credits, and then pay up to receive a random item from the collection. Obviously this is to get you to pay and play more.
Valve also made some changes to inventory items, placing a 7 day re-trade and re-market restriction on everything no matter how you got them. That includes the in-game store (including the Armory), Trade Offers and Steam Community Market.
There's also some network improvements, animation improvements and various bug fixes.
See all the changes on the special update page.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
UltraAltesBrot Oct 3
Quoting: dvdI played a couple of days ago, they finally resolved the terrible lag in the linux version. I'm not really a fan of this type of monetization but i guess this is how all games like this work.Live service games with running costs need some kind of income. Since it's cosmetic bling that doesn't interfere with gameplay, I'm perfectly fine with this kind of monetization. Paying players and the constant surge of new players keep the game alive while everyone else can access the full game for free!
Quoting: UltraAltesBrotQuoting: dvdI played a couple of days ago, they finally resolved the terrible lag in the linux version. I'm not really a fan of this type of monetization but i guess this is how all games like this work.Live service games with running costs need some kind of income. Since it's cosmetic bling that doesn't interfere with gameplay, I'm perfectly fine with this kind of monetization. Paying players and the constant surge of new players keep the game alive while everyone else can access the full game for free!
All skins should be disabled in competitive matches, a lot of time me and my teammates have been surprised by player's skin that is less visible or a weird shape/colors even if CS2 claims to mitigate the possible contrast problems and that split second decision can make a difference.
After 25 years of counter-strike it feels less and less attractive (It reminds me of TF2, I haven't played in at least a decade). I feel like it's trying to become something else than CS2.
So, not sure about attracting new players (with customization) is a good move on the long run. And Valve is already making a lot of money with the cut on every existing microtransaction.
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