I'm sorry Kyle, I have to disagree with you one point. This is not the premature death of CSS. Sadly, most die-hard CSS players would tell you that CSS officially died for most of the people who loved it when it was ported to the new engine in May 2010. Until that day, I could have never imagined playing any other game. I stopped playing it within a few days of they switch.
Since that day, the game has never played right and most of the people in our Community no longer play it. And for Henry, I thought Valve wanted their games to run under one engine so it was easier to manage and be consistent. This was the only thing that made sense out of the whole concept of moving over CSS to OB? Now you're saying Valve plans on maintaining two systems again. I agree it's nice to have updates for one game not affect other games, but it just seems you're going in the opposite direction from what was started a year and a half ago. So..... Why not bring back the old CSS engine and restore the game to its glory! :-) OMG! That would be sweet! Wink.. _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Henry Goffin Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 7:25 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list; Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] The Premature Death of Counter-Strike Source. I understand the concern, but it's based on an incorrect assumption. Yes, CS:S now stores its own binaries in a different folder. However, it has not actually branched away from the Source 2009 engine, and it still compiles from the same source code. We have simply gained the option of updating the binaries independently, so that for example, if an engine change is required for a TF feature but ends up causing a bug in CS:S, we can still deploy TF2 without updating CS:S. Updates will continue to come for both games, and the engine will be roughly in sync between the two, except for periods of instability. For example, given the problems with the very latest Team Fortress update, I would assume that CS:S admins are quite happy to not be impacted. We will still be updating CS:S with all the Source 2009 engine fixes, just not at the exact same time. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kyle Sanderson Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 7:13 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list; Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: [hlds] The Premature Death of Counter-Strike Source. So, as some of you may have noticed... The last, and apparently final shared Engine/Game update (Manniversary... don't even get me started) moved Counter-Strike Source off of Source 2009 and into it's own engine branch. This was a deliberate change. What does this mean for the end user? No more shared binaries between HL2DM, DOD:S, and TF2. If you use MM:S, SM (including extensions), ES, or any sort of VSP, the author will now have to compile a binary built against the CSS "SDK" instead of Source 2009. This is needlessly increasing work for plugin authors. Another issue with this is after the 12th of November, 2007 until the 23rd of June, 2010. Fixes were being backported days, weeks, or even months after they're more then public knowledge and are exploited. A decent example of this is sv_soundscape_printdebuginfo, after 5 months it was back ported to Episode 1... That was really gross then, who would want it to happen again? Just to reiterate how serious this is. On June 25th of 2010, Valve fixed the .dll loading exploit on Source 2009 (Which included CSS, thank god). To this date (I just remembered this existed from looking at old patch notes for OB, there's probably a number of exploits that were never fixed), the exploit still functions perfectly on L4D, L4D2 (requires -insecure on the client), and of course the older engines. The exploit allows for servers to run arbitrary code on clients. This can include anything from infecting them via the built in lobby system (they'd have to join a server, if it's a versus match even better). From there, the .dll could do something as simple as inviting friends to join them to play a match, then start downloading and executing code on the client whenever it wants. If CS:S wasn't part of the Source 2009 pact, I highly doubt it would have received this fix (HL2DM sure didn't have it for three months until it was ported). Everyone knows how bad GarrysMod 9 had gotten when GMod 10 came out, this can be L4D today and we would be none the wiser. What do we gain from this change? Slightly faster download speeds for HL2DM, DODS, and TF2 as CSS is no longer part of the update package (Mind you it's not like CSS was not the game getting the constant material/model updates...). Sure, this is nice. However, killing Counter-Strike Source before CS:GO comes out really can't be the goal here, right? VoiceHook is already broken because of the last required update, and needs to be built against the old SDK for server admins to be able to use it. Everything other plugin will follow as the Source 2009 engine continues to be updated. Hate me if you want for saying this, I haven't told a lie though. Kyle.
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