Seoulscapade

Here’s a fun picture I came across years ago but never got around to posting it anywhere. But I decided to add it here with a little review of a game I came across the other night called de_marijuan_bust.

It’s only a small map consisting of a central building, where the dope heads start out, and surrounding buildings where the “cops” are.

Here is one of the dope heads, a cutie complete with an AWP and grenade on the hip. I’ve always been attracted to girls like that.

Unfortunately, the “cops” in this game were like soldiers out of Day of Defeat, which really detracted from the theme of the game. I can only imagine that the game designer was in fact on drugs while deciding to have WWII soldiers as cops.

Here’s where I came across the stash.

Overall, it wasn’t a very satisfying game design or map, although I like the idea of an urban drug bust scenario. I only hope someone comes up with something more authentic in the future.

See the Counter Strike gallery.

See screenshots from Half Life and Counter Strike here.

Awp_india is a map I’ve always enjoyed, in all of its incarnations, from back in the CS 1.6 days up to now. The great thing about it for me is how everyone is made equal in terms of terrain and weapons. All you get is the AWP sniper rifle and a knife. The knife usually comes into place towards the end when only a few players are left running around.

The arena looks like this, so there is not much room for error:

You can see how there is a circular arrangement of various kinds of cover. Each side of the arena mirrors the other. Here is a view from a corner:

And here is another one from the other end:

One is very often exposed in this game. There is not much cover, and what there is you have to use wisely and quickly. This is what is looks like on the ground, when the game starts:

And here is another view:

The good thing about this small arena and risk of exposure is that the game play is fast. It’s all action from start to finish. This can make for some intense skirmishes, with the following result:

I’ve found that if you see an enemy at the other end, they’ve often seen you. So, if you then line up for a shot at them when they next duck out, you can bet they have registered where you are and will shoot at that spot as soon as they appear. I keep forgetting this rule and dying for it. The key is to keep moving, people!

If you can keep moving intelligently you can avoid being a part of a large body count.

The map really hasn’t changed much from how it was in CS 1.6. The map below doesn’t have much more than surface textures:

And here is another view of it:

But the following “modern” map includes some fundamental changes:

This was hard to get used to at first and seemed to me to be harder to play in because the extent of exposure seemed worse due to the side ramps.

I’ve only seen this on a server once, so I don’t think it is as popular as the traditional map.

But no matter what map, it’s always fun running around and feeling the immense satisfaction one feels when successful at blowing people way with a sniper rifle.

See the Counter Strike gallery.

Occasionally when I visit Counter Strike zombie sites, some players are modified to be girls in bikinis or French maid outfits, like the one below. So I thought I’d take a screenshot.

There isn’t much more sexier than a French maid with a grenade on her hip.

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As soon as I saw on the list of servers that one of them was using a map called de_bulguksa, I knew it had to be some kind of Korean temple design. In Korean, “sa” means temple and bulguk would be the name of the temple, so in English it simply translates as Bulguk Temple. At the time I thought it might be a kind of joke name or something.

But when I started playing, there was definitely something familiar about the look of the place. I’ve been to a couple of Korean temples, and I kind of thought it was a kind of composite design. I was able to have a look around before attracting gun fire because not many players were on. It’s a pretty good rendition of temple grounds in Korea.

Only later did I realize the reason it looked so familiar. It’s based on an old Buddhist temple called Bulguk in the south of Korea, in North Gyeongsang provence, and I’ve been to the place! It’s a major tourist destination.

It didn’t click with me that it was the actual place I’d been to because, while the design might be faithful, the outer surrounds aren’t anything like I remember. In addition, there aren’t any tourists cluttering up the scenery, as I had experienced–just gunmen running around, which, quite frankly, is what I prefer to see in this context.

None of them showed me any of the compassion and mercy, the virtues at the heart of Buddhist philosophy.

You can find out all about it [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulguksa]here[/url]. This is some information about the temple from the site:

Bulguksa is a Buddhist temple in the North Gyeongsang province in South Korea. It is home to seven National treasures of South Korea, including Dabotap and Seokgatap stone pagodas, Cheongun-gyo (Blue Cloud Bridge), and two gilt-bronze statutes of Buddha. The temple is classified as Historic and Scenic Site No. 1 by the South Korean government.[1] In 1995, Bulguksa was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List together with the Seokguram Grotto, which lies four kilometers to the east.

