I'm pretty sure if Valve released an Arena Shooter with all the marketing, competitive features and hype that CSGO had it would be doing pretty well too.

Big ol splash images on the steam store, tournaments, some sort of skin system that gets the casuals frothing at the mouth and a ranking system that makes people desperate to flaunt their elo/rank.

We'd have zoot in his finest threads conducting interviews with some amazing new players at a lan 10x the size of quakecon and cypher would be fighting off the poontang and adoring fans with a tennis racket

agree with all points but even csgo was gradually declining in userbase at the beginning. What changed?

I dont play CS but from what I could tell Valve started listening to everything the community was whining about and gradually changed or removed the stuff that 1.6 and CSS players hated CSGO for until they had nothing left to bitch about.

An actual CS player could probably give you a more accurate answer

Sort of, the game play from a Source/1.6 perspective is still a massive fucking mess, the most recent patch they did was complete noob catering too which has upset a lot of people.

It's much improved from beta for sure, but the issue now is that the huge majority of players never played an older CS game and like the game how it is, which is halfway from being transformed from a poor CoDified game in to a real CS game.

But yeah while the game play improving helped the main reason for the popularity has been the cosmetics system I think, the player base is far larger than any previous CS game for sure so it's not just the old players all coming back.

Skins.

You can gamble with images - how cool is that?
Fuck the game.
Skins.
- Gaben

There are plenty of reasons, a random dude can probably pick 10 random ones from the top of his head and be right. To keep it simple and nail the biggest one: investments. The company who made it actually put and puts money and effort into it.

Anyway don't think it's the difficulty of the game per se, but it's the pace that people actually refer to. Slower game is easier to process and more intuitive.

valve

The game-world makes sense, which instantly makes it more approachable. You have real-world weapons, 'realistic' environments and hit-detection. How many new players do you think tried to head-shot in Quake Live? How many complain about the MG being too weak? Quake is a more abstract game, which makes it harder to approach.

Also the game's goal is pretty clear: if you're on team counter-terrorist you have to kill the terrorists, if you're on team terrorist you have to plant your bomb or eliminate team counter-terrorist. Simple. Quake's goal is clear too--frag more than you are fragged, but how you achieve it is not quite clear. You have to collect weapons and cycle the armours (which means timing, something new players have a hard time doing). Also there's the unexplained strafe-jumping . . .

Not to mention there's more things to interest you in CS:GO with skins and whatnot. Since I started playing CS:GO recently (my first CS game) it struck me just how isolating Quake Live is--the only game I had been playing prior to picking up CS:GO. If you play QL you generally connect to a server, play a few games, say the usual "glhf"s, and "gg"s, then /disconnect and /quit. There's little human interaction, whilst in CS:GO you can actually have a conversation with multiple people in-game.

Not to mention CS:GO's main competitive gametype is a team mod--not 1v1.

I don't know, there's probably a lot of reasons for CS:GO's popularity and QL's lack of it. Valve isn't the significant factor I don't think. It's just the type of game CS:GO is that affects such popularity--it's easily comprehensible, and team-oriented with features that support team interaction, like voip.

skins/crate system

-money made from esports crates funded $250,000 tournaments
-casuals love skins even competitors like skins now
-gambling
-valve gives crate drops for people who watch the major 250k tournaments, seriously people get rewarded for watching tournaments, what other fps does this?


its honestly just skins, because before skins, csgo was doing pretty meh. there are huge streamers that just open cases and giveaway skins, they rarely even play the actual game. this in turn promotes the game. i played comp yesterday and went an abysmal 7-22 but at the end of the match i got a chroma case. it helped me feel better about my shitty gameplay lol

In general the microtransaction systems are the reason the big games rigth now are at the top. look at the top 4 games on twitch: csgo, dota 2, LoL, and hearthstone. all are f2p/very cheap and rely heavily on microtransactions. All 4 games also have huge population of players.

even fifa/madden games are using microtransactions with the player packs and there are literally youtubers that get millions of views just opening player packs.

They put some effort into what they were and are doing.

cs has been popular since q3, way before valve was involved and was making 'investments' in the game. it's a fun game with a rigid structure and well defined goals that gives people something to work for. if anything, valve's initial contributions and changes to the game (condition zero, source, etc.) contributed to a decline in its popularity.

cs:go is a great balance between modern graphics and functionality and cs fundamentals. there are great spectating features built in, demo watching is very enjoyable and informational and useful, and...dedicated servers? lan? these are all things that the quake live developers should pay attention to.

Every game should have an interface like the one in CS:GO, casual and competitive modes that have the same key game mechanics, pro games right on the home screen and skins which I'm not personally bothered about (after buying a few keys) but seem to be pretty bloody popular. Oh and they have all the achievements which give you skins and stuff which seem to go down well in gaming nowadays.

