Jess Cliffe of Valve Software: CZ 1.2 will be released next week via Steam.

cliffe: The 1.1 release went really well. It was a pretty large update content-wise—around 60meg. We have received a lot of positive feedback regarding the new player models and buy package system. The community was genuinely excited to get a hold of the custom CZ mission creations docs that we put out and have already released some stellar custom missions. With that said, the CS:CZ community is very strong and will only pick up momentum as we release further updates.

image: http://csnation.totalgamingnetwork.com/image.php?id=28273
caption: The new Militia terrorist shows a keen interest in that wall.

cliffe: The 1.2 update includes the Russian SPETSNAZ counter-terrorist and Militia terrorist player models. Players have been hungry for new characters to play in CZ and we're happy to get these out. For those of you who have always wanted to play as a raw hick in CS, now is your chance.

cliffe: The new hostage AI is something we are really excited about and can't wait to see the reaction from the community. Hostages can now crouch, use ladders, break windows, run, jump, etc. They can go just about anywhere you go. Showing emotion is another area we wanted to concentrate on. The hostages will fidget if bored and show fear when gunfire breaks out. In addition, the hostages will slowly try to escape if unguarded. The terrorists will have to keep a tight reign on the hostages by sticking close or finding the fleeing hostage, making him return to the terrorist base by intimidating him.

cliffe: The new hostage behaviors use data from the CS Bot .nav files. The new hostages are assigned in code and will override whatever hostages were placed in the map. This means that the new hostages are old-school map friendly.

cliffe: CZ 1.2 will feature a brand new map named Sienna (a collaboration between Valve, veteran mapper Dave Johnston, and Turtle Rock). The update will also contain Vostok, an upgraded Inferno, and other map tweaks.

CS-Nation: There has been a lot of criticism regarding the recent changes to the crosshair size, what has been done to address this?

cliffe: We've collected a lot of feedback from players regarding crosshair options. With this in mind, we've implemented options so you can set your crosshair color, size (small, medium, or large), and whether it is translucent or solid.

cliffe: We've received quite a lot of feedback regarding the AWP fix, both from players who saw it as a positive change and the vocal minority who relied on the quickswitch exploit. We see this issue as similar to bunny hopping from a few releases back and will continue to monitor player opinion on the issue.

cliffe: Counter-Strike owners will see the new crosshair options and various improvments to the game.

cliffe: Steam is a great tool for us to quickly add new features, content, and changes to our games. With Condition Zero, it also allows us to be agressive with new twists on the CS gameplay that the community is interested in trying out.