The temple is considered as a masterpiece of the golden age of Buddhist art in the Silla kingdom. It is currently the head temple of the 11th district of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism.

Also, on that website, in the structure section, you can see a map of the temple. The CS map is pretty much the same layout. Of course, if you were really picky, you could go to the trouble of such things as counting the number of steps, and so on, which would have significance according to Buddhist scriptures.

I don’t think I’ll go to that much trouble, but I bet the CS mapper did. I wonder how they did the Buddha, located in Daeungjeon (대웅전), the Hall of Great Enlightenment, as shown here. That was as hard for me to answer as to imagine the sound of one hand clapping.

At that point in the game, I laid down my weapon and camped with Buddha to achieve enlightenment.

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Maybe there’s a little too much pink. But you know, that helps you spot the enemy easier because they stand out more.

This map, called de_dolls, is based on the early Half-Life map called Rats. The early version was set in a kitchen and featured rat holes and tunnels and even a rat trap.

A rat trap features in this one, too, and you have the run of the same kind of terrain as in the original–you can run up and down door frames, scurry across the floor, and hide in the closet. I would have taken some screenshots from the top of door frames but I had trouble staying alive up there for any length of time.

This map brought back memories of the old Half-Life 1 days. And I reflected upon how I missed some of the weaponry available then. In those days, you could use a crossbow to target an enemy on the kitchen sink, or you could fire a bazooka missile across the room.

I really miss those bazookas. If only they were included in CS: Source, then I could really have made a mess of this room.

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Probably the most popular or most played CS Source map of all time is de_dust2. Some servers, in fact, are devoted to it, offering nothing else. That doesn’t seem to deter players, who return again and again to enjoy shooting it out in familiar terrain.

It just seems to have the right balance of all the elements for a good game: not too convoluted with detail, not too large, good sniper opportunities, a couple of key clash points, multiple exit and entry avenues.

As you can see, I recently came across a version of de_dust2 at night, a slight variation on the standard environment. In this you can see a public phone, although you can’t call for help on it.

It’s OK playing this night theme a point. It’s pleasant to stroll under the moonlight shooting at everything that moves. But I found the dull light a problem because many player uniforms are dark. Half the time I wasn’t sure who I was shooting at and so, as I mentioned, I was shooting at everything.

One thing of note was that the night-time air seemed to bring out more than a lust for killing. The boys were posting a few favorite pin-ups.

Guns, boobs, and wholesale slaughter–that about summed up the evening. I guess it’s easy to pick the demographic of players, although my presence there kind of goes against average-young-male standard.

So what was I doing there? That’s easy, I was there for the guns, boobs, and wholesale slaughter. I don’t think there’s an age limit on the good things in life.

See the Counter Strike gallery.

Here are some more handy hints, presented in-game, in the new cs_office07 map. I love to see cross-cultural references in CS, so this perverted office motivational material was a joy to see.

An interesting point about this map was that pictures on the wall actually changed or were rotated with others, when each new game started. I’d never seen that before, and it brings to mind all sorts of possibilities for future CS maps. Here’s one of those images, in the same vein as the one previous, offering us the handy instruction, “Read the Fucking Manual.”

Also curious is that both of these images involve reference to harsh language. I do hope we see more of that in CS, too, and not just from the players talking to each other. After all, we’re talking about the unforgiving world of urban assault, where harsh language is invariably called for.

The popularity of Counter Strike zombie games seems to be growing. Servers featuring these tend to have the highest number of players, averaging around 40 or 50, from what I’ve seen. I’ve played them a few times but they tend not to interest me that much, except for some surreal sights and sounds.

I swear I didn’t do it . . .

Often a range of zombie creatures are featured, like scary clowns and kind of skinless skeletal figures. They don’t have firearms. Instead, they knife you, jump you, claw you, or, in the case of these ladies, stick a huge needle in you.

I hadn’t seen these nurses from hell before and I thought they were amusing enough to post here. As for the game in which they appeared, it was hard to figure out what was going on. Star Wars characters were in it as well.

