CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
server-side stupidity
counter-point: server-side stupidity
One thing is nearly ubiquitous these days when you log on to a Counter-Strike server: the Admin Mod. This week, rizzuh and asspennies discuss the implications of its popularity.
From: asspennies [mailto:asspennies@counter-strike.net]
To: rizzuh [mailto:rze@counter-strike.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 12:57 PM
Subject: Outmodded

It seems you can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting a CS server that has the admin mod installed. I think this has been a (relatively) recent phenomenon; I remember a time when finding the admin mod wasn't at all common.

Personally, there are certain things about the admin mod that I really like. The Statsme metamod plug-in is one of the most useful enhancements to Counter-Strike since the money system was locked at $16000. Letting some people you trust have limited administrative access to your server while not giving away total control with the rcon password can be very helpful.

That said, the admin mod can be easily abused. An unscrupulous admin can make the game a living hell for the players on his server. Now, with over 28,000 servers available for Counter-Strike (I am still amazed at that number), this isn't a huge problem. But more and more of those servers have admin mod installed. Which means more and more admins can be as annoying as ever.

To be fair, you won't find an amazing amount of bad admins. Most of them are quite good and do the community a service without any malice. It's in all of our interests not to let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch.

The admin mod, though, is just one of several add-on mods that alter the game after the original mod - Counter-Strike - modifies Half-Life. In essence, they're modding the mod, further splitting off the community, splintering off junction after junction. It can get confusing, and with their popularity and in some sense ease of creation, it can only get more and more separated.

Monitoring stats is one thing. Giving players Warcraft 3 powers, or matrix-like moves—doesn't that detract from the original intentions of Counter-Strike as a whole? Is it right to make these gameplay modifications? Is it right to argue against these gameplay modifications if people want to play them?
From: rizzuh [mailto:rze@counter-strike.net]
To: asspennies [mailto:asspennies@counter-strike.net]
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 11:20 AM
Subject: Social Modwarism

For the most part Admin Mod and the various other server-side mods are distractions that don't really hurt anyone. Statsme is an example of a great tool that informs you, while Chicken Mod is quite possibly the largest waste of time ever created. I'd have more fun trying to build an alarm clock out of concrete than I could possibly have with running around as chicken. Of course, there are plenty of Admin Mod plug-ins that function as alarm clocks themselves. That concrete bag will never be put to good use, I guess.

The fact remains that Chicken Mod doesn't hurt anyone. It might be a little annoying, but if it's being abused you can always leave. Things like an admin running "admin_exec unbindall" for you is a bit more troubling, since it removes all the keys you had set. Not only is this annoying but for many newbies out there it can completely ruin the game until they reinstall. While the ability to 'unbindall' was taken out in a recent version of Admin Mod, forcing a player to bind his fire key to say something like "I am stupid!!" is still a common abuse.

There are ways around it, however. Set your /cstrike/config.cfg to read-only, or type "writecfg backup" in console every few days. You'll be safe once you quit Counter-Strike, and then you'll be ready to join another server.

The Warcraft 3 CS mod is a waste of time and completely goes against CS' gameplay. When you stumble upon one of these servers then it's time to leave. Keep in mind that many people love both Warcraft 3 and Counter-Strike, so these servers are going to be populated. So will the ChickenMod servers. And guess what, when you get execclient'd most people are going to laugh at you and play on another server.

In the end, it's the server operators right to do whatever they want. It's assumed they pay the bills and whatnot, so if they want to be mindless idiots hell-bent on creating evil then so be it. We'll just find a better server, because—honestly—a lot of things in the Counter-Strike community could use a bit of Darwinism.