
"What I Miss About Counterstrike" - Blog authored by CSS legend JonMumm - janineyoong
http://eseanews.com/css/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=10446
======
gwern
If I may, David Foster Wallace (as so often) said it better:

> “But it’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the
> professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular
> thing…the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them:
> basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves,
> defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or
> explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and
> primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to
> consider what impoverishments in one’s mental life would allow people
> actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way”up
> close and personal" profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find
> evidence of a rounded human life — outside interests and activities, values
> beyond the sport. We ignore what’s obvious, that most of this straining is
> farce. It’s farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require
> an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A
> subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent
> and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child’s world, is
> very small…[Tennis player Michael] Joyce is, in other words, a complete man,
> though in a grotesquely limited way…Already, for Joyce, at twenty-two, it’s
> too late for anything else; he’s invested too much, is in too deep. I think
> he’s both lucky and unlucky. He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him
> well."

[http://www.esquire.com/print-this/the-string-
theory-0796?pag...](http://www.esquire.com/print-this/the-string-
theory-0796?page=all)

(A quote I come back to on occasion, thinking about my essay
[http://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20So...](http://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20Society)
)

~~~
jodrellblank
_He will say he is happy and mean it. Wish him well."_

What's that supposed to mean? He will say he is happy and mean it, but really
he isn't?

DFW committed suicide, I don't hold him as a great authority on what kinds of
happiness are 'valid'.

~~~
arctangent
DFW is comparing one-dimensional geniuses to people who are retarded in some
way. (Mental, emotional, social... take your pick.)

The person is happy only because they're so oblivious to the things that
they're missing out on, and their very nature prevents them from gaining this
knowledge.

Were they able to know what they were missing then they might not be so happy
with their limited existence.

~~~
praptak
> Were they able to know what they were missing then they might not be so
> happy with their limited existence.

Attaching any weight to what you're missing out is a guaranteed way to make
you unhappy and has nothing to do with what you do in life. Even with
unlimited resources you'll miss out on most things that require huge time
commitment, like being a pro athlete.

------
jiggy2011
I spent a fair amount of my youth playing counterstrike and still have fond
memories of it. I also learned to program roughly around the same time and
found the later far more fulfilling in the long run. I learned skills in
programming in those years that I still use today, but whenever I even touch a
public counter strike (source) server these days I get hopelessly owned by a
new generation.

I now see video games as pure downtime in the same way as watching a movie or
something, I used to be very competitive and my scores in public servers and
clan matches deeply mattered, despite all of this I really wish I had spent
more of my CS time learning programming or taking up a completely different
hobby (e.g real sport or music). I sometimes wonder where I would be now if I
had spent that time doing something else. The problem with video games is that
you are spending your time perfecting something that is useful only in a very
specific virtual world which can be radically changed or even destroyed at any
time. A very small minority of people may become "professional gamers" but for
the most part it feels like almost completely wasted time in hindsight.

Will it make you money? No Will it get you laid? No Will it help you express
yourself? No Will it make you healthy and fit? No Will it better mankind in
some manner? No

I'm not hating on video games, just if you are going to spend that amount of
time becoming _awesome_ at something it does seem like a very poor choice.

~~~
mumm
I always knew there were more worthwhile pursuits and that's why, in
hindsight, I struggle to accept the time I spent playing. But I never felt
like it was downtime.

I knew I was building skills that I would use again someday. It wasn't about
trying to be the best at shooting a gun in a virtual world. It was about
outthinking and outmaneuvering my opponent. Analyzing details and figuring out
the best strategy.

