CS Source; No dynamic weapon pricing for competitive gaming

Dynamic weapon pricing



As everyone might, or might not have read, VALVe has set out to make, what may very well be one of the (if not 'the') largest change(s) to their most succesful title thus far; Counter-strike. More specifically, Counter-strike: Source, with the change being dynamic weapon pricing, in which the price you pay for your weapons is directly effected by how much the weapon is used compared to the other weapons. These changes would be put in effect, every monday of every week.



While taking a 'peek' into this future, it might sound like a decent idea, however an idea that fails to consider 1 (to some) very important issue. What this issue is? This game, Counter-Strike: Source, has, and has always had a 'split' community. What I mean by this is the following; there's the mainstream community on 1 side, and the competitive community on the other side.



While this might seem like only a minor userbase split to some, to me, and many others, this is a 'day and night' difference, there's frequently even a kind of 'rivalry' that comes up when public and competitive players meet (A good example here being the Steam forums, which sadly have a very clear bias in the moderation team on this regard).



Now, for the 'public' community, this will more than likely have a fairly minor impact, weapon choises are only rarely taken into consideration when deciding which route to go, and only rarely are eco rounds or alike performed to a relavant degree. As for the competitive community, this will hit hard. The competitive community, while it's grown capable of dealing with single changes, will more likely then not, practically die out for this game. Constant changes to the money system will make the larger teams target less 'random' games, will make sponsors prefer more consistant alternatives, and will make teams all over the world question if it will still be worth it, or even reasonable to play this game in any kind of competitive way.



I'm not someone to complain without decent reasoning, or without also providing propable/reasonable solutions. However, while I'll do my best to provide examples, please understand that there's still countless other alternatives that haven't been thought of, and might make even better solutions to the problem at hand:



1] sv_dynamicprices [1/0) (Default=1)

I believe what this suggestion / solution means is rather obvious, however, for those who don't fully understand it I'll try to clarify a little beyond the obvious. A serverside console variable that allows server owners to enable and/or disable the dynamic pricing of weapons.



2] A maximum price range

This being a little less obvious, however what I mean is this; Weapon prices shouldn't be allowed outside a predefined pricerange, defined for every weapon individually.



3] Predefine a number of weapons, and open dynamic weapon prices for other weapons.

As described, make some of the primary mainstream weapons have "locked" prices, give the less used weapons a dynamic price.



4] Simply keep this as they are

Fairly simple, and very unlikely, however still an option. "If it's not broken, don't fix it".



With all of this said, valve has made it very clear in the pre-view of this update, that they'll want to hear our opinions on this update.



To the community:

Please, for the sake of this game, this game competitively, and competitive gaming as a whole, sign this petition and take the time for it, write a few worlds on your explanation of your thoughts, show VALVe you really care.



To VALVe:

Please, for the sake of this game, competitive gaming, and the trust of your userbase, consider a change in the plans you've set out to follow; listen to your userbase and please, do not ruin the game we all love to compete in.