cynic_ (u/cynic_) - Readit News

cynic_ commented on Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room nytimes.com/2025/08/18/ar... · Posted by u/asnyder

bashwizard · 4 months ago

You sound like me. I disliked CS because of how slow and campy it was compared to Quake and we always had this banter in my friend group about Quake vs CS vs Unreal Tournament and which game requires more skill. I ended up playing for one of the best clans in Sweden and competed for a few years until Q3 eventually died.

I did try playing CS more serious for some time but I just couldn't stand it and I never had the patience. Got to respect that.

Quake requires more skill btw.

cynic_ · 4 months ago

CS requires more skill considering just mechanical and movement skills... let alone everything else ;)

Competitive Quake is to CS, like bowling is to basketball btw

cynic_ commented on Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room nytimes.com/2025/08/18/ar... · Posted by u/asnyder

bob1029 · 4 months ago

I think there is still a huge market for this stuff.

An entire shooter based solely upon the principles of fy_iceworld & gun game would wipe the floor with most other AAA titles on offer right now.

cynic_ · 4 months ago

Would they? Gun game has been an official game mode is CS for a long time, 2 of the maps follow the same layout fy_iceworld. COD had/has it as well.

I've even stumbled upon fy_pool_day recreation in Roblox.

Almost anything your nostalgia can think of is available "current" games like Fortnite and Roblox.

cynic_ commented on Counter-Strike: A billion-dollar game built in a dorm room nytimes.com/2025/08/18/ar... · Posted by u/asnyder

rimunroe · 4 months ago

I will forever mourn the general demise of server browsers. Too many games require you to use matchmaking systems, which means it's very hard to build up a small community in-game anymore. You either have to rely on forming small parties with people you've stumbled upon one by one, or you have to seek out people from some much larger area like Reddit or Discord. It takes a lot of the serendipity out of the experience. Without a small community it becomes much harder to ensure you're not playing with people who make the game less fun by whatever metric you care about.

I used to be an admin on a group of about 18 or so connected Counter-Strike 1.6 servers called T3Houston*. We ran modified versions of various Warcraft 3 mods which added persistent XP/leveling, as well as integration with an external item store and player database the owner maintained. Most of those servers were filled to the brim during peak US gaming times, and our forum was quite active.

There aren't many games these days where you could do something like that. I discovered the community because one day I was just looking for a server with open slots for me to join. I was fairly skeptical of whatever a Warcraft mod would be like, but ended up enjoying it so I added it to my favorites. Eventually I got to know the regulars and joined the forum. Notably, the place felt far less toxic than the average server I'd join back then. I can completely believe this is just me looking at the past through rose tinted glasses, but it feels like the general toxicity has gotten worse at the same time as we've lost a lot of tools to manage it.

* If anyone else here remembers the name T3Houston: hi! I'm Stealth Penguin

cynic_ · 4 months ago

These things still exists in CS (though not as popular in US but that's a reflection of CS losing popularity there)

People right now are having the same community experiences in custom server, or with official Valve, or third party like FaceIt... From crazy custom mods to try hard competitive games.

From time to time I stumble on some community servers when looking for a better DM warm-up server. Players and admin talking to each other like they were regulars, admin flying around in a batman skin killing a camper with lightning bolt, all the usual admin/community tools and more... also all the laughing, banter, playing songs and crap on the mic...

Would you have tried to join in? Let's just face it we've abandoned and stopped seeking it as we got older.

cynic_ commented on When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet glinden.blogspot.com/2020... · Posted by u/nkurz

binarymax · 5 years ago

Technology is not the problem.

Flashback to 1995. I'm a 17 year old PFY invited to beta test a VR headset from a local company. My Uncle was an investor and I was technically savvy and the target market.

I had a copy of Descent that supported VR, and while it was a bit of a hassle to get setup, I got it working. The experience was incredible. After the first use I said to myself "this is the future". I had permission to test the headset for two weeks, and I wanted my friends to see it as well.

So I invited them over that weekend. And that's where the problem set in. When one person was using the headset, they were gone. You couldn't interact with them in any way. They might as well have been in a different room. Then I said to myself "this is not the future", and haven't touched VR since.

There is no amount of technology that can get over this problem. It's not about FOV or resolution or immersion. It's a social problem. If you live alone at home, and want to plugin then great. But if you live with someone, its distant, weird, and kinda creepy, to have the other person in a headset and unreachable.

cynic_ · 5 years ago

Now compared to 1995, gaming in general seems a lot closer to the VR experience you describe. Local multiplayer is uncommon, shared gaming spaces like arcades and LANs are gone and people are playing games on their own devices alone.

I'm as isolated playing Counter-Strike on my PC as when I am on the Oculus Quest.

cynic_ commented on Google Open-Sources Cardboard github.com/googlevr/cardb... · Posted by u/sahin

CrackerNews · 6 years ago

>The Samsung/Oculus partnership seems to still be strong, for now at least.

Gear VR doesn't support Note 10 and there's rumors that their partnership has ended.

The VR industry is moving past mobile VR because it has trouble with user retention. Oculus can abandon Gear VR and Samsung to focus on their own VR solutions from Go to Quest to Rift.

Samsung then is still working on their standalone headset and possibly a next generation Windows Mixed Reality headset

cynic_ · 6 years ago

Carmack's Eulogy For The Gear VR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfd2lNRjqH4

cynic_ commented on CDC says stop vaping as mystery lung condition spreads techcrunch.com/2019/09/06... · Posted by u/tinyduck428

ChrisRR · 6 years ago

I knew something like this would happen. The market is flooded with cheap foreign liquids which no-one has any idea what's been put into them. How they've managed to bypass national trading standards is beyond me.

But it means that now we've got an understudied activity, with people using liquids filled with who knows what. There was bound to be health risks sooner or later.

cynic_ · 6 years ago

The cases are in the US and related THC containing liquids. So it makes no sense blaming foreign liquids.

cynic_ commented on A critical step to reduce climate change gatesnotes.com/Energy/A-c... · Posted by u/mhandley

ekianjo · 7 years ago

Technological progress will solve any policy problem. If you make it so that wind, solar, and next generation nuclear power is cheaper than other alternatives and more desirable, the market will progressively switch. Most technological improvements did not wait for a policy to change to induce revolutions in their respective fields. Now everyone is investing in Energy, and there's hardly any need for policy when the market is already full steam in investment mode.

cynic_ · 7 years ago

If we always waited for the technical progress to give something cheaper and better, we'd still be using leaded gasoline and CFCs everywhere.

cynic_ commented on Oculus Quest Review arstechnica.com/gaming/20... · Posted by u/dcminter

cynic_ · 7 years ago

> My biggest issue with Oculus Quest is its weight and fit.

They should move more stuff off the front of the headset, it would help relieve the pressure on the face and make it more balanced. Like in this mod from Palmer Luckey where he removed the battery and attaches a bigger one to the strap https://palmerluckey.com/oculus-goblack-how-to-make-your-ocu...