It was never about my score, it was about how well my team did. CS taught me a
lot about working with other people. Managing and recruiting talent,
motivating people, and keeping everybody happy.

~~~
Periodic
I believe the single most important thing I've learned from playing
competitive online games is how to manage the morale of a group. When you have
30-minute experiments, mostly self-contained, it's amazing how easy it is to
see how one denigrating comment can ruin a whole match because it ruins the
teams cohesion and teamwork. A few well-placed bits of praise, a little
humility, and a little leadership will trump raw skill most of the time.

It's a lesson I'm glad I've learned, and now I can use online games as a way
to practice.

------
noobface
I started competitive play at 15, eventually peaking at 18 with 2 CPL
showings. I probably played vs. juan at a couple LANs.

The amount of focus, time, and sheer mental fortitude required showed me what
it took to truly master something. When I could drop 35 kills in a half in a
tournament, or kill 10 people in a round in a pub, I understood my level of
commitment had led to that success.

I spent the past few years at a telecom/networking company doing sales as an
engineer. Multi-million dollar deals, complex designs and high-stress
situations. Learning to communicate only what was relevant and necessary,
eliminating all extraneous information, was essential to success. My co-
workers looked to me to quickly prioritize targets, shift strategy, and keep
morale high as we focused on the end goal of closing.

Counter-strike taught me that. No other "group project" or random nonsense in
college prepared me to work with the most highly regarded and ardent
professionals in the world. My team would put egos aside, drop all sense of
the individual, and focus on beating an enemy that was composed of the very
same caliber.

It taught me the value of "ideal scenarios" or "how it's supposed to work".
The immaculate plans leading up to a meeting, that required innumerable
changes during practical execution. Without the ability to communicate as
fluidly as possible between individuals any slight shift in the plan would
create utter confusion and chaos, quickly exploited by a foe just begging for
you to make a mistake.

I'd like to grab a beer with JonMumm. There's just something about the high-
level Counter-Strike people that has reassured me that there are others out
there can place so much of themselves into something that it doesn't become
second nature, it becomes you.

------
windsurfer
CSS being counter strike: source, though he may be talented at using cascading
style sheets as well.

~~~
yahelc
Ahh. The whole time I was wondering: "How is this guy a legend at both
counterstrike and cascading stylesheets?"

------
sev
To be the best at anything, means that you must live abnormally and do
abnormal things. This is why being the best at everything is nearly
impossible, since each thing to master would require different kinds of
abnormalities and different ways of living abnormally.

This is why you find "geniuses" in a particular field, like math, or music,
and they're usually not-so-genius in most other fields. "Genius" is attainable
in my book, it's a matter of being focused and "putting your mind to it" as
the article states, and this focus and "putting your mind to it" require being
and doing abnormal things.

~~~
jaggederest
That's what makes the old-school polymaths like Goethe and Von Neumann so
amazing to me - they not only did it in a single field, but many, all
relatively simultaneously.

~~~
sev
Many, which are very closely related. Computer science and mathematics are
essentially one and the same, or maybe a subset of another (as an example)

~~~
kevinalexbrown
Goethe did more than math or CS.

------
kang
There is a place called Kota in India. It is a hub of coaching institutes
trying to assist highschool students get admission into top engineering and
medical colleges(IIT,AIIMS) of India.

>5000 hours of counterstrike is pretty common game-time that students living
there spend and you would easily find >25000 kids of age 15-16 such types.
Millions of students go there each year. Competition is so tough that hardly
top 2% get admissions into IITs.

As a result, >90% do not study.

You see them playing they are experts! Most of them don't even know how to log
into a server. The cybercafe would set up the LAN for them. All they do is
play, all the time. As per rule the shops are supposed to close after 11 pm.
But these shops have eating/smoking and toilet arrangements inside. They pull
down the shutter, as if the shop is closed from 11 to 6. Students stay
'voluntarily trapped' inside for a LAN party at a discounted rate of 1-2$ for
the whole night. Once the course is over, the gig is too. they go back to
their hometowns, never playing again.

I work in Delhi and I see clans participating and even winning international
competitions like WCG. But even the gameplay of the best, is only at par
average as per Kota standards.

All this time spent for happiness, curing boredom. Rajasthan would be the
biggest consumer of CS, DoTA, Tekken, AoE if pirated stuff is counted for.

~~~
manish_gill
Wow, never knew that about Kota. Had a friend who lived there for a year for
IIT studies. He himself admits that he never once attended a single class and
was mostly just having fun. Counter Strike in India is certainly big. I only
wish Starcraft 2 was as well.

Oh, and can you tell me where in Delhi do these tournaments happen? I don't
play much CS but earlier on in school, all I could think about was being a
pro-gamer!

