Counter-Strike Opens Weapons Market 284
kalpatin writes "The ever so popular game, Counter Strike:Source developed by Valve, has a new feature added to the game: A virtual marketplace for the weapons and equipment. According to Valve, every item's price will be updated on a weekly basis depending on the global market demand. Some users have posted their anger toward the new change on the Valve forums and have even started a petition to stop the change. Is Valve turning into Microsoft by introducing features that are not needed or wanted by the community, or are they merely spicing the game up?"
or you can play True Combat Elite and not worry (Score:5, Informative)
Started playing it a year ago and haven't picked up CS since. It's awesome.
Oh yes! (Score:2)
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/Mikael
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Crosshairs no longer tickle my fancy. It completly destroys the immersion for me, which is why I'm a fan of COD2 as well, though not for multiplay
Can't it be both? (Score:2, Funny)
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"Eighter you are with us or you are with the enemy!"
We are screwed (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, wait, it's a Steam Game.
Guess you are screwed then. This is what happens when you buy locked down products - and if you want more examples, just look at what happened to SWG (did you get a refund when the game turned into something that you were not sold? could you carry on playing the game you *were* sold?) or World of Warcraft (goodbye, forty man raids, around which a lot of players have built their guilds).
What happens in the future when this kind of crap gets extended to other aspects of life via DRM? Lucas might 'upgrade' every release of star wars automatically when he finishes the new tri-gital remastered version, now with 3D Jar Jar Binks. Apple might cut down the number of times you can burn your purchased songs to CDs without giving you a chance to stick to the old terms and conditions.
Normally such a rant would end with some message of hope for the future. Well here it is: In my case I'm going to work very hard to make sure I'm on the end doing the exploiting, so I get to enjoy it all the way to the bank.
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Well. At least you have a plan.
Ummm, you don't have to update it actually. (Score:4, Informative)
Were you dropped on your head as a child, or do you just ignore certain details to whine about "locked in" platforms?
OP Here. And that is precisely what annoys me. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't get why people are so hostile about it. I highly doubt that if one day Valve shuts down they'll just say, "lol, tough luck guys" and leave us with gigs of encrypted games we can't touch. That's about the biggest legitimate thing one can worry about, and judging from the size of Valve's money hats and the interest Steam is drawing from other publishers I don't think we have to worry about them running out of cash anytime soon.
Everything else is a non-issue or people don't get it. You DON'T have to update any of your titles unless you want to, it's just on by default. You DON'T have to be online to use Steam (yet another option people mysteriously overlook). You CAN burn backup copies of your games (there's an option to spit out backups in CDR and DVD friendly chunks, I just reinstalled from a backup a few months ago when I got my new rig built). There's no restriction on how many PCs you can install your games on. Shit, I can go to any internet-enabled PC, install Steam, and have access to my games whenever I want (well, after downloading 2+Gigs of stuff, buh!). That's fucking awesome IMO.
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Oh wait, then the servers would kick you for not having the correct version.
This update doesn't really have anything to do with Steam. If the server admins want to use the variable money, then they will. If they don't, then they won't either by turning it off or by giving everyone tons of money. So it doesn't matter if the user can control whether they patch the game or not. It is all about what the people running th
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I really don't see how this can compare. Maybe I'm just not cool enough to have 47 or 31 some friends ready to hop onto a game of counterstrike at any time of day or night. But something tells me that you don't either, and the option you presented was just to fuel your argument, rather than a feasible choice that anyone else would make.
To be honest, I bought my enti
Re:We are screwed (Score:4, Funny)
And this is what happens when you don't:
k3w1d00d: H3y b1tch3s! l00k1t wh4t 1 c4n d0!
k3w1d00d: H3y b1tch3s! l00k1t wh4t 1 c4n d0!
k3w1d00d: H3y b1tch3s! l00k1t wh4t 1 c4n d0!
k3w1d00d: H3y b1tch3s! l00k1t wh4t 1 c4n d0!
k3w1d00d: H3y b1tch3s! l00k1t wh4t 1 c4n d0!
k3w1d00d: H3y b1tch3s! l00k1t wh4t 1 c4n d0!
non-wanker1 was killed by admin
non-wanker2 was killed by admin
decentplayer was killed by admin
IHateGriefers was killed by admin
IdontCheat was killed by admin
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
sumyunguy was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
k3w1d00d: h4w h4w!
non-wanker1 was killed by admin
non-wanker2 was killed by admin
decentplayer was killed by admin
IHateGriefers was killed by admin
IdontCheat was killed by admin
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
sumyunguy was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
k3w1d00d: You're all my bitches now!!
non-wanker1 was killed by admin
non-wanker2 was killed by admin
decentplayer was killed by admin
IHateGriefers was killed by admin
IdontCheat was killed by admin
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
sumyunguy was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
IHateGriefers has left the game
non-wanker1 was killed by admin
non-wanker2 was killed by admin
decentplayer was killed by admin
IdontCheat was killed by admin
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
sumyunguy was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
IdontCheat has left the game
decentplayer has left the game
sumyunguy has left the game
non-wanker2 has left the game
non-wanker1 has left the game
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
DontKillMeImOnly8 was killed by admin
absentadmin was killed by admin
k3w1d00d: W3ll, th15 15 14m3 n0w. Y0u guy5 5uck.
k3w1d00d has left the game.
