
The Making Of Dust (2003) - kodisha
https://www.johnsto.co.uk/design/making-dust/
======
archagon
Good times. I miss the all classic maps that didn’t make the transition:
cs_747, as_oilrig, cs_seige, even the weird es_ maps. Each one is tied to a
series of emotional childhood memories that are no longer accessible due to no
one playing them.

I hate how much less experimental and quirky multiplayer gaming is these days.
Dust2 may be a “good” map, but it’s so freaking boring. Give me weird and
unbalanced over tight and competitive any day.

(Seige returned briefly in Go for an event a few years back. That was really
fun!)

~~~
kodt
Yeah in retrospect those missing maps were terribly unbalanced. They worked at
the time because most people just played to have fun and get kills, and were
less focused on the objective.

Now even in causal mode everyone is focused on the objective and some level of
teamwork. Going solo and not playing the objective will result in much angry
chat and usually a vote kick.

I do miss the more casual nature of CS (and many games) in those days though.

~~~
neetodavid
The shift to matchmaking from server browser changed this a lot. Having a
server where you knew a bunch of regulars and could check in for a few rounds
was a much different experience from being automatically grouped with random
people who you'll probably never run into again.

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dewey
Also interesting, the same about de_dust2 - which is still my favorite map.
Followed by Aztec.

[https://www.johnsto.co.uk/design/making-
dust2/](https://www.johnsto.co.uk/design/making-dust2/)

~~~
throwaway427
There are people to this day that will still grind on dust2 and office for
days on end it seems. It's probably impossible to know but I am sure there are
people who have played those maps 20 thousand times.

~~~
jononor
20k rounds at 2 minute rounds is under 1000 hours. I would expect anyone that
played CS1.6 or CSS seriously to have that on de_dust2. Probably many have
played 20k de_dust2 matches too.

Pretty sure I had well over 1k hours on de_dust2, de_nuke in
practice/competition games alone (not public), and I considered myself a
casual clan player.

EDIT: seems rounds were shorter than I remembered

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throwaway427
Wayyy back in the day there used to be a flashbang bug on dust where you could
throw a bang as a CT over the central corridor and it would flash any Ts
running towards it.

When I needed to make food or just run away from the PC, I would get a P90 and
rush the corridor. It was suicide but you could absolutely wreak havoc with
the high rate of fire.

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enraged_camel
Counterstrike, and de_dust specifically, are perhaps single-handedly
responsible for the rise of the "Internet Cafe culture" in many countries
around the world.

My high school years were consumed by it. After getting off from school at
3:30 PM, we would head to an Internet Cafe and play Counterstrike until 6 or
7, or however long before our parents called the cafe's phone line one by one
to ask the owners to tell us to come home for dinner!

We also played Quake 3 for a while, but it didn't hold our interest the way
Counterstrike did.

~~~
saltedonion
Ah. The Internet cafe. Used to be part of my daily routine with friends as
well. Except I grew up in china and my parents would beat me to shits when
they found out that I went. Good times.

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corysama
If you like this, you can find more at
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/)

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skocznymroczny
I consider CS 1.6 a bit of a phenomenon. I could never get myself into it. I
love most competitive games, shooters included, but CS feels so bland to me.
Everyone plays de_dust, as if there was no other maps. Everyone picks the same
gun (m4a1 for CT, ak for terro, or the sniper rifle), as if there was no other
guns. Also since the maps are fairly linear, the tactics for each round are
basically the same. I could never understand why the game is so popular.

~~~
jetrink
I no longer enjoy first person shooters, but I was a teenager during that era
and loved the game. The lack of variety that you found boring was what made
the game fascinating to me at the time. Its simplicity and repetitive nature
allowed one to achieve mastery through practice. Playing it, I felt the same
feeling that I had after I had played ping pong regularly for several years.

~~~
zeppelin101
Exactly this. The fact that a few maps and weapons dominated CS is what made
it so unique, because you were forced to learn those few maps and weapons in
extreme detail. When people couldn't distract themselves with fancy, shiny
other things, they were forced to master those fewer things that were
available (or were practical) and that many others had already mastered to a
greater level than you. Your skill gap was was blatantly apparent to you and
others, so you were very motivated to resolve your shortcomings.

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saltupz
Aah! Good old de_dust! Still remember fondly the times when CS was played with
all my friends, we had a clan and gamed as much as we could. Had a nostalgia
moment some time back, ut then i found out they had discontinued clanbase.org.
That really sucked, since hundreds, if not thousands of matched were recorded
there. Would love to get a hold of the original database so i could poke
around and search for old matches.

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auxym
If any of you played Firearms (one of the other popular HL mods at the time),
this screenshot (apparently of an unreleased TF2) just has to remind you of
Durandal:

[https://www.johnsto.co.uk/i/design/making-
dust/tf2_01.jpg](https://www.johnsto.co.uk/i/design/making-dust/tf2_01.jpg)

~~~
vvanders
Firearms, Frontline Force, and may others.

I feel like Half-Life was in some way the perfect inflection point of PC mods
where the experience was compelling but the art/content requirements weren't
outside of the scale of hobby/indie teams.

------
jdubs
Countless lan parties which were dominated by either de_dust or bgh.

------
dang
From 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9772521](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9772521)

------
Insanity
When I think of CS:S (not surfing) I'd think of de_dust2 and cs_office. But,
of the many many hours playing CS:S, my favourite map has to be
surf_greatriver.

I've got well over 2k hours on that map alone (and later versions, such as
surf_greatriver_xdream)

CS:S is one of my favourite games ever made - but I don't like GO that much.
CS:S gave you more of what I liked (skins, maps, decent server browser, active
surf community, good surf mods, ..)

~~~
k__
CS:S was after my time. I played CS from beta4 until ... I don't know.

I liked italy and dust the most.

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cagenut
Hey if any of you are nostalgic for good old CS and have the money/space for a
nice VR setup check out Pavlov. Its basically CS:VR. The first time you walk
around dust/dust2 is pretty mind blowingly surreal.

~~~
cjsawyer
I personally just spent the whole weekend with it. Not bad for $10 on steam!

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anon2775
We played the beta and first release of CS in college (UCD). Ah the memories
of AWP and skywalking (jumping up on crates with aid of a buddy and walking on
top of the map's bounding box "sky").

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roflchoppa
Man I still have my cs 1.5.5 bootleg CD with podbot (and a key that works?) so
many good memories of playing after school. I always liked the AWP maps, and
the twin towers, tree tops, and who can forget de_rats?

~~~
saltedonion
Hahahha de_rats. That’s a classic. So many good memories

------
mproud
(2003)

~~~
dang
Added. Thanks!

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vtesucks
Needs to be remade in: Rust

