Getting started with Counter-Strike

It’s on everybody’s lips. Everybody plays it. You can’t surf the ‘Net without sooner or later bumping into sites that have Counter-Strike as their subject. But what is Counter-Strike anyway? And is it really as great as everybody says?

Counter-Strike – commonly referred to as CS – has become increasingly popular since its release in 1999. Almost as soon as the game was created it received massive attention, primarily because of the sheer originality of its gameplay. Counter-Strike is still one of the most played online multiplayer games today and it is continuously updated with new versions that contain additional weapons and maps. If you’re a newcomer or just need a brush-up on how to get online and play Counter-Strike on Boomtown’s servers, we have what you need to know in order to get started.

In the game you play as either of two teams: counter-terrorists or terrorists. The objectives of the terrorists can be to keep hostages contained or blow up a designated area with explosives. The counter-terrorists’ objective is of course to free the hostages or prevent anything getting blown to pieces.

Here at Boomtown we have several Counter-Strike servers for your playing needs.

How do I get Counter-Strike?

In order to play Counter-Strike you need the game Half-Life, developed by Valve Software. Alternatively you can buy the recently released Counter-Strike: Condition Zero which does not require Half-Life to run.

Once you’ve bought Half-Life game there’s really no need to install it, all you need from your purchased game is the CD-Key that’s located somewhere on the cover. We’ll get to that later on.

In order to play the latest version of Counter-Strike and thereby be able to play on our many servers, you also need to get a hold of Valve’s software delivery client Steam. Steam is a required program that is used for playing all of Valve’s games online. It also makes sure that you are always updated with the latest versions of the games. When you’ve bought one of the retail products mentioned above, you can download a lot of other Half-Life mods such as Day of Defeat and so on, at no cost through Steam.

It’s actually not very complicated to get the game going. Here you’ll learn how to install Steam and Counter-Strike.

Getting the Steam client

There are three Steam clients, one without a cache and two with a cache, meaning that one is the Steam client itself and the two others are Steam clients with one or more games included. The cached ones are the most interesting, given that if you download the Steam client without the games, you still have to get the games through Steam and this is more time-consuming. In this guide we’ll take a look at the Steam client with the Counter-Strike cache. You can get this from Boomtown’s download section. The file size is approximately 380MB.

The Steam client without a cache can be grabbed here and you’ll find the one with all games included here. They are respectively 0.6 and 723MB in size.

Ready to install

Now we’ve downloaded Steam with Counter-Strike included and the installation can begin. Double-click on the file you’ve just downloaded, you’ll be greeted by the screen on the right. Pick a folder to install Steam into. The installer will have picked a default folder, but if you don’t want to use this just select “Browse”. Click “Next” and the installation will start.

Once installation has finished, Steam will check to see if your Steam files are up to date, which they are not. Steam will automatically download the latest updates, which can take some time depending on your Internet connection and how many files are required. Please be patient.

Creating a new user account with Steam

Once Steam has finished the installation process you’ll be required to register as a user of Steam. Click “Create new account”. Here you must state an e-mail address and it’s important that you state an active e-mail address, since Steam will use this to send you your user name and password.

When you’ve typed in your e-mail address you must state a password. After that you’ll be prompted for a hint question in case you should forget your password. Next you’ll create a nickname. This is the nickname your “friends” will see on their list. Click “Next” and your new Steam user account will be created. Steam will grant you an ID used for identifying yourself on the servers.

connection. Patience now…

State your CD key and select the games

When Steam has finished updating you’ll see the screen on the left. This is your Steam main menu. Click “Games” and you’ll get a list of games you can install through Steam. Click a game, for instance “Counter-Strike”, then click “Next” in the box that appears. Now you will be prompted to type your CD key from one of your purchased Valve products, which could be Half-Life or Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. You only need to use one of the keys, and once you’ve typed it in, you can download all mods for Half-Life from Steam at no cost.

Now a box will be displayed where you can tick the games you want to download through Steam. We’ll tick “Half-Life” and “Counter-Strike” and then click “Next”. Steam will process this for a moment and after that, you’ll have the “Games” menu as displayed on the right.

Lets get to the gaming

Double-click “Counter-Strike” and a screen will be displayed showing the latest fixes to the new version of Counter-Strike. Steam will download any required files if necessary. When Steam’s finished click “Play Game”.

Counter-Strike 1.6 will start up and you’re ready to play on servers all around the world.

Play Counter-Strike on Boomtown’s game servers

We don’t want to play on various servers around the world – we want to play on Boomtown’s superfast high quality servers. Now we will guide you to a spot on one of our many Counter-Strike servers.

To play on Boomtown you must first download the Boomtown@home client, which is a program enabling you to connect to Boomtown’s servers simply by clicking on our homepage. You can get the Boomtown@home client in our download section. Remember to select the latest version!

When you’ve downloaded the new client remember to make sure the old one isn’t running before you start updating. Just start the installation and follow the on-screen instructions. When installation has finished pick ”Settings” -> ”Game Settings” -> ”Counter-Strike Steam”. This is illustrated in the picture here.

Now we’ll select the file that starts up Counter-Strike. Click ”Search” and the client will look up the file we need. When this is done, click ”Ok” and you will see the main page of BT@Home.

The Rate Servers

If you view our serverlist you’ll see that our Counter-Strike servers are divided into four categories: Newbie servers: rate < 0.6, Casual Servers: rate < 1.0, Semi-skilled servers: rate < 1.2 and regular servers. The first three are limited according to your rating. We calculate your rating based on your kill/death ratio. For example, if you have 110 kills and 100 deaths you’ll have a rating of 1.1. This will restrict you from playing on our newbie servers but you are free to play all the others. The system works this way because we intended to make a “free haven” for beginners and intermediate players. This way, no super skilled players can come in and own the entire map.

When you’ve picked a server you just click [Play] next to it and in a short while, you’ll be connected.

Have fun!

Source: Boomtown DK
English version by: Julian Henlov (Progrock)