I think this image is of me about to be turned into a zombie by nurse Mona. The needle she attacked me with was huge, as shown below, but I didn’t feel a thing.

After intial amusement, I kind of lost interest. It seems like everyone tries to get to a high spot and just stays up there shooting at the zombies. As I said, I’m not clear on why it’s so popular. I much prefer a regular match up with gun toting police or terrorists.

I finally installed wine, following much the same procedure as documented here. Then I installed CS. There were no problems installing either of them. I could run Steam, but I couldn’t get any graphics showing, i.e. latest news images, and so on. That didn’t matter too much. However, I couldn’t run CS.

The short version of how I fixed it is just below. If these steps don’t work for you, the longer version further below may contain something useful.

In Wine’s Registry I imported the following by saving it to a “file.reg” then importing it with “wine regedit file.reg”. This seemed to stop Steam from hanging on me when games were installing.

“UseGLSL”=”enabled”

In winecfg:

1. Under Graphics, I turned off “pixel shading” and I checked “Allow DirectX apps to stop the mouse leaving the window” & “Allow the window manager to control the windows”

2. Under Audio, “Hardware Acceleration” is set to Emulation and the OSS Driver box is ticked. I’ve also checked “Driver Emulation,” although I don’t think this matters much.

3. Under Applications, I set “Windows Version” to either Vista or XP.

In Steam:

1. I entered the following into CS Source’s Launch Options: -dxlevel 90

There might be more to my success, such as getting rid of the “libjack” error (as specified below), but I don’t think so. As it stands, everything is working, except that the graphics are not as good as in Windows. I’ll keep working on that.

---

The long version of what I did to get CS working is as follows.

First of all, when I ran CS, I only got a black screen.

I tried all the recommended fixes for this at http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=3731

Turning off pixel shading got me past the black screen issue.

====================

But I still couldn’t run the game. It’d load and then crash. I tried the recommended commands.

This gets into the game but it crashes after a few seconds

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Steam && WINEDEBUG=-all wine steam -applaunch 240

Then i tried the menu link, which is pretty much the same. It crashed at the point the game screen should come up.

env WINEPREFIX=”/home/stephen/.wine” wine “C:\Program Files\Steam\steam.exe” -applaunch 240

====================

I read that it might be a sound problem and I should list conficting sound devices with this:

lsof /dev/snd/pcm* /dev/dsp

Nothing found.

====================

I read that the game launch setting of -dx_level 70 would work. I tried that and other dx levels. They had no effect. Later I would find another reference to these levels that says to set them using this: -dxlevel 70. That was some time later, though. I’ll get to that.

====================

Then I found this post:

On some systems non-root users can’t set negative nice values by default. This privileges problem could probably have some light shed on it by saying what platform/shell you’re running.

In the meantime, if you aren’t going to remove that restriction before your next gaming sesh, you can run the program and then change the priority from elsewhere by running the process as the desired user, then using:

renice -10

as root. With judicious scripting you could achieve the same effect as the sudo given above – ie for tonight’s gaming you could probably get away with using this in your steam script and running it as an ordinary user:

WINEDEBUG=”-all” wine Steam.exe $* & su -c “renice -20 -p `pidof wine`”

which, assuming your system likes that (you might want sudo), would require you entering your root pass immediately upon running it, but use no root privs for the program itself.

So I followed it using this. It gets into the game but it crashes after a few seconds and I can’t enter the su password.

WINEDEBUG=”-all” wine Steam.exe $* -applaunch 240 & su -c “renice -20 -p `pidof wine`”

I try running the su “renice” command separately after running wine so I could enter the password. Others use a nice command, but I get a nice parameters error or else permission denied. Running “renice” didn’t do anything.

====================

I took off driver emulation in winecfg’s Audio and that gave me the longest game play ever, around 10 seconds. Everything was very fast, impressive, until then.

