Drexion
Well-known member
Update: Beta 1.04 is now publicly available. Scroll down for download links, mirrors, reviews and more info.
What is CSProMod?
CSProMod (Counter-Strike Professional Modification) is a mod whose objective is to port the 1.6 gameplay unto the source engine. The primary reason is to have a visually up to date version of the most popular and competitive version of Counter-Strike, which till today is still 1.6.
At the same time, this will allow some of the bugs which are in 1.6 (such as illegal flashes, silent running) to be fixed.
Why is it needed?
This is a highly debated topic amongst competitive CS players, so to cut a very long story short:
(1) Valve dumbed down many of the aspects of 1.6 gameplay when creating CS:S, in the hopes of catering to a wider audience. This plan backfired, as it was the wide skill range of the original counterstrike which was one of the major things which made it so popular. Hence, the vast majority of the CS1.6 playerbase rejected CS:S, and thusly it still surpasses greatly the playerbase of CS:S.
(2) CS1.6 is very old, and looks poor in comparison to newer games being released today. A visual update is desperately needed.
(3) Valve is denying companies the TV License to broadcast 1.6, and forcing them to use CS:S. Contrary to popular belief, the CGS (Championship Gaming Series) did indeed ask to use 1.6, and Valve turned them down.
(4) Valve is no longer updating 1.6, (except to do stupid things like put advertisements in it), and ignoring more serious issues such as bugs or flaws in maps.
(5) Valve no longer caters to competitive players, but only to casual players, no one blames them as this is the wise thing to do financially, but most devs (especially of multiplayer fps games) at least spare a little time towards competitive gamers, whereas valve almost totally ignores them.
What competitive issues will CSProMod hope to fix?
Briefly, these are some of the major issues which CS:S suffer's from, which CSProMod hopes to fix. In CS:S -
(1) The hitboxes are extremely large (head hitbox 70% larger).
(2) Recoil is easier to control and the spread is smaller.
(3) Almost no wallbanging (aka spamming / walling).
(4) Slower player movement (both run and walk painfully slow).
(5) HE-Nades do way too much damage, flashbangs are overpowered.
(6) No quickscope accuracy.
(7) The running accuracy is way too high.
(8) There are no longer bullet sparks (where the bullet hits).
(9) Smoke grenades take 5 times as long to deploy.
These are just some of the issues which CSProMod will fix. (there are a lot more like sound directionality, enemies on radar etc) Even though Valve's main objective is money, when they dumbed down cs:s they did probably not realize how much it would affect the skill gap in the game, leaving less areas for players to improve.
Development
Executive Director - Alex Garfield (ex CS professional player, Owner/Manager of the EG professional team, and Assistant Manager of the Complexity.LA CGS Franchise). [His last CSProMod Interview]
Lead Developer - ARQON!! - Kevin "arQon" Blenkinsopp was the lead developer for the world famous CPMA(Quake3 Mod), and Q4MAX (Quake4 Mod), both of which are considered to be the competitive standard for both games.
Current Development Status:
CSProMod is currently in the open beta stage. (view complete changelog)
Notes:
(1) For the first few betas, all the in game models will not have been completed as of yet, thus some of the source models will be used for those betas.
(2) Not only was 1.6 the major inspiration for the mod, but some aspects of 1.5 and 1.3 (such as faster movement/no slowdown on landing from a jump/1.3 bunny hopping) will be in the first betas. All these settings can/will be changed/tweaked based upon community and professional feedback.
(3) Expect there to be some bugs, as this is the first open beta and first time the mod will be played by a wide audience. Also the maps are still beta as well, do not expect them to be completely perfect.
Requirements:
The only requirement for CSProMod is that you have CS:S installed on your PC, as it uses resources from CS:S. You will not be able to play CSProMod if your steam account does not have CS:S, due to licensing reasons. (hence why no 1.6 resources are no longer used in the mod)
Secondly, the system requirements for CSProMod will be lower than CS:S by a great deal, as the dev team have removed many of the useless things which caused performance issues and FPS dips (for example useless "junk" lying around the map interacting with an exploding HE-nade was a huge cause of fps dips)
Beta 1.04 Reviews
Some competitive gaming websites have gotten the 1.04 beta early, and posted their impressions.
