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CS: Global Offensive Beta Is Updated… Yet Again

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While Counter-Strike and Dota get weekly beta updating, Ricochet gets a… decennially update schedule; and don’t even get me started on Gunman Chronicles and Half-Life.

CS: Global Offensive Beta Is Updated… Yet Again

Valve is at it today, with a lengthy blog post summing up the state of the beta:

The beta so far has been great and being a great beta means it has been rocky. We have had crashes, we have had bugs, and we have had great feedback that has changed the game. All of that makes sense. This is a game in development, a development you are part of. […]

Some feedback we simply act on, others we will look at the cause of the problem, and some we will get more data on. No feedback is ignored. For some feedback, we simply want to collect more data. How are the changes in money working? Let’s have people play and then analyze the changes. Other bits are straight forward. Lengthen the rounds in Arsenal: Demolition. Sure, makes sense. You will see that change this week.

Other bug reports are simple and tucked away. There is a bug with the scoreboard. Yep. Thanks for reporting it. We now know it is there and will fix it, we just have more important bugs to fix first. Some are like fog or weapons. They are ongoing. For example, we have again adjusted the fog level in all maps with this update. You also helped us identify a bug in the particle systems that we will update next week. […] We are consuming the feedback. We are listening to all and acting on some.

Thanks again for all the feedback; we do read it. If it is a discussion, we normally do not like to voice our opinion on the forums because it is much more interesting to see the community work through the problem. This is why we suggest posting bugs to the forums. The discussion and solutions always get better with more people looking at them.

Enjoy this week’s update which includes Italy and chickens.

Chet Faliszek probably wrote this – and well said to him. Some people are being too harsh on CS:GO – it’s a work in progress, and it’s nowhere near done. We’re lucky to even be able to play it right now. Give it some time, and Valve and Hidden Path will make this a great product in time.

That said, I do feel like Valve might be pushing too much stuff out at the same time. It might work for Dota, where the differences between Dota 2 and Dota 1 are negligible, so the feedback isn’t as multifaceted – but for something like CS:GO, where it’s almost completely different from… just about every previous Counter-Strike ever released, discretion with the amount of content released weekly is advised. This update is the best example of that – while it’s great that we’re getting lots of content – having to sift through a bunch of other stuff (and don’t even get me started on the quickmatch-default thing) when one still wants to analyze recent additions can really turn into a chore.

In any case, this week’s update (the full changelog can be found here) includes a new map for Classic Mode: the beloved CS_Italy, using the Hostage Rescue game type. Not that many actual map changes, but the visuals and cosmetic alterations make this thing total eye candy. Plays just as well as it did before, and it now has dynamic chickens. Like… literally, the chickens move around, all over the map. Thank you so much, Valve. There’s just one problem. THERE’S NO MUSIC.

This update also features a new Arsenal Demolition map, DE_StMarc, which takes place… in Haiti or something. If Arsenal Demolition’s DE_Lake was CS_Militia in spirit, then St. Marc is, without a doubt, the classic CS_Havana in spirit. Much like Lake, it is actually originally based on a Left 4 Dead map – here, it’s “Plank Country”, chapter 1 of L4D2’s “Swamp Fever” campaign. Of course, St. Marc and Plank Country are almost completely different maps, and the changes across both are immense, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Arsenal Demolition itself has been extended – each match is now 10 rounds, and each game is now 20 matches in total. 

And, there’s also DE_Dust2_SE, a new rendition of Dust 2, designed for competitive play, with almost no visual noise at all: props, fog, cables and particles have all been removed. No idea what SE means, but unlike George Lucas’ idea of a Special Edition, it’s actually good. At the moment, it’s only accessible from the game’s console. It’s an interesting idea – perhaps SE variants of all the maps can be used for Competitive Mode, to better set Casual and Competitive apart, as well as to meet feedback from many veteran players. 

There’s also a bunch of new weapons – the FAMAS and its terrorist counterpart, the Galil have been added to the game, along with two new pistols: the P250 and the Dual Berettas, both of which are available for both sides. It’s pretty strange that even if the CT’s new starting pistol, the P2000, is practically the P228 (you can’t even mount a silencer on it, so yeah), we’re still getting an actual P228, in the form of the P250. I’ve got no idea… but okay.

Another big treat for you all – the beta update also contains files for most of the maps we haven’t seen thus far in the beta. These are AR_Shoots; AR_Baggage; DE_Safehouse; DE_Bank and DE_Sugarcane, and, of course, the brand new Training Course (there are three maps that are missing, but will be in the final product nonetheless: CS_Office, DE_Aztec and Arsenal Demo’s DE_ShortTrain). These files happen to be topdown overviews of the entire maps – let’s take a look. They are taken with Italy loaded, so you’ll see its title and map info, which are entirely separate from the map images themselves.

This is Training1:

This is DE_Bank, for use in Arsenal Demolition:

This is DE_Safehouse, also for use in Arsenal Demolition:

This is DE_Sugarcane, yet another Arsenal Demolition map:

And this is AR_Baggage, one of the Arsenal Arms Race maps:

And this is AR_Shoots, the other Arsenal Arms Race map:

We had a lengthy write-up on CS:GO’s full map list a while back. In any case, this all looks quite fancy, and we can always expect to see more maps released in future DLC – and by DLC I mean free updates, of course. CS:GO is definitely starting to look really great – let’s hope Valve turns it into a 1.6-killer.

14 Comments

  1. Nothing can save me!

  2. Back once again with the ill behaviour!

  3. Any way i could get a key to beta? I tried survey already, didn’t work 😐

  4. Oh man that looks amazing!

  5. Is it really nowhere near finished? I was under the impression that it was going to be released this summer at the latest…

  6. Back Once Again, Back Once Again, Back Once Again, Back Once Again, Back, Back, Back, Back, Back, wooooo! Back Once Again to the Renegade Master, beat box power, power to the people!

    Thanks Vic 🙂

  7. I’m pritty damn pissed I dint get a beta key.

  8. They don’t have rights to use the Italy’s music maybe :(.

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