We need skins then.

... and i want crates like in worms armagedon, so i can get the black and green gauntlet called the shrekenator and sell it on steam for $$$$$

yea this was in the lines of what i was thinking. Even though i never cared for skins it seems to have brought a lot of new players into csgo. I always thought first impressions in a game were everything but csgo changed all that. There are many games that have actually turned out to be well polished and overall a great game after a few months from the initial release but this usually only sustains the community for shorter while, not revive it completely and make it come back stronger then ever. So i'm thinking it may have had more to do with skins than actually making the game better.

Ignorance.

Cosmetics

I don't know if cosmetics by itself would though, the trading/betting community is giant in CS:GO

Simply because its easier and simpler. You don't need good movement. You only have to focus on shooting.

Towards the top (think professionals) movement becomes kinda important, I'd guess. But on the bottom (casuals) basic WASD will probably be enough for some enjoyable games.
In any Quake game you gonna get ass-raped though if you don't know how to strafe.

But in reality that doesn't change a thing: QL never had a working skill-system/matchmaking to begin with and the constant tier-slumming didn't help either. So basically any newcomer to Quake is gonna get ass-raped anyways.

Same thing will happen to any Quake clone (e.g. reflex): There won't be enough new players, so instead of slowly improving and getting better amongst themselves, they will constantly get raped by people who have been playing this game for up to two decades.

cooller

TF2.

Cos some people are bonkers!

Start with loadoits and no bueno gameplay and bamm great for the masses

Easy to get kills and not very frustrating gameplay for beginners

Community servers with alternative gameplay

Cosmetics and trading

Very healthy competitive scene


If quake went full Valve the weak point would be the game is difficult to pick up for beginners. Higher TTK with faster movement, emphasizing tracking aim which is harder than flick. Additionally harder to use weapons (projectiles). As a beginner you're kind of fucked if you don't come in with naturally good aim.

CS was the first game I played competitively back in the days and I later switched to quake as CS got slower and slower due to Valve's changes. I basically started playing it late in beta 5.2 and I also played some UT/Q2/Q3 just for fun back then. I'll give you my take on why CS is so much more popular than Quake.

General setting:
The major difference between Quake and CS is that Quake puts a lot more focus the individual while CS is more teamoriented. This includes the team modes in Quake, which differ from CS in that the flow in quake is much more dynamic and you have both offence and defense in the same round, except for capture strike. CS has very little health so a lucky moment can be enough to get a kill, especially since people can't regain their health during a round. In Quake you can meet up with the guy who picked up all the armors and you end up running out of ammo, before he dies, unless your aim is good. Even killing a 125/0 player can be quite a challenge for a newbie in quake. You also die a ton of times per minute in Quake compared to CS, which takes some time to get used to for new players. CS also has community controlled servers, which run "favorites" map rotation, have predictable admins and you often see the same people in those servers. With the QL way of doing it, the players get spread out over a lot of servers so you don't build communities in-game. To access the Quake community you must find the IRC channels or a few obscure web-sites.

Flow of the maps in public servers:
-The maps in CS promote teamplay as there are usually just a few chokepoints in which the attacking team must pass through so people instinctively cooperate. As the maps are based much more on the real world, there is an intuitiveness to them that Quake maps lack. There are also logical defensive positions for the defending team so people gather there and help each other out. Even players with little experience will find good positions and paths after a few hours of play, just by watching others.
- In Quake the maps have a dynamic flow and offense must be balanced with defense on every map. There are no intuitive defensive or offensive posistions where the team gathers, as even in CTF most of the team is attacking. It takes a lot of experience to get decent positioning in all modes of quake and advantageous positions must be learned for each each mode and map based on playing. In CS you can often see the positions, just by running around the map a few times, as they were created by the mapper instead of play styles.

Weapons:
-In CS you purchase weapons, instead of picking them up, which lets people focus on 3-4 weapons and get good with them and all weapons are high powered hitscan with varying degree of accuracy. This means you have a weapon you are comfortable with most of the time. Due to the low health and headshots, a cheap pistol can be as effective in the hands of a beginner in CS as a 25% LG is in quake.
-Quake has a lot of weapons and most of them are projectile, which involves 4 dimensions while aiming (x,y,z and time). Most of the time you have to pick up your weapons and you seldom get one you like, so a lot of the time you run around with a weapon that you have a really hard time getting frags with, until you learn most of the weapons. Wouldn't be surprised if half the players currently on the QL servers are still terrible with PG.

General skill level and playerbase:
The difference between a complete newbie and a somone with a little experience is much higher in Quake than in CS. Add that to the tiny playerbase of Quake and you have a situation where only those willing to die over and over without getting a frag are going to stick around. There is also a much higher chance that you play with people your skill level. Also you play what your friends play. If all your friends play CS but none play Quake, will you play quake alone or CS with your friends?

