"Counterstrike 2" has just been released. Hurrah, I suppose. But
what's getting less mention is that Steam has killed its predecessor, "Counterstrike: GO". You can't buy it. You can't play it.** The
servers are offline. You can't even pull up the old store page and
read up about it. As far as Valve is concerned, the game is gone.

Which, I mean, sounds just mean. Sure, Valve wants "Counterstrike 2"
to be a success, and sure, "CS:GO" got years of free support, and,
sure, "CS2" is really just an updated version of "CS:GO". Still, the
original game has a huge and dedicated fan base - including many who
have made actual careers out of playing the game - and to simply yank
it offline is bad form. Not everybody wants the latest-n-greatest.
Some of us are quite happy enjoying older games. Let us play both.
Don't make the choice for us, Valve.

Especially since CS2 isn't nearly as feature-complete as its older
version and - according to reports - is a lot less optimized than
CS:GO. For a game where the player base depends on high FPS for aiming
and movement, the last strikes at the heart of CS gameplay. Of course,
such problems are typical of modern games and are usually worked out
over the course of a few months after release... but until then? It's
not like the fans can play the old game until the new one is up to
snuff.

It's a shitty move and Valve should know better.






----------------
* Apparently there is a hack to get the older game running, but it
only works offline... so what's the point?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 9/29/23 11:02, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

"Counterstrike 2" has just been released. Hurrah, I suppose. But
what's getting less mention is that Steam has killed its predecessor, "Counterstrike: GO". You can't buy it. You can't play it.** The
servers are offline. You can't even pull up the old store page and
read up about it. As far as Valve is concerned, the game is gone.

Which, I mean, sounds just mean. Sure, Valve wants "Counterstrike 2"
to be a success, and sure, "CS:GO" got years of free support, and,
sure, "CS2" is really just an updated version of "CS:GO". Still, the
original game has a huge and dedicated fan base - including many who
have made actual careers out of playing the game - and to simply yank
it offline is bad form. Not everybody wants the latest-n-greatest.
Some of us are quite happy enjoying older games. Let us play both.
Don't make the choice for us, Valve.

Especially since CS2 isn't nearly as feature-complete as its older
version and - according to reports - is a lot less optimized than
CS:GO. For a game where the player base depends on high FPS for aiming
and movement, the last strikes at the heart of CS gameplay. Of course,
such problems are typical of modern games and are usually worked out
over the course of a few months after release... but until then? It's
not like the fans can play the old game until the new one is up to
snuff.

It's a shitty move and Valve should know better.

----------------
* Apparently there is a hack to get the older game running, but it
only works offline... so what's the point?

They LITERALLY pulled an Overwatch 2. Incredible.
not that i care that much about CS but still
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:02:37 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

It's a shitty move and Valve should know better.

----------------
* Apparently there is a hack to get the older game running, but it
only works offline... so what's the point?

I do get what you're saying, but one of the issues with new
multiplayer games is that for it to succeed (and I don't mean from the perspective of those who profit from it, but from perspective of the
player who expects hundreds or thousands of hours of addictive
playtime), there can be a server population problem.

A lot of the people that play these games are lazy, jobless gits that
do nothing with their lives BUT play games... and the same things
that make them failures at life are the same things that make them get
addicted to a single game and never move past it....

....which in a way should be their right, but it comes at the expense
of the more progressive gamers who enjoy a specific genre, but would
like to play new variations within that genre and see things move
forward a bit. The problem then becomes that of having enough online population for a NEW game to be enjoyable.. it's an issue of achieving
critical mass. When that doesn't happen, you end up in underpopulated
game servers (which often makes the game play different than intended
and usually underwhelming, leaves the player spending more time in
matchmaking lobbies than actually playing the game, or other adverse
effects).

There is a weird "pry it from my cold dead fingers" that seems to
occur all too often in gaming, at least among the multiplayer crowd.
That syndrome can make it harder for new games to succeed.

I have no idea if this is behind Valve's reasoning, but if they put
the lid on CS:GO just to ensure players migrated over to the new
version, I totally get it, and for those that primarily play
competitive MP games, they will ultimately get more enjoyment out of
that way of doing things.

FWIW I don't really have a dog specifically in the Counterstrike
fight. I used to play a lot, but I haven't played any variation of it
in years, and wasn't even aware of CS2 until I saw your post.