------
cdk
Thanks for the great article. Counter Strike was the game that really got me
interested in programming. I got introduced to it in early 2000 and was blown
away that this game was made by hobbyists who created a mod (expansion
package) for Half Life which in itself was revolutionary at the time.
Eventually Valve acquired Counter Strike and the rest is history. I still
think fondly of the many hours spent on de_dust and cs_assault.

~~~
wbrendel
Counter-Strike was what really got me into programming too, in the form of
several small programs that added some neat functionality to CS and other HL
mods. As a high school student it was pretty amazing to have tens of thousands
of people using the software I was writing.

If you used any of the programs I wrote or know anyone who did, I guess I owe
you an apology. One of the programs, Half-Life Sound Selector (HLSS), annoyed
countless people by allowing players to blast WAV files over the voice comm
system. Really, really annoying. Another program, HLirc, interfaced with HL
and mIRC, letting you chat in IRC using the game's console, until VAC started
detecting it (incorrectly) as a cheat and banned you that is. The other
program was a Winamp plugin called HLamp. It let you control Winamp from
inside the game and even tell others what song you were listening to. My
favorite feature: automatically turning the volume up/down when you
died/respawned. Of course the VAC eventually detected HLamp as a cheat too.

Anyway, sorry if I got your WON/Steam account banned!

Good memories :)

~~~
cantbecool
Oh man, HLSS was crazy back then. I can't believe you created that. I just
remember every one playing Bannaphone or Jim Carrey yelling at the top of his
lungs. Those were the days.

------
baby
I think I'm also very close to those 10.000 hours in cs 1.6. I can really
relate to this guy story. I don't think many people will ever experience that
adrenaline you get when you're in high level competition. That is sport or
esport. It's like a first girl friend, I will never experience that feeling
again and that kind of makes me sad.

I know I've wasted a big part of my life playing this game, but I don't regret
because of that competition feeling, that stress, that happiness when you win
a tournament, that solidarity between players of the same team, the nights
spend training and practicing...

~~~
mattbot5000
If you enjoyed the time, did you really waste it?

------
intended
Gaming taught me a lot and made my life better. I was depressed and with few
positive catalysts. Warcraft 3 made me play with other people, meet people who
I am friends with today and also taught me to be excellent.

I got to compete, set up a clan which trained other people, and held
tournaments, and taught me how to take responsibility for my team. Like
someone else mentioned, I learnt how to maintain morale, how to take on the
jobs no one liked and to excel at them. Having people have faith in your
strategy, making people follow your plan, knowing how important it is to even
have one, no matter how bad, I learnt that from gaming.

But above all, like the OP, i learnt what it means to be the best at
something. I look back at that time and am glad I did it. It helped me start
building myself back up and taught me the basics of team work which I use
everyday.

------
bprater
League of Legends has become my modern-day Counter-Strike. The buzz the author
mentions is exactly the buzz I get playing the game over hundreds of hours.
The rules of the game are fairly simple -- and inside of that simplicity a
desire for perfection emerges. It's fun and challenging -- likely why I'm a
programmer, too.

~~~
dingfeng_quek
LOL is many more times more complex than CS. If you are weird, try running
game-theory and stochastic simulation models. Try to optimize things like item
builds, team-movement/formation, engagement sequence, allocation of champions
to lanes at various times, allocation of gold/farm to champions. And then to
apply it.

------
taylorfausak
Based on the title, I expected Jon to explain the things he missed about
Counter-Strike, the game, with respect to Counter-Strike: Source (CSS), the
sequel. That's not what this is about. It's a retrospective on his career as a
professional CS player.

I then wondered why he didn't pick up another game or hobby. Turns out, he
did. "Earlier this year I stumbled my way in to the world of tech startups."

------
cliftonk
I played with and against him for years. His old teammate n0it was chatting
with me on facebook for a while about my start-up-turned-company as he uses
our software on his campus. I had not talked to either of them for a few years
at minimum.

Jon's a great guy. Good read. Very surprised I saw something like this on HN.
Small world, eh?

------
kaichanvong
Having read this, there are so many skills you can pick up from the gaming
culture that helps you integrate with working as a programmer.

He probably knows how to do scripting from IRC... maybe he's written a bot or
knows how a bot works from IRC. I remember lots of bots that work in different
way and what you can learn from watching it run.

At 16 I remember seeing my very first bot and being amazed by it. The problem
was that I was on a Windows box and everyone around me was on Linux. Then the
problem was which language did I pick. Then the problem was that the most
popular language was a bitch to install... then there was the problem I had no
idea what the error was and if it was something I had done.

Oh the list goes on.

What I'm trying to say is, not everything is a waste. Knowing when something
is valuable enough to spend time of is a skill in its self.

+1 procrastination proclaimer

~~~
littledude
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAx7Npsrin4&t=4m30s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAx7Npsrin4&t=4m30s)

same for designers as well lol

------
whunut
Interesting. I thought this would be a critique of modern day first person
shooters.

