CS 1.3: The Verdict So Far

[MYstIC G]

Now that it's been out for a few days now seems the appropriate time to ask.....

So what do you guys think of CS 1.3? Was it worth the update? Did Sierra/Valve deliver the goods?

 

[Moving Target]

no they didnt...the voice comms dont work for me with configuration and BW dont support HLTV and not much else has changed :sleeping:

 

[old.dozza]

In my opinion 1.3 is a far cry from what we, or at least I, had expected. The lag it has brought is an instant downer. I play with a 33.6k modem and while 1.1 would lag now and then, that was down to my isp rather than cs itself. 1.3 however seems to live and breath lag ;-)

I hate with a vengeance the new scoreboard, it's fiddly, awkward and not amazingly clear. Before it took a quick glance at the red "DEAD" squares to see how many people were left, and you'd be able to tell in an instant who had the bomb all because it was colour coded. Now I find it hard to tell at a glance what's what, which means I have to have it open longer. This leads to the next problem, I like to look at the scores a lot while playing, tho only briefly each time... always keeps me updated on what's going on. Before it was no problem hitting fire with it open, but now I have to make a conscious decision to let go of tab before firing, otherwise I get the mouse pointer appearing... There's the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Valve would have done well to pay heed to this.

Being able to hear other people's radio commands is a good idea, but again one I don't like. Try being a T on siege with 5 teammates standing nearby as you all throw grenades. The shouts of "FIRE IN THE HOLE" is just too loud for my liking. Plus when you know where the final opponent is hiding, and you creep up on them silently... knife drawn, ready to stab that nasty awper in the back. What else happens than a bored teammate radioing, "Sector clear!"... the awper is quite happy to turn around and remove your chest, leaving a gaping hole where once your heart was.

The voice comms don't bother me too much. I leave them on, they don't cause any lag. But in a clan match they're useless, because the dead can't speak to the living.

As for the maps... I like them, except for survivor. Anyone who has their gamma up high enough to see in the sewers on militia will probably be able to relate to survivor just being a white glare. Sure, it's clever, but it doesn't play well.

The multi-cast spectator mode is something I really do like. I've tested it out a bit and it's a good addition, well done. The only thing I don't have any complaints about ;-)

Bunny hopping. Love it or hate it, it was fun. A server side variable to disable or something should have been introduced, not completely wiping it out. I know there's plenty of you out there that'll agree with me, and plenty more that'll disagree

The final thing I'll whinge about is how cs has once again become an lpbs game. Unless an hpb keeps at range, they're going to die. So many times some lpb will run round a corner on full-auto, spraying at head height, and get 8hs on unsuspecting opponents. This isn't skill... a lot of us thought that 1.1 was bad enough for spray and pray, but oh how wrong we were ;-)

Would have been nice if wallhacks didn't work with the update too, or if valve would spend their time on worthwhile causes like making demo recording work ;-)


/me whispers something about the absence of the nuke dust militia servers being a bad bad move

 

[Moving Target]

Originally posted by dozza
But in a clan match they're useless, because the dead can't speak to the living.

for the obvious reason

 

[Ch3tan]

I love it its great.

Would never go back.

If you moan about it tis because you havent learnt it yet.

I know I moaned about it cause my scores were shite at first.

Hitboxes are great, voice is great.

hltv is just amazing

 

[Ono]

Hit boxes are better and the new maps are OK.


Dunno about the other shit cos aint used them.

 

[old.dozza]

No, if we moan about it and quite clearly say what we dislike, it's because we have learnt it and don't like it ;-)

 

[ShockingAlberto]

what can i say?

voice comms = win

i'm on 56k(ntl), and they work pretty well considering the lack of lag. but people dont realise u have to spoeak clearly through them. i know most gamers mumble, hell i do it, but when u mumble down a mic it becomes gibberish, u really gotta pronounce words clearly if it's useful.

just now io was playing on assault, i was using the monitors and voice comms to relay the positions of the CTs to my team(mainly a few people who were on the ball and making good use of the info). when there were no people guarding the roofwe went through the vents, whent he roof was full of CTs, but the outside clear, we went outside, and when both were evenly guarded, we camped...great!
and to prove how useful the info was, just befoee i left, we wnt through the vents after i'd reported the roof was clear, and someone came onto the roof before we were out, and killed 3 of us..a bad call on my part.

also, a CT accsed one of us of wallhacking, because he knew where they were, and he was right in away, because i did know where they were


trhe hitboxxes ok, but the head one is deffinately too big. not tried the new maps yet really, but everything else is good. i stopped playing cs 4 months ago, but this patch has inspired me, team play in CS? can it be!