But I've seen several factors mostly vaporize what the competitive
multiplayer gaming landscape used to look like:

1. Too many choices.. more server player population fragmentation
from too many options. Which might be a good thing if it weren't for
#2 and #3....
2. Consolitis... Consoles lured away too many former PC players and
became the point of entry for new gamers due to lower price point.
This wasn't good for competitive MP PC gaming because it requires a
mouse and keyboard, so only the rare few that were able to work well
or gain critical mass with a controller could become popular (COD,
etc).
3. The influx of politics in games... Most of the guys I used to
game online with cannot stand what's happened to gaming, thus have
found other hobbies. Or maybe they still game but not at the same
level, not AAA, and not buying new PC gear regularly. Because the
next AAA title is probably going to force them to play the role of a
trans snowflake kid with daddy issues or something, and that's not
something they find very immersive. Specific cases aside, people are
not oblivious when a game design tries to force beliefs down their
throat, and for a lot of folks it turned them off of gaming and onto
other hobbies permanently.

So... I dunno... if CS2 does everything the old CS games did and does
it well, maybe its a good thing. If it's not as optimized as CS:GO,
then to me it's just a return to old school gaming, because once upon
a time, it was not uncommon to install a game, realize it was a work
of art but that it wasn't running very well due to outdated
components. That was the impetus to upgrade the PC components, which
helped fuel the PC industry and helped fuel PC gaming. The problem
lately is that new games have just plain sucked, and it removes any
motive to upgrade.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

"Counterstrike 2" has just been released. Hurrah, I suppose. But
what's getting less mention is that Steam has killed its predecessor, "Counterstrike: GO". You can't buy it. You can't play it.** The
servers are offline. You can't even pull up the old store page and
read up about it. As far as Valve is concerned, the game is gone.

Yup. That's pretty much why nowadays I don't trust any Game as a
Service. You just use a service they own, they can do whatever they
want, and all this it's probably written in those long EULAs we
forcefully accepted, the other option being nos using it.

In the end, it's up to the community. Thankfully we still have Classic
Team Fortress 2 without the hats and the graphical downgrade that came
when the game went Free to Play, and we can play Counter-Strike 1.6 and Half-Life Deathmatch, and a lot of other great games that support LAN multiplayer and community servers outside of Steam where companies have
no power over. Best of all: No gaudy looking player / weapon skins,
other than the horrors we load ourselves.

Sorry. After Destiny 2 I have been burned forever. I want my Red War
single player campaign that I payed for, and I am not getting it back.
Lessons were learned that day.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 18:40:54 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<rstowleigh@x-nospam-x.com> wrote:

On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:02:37 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

It's a shitty move and Valve should know better.

----------------
* Apparently there is a hack to get the older game running, but it
only works offline... so what's the point?

A lot of the people that play these games are lazy, jobless gits that
do nothing with their lives BUT play games... and the same things
that make them failures at life are the same things that make them get >addicted to a single game and never move past it....

Well, that's an interesting take...

<snip>

I dunno... if CS2 does everything the old CS games did and does
it well, maybe its a good thing. If it's not as optimized as CS:GO,
then to me it's just a return to old school gaming, because once upon
a time, it was not uncommon to install a game, realize it was a work
of art but that it wasn't running very well due to outdated
components. That was the impetus to upgrade the PC components, which
helped fuel the PC industry and helped fuel PC gaming. The problem
lately is that new games have just plain sucked, and it removes any
motive to upgrade.

While that argument /may/ hold for some games, we're talking
"Counter-Strike" here. It's not a game that's lacking in audience,
interest, or resources from its developer. People /would/ have flocked
to CS2 without Valve killing CS:GO. And if they didn't, it would have
failed on its merits (you know, like if it were missing features)
rather than because - gamers are 'lazy, jobless gits' who aren't
slavering over every newest release because apparently that's they're
duty as gamers. We saw this with previous Valve multiplayer games -
"Left4Dead 2" and "TeamFortress 2" - where the sequel quickly
superseded the original despite the originals remaining available to
play. We see it with many other games too (a good chunk of
Activision's profits depends on "Call of Duty" refreshes).

Sure, there will always be some die-hards who remain with the older
game. Sure, having the older game available will moderate the
transition to the newer game. With smaller games, those losses /might/
spell the doom for the newer which - unable to gain audience fast
enough - never gets any traction in the market. But I can confidently
say that wouldn't have been the case with "Counter-Strike 2".

You'll not convince me that taking away a user's choice was in any way beneficial to the user. Take it off the market? Okay, sure. Make its
store page less easy to find? Well, maybe. But take away a game people
paid for (sure, they got a free copy of CS2 out of it, but CS2 is free
for anyone, so that's not much of a swap)? Fuck you, Valve.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 30 Sep 2023 09:15:26 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 18:40:54 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<rstowleigh@x-nospam-x.com> wrote:

On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:02:37 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson >><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

It's a shitty move and Valve should know better.

----------------
* Apparently there is a hack to get the older game running, but it
only works offline... so what's the point?

