With a typical Valve overkill of awesome, Left4Dead 2 introduced the idea of Mutations: officially supported optional weekly variant gamestyles to keep things fresh and exciting. The only problem is that it’s a game about murdering clowns using electric guitars and combat shotguns: it needs to be kept fresh in the same way the Marianas Trench needs to be kept wet, and it’s an even greater example of the sheer awesome majesty available on Earth.
LPCCounter-Strike Mutations
With a typical Valve overkill of awesome, Left4Dead 2 introduced the idea of Mutations: officially supported optional weekly variant gamestyles to keep things fresh and exciting. The only problem is that it’s a game about murdering clowns using electric guitars and combat shotguns: it needs to be kept fresh in the same way the Marianas Trench needs to be kept wet, and it’s an even greater example of the sheer awesome majesty available on Earth.
What we want is some Special Ops Mutations for Counter-Strike. It’s still the most popular shooter despite an absolute lack of anything that even rhymes with “innovation” for over a decade. Valve have already shown that they’re still thinking of the supreme tactical shooter, as a company that makes shooters really should, with the Beta update bringing a bunch of recent improvements across to the ultimate in terrorist-shooting-in-the-face-ing. We can only hope that this is the thin end of the wedge, getting the mandatory “players whining about change” out of the way before brining out some real upgrades.
We’ve got some Special Ops ideas, and want to hear yours as well!
There can only be one (AWP)
On Counter-Strike servers the Arctic Warfare Police sniper rifle is all-powerful, all-known and can smite you from any distance – it’s like a very local and angry god but with far more proof of its existence. This mutation means only one player on either team has the option to buy the AWP, the last survivor (or the highest-scoring in the event of multiple survivors.)
You might think this means things are unbalanced, with that one best player having the best gun, but you’re not thinking it through. This will bring some seriously Splinter Cell twists to both teams. Sure, your team-mate might be defusing the bomb and about to win the game – but his back’s to you and that AWP is oh so very sweet.
We’ll Bomb You Back
This week the Counter-Terrorists take a lesson from Commando, deciding that not being the people blowing things up is for pansies. Instead they decide to deny the bomb sites to the enemy – by blowing them up first! It’s a race against time as teams try to show each other who’s the real threat, with maps like de_dust gaining extra CT bombsites (otherwise the way they start between A and B could be a little unfair.)
To win the map you must successfully bomb your site first – simply killing everyone on the opposing team doesn’t count as a win.
Now You C Me
Random bombsites! C marks the spot, and that point is selected – but not announced – every time you spawn so you have to search and destroy. To compensate for the increased difficulty, teams switch every round and there’s a match-break scoring system – one team must win twice in a row, once on each side, to claim victory.
Keep It Together
An alternate scoring system, Left 4 Dead survivor style, with the surviving members of each team adding up their health for a final score (of course, with a bombing success/prevention bonus). Scores are added up over five rounds, so that one guy in the corner with an AWP doesn’t necessarily even score the highest, as well as not actually helping his team.
Arms Race
This one’s simple: GunGame mapped over multiple rounds. If you haven’t played GunGame, you really should, as it’s Counter-Strike rewired via the arcades and an experience-based leveling system. In the original mod killing enemies raises you through the weapons – on a mutated CS server, the new level would be evaluated at the end of each round, leaping you to a new weapon, with every member of the team succeeding in bombing/preventing jumping one level.
And before you think this sounds less balanced than a drunken giraffe, it’s not an uphill trend towards the AWP – the highest level is the knife, preceded by the HE grenade, with the idea “Let’s see how well you do with these if you’re so great!With a typical Valve overkill of awesome, Left4Dead 2 introduced the idea of Mutations: officially supported optional weekly variant gamestyles to keep things fresh and exciting. The only problem is that it’s a game about murdering clowns using electric guitars and combat shotguns: it needs to be kept fresh in the same way the Marianas Trench needs to be kept wet, and it’s an even greater example of the sheer awesome majesty available on Earth.
What we want is some Special Ops Mutations for Counter-Strike. It’s still the most popular shooter despite an absolute lack of anything that even rhymes with “innovation” for over a decade. Valve have already shown that they’re still thinking of the supreme tactical shooter, as a company that makes shooters really should, with the Beta update bringing a bunch of recent improvements across to the ultimate in terrorist-shooting-in-the-face-ing. We can only hope that this is the thin end of the wedge, getting the mandatory “players whining about change” out of the way before brining out some real upgrades.
We’ve got some Special Ops ideas, and want to hear yours as well!
There can only be one (AWP)
On Counter-Strike servers the Arctic Warfare Police sniper rifle is all-powerful, all-known and can smite you from any distance – it’s like a very local and angry god but with far more proof of its existence. This mutation means only one player on either team has the option to buy the AWP, the last survivor (or the highest-scoring in the event of multiple survivors.)
You might think this means things are unbalanced, with that one best player having the best gun, but you’re not thinking it through. This will bring some seriously Splinter Cell twists to both teams. Sure, your team-mate might be defusing the bomb and about to win the game – but his back’s to you and that AWP is oh so very sweet.
We’ll Bomb You Back
This week the Counter-Terrorists take a lesson from Commando, deciding that not being the people blowing things up is for pansies. Instead they decide to deny the bomb sites to the enemy – by blowing them up first! It’s a race against time as teams try to show each other who’s the real threat, with maps like de_dust gaining extra CT bombsites (otherwise the way they start between A and B could be a little unfair.)
To win the map you must successfully bomb your site first – simply killing everyone on the opposing team doesn’t count as a win.
Now You C Me
Random bombsites! C marks the spot, and that point is selected – but not announced – every time you spawn so you have to search and destroy. To compensate for the increased difficulty, teams switch every round and there’s a match-break scoring system – one team must win twice in a row, once on each side, to claim victory.
Keep It Together
An alternate scoring system, Left 4 Dead survivor style, with the surviving members of each team adding up their health for a final score (of course, with a bombing success/prevention bonus). Scores are added up over five rounds, so that one guy in the corner with an AWP doesn’t necessarily even score the highest, as well as not actually helping his team.
Arms Race
This one’s simple: GunGame mapped over multiple rounds. If you haven’t played GunGame, you really should, as it’s Counter-Strike rewired via the arcades and an experience-based leveling system. In the original mod killing enemies raises you through the weapons – on a mutated CS server, the new level would be evaluated at the end of each round, leaping you to a new weapon, with every member of the team succeeding in bombing/preventing jumping one level.
And before you think this sounds less balanced than a drunken giraffe, it’s not an uphill trend towards the AWP – the highest level is the knife, preceded by the HE grenade, with the idea “Let’s see how well you do with these if you’re so great!”
We’re not the only people here who love CS – what are your ideas for Special Ops Mutations?
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 10:33 am and is filed under Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike Source.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:34 am
There’s plenty of innovation in Counter-Strike. They’re called addons.