"As a faithful adaptation of 1.6 the game absolutely succeeds. Playing the two games back-to-back really left me struggling to tell the difference at times and once the models fix come in CSPromod will be more like the game it so desperately wants, and needs, to emulate.... It is everything Source should have been – a graphical improvement of the greatest FPS created and it really is a triumph in that respect." (full review)
"All in all, if you take a deep look at Beta 1.04, you can see that there are huge improvements from previous releases, which is normal if you consider it has been almost two years since the last version came out. Still, there are still some things that I think need to be changed before CSPromod can go live." (full review)
"This is your game. Perhaps the most unconventional but argueably the most important aspect of Promod is that this game is literally a product of the community that will play it. Direct feedback will be at the core of every decision made regarding changes and updates. If a majority of the community is polled and the results point to X change needed with Y gameplay element, so it shall be." (full review)
1.04 Video Highlights
Hud and Options Preview
[yt]uXCc_1Tdv3w[/yt][yt]EgWcmLMYU2M[/yt]
[yt]0b5XLayVspc[/yt]
Map preview
[yt]NWoaaNLgxvk[/yt]
Communities and Info
Professional Feedback
Valve should have followed Blizzard's example, and hire professional players when developing a sequel to a competitive game. Hopefully they do so next time.
CSProMod is being tested by many professional CS players, many of whom belong to one of the G7 teams. These teams consist of the best professional CS players in the world, and their feedback directly to the CSProMod development team will be priceless.
Servers
Expect the number of servers running CSProMod to raise immensely once the open beta (and windows/linux server exe's) is publicly available.
Server List via Gametiger.
Server List via Game Monitor.
Extra Benefits
- CSProMod has the potential to unite the split CS community, who are currently split amongst 1.6, CS:S, (and CZ to a small extent). Also, as the system requirements are lower, many gamers especially in some Asian countries might be able to finally play CS on the source engine on their slightly older machines.
- The CSProMod team will be able to allow TV licences to any broadcasting company.
- The CSProMod team will be putting extra effort into broadcasting capabilities, making matches easier to watch for spectators/shoutcasters.
- Back when original CS was a mod being developed independently, bug fixes and updates would come out frequently, this stopped once Valve bought them over. CSProMod puts CS back into the hands of the community, where feedback, updates etc are no longer limited by the red tape of a multi million dollar corporation.
Download
Currently the CSProMod team is in talks with Valve to have the mod be available via Steam's servers, which would make distribution and updating a lot easier for almost all parties involved, whether players/server admins/server companies etc.
The mod is now in open beta. At the request of the CSProMod team, do not host any external mirrors. (primary reason being stats tracking, which is very important to the dev team)
CSPromod Beta 1.04 Client (.EXE)
CSPromod Beta 1.04 Client+Server (.ZIP)
Installation (exe version (cspromod_b104.exe) 48.79 MB)
1) Make sure you have Counter-Strike: Source Installed
2) Install
3) Restart the Steam Application; "CSPromod" should appear in "My Games"
4) Use the in-game GUI to bind your keys. DO NOT TRY TO USE YOUR
CS 1.6 OR CS:S CONFIG. MANY COMMANDS HAVE CHANGED, SO OLD BINDS
WILL NOT WORK.
(Expect some minor issues and bugs!!, after all these are the first few open betas.)
What is CSProMod?
CSProMod (Counter-Strike Professional Modification) is a mod whose objective is to port the 1.6 gameplay unto the source engine. The primary reason is to have a visually up to date version of the most popular and competitive version of Counter-Strike, which till today is still 1.6.
At the same time, this will allow some of the bugs which are in 1.6 (such as illegal flashes, silent running) to be fixed.
Why is it needed?
