article: insurgency mod

[CSN NewsBot]

Well, I had some free time on my hands today between the cookouts and simply enjoying the holiday here. So what do I do? I write a little article on Insurgency. Well, a few of the community's likes and dislikes (as well as my own) about the mod. Why this mod? Well, it was one of the most highly anticipated Source mods slated for release and to many, the mod is falling flat on its face.

A lot of detail has gone into the maps we've seen so far. It looks like a dry, arid locale, just as you would expect for some locations in the middle east. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing the same attention to detail ported over to CS: Source maps Dust and Dust2. However, there are some graphical glitches as well. You'll often see shrubbery clipping through the corners of walls, which can take away from the immersion factor.



The weapon models look great as do most of the animations. Little details like the sniper opening up the cover to his sniper scope when he switches to the weapon is a neat touch. The Source engine looks quite beautiful in this mod to the point where you may forget you are playing a Source engine modification.

I essentially wrote this all in one sitting. Feel free to agree or disagree with the points I made, that's the whole point to my wonderful little opinion piece.

[Zips]

I should note that yes, this isn't CS related, but it deals with a mod that people are comparing to CS (and Battlefield, and RO, and others). And really, why not? There isn't much CS news out there.

[V.C. Sniper]

Falling flat on its face? Haaa!! Played Insurgency for 3 days straight and I haven't have this much fun in a multiplayer game in years!!! The people who complain about it are probably CS kiddies that can't handle teamwork and extreme realism.

[zazenXhagakure]

I've been having a good time, but some of the glitches were very frustrating.



The grenade bug for one.

And the fact that I can't deploy the grenade launcher while crouched. Can't deploy it while I'm holding any key...



I've been playing almaden and its stacked unfairly against the marines. And I played that coal mine map, and holy crap, marines would just spawn on the bridge and the insurgents were lying in wait to gun them down. It stayed that way nearly every round.

[Zips]

V.C. Sniper wrote..

Falling flat on its face? Haaa!! Played Insurgency for 3 days straight and I haven't have this much fun in a multiplayer game in years!!! The people who complain about it are probably CS kiddies that can't handle teamwork and extreme realism.

Uh, try again. I've heard the same complaints from a number of communities, not just from some vocal few in the CS community.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

V.C. Sniper wrote..

The people who complain about it are probably CS kiddies that can't handle teamwork and extreme realism.

Extreme realism...because real life crashes every 15 minutes and you have to reconnect to it.



Point being, most of the realistic aspects of this game were praised in the review, where as criticism was addressed primarily towards glitches and unrealistic behaviors. Hard to see how that could be called "CS kiddies that can't handle teamwork and extreme realism" as you put it so eloquently.



Anyway, I wouldn't go so far as to say it fell flat on its face, but it certainly isn't as polished as we might hope. Chalk one more up for releasing things "when it's done" rather than on a specific date. Hopefully in a couple months we'll see enough bug fixes to keep the fledgling community alive and kicking.

[ph03nix(k)]

This mod is not extreme realism by the way.. RO and Flashpoint are far more realistic.

[omgomgz]

V.C. Sniper wrote..

Falling flat on its face? Haaa!! Played Insurgency for 3 days straight and I haven't have this much fun in a multiplayer game in years!!! The people who complain about it are probably CS kiddies that can't handle teamwork and extreme realism.

Well after anticipating it this much:

I HAVE INSURGENCY ON MY COMPUTER RIGHT NOW!!! w00t!!! 30 minutes of waiting in line at FilePlanet and 35 minutes of 300KB/s download speed!!! ZOMFG!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO INSTALL IT RIGHT NOW!!! w00t w00t w00t w00t w00t!!! Insurgency FTW!

I'm just glad you're still alive. Surely someone anticipating it that much and didn't end up liking it would have shot themselves in the chest several times.

[tcviper]

Ok, I just wanted to let you all know that I like the constructive feedback of your review and that you can be sure we will look at each request / change as soon as we get the time to patch/fix things.



Kind regards,

Viper, PR Insurgency

[FlyingMongoose]

the crash problems generally occur on a full server, and usually much more than "15 minutes" worth of play occurs, seems Zips was just one of the unlucky few to experience this a lot.



Most of the issues listed are known bugs and a large portion of the "gameplay stopping" bugs are planned for a patch soon. Changelog for it has already been posted even though the patch has yet to be completed.



I have honestly stopped playing counter-strike because this mod was released I like playing it that much. Personally I could care less about the crashes at the moment. But I expect once the patch comes out the stability issues will be fixed and it will allow them to move on to the "bigger things" like the good vgui for classes/team selection, and a number of other features taht were planned but didn't make it into the release or were bugged and pulled for the released.



In my opinion, the INS team delivered on what I expected, and I expected quite a bit, I wasn't surprised in the least that a fwe things were left out, but it didn't bother me.

[ALT+F4]

A few niggles with Zips' expansion on my original observations...

Zips wrote..