====================

I noticed a libjack error and so I made a link to the already installed version:

root@server1: /usr/lib ~: ls -al | grep libjack
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2007-02-05 18:36 libjack0.100.0 -> jack
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 2007-02-05 18:36 libjack-0.100.0.so.0 -> libjack-0.100.0.so.0.0.23
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 78192 2007-01-13 00:58 libjack-0.100.0.so.0.0.23

root@server1: /usr/lib ~: ln -sf /usr/lib/libjack-0.100.0.so.0 /usr/lib/libjack.so

It didn’t do anything except get rid of the error.

====================

I came across this site with a how-to and followed its advice on starting the game.

WINEDEBUG=”fixme-all” wine Steam

Steam worked but the game didn’t launch at all.

====================

Then I suddenly remembered that I might need Cheating-Death to be running in case that was why my game play was being cut short. I downloaded that and installed it.

This time the game crashed just after the player model selection.

====================

It could be Steam causing it . . . some guy said. Yeah, right, thanks.

====================

The guys on this site had similar problems to me: http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7698
Apparently what was happing was a “[Bug 7698] Counter-Strike:Source crashes after a while”

I tried some of their suggestions:

Running under winver 98 mode (set in winecfg) I got the longest playtime ever. However, key commands don’t work, so I can’t move. When I get shot the game crashes with a runtime error message popping up.

Anyway, support for winver 98 will finished at the end of June, 07.

I tried another suggestion, running with -nosound.

WINEDEBUG=-all wine steam -applaunch 240 -nosound

This gave me no sound, but again I couldn’t move during the game and it crashed as well.

====================

Other suggestions I tried were to run with different screen resolutions. I set these in the winecfg graphics section.

Well, everything crashed and left my Linux screen at a tiny resolution

====================

Earlier, I had put -applaunch 240 in the game launch options as well as -dxlevel 80, but forgot about them because they didn’t seem to have any effect.

Then when I played around with winver and tried windows vista, things seemed to start working. The CS resolution was still set to -dxlevel 80 or something but I could easily change that via the games video options. I adjusted the screen to 1280×1024 LCD and Normal (4:3) and it worked. CS just keep running–no crashes at any stage. The graphics were a little basic but the thing is, it kept running. The only problem was that I had no keyboard control.

To got that when I enabled “Allow the window manager to control the windows”

Everything appears to be working fine. Everything in fact is faster then in Windows. I just need to get better graphics and it’s goodbye booting into Windows.

====================

Some things I haven’ t tried yet that might improve the graphics are these:

Run regedit and go to: HKCU -> Software -> Wine -> Direct3D

Set the OffscreenRenderingMode key to the value “fbo”, “backbuffer” and “pbo” in
turn, trying the game in each mode.

I’ve been a huge fan of the Fawlty Towers series since first seeing it all those years ago when it first came out. I’ve had occasion to see reruns over the years, none of which I missed. And now, I have the DVD edition at home that allows me to see any of the shows I like at any time. I would put Fawlty Towers at the top of the list as one of the best sitcoms ever made.

That’s why, when I saw that someone had made a Counter Strike map based on Fawlty Towers, I downloaded it immediately and set up a server to play it, using bots. Called cs_fawlty_towers, it’s a pretty good effort, though without the polish of mainstream maps. It’ll give any fan a laugh or two, as I can attest, not just from running around the familiar surrounds of the Fawlty Towers hotel, but also from allusions to incidents from different shows that are scattered around the place.

These little touches really add to the fun, and if you know the series well, you know that the designer has done his homework. More than likely, he’s seen the shows as many times as you have.

On the front counter is the vase and money from the Mrs. Richards episode; above the clock is the moose head from the Germans episode; under the counter, and at several other random spots, is a Harold Robbins book from the dissatisfied American guests episode; in the kitchen, there is a sign about breakfast-tray types from the dead guest episode; the light switches look suspiciously like small breasts, which is from the psychiatrists episode; and of course, something that could not be missed, in the kitchen is a box of rat poison from the rat episode. The list goes on.

Of the others I could mention, the fire alarm is located behind the front desk, and it works. Just shoot out the glass. This alarm feature is from the fire drill Basil attempts to conduct: as the frustration mounts, he’s arguing with the guests, the alarm is ringing loudly, and then, to add to the clamor, the phone starts ringing. Well, in the map, there’s a phone on the desk that starts ringing too; if you go near it, it starts ringing and doesn’t stop.

