When the news was leaked last month that a number of top level CS:S players would be asked to fly out to the Valve HQ in Seattle this weekend questions began running through the mind of almost every CS enthusiast.

Like a guilty father who had abandoned his kid a long time ago Valve have begun to try and rebuild the fractured relationship between themselves and a competitive scene that has been left in the dark for over a decade. The first worry for the competitive scene was whether or not it would actually go ahead, with some of the players stating that the American company had asked for it to remain under wraps, as the days went past though their fears were settled as flight booking receipts and hotel details were sent out to the lucky few.

For the past year or so Valve have been employing another developer to work on updating our beloved CS:S, Hidden Path. At first the company seemed keen to reignite the passion of a community seemingly bored with a game so inconsistent and filled with bugs it was shunned by most of the FPS elite (1.6 players). Things started well and after some huge changes the CS:S community began to get excited, then everything stopped. No updates came for months and many began to question if Hidden Path had been taken off of the project; had they hit a brick wall and decided to get the input of the people who know best?

It was unlikely that they'd be discussing an all new Counter Strike given the fact that only CS:S players had been invited and the 1.6 community had been shunned. So, the invited players began compiling questions and bug fixes to be discussed this weekend with the development team. Most of their plans were thrown out of the window when they learned the main purpose of the meeting - to test the latest title created by Valve, CS:GO.

CS:GO, king of the consoles?

CS:GO, in case any of you have been hiding under a rock for the past two days - or just haven't been online - is a brand new FPS title being released by Valve. They have been keen to stress that this is not CS:2, but will be a stand alone title developed on an updated version of the Source Engine and is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2012. Their press release read the following:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO).

Targeted for release via Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam (for PC and Mac) in early 2012, CS: GO will expand upon the team-based action gameplay that it pioneered when it was launched exactly 12 years ago (CS beta 1, August 1999).

CS: GO features new maps, characters, and weapons and delivers updated versions of the classic CS content (de_dust, etc.). In addition, CS: GO will introduce new gameplay modes, matchmaking, leader boards, and more.

"Counter-Strike took the gaming industry by surprise when the unlikely MOD became the most played online PC action game in the world almost immediately after its release in August 1999," said Doug Lombard, VP of Marketing at Valve. "For the past 12 years, it has continued to be one of the most-played games in the world, headline competitive gaming tournaments and selling over 25 million units worldwide across the franchise. CS: GO promises to expand on CS' award-winning gameplay and deliver it to gamers on the PC as well as the next gen consoles and the Mac."

CS: GO is being developed by Valve in cooperation with Seattle-based Hidden Path Entertainment. The title is targeted for release in early 2012 and will be playable at this year's PAX Prime and London Games Festival.

Things seemed interesting at first but upon closer inspection it was clear that Valve had the console market in mind when they decided to work on CS:GO. Luckily CS:GO isn't the sole purpose of the meeting in Seattle and after an exchange of emails with our man on the ground, Henry 'HenryG' Greer, he made it clear that CS:S is still on the agenda and they have spent most of today discussing the game and what changes need to be implemented.

In a lengthy meeting this afternoon the players were locked in discussion with the level designers, the coders and the general developers from Hidden Path. The players were shown some of the features that are soon to be implemented including CSSTV, a feature already seen in TF2 whilst allows players to download the previous round at the touch of a button. The downloaded clip can then be edited in CS:S and converted into an .avi file, good news for movie makers. The players then discussed their ideas with the team, a list of which can be seen below:

The meeting looks something like this, but with more glasses.

Bug Fixes:

1. Consistent sound engine. If a clients point of view makes a sound, it should make one of the server for all others to hear.

2. Flashes differing lengths on different cards for dx9.

3. Reload sounds not always originating from correct places

4. Recoil not resetting fully after a burst from a fully automatic rifle.

Gameplay Changes:

1. A "warmode" where certain changes will occur automatically for standard competitive play.
-remove physics objects e.g barrels + rubbish
-100tickrate without all workaround fixes for 100tick rate of fire on 66tick servers, aka clean orange box engine.
-shadows removed on players in Terrorist/Counter terrorist sides - eg spectators can still have good visuals.

2. Flashes to be reworked.
- More directional, if they land behind have 40% the effect of landing in a 90 degree field of view.
- Less proximity based, eg if they go off 30 yards away should still blind for a few seconds to punish the player for not looking away.
- Flashes shouldn't effect the sound of the player who is flashed as much - way too intrusive.

3. HE grenades and flashes should be able to pass through player models, but still deal the correct damage/flash if they are inside a player model. Too many instances of grenades becoming lodged in a players head. -he grenades should also not root a player who is hit at all.

4. Awp rate of fire reduced akin to 1.6, too easy for a player to keep missing and still kill 3 or more of the opponents even when rushed because the rate of fire is too high.

5. Deagle damaged reduced by 10%.

6. Models adjusted so the head is exactly in line with the players point of view, to prevent "left eye peeking". Overall body mass must should also be centralised.
- Should also be adjusted for when a player is crouching.

7. Crouching speed should be increased.

8. Movement acceleration immediatly after crouching should be increased- currently takes around half a second for standing speed acceleration to come into effect.

9. Model size reduced slightly - 15% overall, makes it harder to frag one another. A more precise aim required.

10. Head size reduced 30% vertically. Reason for not reducing horizontally is so players will not be encouraged to crouch on a corner to avoid being headshotted.

11. Tagging from all weapons increased. The time tagging lasts. e.g time for standing speed acceleration to return to normal reduced significantly. - will improve the feel of the game, and promote team work. If 2 players face off against 1, the solitary player will lose unless doing something spectacular. This also promotes frag or die, will be harder for a player to retreat so must think about positioning more frequently.

12. Most damaging part on the body to take the hit for any given bullet. Example: the trojectory of a bullet is on path with a players head, but the arm is blocking it, the hit will count as an arm shot rather than a headshot. This should not be the case. The highest damaging part for a given trojectory should always take precedence.

13. There should be a very subtle hit animation when attacking players, very similar to when a headshot is made but for the body. So a player can quickly determine if they are successfully landing hits. Eg a small red flash.

Map Changes:

Mentality/philosiphy. Remove as many head height boxes and positions (including crouching positions) as possible to create for a more consistent team work based map, without changing the fundamentals that current players are used to.

Dust2:

1. Remove majority of head height boxes on the map, either make them taller or get rid of them all together.

2. Remove car in B.

Nuke:

1. Make site boxes taller and change the forklift to a non metal object

2. Make the vents taller. See de_prodigy as a good example of this.

Inferno:

1. Remove truck from CT spawn and B pit, Replace with mildly spammable materials.

2. Remove car at bottom of mid.

3. Remove fence from elevated area on B site or just make into spikes (foot tall and less frequent)

4. Grate should open as you walk through it instantly, non intrusive.

5. Remove car from banana, replace with boxes, Remove pillars from banana and widen the banana walk way.

Train:

Rebuild all the train models so there are fewer head view only crouching positions. Eg forcing a player camping under a train to expose at least half their body.

Zblock will be incorporated into the game in future

He also revealed that the players now have a private forum where they can discuss any updates with the Hidden Path crew as soon as they hit the beta stages, whilst Zblock developer J3di has been hired by the company to work from home, incorporating Zblock, among other things, into the game in future. Whether or not these are all implemented remains to be seen but we will be keeping you updated throughout the next few days on any new information that comes out of the meeting. One thing that is for sure is that all of these suggestions have been discussed in detail with the Hidden Path crew and they have assured us that CS:S still has a future, how big it is depends on us.