Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (exclusive preview) went gold Friday, according to this Gabe Newell post on Shacknews. The remainder of his post deals with "bot personalities" in an e-mail from Mike Booth:
A few months ago I admitted to CS fans that Condition Zero was shaping up to be a very mediocre game. You know something was wrong when the man who has run a Counter-Strike fansite for four years isn't looking forward to a Counter-Strike spin-off. VALVe, I think, took the appropriate actions to completely change my perception of the game to the point that I am personally interested in playing the game. My enthusiasm naturally doesn't go from person to person, and certainly my opinions aren't 100% mirrored by everyone else.
However, the fact is that Condition Zero could have easily been released in July. It could have easily made that month. And it really would have disappointed. VALVe could have taken the easier road and released Gearbox's version in Summer, 2002. And it would have redefined disappointment.
Instead, VALVe decided to try to make the game good one last time. In my opinion, they made a good game. Too late? Too ugly? Questions I can't really answer: I've been playing CS for four years and I think the graphics are still fine. Maybe my standards are out of whack. People should naturally consider me biased. My preview is glowing because all previews are glowing, although I was sincere in what I wrote. But I really wish some people would keep their minds open about the game until the reviewers have a chance to look at it.
I think the game is pretty fun, but hey, maybe the game does suck. At this stage I don't think anyone out there really knows whether the game is good or not, in the same way they didn't know that the original announcement of CS:CZ in May, 2001 would begin such an adventure. The game should be on shelves on November 18th, so maybe some of you can save your final judgments until then.
During the beta, many players asked for the ability to customize their bots. Based on their feedback, in CZ we created the BotProfile.db which defines bot "personalities" in a user-editable text file.You can get all the gory bot details right here.[break="rizzuh's rant"]Naturally, our preview of the latest version of Condition Zero raised a lot of eyebrows. Being one of the few people to play the game, I think that it is pretty darn fun. However, others have their own prejudice about the new gameplay or the lack of new models. Some, even, were looking forward to Ritual's full single-player campaign and feel alienated.
Here are the configurable attributes of the CS/CZ Bot:
A few months ago I admitted to CS fans that Condition Zero was shaping up to be a very mediocre game. You know something was wrong when the man who has run a Counter-Strike fansite for four years isn't looking forward to a Counter-Strike spin-off. VALVe, I think, took the appropriate actions to completely change my perception of the game to the point that I am personally interested in playing the game. My enthusiasm naturally doesn't go from person to person, and certainly my opinions aren't 100% mirrored by everyone else.
However, the fact is that Condition Zero could have easily been released in July. It could have easily made that month. And it really would have disappointed. VALVe could have taken the easier road and released Gearbox's version in Summer, 2002. And it would have redefined disappointment.
Instead, VALVe decided to try to make the game good one last time. In my opinion, they made a good game. Too late? Too ugly? Questions I can't really answer: I've been playing CS for four years and I think the graphics are still fine. Maybe my standards are out of whack. People should naturally consider me biased. My preview is glowing because all previews are glowing, although I was sincere in what I wrote. But I really wish some people would keep their minds open about the game until the reviewers have a chance to look at it.
I think the game is pretty fun, but hey, maybe the game does suck. At this stage I don't think anyone out there really knows whether the game is good or not, in the same way they didn't know that the original announcement of CS:CZ in May, 2001 would begin such an adventure. The game should be on shelves on November 18th, so maybe some of you can save your final judgments until then.
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