The phone ringing is probably what gave me the biggest laugh. There I was at the front desk, just as two counter terrorist bots start bursting through the front door, one firing an MP5-Navy submachine gun and the other a Benelli shotgun, catching me and the desk in a hail of bullets. I was returning fire with the AK47–and the phone starts ringing. Memories of Basil, a ringing phone and hostile guests came back to me, and I just cracked up at the juxtaposition now presented with my own predicament.

It was so much fun getting shot to pieces.

My only wish was that some aspects of the map had more detail. I would have preferred some windows not to be covered with curtains. I would have preferred the blow-up sex doll in one of the rooms to have been in 3D–how could we forget that moment, when Basil bursts in on a guest inflating one. There should have been a fridge in the kitchen where now there are boxes. The backyard area didn’t really look like how I remembered it from the rat episode. And there is no view of Torquay from the roof, no “herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain”!

But perhaps these things will feature in version 2. I look forward to it.

For more scenes from Fawlty Towers, see the gallery.

Admittedly, I don’t have many proud moments and usually find myself near the bottom of the player ranking list during games. That’s why I get a kick out of the little things that are pretty common for other players. I’m also relieved not to be embarrassed by my playing occasionally.

Here you see my highest achievement and proudest moment to date, shown for all to see at the end of a game. What a legend!

When a player does something special during a game, it’s usually announced for all to hear with the player’s name and accomplishment written centre screen. Such achievements labeled as “headshot,” “dominating,” “rampage,” and “humiliation” require skill and are what players strive for to show status.

The “dominating” status means multiple kills in quick succession, and that’s the highest status I’ve achieved to date, but only a couple of times. Fortunately, I managed to capture one of these moments while playing one of my favorite maps, awp_india.

This too was a very proud moment. The image tells the whole story. On the left is my tally, one man wounded, almost killed, and three killed. However, you will also notice that someone just got me. Just just when the “dominating” status was display, I was also hit in the brain. You can see the blood splatter as I take a head shot.

At the top right you can see that I was hit directly after my last kill, dying at the height of my ascension! CS is like life–bittersweet.

Another proud moment was the first time I appeared on the top of the player list, but this wasn’t as special as it may sound. It was near the beginning of the game round. Still here I am, on top:

Below is pictured one of the times I scored a headshot–something that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It’s even better when you can do it twice in a row!

But what I hope for most is to get proof of having achieved a “rampage” and a “humiliation.”

Here is another proud moment when I’d just taken out two guys in a row. That’s pretty rare for me.

Hopefully one day, I’ll be able to post proof I achieved “rampage” or “god-like” status.

In the Eighth Circle of Dante’s Inferno, those who were evil counselors while alive are punished in Hell by having their souls forever engulfed in flame. They walk around like giant torches:

So thick and bright I saw the eighth moat twinkling
with wandering fires,. . .
(Inf. XXVI, 31-32)

So through that gulf moved every flaming spire;
for though none shows the theft,
each flame steals away a sinner. . .
(Inf. XXVI, 40-42)

“Within the fires are the spirits;
each is swathed in that which burns him inwardly.”
(Inf. XXVI, 47-48)

These sinners are punished in a tongue of flame because when alive they used their tongues to influence others to commit fraud. Now they are the ones wrapped by a tongue of evil. I often imagined these souls looking a bit like this scene from a “left4dead” CS zombie game.

Becoming a human torch is a possible punishment on some servers. But of course, the sin attracting this punishment is entirely different from anything in Dante: it’s for killing a player on your own team.

In the game pictured below, I was the one that dealt out this punishment. A player on my team in a previous game had killed me by accident, so when given the choice of a punishment, I nominated that he be turned into a human torch. It gave me a lot of laughs.

The problem was that anyone who came close to him was also engulfed in flame and suffered the same punishment. That’s what happened to me when seeking a screen snapshot opportunity. Others who were nearby were also engulfed.

In some zombie games, throwing a flash grenade at a bunch of zombies will ignite them. It’s fun to get them all in one hit, however, it doesn’t eliminate them, they just chase after you while engulfed in flame. The first screen shot above and the one below is from one of these games.

