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Comment by pietmichal | Hacker News Reader

Counter-Strike 1.6 (and other Goldsrc based games) greatly benefited from AMX Mod X's scripting capabilities. I miss the days where people were playing modded servers.

Obscuring server browser and/or not allowing self-hosting dedicated servers killed modding in modern games. A real shame.

https://www.amxmodx.org/

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And it was literally just so they could skinnerbox people and sell skins. I still remember when if you wanted a skin you just downloaded it and could put it on your server and anyone who joined would download and use it. People running their own stuff makes DLC/lootcrate/cosmetics unviable and I do think a huge part of the "server" finding stuff is to algorithmically put you in situations you are likely to win/lose at certain rates to keep you playing. Anything other than community servers as the primary avenue is a dark pattern. You also lose out the path to getting into modding/3d modeling/programming/running servers that those modded servers were for lots of people including me.

If you have fun instagib servers that might detract from how many lootcrates people buy since they might just get curb stomped in it + it's just harder to track and measure the impact of changes when you are minmaxxing for monetary extraction when you have high variety of mods/servers. If you want to track and evaluate player behavior to manipulate it you need to control for as many variables as possible. These game companies are straight up evil.

On the other hand, during the anarchy years of bring-your-own-skins (and sprays), there was a lot of horrible shit out there — goatse was only the tip of the iceberg.

I don't buy the 'people need to be protected from things' argument.

I lived both eras.

Independent servers and self-modding were hands-down superior in terms of creativity and fun.

The current locked-box 'as the developers intended' version sucks in comparison.

And as referenced, its primary purpose is absolutely to enforce scarcity so that can be monetized.

Goatse in exchange for true ownership? Any day of the fucking week. My eyelids work, and I can close them myself.

You ran your own server within your group of (probably Internet-) friends and policed and banned players doing that kind of crap. A lot of the potential offense was limited by the low resolution of sprays anyway.

Game companies doing everything possible to turn every person into a gambling addict seems way more destructive than someone seeing a shock site.

Not only killed modding, but also killed the way those unique communities developed. I suppose it's possible you can find people on community Discord servers nowadays for pick up games, but not in the same way as just seeing and talking to the same people all the time on your favorite modded server.

For four great years in my career I ran game servers for an Australian ISP. I really enjoyed tossing up servers for new HL2 / UT / Quakeworld mods and seeing what picked up a community, chipping in on a cyberpunk HL2 mod in the same period.

I have such rose coloured glasses of that time.

Looking back, most of the dedicated server software felt like it was just tossed over the wall. Some of the stuff we used to have to do to get things running happily on headless linux servers was very hacky. Others simply HAD to run on windows hosts.

I feel like the entire industry died as games became "live" services.

Nearly 2 decades later when my kids got into Minecraft, I stumbled into the hosted MC server world and was just amazed by the size of the industry around it.

It was a real "arrrh this is where that same spirit ended up" moment.

And now of course there's huge servers funded by getting kids into gambling and pay to win.... Gross.

My favorite server which I think is dead by now, Dead Man Standing was a low gravity CS 1.6 server, no footstep noises, but there was a hook you could use to maneuver the low gravity, and the hook made noise, it was really something with those CS mouse maps. That was peak CS for me, I never saw anyone come close to the quality of that server. DMS I will always miss you.

I liked zombie mods

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