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As far as WoW, the current 40-man dungeons will remain as such. The new limit affects the dungeons that will appear in the
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SWG was an e
OH, this is on the internet (Score:5, Funny)
Why HL2 is the last valve game I buy (Score:5, Interesting)
Like a lot of people on here, I ran out and bought HL2 when it first came out. I had my reservations about steam but wanted to give them a fair shot. That's what I did, and that's why I'm never buying another one of their products again.
You see, this issue just brings into light the whole concept that is so bad about publisher over-the-net supplied games. Let's compare this to a regular CD/DVD/etc game. Lord of the Rings BFE2 just came out with a major patch that completely changes unit times/strengths, etc. It's almost like playing another game. Not getting into a debate of if it's good or bad, but if **I** decided I don't want to apply it then I can keep playing. As long as others out there don't like it too, I can even play on-line. In CS:S, we are screwed if we don't update. You can't play period. That not only gives steam control over when and where you play, but your game experience. Don't like what they've done now, too bad.
Who knows how long they will continue to support HL2. But without their auth/update servers, the game will not work. I won't be buying anything like this again for that very reason. Anyone else notice this is the new trend. Even MS is moving toward this model. Complete control, and I'm not going to give it. Voting with my wallet, suggest you do the same too.
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You would have thought that the whole SWG thing would have given people a heads up about how publishers think of their players and made everyone stear well clear of anything where the game could be yanked out from under their feet.
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This, I think, is far superior to what you're describing with LOTR. In that case, if you don't like the patch, you can't usually uninstall it, you'll have to reinstall the game from scratch. Oh, and good luck finding the 1.1 patch if there'
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The responsible thing to do would be for publishers not to try to have megalomaniacal control over the game after it's sold!
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I do, but I've made a compromise. Another compromise, in this case, and one I'm not sure I regret: I knew Half-Life 2 wouldn't be very playable on Linux, and that it'd make me keep a Windows partition around.
But nevertheless, if you've read my other post, you know I think I got a good deal. While technically Valve could shut everything down tomorrow, or plaster Coke and Pepsi ads
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Retaining centralized control over multiplayer, making it difficult to use the software without it trying to phone home, refusing to make available a version of the newer games that will certainly continue to work if something ever happened to Valve or their servers, refusing even to make a strong written commitment that they would create such a thing, etc.
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I have no problem with them having a centralized server network; I just object to them requiring it. I should have the option of running my own server and letting people directly connect to it without getting Valve involved.
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I believe this has been done. It at least used to be possible to run a server with sv_lan on, and run your clients in disconnected mode.
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you can thus still paly on LANs, and servers that have not updated.
next up is the fact that some one will disable this rather quickly.
This is going to work in 1 of 2 ways:
1) hard code the numbers into a patch released each day/week/hour/whatever.
2) Stream the data from a central server.
If it is option 1 then you just use any of the Admin Mod/what ever the other server mod utils are plugins that lets you set prices. (Wow that was hard)
O
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Steam is a bit different though. With steam you have less control over when your content gets updated. Although I must say the writing was on the wall with this feature. Anyone remember the patch for Episode 1 in response to people having a ha
HL2 is the ugly stepchild.. (Score:2)
Thing is, it didn't happen. I've only participated in a few mods but coding a mod in C++ seems like it was a major contributing factor. While other mods I've played around with newblets could mess with the scripting, learn some of its idiosyncrasies and
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They allow you to MODIFY the game so that it plays the way you like it. If people don't like the patch, they can run a modded server. Simple as that.
I like the fact that Steam auto-patches my games. I hated looking for patches for all my previous games, and being confronted with stupid sites like fileplanet that charge you for faster downloads, or even ACCESS to the patch you needed to play.
And I know what I am doing when it comes to computers, for the less educated users I am guessing it
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Yes. (Score:2, Funny)
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The CS Community (Score:5, Interesting)
This marketplace idea is the same sort of thing. It sounds interesting to me. I'm looking forward to seeing how it changes the game.