A lot of the people that play these games are lazy, jobless gits that
do nothing with their lives BUT play games... and the same things
that make them failures at life are the same things that make them get >>addicted to a single game and never move past it....

Well, that's an interesting take...

<snip>

I dunno... if CS2 does everything the old CS games did and does
it well, maybe its a good thing. If it's not as optimized as CS:GO,
then to me it's just a return to old school gaming, because once upon
a time, it was not uncommon to install a game, realize it was a work
of art but that it wasn't running very well due to outdated
components. That was the impetus to upgrade the PC components, which >>helped fuel the PC industry and helped fuel PC gaming. The problem
lately is that new games have just plain sucked, and it removes any
motive to upgrade.

While that argument /may/ hold for some games, we're talking
"Counter-Strike" here. It's not a game that's lacking in audience,
interest, or resources from its developer. People /would/ have flocked
to CS2 without Valve killing CS:GO. And if they didn't, it would have
failed on its merits (you know, like if it were missing features)
rather than because - gamers are 'lazy, jobless gits' who aren't
slavering over every newest release because apparently that's they're
duty as gamers. We saw this with previous Valve multiplayer games - >"Left4Dead 2" and "TeamFortress 2" - where the sequel quickly
superseded the original despite the originals remaining available to
play. We see it with many other games too (a good chunk of
Activision's profits depends on "Call of Duty" refreshes).

Sure, there will always be some die-hards who remain with the older
game. Sure, having the older game available will moderate the
transition to the newer game. With smaller games, those losses /might/
spell the doom for the newer which - unable to gain audience fast
enough - never gets any traction in the market. But I can confidently
say that wouldn't have been the case with "Counter-Strike 2".

Well there's an old saying, "confidence" is that feeling one gets in
the instant before they learn something new :)

If you think CS2 would have had no problem getting folks to switch, I
can tell say you were absolutely not heavily involved in the switch
from the original CS to CS source... because what I described is
exactly what happened. The number of whiney little bedwetters that
complained about the updated engine and how they were never making the
switch represented a massive portion of the community.

Some of this is just a matter of obstinance, and the fact that by and
large folks that spend all their free time playing games are not very
adaptable people. But a lot of it was simple economics.. newer
versions of things often increase the performance requirements of said
things, and a lot of people take offense when suddenly they are forced
to purchase an upgrade for their 11 year old PC.

You'll not convince me that taking away a user's choice was in any way >beneficial to the user.

I have no doubt of that! (lol) ... we've had conversations like this
before :)

Take it off the market? Okay, sure. Make its
store page less easy to find? Well, maybe. But take away a game people
paid for (sure, they got a free copy of CS2 out of it, but CS2 is free
for anyone, so that's not much of a swap)? Fuck you, Valve.

There's no tangible difference in what Valve did to releasing a new
patch for a game that updates it substantially, and require the
installation / running of that patch to connect to servers.

Are their whiners out there who will spend all of their spare time
complaining when that happens? Absolutely. Is it fair? Well that's
not really for me to judge, but long ago, terms of service for these
kinds of titles were updated to give carte blanche to the game vendor
to update as needed and as they see fit... they have no legal
obligation to leave the graphic assets or overall PC requirements in
the stone age or retain the exact state of the game as originally
shipped.

What has always been fascinating is that PC gaming has always been a
very technology-involved hobby. Yet, a decent percentage of the
population that is drawn to it are fundamentally neo-luddites who
expect technology to stand still -- they don't realize technology is a
never ending hamster wheel.

Is that mindset catastrophically contradictory and just plain stupid? Hooboy.... yep. But its there.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 17:17:04 -0500, candycanearter07 <no@thanks.net>
wrote:

They LITERALLY pulled an Overwatch 2. Incredible.
not that i care that much about CS but still

I was thinking of Warcraft Reforged. When Blizzard released this
updated version, the older one was no longer accessible which pissed
people off.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Mike S. wrote:

was thinking of Warcraft Reforged. When Blizzard released this
updated version, the older one was no longer accessible which pissed
people off.

Goes back even further. Years ago I registered my original serial keys
from Starcraft and Broodwar so that it would allow me to download a
fully patched installer that did not require the original discs all the
time.

Some months ago I decided to go and download it again so that I could
install it on my old Pentium with Windows 98, just for fun, and
surprise: It was gone. They made the Starcraft 1 HD remake available to everybody through the battle.net client, and pulled out the classic
installer.

yep, I had to pirate a game I already own. Not happy about it.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

H1MEM <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote:

Mike S. wrote:

was thinking of Warcraft Reforged. When Blizzard released this
updated version, the older one was no longer accessible which pissed
people off.

Goes back even further. Years ago I registered my original serial keys
from Starcraft and Broodwar so that it would allow me to download a
fully patched installer that did not require the original discs all the
time.