 

[MYstIC G]

ok time to add my own view now

Voice Comms - bonus, but not perfect, I'd like to see features like "Mute Entire Team" or "Mute All but Clanmates" added to improve on its current "Click everybody off" method.

Hitboxes - Finally a headshot seems like a headshot. Maybe there still not 100% perfect, but they are rakes better.

Half-Life TV (Spectator) - I can see how this would have its applications but it adds nothing to the gameplay and that makes it a null feature in my eyes.

Netcode - No noticable improvements, in fact at times it feels like im playing as "Super-Glue on Shoes Boy"

New Maps - Just a plain old "No" to these, I refuse to acknowledge any new maps as being good until maps like 747 & Office are reverted from their current unplayable crapness back to their beta 7.1 awesomeness.

So in summary..... Not really worth the update because Valve/Sierra are just pimping their new tech updates as supposed to actually improving the gameplay/maps

 

[Embattle]

VC - Good for me and some others but many people seem to be having trouble.

Hitboxes - A find them fairly good but the HS factor seems to be a little strange.

HLTV - Not seen as yet.

Netcode - I've seen the ping I should have but this is likely to be BWs doing.

New Maps

Torn - Any one got a map?

Survivour - Strange story and blowing up a plane after its crashed doesn't fit very well.

Storm - Another scene that doesn't fit the story but it also suffers from having too many meet points.

 

[old.g@mm@drill]

Need red blood back!

ok,cs 1.3 not so bad as a lot of people think,but i tell u what i really dont like-after cs1.3 (USretailversion!) installation the blood turns into the green shit(just like it is in German version).Im not brutal,but if i shoot from the distance i cant see if i hit my enemy!
Can anyone tell me how can i get rid of that green pus?

 

[Moving Target]

turn off content control LOL

 

[old.g@mm@drill]

maybe im stupid ,but how?

 

[Moving Target]

what password did u type when u turned it on?

 

[throdgrain]

i'll say this again.
I THINK ITS THE DOGS BOLLOCKS!!!!
please can i play on inferno tho mr. valve?

 

[MYstIC G]

It's still not as significant an update as things like 7.1 -> 1.0 have been though

 

[old.g@mm@drill]

WTF,what content control?

I have no idea what r u speaking about,of cuz i understand what content control may be,but i never used it and have no idea where is it

 

[old.bombardos]

In my opinion the patch is good, but it runs real fast and jumpy for me evn though my ping is at like 60...don't know why.
uke:

 

[old.Skamp_X]

1.3 hmm

My opinion on 1.3 :

First i thought the voice com was awesome with the lips moving, great stuff really , makes cs so realistic.
2nd day i kinda noticed alot of headshots , and even to a anoying factor.
Playing on... ok this headshot bussniss is getting weird now...
and the map storm seems to suck.
So then i thought 1.3 is turning out to be total crap uke:
But now im getting use to it all , been reading the forum and it seems the hitboxes are now what there supose to be.
Been checking that... shooting at a afk player (and no it wasnt a teamm8) and indeed it seems correct , nothing more to say about headshots.
The voice com isnt bad although i cant understand a word some ppl say , maybe they just talk funny or connection messes with the quality... still ... im ok with it.
Bit anoying to me is the fact enemy can here voice messages now wich gives my position away
Overal im happy with 1.3
I think ppl who arent will just have to learn to play with it.

Now can u plz turn voice com back on in bw8???
hope u do

Skamp

 

[ShockingAlberto]

allright, my oppinion ofteh voice comms has gone from good to brilliant

just now i had a great game, it's 5am, so there were no children or fools on, and we had small numbers (3v4) on vegas.
on the Ts, there were 3 of us, and we used the voice comms as much as possable. because with so few people on vegas, planning is very important, because there are so many routes to the bomb site, the voice coms allowed us to decide which route to take properley while moving off, and we used a differant route nearly every round.

as well as going to the bomb sites together, we covered them as well. so if 2 of us would stick with the bomb, while a 3rd covered the most likely/difficult route to give advanced warning and to stop all 3 of us dieing at the same time. the voice comms meant that when one of us heard or saw someone, the other 2 knew about it. it's hard to explain, but if u playued a game liek that, then you'd have no doubts on the usefulness of voice comms.