I do have a couple of small reservations though:
1. It could "unbalance" clan matchs. If Clan X plays Clan Y one week when the M4 is expensive then they'll have a very different game than when they play Clan Z when the M4 is cheaper. While each game is fair I think any comparison of games (we beat Clan Z, how come we lost to Clan Y?) will be skewed.
2. Weapons that are available to both sides will always have more spent on them than weapons unique to one team. For example, the M4 and the CK are only available to the one side, while the AWP and the P90 are available to both sides. That presumably will mean the AWP and P90 have more spent on them in any one week, pushing them into the top 50% half where prices increase. I hope Valve have thought about that, I'd hate all the shared weapons to increase while the unique weapons fall. Not just coz I'm a P90 spray'n'pray player of course..
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1. Servers will probably be able to toggle a CVAR to use old prices.
2. If Valve thought this through carefully enough to separate pistols from other weapons, I think they would've thought about this by now. The game probably considers them both the same weapon price-wise.
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Plus, what's more boring than players who memorize and exploit unchanging systems like video game levels?
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I agree, but there are also two sides to the story. This could make it more like 'real life' where weapon prices and availabilty affect battles. I don't know which side of the fence I'm on, but I think I'm go
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M4:
Expensive
High cyclic rate
Low recoil
Low bullet damage
AK:
Cheap
Low cyclic rate
High recoil
High bullet damage
This leads to m4 style generally being "spray and WIN" and AK style being two round bursts and single shotting.
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CounterTerrorists' plan is to send in everybody with MP5s until they've got enough to buy sniper rifles and bullpups.
Terrorists' plan is to stay hidden and defend the hosties with shotguns until they have enough money to buy scoped weapons.
They test in practice matches, and the CT's strategy works well.
The match is on Sunday, and the prices change that day. MP5s and Bullpups get more expensive. Shotguns get cheaper. The T's will save more money, and will afford s
Competitive Play (Score:3, Interesting)
All I know is, the competitive community is absolutely opposed to this update. We just want a fun, team oriented game to play. Not an RPG.
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There's no way to not update Steam without cracking it. You have to be online before you switch into offline mode, and if there's an update it will download automatically.
And I'm sure there will be a cvar to turn off special pricing.
Well, back to 1.6 then... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's about time. (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, this means that the weaker guns will now have a purpose, since they'll be much more affordable. I'm sure the Colt and AK will still be heavily favored, but at least now it'll be harder to get them in the second round of a match.
And a note to the critics: If you don't care for these changes, CS 1.6 is still alive and well. CS:Source is a great opportunity for Valve to play around with the previously stagnant formula (by adding a new radar system, for example) without alienating older players. Let's not ruin that... we don't need two versions of the same game.
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Economies of Scale. (Score:2, Funny)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand [wikipedia.org]
Gah! Exploitable! (Score:3, Interesting)
Set up a server with unlimited buy time and a few million dollars of starting money. Now, start the spammage. Buy, drop, buy, drop, buy, drop. Before you know it, the AWP is completely impossible to afford, no matter what server you're on.
Suppose only one purchase per round counts. Ok, fine, now add a custom map, and do it with a friend, dropping buy time and time between rounds as much as you can tweak them. Now you alternate. Buy, snipe, respawn, buy, snipe, respawn. You don't even have to drop it this time -- whoever got sniped will have dropped their AWP.
This can be done for any weapon. Before long, someone will have written a mod that does it automatically. Imagine -- someone doesn't like that weapon you're carrying? They punch one button and their server starts spamming Valve with new price information. If you manage to kill them, they'll never be able to afford that weapon again.
It's an interesting idea, but Valve is about to learn that it's much more difficult to balance an MMO market, where so many things are in the players' control, than to balance arbitrary weapon prices or abilities. They should've just quietly collected statistics, and then set the prices based on those statistics, probably still having to manually tweak them, and tell us when they're all done, thus giving no one the opportunity to exploit it. Here, they're just asking for trouble.
Uh, not exploitable.... (Score:2, Informative)
So, what you do on your server (and it has to be your server, in order to be able to tweak the options like you want), you can do this. But it won't affect anyone else.
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More than one person, then. (Score:2)
Even if it's entirely un-exploitable, I don't think I'm going to like the results of this. But that's another discussion entirely.
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What if instead of total popularity, they looked at CHANGES in popularity, relative to that serve
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I'm sure that they would be able to filter out server that are acting strangely, having buying activity outside of a 'normal' threshold. Take the buying activity from all the servers, create a profile of buying behavior based on all servers, then toss out anything that is in an extreme before doing the rest of the calculations. Statisticians do this all the time.