"Also you play what your friends play. If all your friends play CS but none play Quake, will you play quake alone or CS with your friends?"

Quake, alone. Which I do since like '96.

- lot easier to learn the movement, cause there is none
- matchmaking
- matchmaking again
- and guess what: matchmaking
- doesnt look as outdated as ql
- almost working anticheat
- valve is not using drunk children for PR work

- lot easier to learn the movement, cause there is none

hahahaha. no. Some of the movement is actually pretty tricky but you can still have fighting chances and fun(!), even if your movement is very basic.

EVERYONE RUSH B
NO STOP!!!!!!!
DON'T STOP NOOBS!
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE LYAT!

gr8 b8 m8, r8 8/8.

steam sales: buy the game 24 times so you can cheat and get caught 23 times and still be able to play

My favourite!

being a good competitive fps game //thread

So wwhat the hell made league of legends so popular!? 70 million users a month... 150 million a year... 27 million a day...

Accessibility.

Variety.

I asked an actual LoL player once why she played LoL and her reply was "because I can dress my character up and make him do a cute little dance"

Then tell her that pantomime with keels is priceless. <3


She can even "dress" them up in every color of the hex-chart.

Ignorance.

No offense but CS and quake shouldn't be compared. If there's one thing you can compare them by its the joy of surprise tactics.

In CS rushing and slaughtering 4 or more enemies by yourself gives much instant gratification. Unfortunately those runs don't happen consistently and the skill required to accomplish such a tactic is check every corner, have consistent weapon control and aim.......

Quake is more rewarding in every way. More fun to... Unless you take it too serious and throw fits.

Skins

Headshots, Skins.

QL has headshots now!

Marketing money and a not completely dumb business model.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1s2IVGkw5U&feature=youtu.be

1) many people tried out the game after they saw the majors/dreamhack/etc

2) skins kept people from leaving the game after they started playing

3) the skins keep active players invested in the game because they may of hundreds/thousands of dollars worth in skins on their account

4) good maps and gameplay fixes actually came out for cs:go, it was by far the worst version of the game when it came out but now its probably the best in terms of core gameplay mechanics

" its probably the best in terms of core gameplay mechanics"

its actually the worst, by far.

5) Betting

its probably the best in terms of core gameplay mechanics

Who told you that? Gaben?

no competition

halo-dead
gears-dead
cod-dying
l4d-dead

numbers will start dropping once there's some good competition(treyarch cod, halo5, and l4d3 are the games most likely to pull from the cs population)

most of those games are only gonna pull from the most retarded 20% of CS:GO's playerbase, maybe a decent arena shooter would take some good players out of the game

lol! no competition? Maybe as far as a competitive team oriented FPS goes, but for pubbing the average casual has never had more options.

What options?
Quake Live? : )))

I think QL should have been the CS:GO version of Q3. Like QL could be as big if the opportunity was grasped by id and taken seriously. The whole "throw your money at guns and skins" shit is truly addicting. I got a case, immidiately wanted to buy a key to open the bitch, next thing u know 10 cases down and im stuck with some shitty shotgun. stopped playing that game then.

homosexuality

ITT:
people being bad at cs and complaining :(

There is no shame in not sucking dirty hobo's dick!

I believe it's popular because it's weapon recoil and straightforward approach can be grasped very easily. The way the game looks and plays physically, the sounds and netcode is all very tuned and pleasing. It's got history, with players who can recount playing the beta releases; the vehicle days. In many ways CS and quake are of the same blood. After all, Half-Life was just the modified quake engine.

I recently went back to playing csgo, and tbh I haven't played much since the old CS days. Source felt different in a very bad way... Csgo feels much closer to the original. I remembered why I liked the game in the first place yesterday (although I'll always prefer quake), mostly it's the team play and social aspect that draws me in. Being a decent player helps the enjoyment too.

Anyways, quake or some other afps can achieve the same success as counter strike again but for now we are stuck in limbo waiting for the right people to make the right move. Maybe doom 4 will be that game? Who knows? There's plenty of good entertainment but nothing beats 1999.

I played the original Counter-Strike more than 10 years ago and I have to say that CS is one of those easy to learn shooters. Furthermore, it is just fun! Many people who've played the game before also want a dose of nostalgia.

Did you know that Counter-Strike was THE game to beat back then? I live in a country with a lot of computer shops and if your computer shop didn't have Counter-Strike installed, you were bound to lose a lot of customers. The game was THAT popular.

CS's design is good, they just need to update the graphics and the game will still be popular.

I would bet that in 10 years a CS game will still be at the top of competitive FPS games.

In my opinion video games are a bit like "real" sports: popular "designs" (football, basketball, tennis...) will always be played while only the accessories change (shoes, balls...).