I started on 1.3, and eventually version-up'd my way to css and played probably thousands of hours around 2007ish with an ex good friend of mine. Then tf2 came out and everybody moved over to that.

But then valve decided hats and new items and weapons and REAL MONEY needed to get involved. Oh and also cs would tell release go, but by that time, cs was visibly full of hackers. I know because I went like a year with my friend playing with hacks with each other until we got bored of it, so I know the mindset and mental process. I still remember the first time loading up in dust 1 and seeing my friend see me through a wall in... Oh jeez I don't even remember the name of the area anymore. Like upper tunnel where everybody clashes? Anyway, seeing each other through that was like looking into a mirror for the first time... But yeah, tf2. Tf2 got boring when it became a sloggy grind that never had any stable balance and it was pretty obvious valve was engineering rage as a way to keep people engaged. You know, with the kill-cams and stuff. It's undeniable.

But then the years passed and csgo apparently got better. I had long since moved on and decided I didn't like go from the start.

And then, cs2 comes out, and I'm gonna be honest, I REALLY like the visual style of cs2. But I remember playing in csgo after valve copied league and really focused matchmaking, which to me was a huge misstep, because cs is(was) not that type of game. And I didn't care for csgo one bit. They took all the worst parts of 1.6 and css and put them together, and I was just done. I needed innovation.

And so, now, I just played cs2 for about a dozen hours for the first time this past week.... And.... Boy do I have thoughts.

I'm not going to go into them. There's too many.

But just one main one is that I'm really sad that cs has stagnated to the point of now relying on gambling and either deathmatch or matchmaking. There are a very small handful of custom servers like climbing and surf, but MOST of that stuff is absolutely dead. Even matchmaking is dead as shit. It's all skinvesting (dude. Fuck paid skins and that ENTIRE industry across ALL games).

I looked for a community server that was mostly default settings and just had a million maps where a handful of players (6-20) could just fart around in, but that type of actual community just doesn't exist anymore. The game got too fragmented by valve trying to oversimplify and remove the server browser, but inadvertently made it super messy. And the fucking ui is godawful. It's flashy and sometimes even responsive, the console and game both have some extremely good improvements. But.... It's just attracted the most sweaty tryhard seriouspants people.

It's my home game, where I came from, my roots. But Jesus. They turned it into a Borg.

Same with R6 Siege

Last time I went on 1.6 it was FULL of "exp" servers "mod" servers and all sorts of other weird jank. Heartbreaking.