Anyone else think this is actually pretty cool? (Score:2)
I know a lot of people are fuming about the nature of Steam and having patches forced upon you, I understand that because I've hated steam from day one.
But does anyone else think this is a really, really good idea? If a weapon is popular, it becomes expensive, if a weapon is unpopular, it becomes cheap. This will ensure that a fair price is given for every weapon, a diversity of weapons are used and the game isn't saturated by the same overpowered weapons. Weapons will cost the right amount because they co
The actual numbers (Score:3, Informative)
Smart idea (Score:4, Insightful)
By making this patch, Valve has in essence, coded their own version of letting the players roll their own parameters. Instead of a small group's opinion on what the prices should be, it's the combined player's opinion that matters.
For the younger players, it's an introduction to price/demand responses. Of course, it's artificial in that the comodities have no production cost so from the producer's perspective, the weapons could be free. Nonetheless, it conveys the message to younger players that tho more people do or don't want something, that will affect the price of the something.
Projection: (Score:2)
M4: $16000
AWP: $16000
MP5: $5000
Everything else (since the deagle is apparently excluded to "preserve the pistol round"): $1
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Why wouldn't it be the dominant choice? The only people who shouldn't take it over any other pistol are people who can't shoot for crap.
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Are you that excited to show off what you're learning in high school economics?
Introducing? (Score:2)
Online community / ala WOW (Score:2)
I think its fantastic (Score:2, Insightful)
You can always argue wether its a good or bad thing that the provider controls the content and not the customer. One thing that speaks for the provider is the ressources needed to run the servers and scoresystem and so on,
can't quickly buy anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
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So develop new strategies and tactics on the fly, instead of repetitively pressing exactly the same buttons again and again and again and again. I got bored of CS about five or six years ago because nothing new ever happened, and nothing really changed. Except, in this case encouraging players out of the safe
Lessons in Capitalism. (Score:2)
No. Here's how it works.
Company A builds widget because it thinks the public wants it. Noone asked them to make it. Company A isn't entirely sure whether or not their widget will sell, until they try to sell it.
Successful companies make this gamble, and it works because the public actually needs or wants their widget. Unsuccessful companies make this gamble, and it fails. Companies that fail to try to innov
"Some users"...1 or 200,000? (Score:2)
Why not make CS weapons prices fluctuate... (Score:2)
Script your way around it (Score:2)
For those not fond of other Valve decisions, there are hundreds of server-side scripts/mods to change the gameplay of CS:S. (Here [mattie.info])
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It adds realism. Real terrorists don't always have the best equiptment available.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
The game hasn't been about realism... well, ever. If you want realism, play SWAT or Rainbow Shield.
It DOES mix the game up. (Score:2)
Also, I'm SURE that there will be a server variable to turn this change off. I dobut that valve would cast off the old fixed-price weapon system for everything, especially since it's crucial for match play.
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Cool links. [blogspot.com]
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Realism also demands that you can get things by stealing them.
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What GP was hinting at ist that in a lucrative real life market, eventually new competitors will enter the market. Eventually, the market will turn into a commodities market where price is driven down by a plentiful supply. Real life producers hate that and try everything to make their product appear different, so it is less susceptible to competition. With varying success of course. Exa
Get out of your cocoon (Score:5, Insightful)
throws entire match strategy right out the window.
Oh no, god forbid you have to change your strategy in a 10 year old game. People, get a grip. I love that some people are crying out for the Wii because it uses a new controller that according to them will revolutionize the way games are played, and yet they still bitch and complain about a change like this. Most times when I play CounterStrike, you usually end up with $16000 really quickly and dominate the match wit hteh best weapons, or you constantly lose and have the SMGs that can't compete as well with the rifles.
I applaud Valve for bringing a change like this. It's time for games to start taking more advantage of the global internet and stop creating a world that is server and instance based. So many people play MMO's nowadays that really, I don't see games like CounterStrike keeping up with them. You're constantly starting from zero and whatever stats are saved are server based only so if you want any progression you need to constantly use the same server. I only hope the "newly announced" TF2 encorporates more of this stuff.
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And this is what happens when gamers let the manufacturer continue to control the game after the sale. Stop buying crap off Steam and protest ridiculous court decisions (e.g. bnetd) and you'll stop having this problem!
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That's really the point, though, isn't it? It's a 10-year-old game that people still love and play in droves simply BECAUSE it was set up so well to begin with. The people who are complaining are saying, hey, if it ain't broke...
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Strategy != Everyone camping with the AWP
Re:Great news for spawn awp'ers... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey I've got an idea, figure it out once and then just don't forget it for a week.
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Simple Harmonic Oscillator (Score:2)