Here I am getting overrun with a tiny Glock 18C to keep me company. Predictably, I didn’t last long.

When I played CS 1.6 I used to have an auto weapons buy program, which was excellent and included a lot of other options besides weapons buying. As I couldn’t find a similar one for CS: Source, I followed the standard procedure of creating a userconf.cfg file in the cstrike/cfg directory and filling it with key bindings and alias for auto-buying. For some reason this just didn’t work for me. Something was overriding it no matter what I did. The solution? I just copied all of the code from that file into a file called autoexec.cfg which I put in the same directory. I thought the autoexec.cfg file had been phased out or superseded, but apparently not.

Here’s the basic autoexec.cfg I use. It’s enough for me at the moment. Simply copy and modify it to your own specifications. It’s pretty self explanatory.

—————–  copy all below this line —————–

echo
echo Autoexec loaded . . . . .
echo

alias primaryweapon “buy m4a1; buy ak47; buy primammo”

alias handgun “buy deagle; buy secammo”

alias submachinegun “buy tmp; buy mac10; buy primammo”

alias ammo “buy primammo; buy secammo”

alias equipment “buy vesthelm; buy flashbang; buy hegrenade; buy smokegrenade; buy defuser”

alias shotty “xm1014″

bind kp_ins “primaryweapon”
bind kp_del “handgun”
bind kp_downarrow “ammo”
bind kp_end “submachinegun”
bind kp_enter “equipment”
bind kp_uparrow “shotty”

// Menu Item Key
//galil          – IDF Defender
//ak47           – CV-47
//scout          – Schmidt Scout
//sg552          – Krieg 552
//awp            – Magnum Sniper Rifle
//g3sg1          – D3/AU1
//famas          – Clarion 5.56
//m4a1           – Maverick M4A1 Carbine
//aug            – Bullpup
//sg550          – Krieg 550 Commando
//glock          – 9×19mm Sidearm
//usp            – KM .45 Tactical
//p228           – 228 Compact
//deagle         – Night Hawk .50C
//elite          – .40 Dual Elites
//fiveseven      – ES Five-Seven
//m3             – Leone 12 Gauge Super
//xm1014         – Leone YG1265 Auto Shotgun
//mac10          – Ingram MAC-10
//tmp            – Schmidt Machine Pistol
//mp5navy        – KM Sub-Machine Gun
//ump45          – KM UMP45
//p90            – ES C90
//m249           – M249

//primammo       – Primary Ammo
//secammo        – Secondary Ammo
//vest           – Kevlar
//vesthelm       – Kevlar+Helmet
//flashbang      – Flashbang
//hegrenade      – HE Grenade
//smokegrenade   – Smoke Grenade
//nvgs           – Nightvision
//defuser        – Defusal Kit

//weapon_knife
//weapon_deagle
//weapon_usp
//weapon_glock
//weapon_p228
//weapon_elite
//weapon_fiveseven
//weapon_ak47
//weapon_aug
//weapon_g3sg1
//weapon_m249
//weapon_m4a1
//weapon_m3
//weapon_mac10
//weapon_mp5navy
//weapon_p90
//weapon_scout
//weapon_sg552
//weapon_sg550
//weapon_ump45
//weapon_tmp
//weapon_xm1014
//weapon_awp
//weapon_galil
//weapon_famas
//weapon_hegrenade
//weapon_flashbang
//weapon_smokegrenade
//weapon_c4

In continuing my series on what Counter Strike can teach you about life, this lesson is about common sense. Common sense is high on the list of what you need to survive in Counter Strike.

It’s common sense not to stand exposed at a gap in a doorway. I learned this recently.

This is what happened:

This is how it happened:

If you have a sniper rifle, the first thing you want to do is position yourself to sight a shot through a gap in a doorway. However, if someone on the opposing team has the same idea as you, and they’re quicker, then you’re dead meat.

The following shows that once you learn a common sense strategy, you need to apply it to the game. It’s me once again at another time. I might be a slow learner. However, in my defense, I thought it was safe where I was because of the smoke.

The lesson from this: if there’s smoke you should still expect (rifle) fire!