Competitive CS is one of the longest-running and best developed scenes of any game out there, dating back to 2001's legendary X3 vs NiP matches

Sign up on ESEA.net it's like $7/month. They have leagues for organized teams or a client that organizes pick-up games ("pugs") where 10 random players get sorted into two teams of 5

It also has a good anti-cheat system so very little hacking

Competitive CS is played 5 v 5, best of 30 rounds (so first to 16), 15 rounds per half, at half time the teams switch from Terrorist to Counter-Terrorist and vice versa

Always played on "de_" maps (i.e. dust2, train, nuke) where the objective is to plant the bomb (as T) or defuse it (as CT) or kill all 5 on the other team (either side)

I don't know if there's a new standard now, but back when I played semi-seriously, the voice program Ventrilo was used

Competitive teams spend a lot of times working on strategy, there are tons of intricacies like how to retake a bomb site after Ts have planted, etc.

Mumble seems to be the voice program du jour. It's like vent but better in most ways.

I would say this is probably one of the better times to start getting into competitive CS. Lots of people are clueless when it comes to GO...

TY, having a look now.

How do I find my Steam ID? I need it to set up the ESEA software.

NVM, got it^^

I joined there but it seems like the servers are constantly empty. Hasnt been a single person online yet today and I read the forums and theres a ton of UK guys saying servers are empty at various times of the day/night.

the m4 is just better for defending but the ak is the better weapon if u know what ur doing@1.6

ESEA isn't like a pub server where people are playing all day long. You'll usually see people playing around prime time. Get ready to get made fun of/raged at if you're new to CS.

Re: AK vs M4

It comes down to preference lol...both guns are good, anyone that says otherwise hasn't played enough.

Yea I think I'll give that a miss. Bye bye $7, lol

Im just looking for some help to improve, Im guessing getting owned then yelled probably wont help much.

What were your filters set on? Pug, scrim etc.?


If someone is a dick to you, type ".block (their name)" and it'll reduce the chance of you being put on the same team as them in the future

Like anything else you'll have to deal with a learning curve but gotta at least give it a decent try instead of just giving up instantly IMO

It's a very very fun and intricate game once you get into it so give it some time

I really like the game, but Im just not good enough. I guess I need like friendly clan with a couple of semi decent guys who can teach me a thing or 2.

I searched all the different types of games all day today(for the last 9 hours or so in between grinding) and I found 1 game a few hours ago, I joined it, ready up, run around having fun while it filled up, then it crashed at the loading screen as it was about to switch maps. Havent seen a game since.

There's usually at least 6 or 7 pugs running every time I've been on (late evenings Pacific time)

There are a lot of pugs right now...probably 17+?

This is how everyone feels at some point. The problem is most people don't have it in them to plow through so they just get stuck in that crappy limbo mode. They think somehow a nice friendly clan will fall into their lap and teach them how to play but it won't happen.

You need to put in the work first. You have to put in alot of time playing/watching demos/networking. You have to deal with being raged at a ton. It's all part of the process if you want to become competitive at any game.

Am I doing something wrong here with connecting to PUGs?

Every time I try to join a game it tried to load and then just seemingly boots me back to the CS:GO menus.

Damn if that doesn't make me feel old. x3 vs NiP on train was one of the first demos I ever watched and was instantly roped into the competitive scene. I miss my days of winning cal-o and cal-im, grinding my way eventually into cal-i. Eminence, s2k, CAU, rt...

Really tempted to give CS:GO a go (no pun intended), I was just totally underwhelmed by source.

you'll almost definitely like GO a lot better than Source.

I wish people would embrace promod. Was just playing it yesterday and it feels almost exactly like 1.6 but has updated graphics. Have no idea why it's completely dead (only like 3 servers ever running, all in Europe with usually 3 or 4 people in each at the most)

Only thing wrong with it is the sound, which is going to be changed in the next patch.

If you have any more details, post about it on the ESEA forum

Ya it was a shame promod didn't get picked up. I remember when they first started developing it there was a lot of chatter amongst the community about switching over, but it never gained enough support. Hasn't it been dropped a couple of times and new developers taken over? It would have required a lot for CAL/CPL to pick it up, just never seemed like they finished it.

Apparently ESEA tried it out for a bit, but it had no traffic... which is baffling. Maybe it was an older, buggier version? 'Cause I've only tried the current version (1.08) and it's awesome.

day 1 of dreamhack being streamed on twitch. supposed to have started already but players are still warming up.

http://www.twitch.tv/gamecasts

Went ahead and picked up, really enjoyed it. Control and movement feels much better than source. If only I didn't have a ****ty comp and could squeeze out more than 40 fps with completely tweaked out settings, I'd probably get more into it. People are really bad though, starting with my very first game I was leading almost every time I played with minimum 2.0 k:d, and I haven't touched an FPS on the comp in at least a year.

control and movement better than source? lol

The guy has 100 posts in 4+ years, don't troll him ffs