~~~
cliftonk
Modern day first person shooters provide an immersive, story-driven single
player experience, but have gameplay that cannot make for a decent competitive
platform.

~~~
vl
Surely you are aware that Halo 3 with variants and COD:MW with variants are
the most successful online FPSes of all time? Both were also criticized for
shallow single player stories, not on par with previous versions.

~~~
aspensmonster
Well, to be fair, COD is an RPG. If you have to farm and craft for 20 hours to
get a decent weapon, you're not playing an FPS. Halo on the other hand is a
different story :D

------
muffs
Wow.

It's a great feeling, being the 'best' or better than the majority. I've also
experienced the void created after deciding to move on. I still feel as though
I'm on an endless search to find something that I can be as passionate about.

Thanks for the great read!

------
junto
Looking back to a few years ago, I would actually say that I was addicted to
CS. Playing matches in a clan is a sure fire way to drive the addiction
because it becomes hard to leave without letting your teammates down.

Luckily, due to Steam's awful user account tools via the client and the
website, I am unable to recover my Steam password. The only way to recover it
is to deface the CD box by writing the support ticket number on it, taking a
photograph of that defacement and the product key and then sending that photo
to their support email address. Then they will reset your password.

You know what, I'm really not that bothered!

------
mafro
"all of a sudden I'm in a de_dust pub server and I just picked up my first
mp5"

Ahh the memories..

------
deepkut
Few news articles (even on HN) 'move' me, but this one did. To all those whom
were among the best at a popular game, you understand.

Some interesting comments: like whether playing CS, or any other game, is
"worth it." I agree with kejadlen, "does it make you happy?" Though heroin, at
some point in time, makes addicts "happy." One thing is for certain though,
the feeling of mastery gets harder and harder to find later in life, at least
with regards to professions or wealth.

------
DutGRIFF33
Wow. Nicely said. I help out with Ninja Girl's party in D2 which is a Counter
Strike Source server and I never hear anything about Counter Strike outside of
the server anymore. I am curious to see what Counter Strike Global Offensive
will be like. Our server is the most popular in the US and I am pretty sure we
can keep that status in CS:GO. I am kinda hoping it brings the spotlight back
to CS.

------
ggwicz
_"When you pursue something difficult, eventually you have to make a choice
between being balanced, normal, and conventional, and being different, weird,
and exceptional. I chose the latter."_

Wow. You are _not_ a normal writer. More writing needs to come from the heart
like this. I don't even care about video games and loved this article.

------
tsotha
tl;dr: You can do anything you want to do, but you can't do _everything_ you
want to do.

------
kgosser
Love the shoutout to Aaron Rodgers! lol

But seriously, as a former Cal-I vet myself, I know exactly what he's talking
about. And I can relate to how it feels like that in the world of start-ups.

In my opinion, a lot of it has to do with the book "FLOW". We should all go
read it.

Good stuff!

------
erikb
What is a stratcaller?

~~~
Simucal
The equivalent of a team captain or quarterback. As the situation of a match
unfolds the stratcaller will do just that, call out different strategies and
make decisions about what the other members should do.

------
rkon
Cliff notes: being great at something requires spending a lot of time on it.

Not exactly groundbreaking insight, and I disagree entirely with the assertion
that such dedication makes one "weird". Any sane person would be jealous of
someone who's so passionate about their career that they gladly dedicate
signifant effort to mastering it. The fact that he chose to spend 10,000+
hours mastering Counter Strike is the "weird" part, although I'd personally
love to see gaming become more accepted here as a professional sport.

~~~
sray
I think you're missing the point. It's not about becoming great at something.
It's about being exceptional at _one_ thing. It's about spending every moment
of your life either practicing or thinking about that thing, to the detriment
of everything and everyone else. It's about being possessed with the desire to
be the best. And that _is_ weird, by definition - only a small fraction of
people have such dedication to one pursuit. It's not just passion - it's
obsession.

And, in the end, it's the feeling you get when you've attained that level of
mastery, and the hollowness you feel when you give it up to focus on a more
balanced life.

Many people would be jealous of someone with such skill, but few would envy
the work and the exclusionary lifestyle required to get there.

------
robbiet480
Oh Janine, you so funny.

~~~
janineyoong
Not trying to be funny. I posted this because this is the best thing I've read
of Jon's - and I felt there was something universally resonant about the sweet
pain of aspiring to greatness. What I didn't expect were the multiple comments
from those who play or used to play CS and draw lessons that apply to
programming and teamwork. If CS produces colleagues like Jon, then more
please.