Unlimited Sprint - How many of you here can sprint nonstop while carrying many pounds of military equipment on your person? Yes, I know the people portrayed in the game have been trained to sprint distances, but they have limits and this needs to be reflected in the game. Limit the sprint time and enforce a max time limit that you can sprint at a time.

Perhaps Sprint time differs with individual kits because I certainly experienced a limit sprinting with a SAW. Unless it was my imagination. I haven't been back to check.

Zips wrote..

Iron Sights Obstructing View - Iron sights should be in every game. I love them, I really do, but only if done right. When you bring up the iron sights, most of the weapons in the game will obstruct a good portion of your view.

When sighting with irons you should be concentrating on the view through the sights, not everything else around you. What you refer to as being "done right" strikes me as a "done wrong" you've become used to.

Zips wrote..

Make the crouch an option you can toggle to either "hold c to crouch" or "press c to crouch and stay crouched until you hit c again." When you're on the streets, chances are, if you aren't sprinting between cover points, you'll be crouching down behind some cover. You don't want to have to constantly hold down a button to do this.

I'm almost certain that "press c to stay crouched until you hit c again" is how it worked for me. I didn't play for that long but did try everything I could think of and don't recall the Press To Hold Crouch thing. Again, though, this could be my imagination and advanced age.

Zips wrote..

Do you see these steps? You'd think they go somewhere, but they don't. In fact, you can't even walk up them. These steps are in the spawn area for the U.S. Forces. Either remove them, or allow the player to walk up them and just have a door at the top that cannot be opened or something. I already know I'm in an arena type of setting, I just don't need to be further removed from the realism factor by being stopped by an invisible wall.

And where would you have yourself spawned? In an empty room? A cardboard box? You seem to forget the myriad unreachable graphic flourishes in...er...what was it called again? Oh yeah -- Counter-Strike. Once you realize that you can't go there (as a common design constraint) why even give it a second thought?



My main complaint remains the absence of offline AI play. I hate playing online with retards and deathmatch doofuses who aren't interested in co-operation or the spirit of the game.

[Zips]

ALT+F4 wrote..

A few niggles with Zips' expansion on my original observations...



Perhaps Sprint time differs with individual kits because I certainly experienced a limit sprinting with a SAW. Unless it was my imagination. I haven't been back to check.

It's unlimited so far as I've encountered. You only stop sprinting when faced with steps or you run into something. I ran around in circles happily sprinting continuously.

When sighting with irons you should be concentrating on the view through the sights, not everything else around you. What you refer to as being "done right" strikes me as a "done wrong" you've become used to.

The sights are still far too close to the perspective. I know where you should be concentrating, but every aspect of the sights will not be in focus if you're trying to view the sights at the tip of your gun.

I'm almost certain that "press c to stay crouched until you hit c again" is how it worked for me. I didn't play for that long but did try everything I could think of and don't recall the Press To Hold Crouch thing. Again, though, this could be my imagination and advanced age.

You're thinking of going prone. That is a toggle, crouching isn't.

And where would you have yourself spawned? In an empty room? A cardboard box? You seem to forget the myriad unreachable graphic flourishes in...er...what was it called again? Oh yeah — Counter-Strike. Once you realize that you can't go there (as a common design constraint) why even give it a second thought?

That has nothing to do about where I was spawned. It's the fact there is an invisible wall blocking off those steps. Why even have the steps there if you can't walk up them? Take out the wall and just have the steps lead to a door you cannot open, people will get the idea. Otherwise, just remove the steps if you're going to be forced to use a trick like a wall to prevent people from going up them. Again, nothing to do about where I was spawned.



Also, yes, I know there are plenty of unreachable graphical areas in CS, but those areas are usually places you should theoretically not be able to jump to or reach under normal gameplay conditions. These steps are on the ground level and are almost directly across from other steps that you CAN walk up.

[tcviper]

Again, we can only make it better and more bug free with good constructive feedback and a couple of things we read in here will be used to improve things. Thank you for that, and again... have faith we are working around the clock for this new patch.



Viper, PR Insurgency

[Tracid]

Looks like a good game but, team work and maturity in pub is laughable.

[DelaZ]

Edited by [user="108380"] @ [time="1183642504"]

Good review, most of the stuff even I can agree on as a developer. I have to say that the dislikes you mentioned (apart from animations and crashes maybe) can be solved rather quickly through a patch. And since I agree on the points, I’m going to push the coders to do so.



Only thing I don’t agree on is where you claim that the developers think much of themselfs. Actually we’re very down to earth and we are very surprised and thrilled with the amount of people enjoying and playing Insurgency at this moment.

We never claimed to be more popular than CS, actually let me clear that up for good. During an irc interview we had the most stupid question if we would beat CS in popularity. Offcouse we all know that’s impossible. A member of the dev team directly answered that question with a sarcastic “YES� (but as we all know sarcasme is not always that clear on the internet...).



Thanks for the usefull comments.

Hope to see you on a server sometime in the near future! :)