This is a highly debated topic amongst competitive CS players, so to cut a very long story short:
(1) Valve dumbed down many of the aspects of 1.6 gameplay when creating CS:S, in the hopes of catering to a wider audience. This plan backfired, as it was the wide skill range of the original counterstrike which was one of the major things which made it so popular. Hence, the vast majority of the CS1.6 playerbase rejected CS:S, and thusly it still surpasses greatly the playerbase of CS:S.
(2) CS1.6 is very old, and looks poor in comparison to newer games being released today. A visual update is desperately needed.
(3) Valve is denying companies the TV License to broadcast 1.6, and forcing them to use CS:S. Contrary to popular belief, the CGS (Championship Gaming Series) did indeed ask to use 1.6, and Valve turned them down.
(4) Valve is no longer updating 1.6, (except to do stupid things like put advertisements in it), and ignoring more serious issues such as bugs or flaws in maps.
(5) Valve no longer caters to competitive players, but only to casual players, no one blames them as this is the wise thing to do financially, but most devs (especially of multiplayer fps games) at least spare a little time towards competitive gamers, whereas valve almost totally ignores them.
What competitive issues will CSProMod hope to fix?
Briefly, these are some of the major issues which CS:S suffer's from, which CSProMod hopes to fix. In CS:S -
(1) The hitboxes are extremely large (head hitbox 70% larger).
(2) Recoil is easier to control and the spread is smaller.
(3) Almost no wallbanging (aka spamming / walling).
(4) Slower player movement (both run and walk painfully slow).
(5) HE-Nades do way too much damage, flashbangs are overpowered.
(6) No quickscope accuracy.
(7) The running accuracy is way too high.
(8) There are no longer bullet sparks (where the bullet hits).
(9) Smoke grenades take 5 times as long to deploy.
These are just some of the issues which CSProMod will fix. (there are a lot more like sound directionality, enemies on radar etc) Even though Valve's main objective is money, when they dumbed down cs:s they did probably not realize how much it would affect the skill gap in the game, leaving less areas for players to improve.
Development
Executive Director - Alex Garfield (ex CS professional player, Owner/Manager of the EG professional team, and Assistant Manager of the Complexity.LA CGS Franchise). [His last CSProMod Interview]
Lead Developer - ARQON!! - Kevin "arQon" Blenkinsopp was the lead developer for the world famous CPMA(Quake3 Mod), and Q4MAX (Quake4 Mod), both of which are considered to be the competitive standard for both games.
Current Development Status:
CSProMod is currently in the open beta stage. (view complete changelog)
Notes:
(1) For the first few betas, all the in game models will not have been completed as of yet, thus some of the source models will be used for those betas.
(2) Not only was 1.6 the major inspiration for the mod, but some aspects of 1.5 and 1.3 (such as faster movement/no slowdown on landing from a jump/1.3 bunny hopping) will be in the first betas. All these settings can/will be changed/tweaked based upon community and professional feedback.
(3) Expect there to be some bugs, as this is the first open beta and first time the mod will be played by a wide audience. Also the maps are still beta as well, do not expect them to be completely perfect.
Requirements:
The only requirement for CSProMod is that you have CS:S installed on your PC, as it uses resources from CS:S. You will not be able to play CSProMod if your steam account does not have CS:S, due to licensing reasons. (hence why no 1.6 resources are no longer used in the mod)
Secondly, the system requirements for CSProMod will be lower than CS:S by a great deal, as the dev team have removed many of the useless things which caused performance issues and FPS dips (for example useless "junk" lying around the map interacting with an exploding HE-nade was a huge cause of fps dips)
Beta 1.04 Reviews
Some competitive gaming websites have gotten the 1.04 beta early, and posted their impressions.