Some months ago I decided to go and download it again so that I could
install it on my old Pentium with Windows 98, just for fun, and
surprise: It was gone. They made the Starcraft 1 HD remake available to everybody through the battle.net client, and pulled out the classic installer.

yep, I had to pirate a game I already own. Not happy about it.

Uh oh. So, if I wanted to play original Diablo 2 then I will have to play its remaster? :/
--
"Though you have not seen [the resurrected Lord Jesus], you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your
souls." --1 Peter 1:8-9. Last Sept. day b4 Oct. with a cold weekend! Damn mosquitoes (they're winning), illnesses, USA, etc.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Ant wrote:

Uh oh. So, if I wanted to play original Diablo 2 then I will have to
play its remaster? :/

I just checked. Well, fudge me. The links for the classic installer have
been removed and now point to the battle net app installer. There's no
way of downloading the Warcraft III and Diablo II setups now, just
adding them to the client.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

H1MEM <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote:

Ant wrote:

Uh oh. So, if I wanted to play original Diablo 2 then I will have to
play its remaster? :/

I just checked. Well, fudge me. The links for the classic installer have
been removed and now point to the battle net app installer. There's no
way of downloading the Warcraft III and Diablo II setups now, just
adding them to the client.

Lame! :(
--
"Though you have not seen [the resurrected Lord Jesus], you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your
souls." --1 Peter 1:8-9. Last Sept. day b4 Oct. with a cold weekend! Damn mosquitoes (they're winning), illnesses, USA, etc.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 30/09/2023 10:34, H1MEM wrote:

Yup. That's pretty much why nowadays I don't trust any Game as a
Service. You just use a service they own, they can do whatever they
want, and all this it's probably written in those long EULAs we
forcefully accepted, the other option being nos using it.

I accept that games as a service have a limited life span whether it's
the company pulling the plug, the direction the game goes or just
running out of other players. That's why I think of any money that goes
into them is effectively lost.

The problem I have with them is that way so many are set-up so that it's
broken the concept of here's a game we think you'll enjoy playing so
give us some money. Now it's, here's a game that we think is tolerable
and we are going to use every trick in the book to make you keep playing
and paying.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 01 Oct 2023 01:45:49 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

H1MEM <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote:

Ant wrote:

Uh oh. So, if I wanted to play original Diablo 2 then I will have to
play its remaster? :/

I just checked. Well, fudge me. The links for the classic installer have
been removed and now point to the battle net app installer. There's no
way of downloading the Warcraft III and Diablo II setups now, just
adding them to the client.

Lame! :(

My CD-ROM version of the game still works, though.

(Or does it? I honestly don't know. I didn't actually check. I assume
it works. Probably not for online play, though. At least not via the
Internet. Local network should still work though. Anyone up for a
Diablo 2 LAN party? ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sunday, October 1, 2023 at 5:28:45 AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sun, 01 Oct 2023 01:45:49 +0000, a...@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

H1MEM <wip...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ant wrote:

Uh oh. So, if I wanted to play original Diablo 2 then I will have to
play its remaster? :/

I just checked. Well, fudge me. The links for the classic installer have >> been removed and now point to the battle net app installer. There's no
way of downloading the Warcraft III and Diablo II setups now, just
adding them to the client.

Lame! :(

My CD-ROM version of the game still works, though.

(Or does it? I honestly don't know. I didn't actually check. I assume
it works. Probably not for online play, though. At least not via the Internet. Local network should still work though. Anyone up for a
Diablo 2 LAN party? ;-)

There's usually tools you can use to do that sort of thing over the
internet too. I remember playing a bout or two of hotseat MoM
over the internet waaay back in the day.

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

H1MEM wrote:

I just checked. Well, fudge me. The links for the classic installer
have been removed and now point to the battle net app installer.
There's no way of downloading the Warcraft III and Diablo II setups
now, just adding them to the client.

Update: I lost 2 hours of sleep tracking the installers for W3 and D2.
Lots of searches for old pages until I found a link, because Blizzard
pulled a nasty search and replace of all the links in the support forum, changing them to point to the battle.net based installer.

The one that I failed to find is Starcraft. I have my original discs and
a community installer with every patch version on one single package,
but I kinda wanted to have the original (I have when something is lost
forever because the owner of the software pulled it).

The removal of the classic installer seems to relate to the game
getting updated and integrated with modern battle.Net. Looks like the
classic battle.net integrated into Starcraft and Diablo II may have been
been fully dropped. But uh, I just want to use it at lanparties.

Still, it's a massive dick move, as depending on the Battle.net client
means that the owner of the service can use DRM to decide in which OSes
the software can run. Steam is removing the ability to run on Windows 7,
and Blizzard has done something similar.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)