Turtle Rock Speaks

[CSN NewsBot]

Turtle Rock Studios, known for their work on Condition Zero and a good handful of maps and models throughout Counter-Strike's recent history, happily answered a number of questions that FiringSquad threw their way. Michael Booth, Turtle Rock's CEO and founder, responded to a wide array of questions stemming from the origins of the company to their work with Valve.

How hard is it to port a game that has such a massive following and one which will likely nitpick every change and alteration made to the original game?



Michael Booth: It is absolutely a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it is awesome to be able to work on a game that has such worldwide appeal and such an active online community. You know that *every bit* of detail you work hard to add to the game will be noticed, dissected, and debated.



On the other hand, you have to harden yourself a bit against the very vocal and flammable minority of the CS community that hates everything you do. According to these folks, every release "ruins the game", every new map "sucks", and any new art that is added is "lame". They have been predicting the demise of Counter-Strike for nearly a decade now, in spite of the ongoing growth of the overall community.



I frequently read the various major Counter-Strike forums (as do many people at both Turtle Rock and Valve) and have learned to take the good with the bad. As painful as it can be sometimes to wade through threads of flameage, there is no substitute for getting clear feedback on how an update was received and what the perceived gains and losses were to the game experience.

I thought this passage would be of greatest interest to some of you CSN visitors for a number of reasons. There's still plenty more where that came from!

[ph03nix(k)]

On the other hand, you have to harden yourself a bit against the very vocal and flammable minority of the CS community that hates everything you do. According to these folks, every release "ruins the game", every new map "sucks", and any new art that is added is "lame". They have been predicting the demise of Counter-Strike for nearly a decade now, in spite of the ongoing growth of the overall community.



Lmao.. owned

[snkcube]

Wow, I feel kind of bad for Turtle Rock Studios.

[Deletable_Man]

"On the other hand, you have to harden yourself a bit against the very vocal and flammable minority of the CS community that hates everything you do. According to these folks, every release "ruins the game", every new map "sucks", and any new art that is added is "lame". They have been predicting the demise of Counter-Strike for nearly a decade now, in spite of the ongoing growth of the overall community."



That's right. He's talking about every single one of you losers.

[Gpig]

he's talking about VC Sniper



Also, my problem with source has always been that they said it wasn't CS2 and that it was just a port. So they release it and spamming is taken out and flashes now make you go deaf, eliminating competitive play (except for pubbers who wants to try competitive play).

[ChinesesRubdown]

ZOMG DONTZ U EBERT SPAEC BADELY TOO VC

[Pan the Goat God]

Dammit Gpig, expect alot of caps lock and exclamation marks from vc sniper now.

[DaRk-AnGeL]

Gpig wrote..

So they release it and spamming is taken out and flashes now make you go deaf, eliminating competitive play

You be trippin foo'



How on earth does this stop competative play? You can still spam most things anyway, it's just that this time round you dont have to rely on spamming walls to know peoples positions, it kinda re-enforces the fact that cs should not be solely about spamming a wall at X time and taking down a whole team. Yes, I do miss that aspect, but now it makes wall spamming all the more special when you DO kill someone with it.

[mouth]

You really have to get a hard skin. Because it's a fuckload easier to do that and pull a Gooseman than it is to actually attract properly evolved players by fixing obvious and long-standing deficiencies.



Also, this is exactly who i would've thought to interview. The biz guy of a dev house responsible for a lame standalone product and a port of a mod.



"Hey, you're working on an actual game? What's that going to be about?"



"No fucking idea. Not one. Whatever it is, we're SO going to play it though."



Yeah, i totally respect his insight.

[Zips]

mouth wrote..

You really have to get a hard skin. Because it's a fuckload easier to do that and pull a Gooseman than it is to actually attract properly evolved players by fixing obvious and long-standing deficiencies.



Also, this is exactly who i would've thought to interview. The biz guy of a dev house responsible for a lame standalone product and a port of a mod.



"Hey, you're working on an actual game? What's that going to be about?"



"No fucking idea. Not one. Whatever it is, we're SO going to play it though."



Yeah, i totally respect his insight.

Look everyone, it's a case in point!

[kerosine99]

I <3 Turtle Rock

[.Sn0w.]

I like there new maps and models alot dont have a problem with them my problem is with valve and there AFK bug fixing team.... but I think its all looking good soon with more bug fixes

[hahnchen]

Damnit, they give out zero information on their new game.

[Bokuho]

To sum up: "we're happy to lap up the small ammount of praise we get but if you shit all over us we're just gonna close our eyes, put our fingers in our ears and pretend it never happened. If you suck up to us me may do something you want but even if millions of you complain we'll never do a damn thing because we're always right, damnit'.



Not exactly a good business model you've got there, Turtle Rock.

[Zips]

Bokuho wrote..

To sum up: "we're happy to lap up the small ammount of praise we get but if you shit all over us we're just gonna close our eyes, put our fingers in our ears and pretend it never happened. If you suck up to us me may do something you want but even if millions of you complain we'll never do a damn thing because we're always right, damnit'.



Not exactly a good business model you've got there, Turtle Rock.

You've got to be kidding me, right? He makes mention of the "minority" that does nothing but complain about EVERYTHING. Nothing will appease these people, at least outwardly. I agree completely with what he says about these people. You DO have to ignore them, otherwise your own sanity might be at stake.



He even goes on to say that as painful as it is, they still do frequent the comments of message boards in order to get feedback, both good and bad (IE where he says: "there is no substitute for getting clear feedback on how an update was received and what the perceived gains and losses were to the game experience.") That isn't just taking the good and ignoring the bad by any stretch of the imagination.