"As a faithful adaptation of 1.6 the game absolutely succeeds. Playing the two games back-to-back really left me struggling to tell the difference at times and once the models fix come in CSPromod will be more like the game it so desperately wants, and needs, to emulate.... It is everything Source should have been – a graphical improvement of the greatest FPS created and it really is a triumph in that respect." (full review)
"All in all, if you take a deep look at Beta 1.04, you can see that there are huge improvements from previous releases, which is normal if you consider it has been almost two years since the last version came out. Still, there are still some things that I think need to be changed before CSPromod can go live." (full review)
"This is your game. Perhaps the most unconventional but argueably the most important aspect of Promod is that this game is literally a product of the community that will play it. Direct feedback will be at the core of every decision made regarding changes and updates. If a majority of the community is polled and the results point to X change needed with Y gameplay element, so it shall be." (full review)
1.04 Video Highlights
Hud and Options Preview
[yt]uXCc_1Tdv3w[/yt][yt]EgWcmLMYU2M[/yt]
[yt]0b5XLayVspc[/yt]
Map preview
[yt]NWoaaNLgxvk[/yt]
Communities and Info
CSProMod Steam Community Page - CSProMod has one of the largest steam community groups, currently closing on 50,000 members.
Official CSProMod Website - please note their site gets hammered and occasionally goes down especially when they release new info.
Gotfrag Esports - geared towards competitive gaming and CS/CS:S in particular.
Official CSProMod IRC Channel: #cspromod on irc.gamesurge.net (its +m a lot of the time)
Professional Feedback
Valve should have followed Blizzard's example, and hire professional players when developing a sequel to a competitive game. Hopefully they do so next time.
CSProMod is being tested by many professional CS players, many of whom belong to one of the G7 teams. These teams consist of the best professional CS players in the world, and their feedback directly to the CSProMod development team will be priceless.
Servers
Expect the number of servers running CSProMod to raise immensely once the open beta (and windows/linux server exe's) is publicly available.
Server List via Gametiger.Server List via Game Monitor.Extra Benefits
- CSProMod has the potential to unite the split CS community, who are currently split amongst 1.6, CS:S, (and CZ to a small extent). Also, as the system requirements are lower, many gamers especially in some Asian countries might be able to finally play CS on the source engine on their slightly older machines.
- The CSProMod team will be able to allow TV licences to any broadcasting company.
- The CSProMod team will be putting extra effort into broadcasting capabilities, making matches easier to watch for spectators/shoutcasters.
- Back when original CS was a mod being developed independently, bug fixes and updates would come out frequently, this stopped once Valve bought them over. CSProMod puts CS back into the hands of the community, where feedback, updates etc are no longer limited by the red tape of a multi million dollar corporation.
Download
Currently the CSProMod team is in talks with Valve to have the mod be available via Steam's servers, which would make distribution and updating a lot easier for almost all parties involved, whether players/server admins/server companies etc.
The mod is now in open beta. At the request of the CSProMod team, do not host any external mirrors. (primary reason being stats tracking, which is very important to the dev team)
CSPromod Beta 1.04 Client (.EXE)
- Divo Networks (US East)
- Divo Networks (US West)
- Multiplay (UK)
- Verygames (EU)
- Gotfrag
- Gamelux
- Cadred
CSPromod Beta 1.04 Client+Server (.ZIP)
- Divo Networks (US East)
- Divo Networks (US West)
- Multiplay (UK)
- Verygames (EU)
- Gotfrag
- Gamelux
- Cadred
Installation (exe version (cspromod_b104.exe) 48.79 MB)
1) Make sure you have Counter-Strike: Source Installed
2) Install
3) Restart the Steam Application; "CSPromod" should appear in "My Games"
4) Use the in-game GUI to bind your keys. DO NOT TRY TO USE YOUR
CS 1.6 OR CS:S CONFIG. MANY COMMANDS HAVE CHANGED, SO OLD BINDS
WILL NOT WORK.
(Expect some minor issues and bugs!!, after all these are the first few open betas.)
Last edited:
. I actually started playing CS when beta 1.0 was released, by chance I was hanging out in the #half-life channel on EFNet where one of the devs was a regular (I think it was Gooseman). I probably had the most fun in the first few betas before there were any cheaters and everyone was figuring the game out. Back then it was 6vs6 in scrims/matches and it was very friendly, no trash talking. Good times </nostaglia>.