ok so the average gamer of 5am and during the daytime are 2 differant people, so it's unliekly you'd get a great set of people to work with, and on a full server people often seem embrassed to use the vgoice comms, plus not veryone has a mic or a decent sound card. as for the quality, well jusyt now 2 of the 3 were on 56k(me for one) and it makes little differance as i could hear both of them with the same quality, and as u proberbly know, they voices dont lag! the problem wiht people speaking gibberish is because they dont know how to speak. everyone mumbles in RL, and they do it down the mic too. if people speak loudly and clearly, the compression keeps the words prettyu much intact, but if u speak muffled or just quickly and unclearly, the compression tends to merge verything together to produce gibberish

so i say, i love the voice comms, and apart from the hostage bugs, they bug where one team will die but the round wont end, the cheat where someoen goes spec and is able to disarm the bomb(i dont understand how) and the bugs with the prediction code, i love cs1.3.
(i've spent the last 5 months playing tfc without touching cs because the llama situation got so bad, and no-one was interested in team work).

 

[old.Hooligun]

My ha'penny worth

1.3 hmmm

Had good and bad.

Maps - Always like to see new ones even if some turn out to be duds.
Inferno is now even more interesting.

Headshots - seem too easy, great if you make them, frustrating as hell if you are on the receiving end, especially 4 rounds in a row (

Lag..arrgh. - Seems to be worse in 1.3 and varies from map to map.
Played Mansion the other night with 8 v 8 and the pings were appalling. As soon as a firefight developed my ping (and most of the other modemers) shot up to 300+ and before you ask, yes, I have a good quality external modem, a good phone line, a decent ISP and a modem init string derived from a half dozen tweak guides that can get me down as low as 130 (if everybody
stands still... they won't tho).

Voice - I keep them all turned off, reasons:
a) nobody speaks clearly enough to be understood.
b) if 2 or more speak at the same time it's useless
c) it ruins the atmosphere - amazing how somebody wailing a Britney Spears number can destroy a tense moment.
Agree with MYstIC needs a Mute Team permanently option.

Things that should have been in:

1. Longer delay on 1st round, nothing worse than buying a pistol/kevlar, turning round and somebody's already gunning you down, if your team also loses the first round then it can take 3-4 rounds to get back in it so is especially important. Should be so easy to do.

2. In-eyes chasecam (pet bugbear of mine) - never mind tactical view I want to know what the good players are doing exactly and I want to see those headshot scripts / wallhackers in action (they will be back).

After all of that CS is like a **** *** ....even when it's bad, it's great.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

yea, i wondred why they never added 1st person for spec, it's in q2, so why not hl.

but the HLTV does have a 1st person view, so if u hear of any clan matches that are gonna be broadacasted on HLTV, then u might wanna spec em.

 

[Wilier]

Im not goin into great depths like some, but....

1.3 seems OK, not sure its worth the 5 fekkin hour DL tho.

Voice lags me a bit, but no where near as much as Roger Wilco did.

Not used the spectator mode (why spectate when u can play??)

New maps...... hmmm, cant find the bomb sites, get lost, need more praccy. Mebbee its cos i aint plyd it much, but Torn seems more confusing than Nuke, and Survivor seems more confusing than Torn.

Does ne1 know of any podbot waypoints for the new maps yet??

Hitboxes are no different as far as i can tell, I still cant hit shit!!

So there.

 

[Stazbumpa]

My tuppence:

Headshots: Too easy now and are a real danger of spoiling the game.

New Maps: Like them, apart from Torn (the real big, real dark one??) and they eat up CPU power. Seems the coders have been very fucking lazy. No respect due.

Voice comms: Damn fine idea, well overdue, but although its fine on my 56k atm I can see future updates increasing pings sharply. This will be due to sloppy/indifferent coding on the part of the CS/Valve team who really do seem to be resting on their laurels a bit too much.

Pings: I get a steady 150 ish on some maps but others shoot up to 220 - 230. This will more than likely be due to the maps CPU usage. Decrease the CPU eating factor and the game runs better.

Personally, I think that CS 1.3 is ok, but is far less than I was expecting and I can see it getting worse as its directed at DSL / Cabler's and not at 56k players.
Any further updates will only increase the gap between the 2 camps and as us Brits have a serious problem getting DSL that works/is affordable then we will probably see the end of CS online gaming for 56k'ers in the near future.