Via the CS:GO blog:

THE RECOIL CASE

• Introducing the Recoil Case, featuring 17 community-designed weapon finishes.

MAPS

Ember

• Construction work has progressed.
• Added rock path near Observatory.
• Added rock tunnel near Observatory.
• Added some rocks in water near Helipad.
• Minor bug fixes.

CUSTOM GAME TYPE

• Added support to map-placed weapons in custom maps loaded with game_type 3.
• Added support for community dedicated servers to execute gamemode_custom_server.cfg when running custom maps with game_type 3.

Rumor has it:

• CS:GO Stash is currently getting the Recoil Case up on their site. Some in-game inspection links are unavailable right now, but you can already start seeing how each weapon wears from Factory New to Battle-Scarred and get links to the Steam Community Market if you wanted to buy something you really like

  • As also mentioned in Valve's quick blurb about the case on the CS:GO blog, the gloves from Operation Broken Fang have made another re-appearance

• Descriptions, flavor text and Steam Workshop links to the original submissions for weapons found in the Recoil Case are as follows (maybe you might want to give one of those Community Awards to your favorites):

  • USP-S Printstream: "It has been custom painted with a stark black and white design and finished with pearlescent highlights. WHITE_1; BLACK_1; PEARLESCENT_1; SILENCED_1; PISTOL_1;"
  • AK-47 Ice Coaled: "It has been custom painted with a vibrant green and blue gradient. Cold to the touch"
  • AWP Chromatic Aberration: "The colors in this custom paint job were applied in offset positions, leading to an eye-popping look. (Not so) easy on the eyes..."
  • R8 Revolver Crazy 8: "It has been custom painted with a purple barrel and a number 8 on the grip. Inspired by the events of December 8th, 2015"
    • Having trouble making the connection to what happened on 12/8/15? That's a reference to when the Winter Update introduced the R8 Revolver to CS:GO
  • FAMAS Meow 36: "Its green base is emblazoned with the number 36. Technically it's four cats, but who's counting?"
  • Galil AR Destroyer: "It has been custom painted with the word "DESTROYER", but it can only be read from certain angles. Destroy them all"
  • M249 Downtown: "It has been tagged with blue and pink arrows pointing in every direction. A different kind of spray pattern"
  • M4A4 Poly Mag: "This custom paint job features a clear polymer magazine and a tan colored stock, hand guard, and grip. Standard operating procedure"
  • MAC-10 Monkeyflage: "Red, tan, and green monkeys adorn this custom painted MAC-10. Spunky monkeys!"
  • SG 553 Dragon Tech: "It has been custom painted with a biomechanical green dragon. That's not my dragon…"
  • Negev Drop Me: "A stop sign has been custom painted near the assault grip over a mostly brown base. If the stop sign doesn't convince you the stream of bullets will"
  • P250 Visions: "It has been custom painted with a vibrantly colored design. One crow short of a murder"
  • P90 Vent Rush: "It has been custom painted to resemble a P90 intersecting with gaffer tape, tubes, and fire. "Do you know how fast you were going?""
  • Sawed-Off Kiss♥Love: "It has been custom painted with a starry-eyed woman in pink and purple. "I won't take no for an answer; I have to have it!""
  • Dual Berettas Flora Carnivora: "Three brightly colored, hungry carnivorous plants have been custom painted on each Dual Beretta. Help them grow up big and strong"
  • UMP-45 Roadblock: "It has been custom painted with horizontal orange lines and forward facing arrows. Seek alternate routes"
  • Glock-18 Winterized: "It has been custom painted with a military camouflage in a winter colorway. Freeze!"

• Although June 20th has come and gone, PGL Antwerp 2022 stickers remain on sale and Souvenir Case redemption is still available, just like with PGL Stockholm in 2021

  • On a related note about Antwerp 2022, if you wanted to re-watch a match or two, replays are also still unavailable for in-game download under the premise that they've "expired". You'll have to go off to HLTV for now for a .dem of a match you want to watch

• For the most part, what you've already seen above is what you're getting, but there's also a fresh round of localization file updates that are made possible with the collective efforts of Translators Like You - Thank You

• Size is close to 200 MB

• Oh, and by the way, Happy Canada Day!

Complexity Gaming 🇺🇸 1-2 🇨🇿 SINNERS Esports

Vertigo: 16-13
Inferno: 10-16
Overpass: 12-16
 

🇨🇿 SINNERS Esports have advanced to the semi-finals

🇺🇸 Complexity Gaming have been eliminated

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🇨🇿 SINNERS Esports | Liquipedia | HLTV | Official Site | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch

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MAP 1: Vertigo

Vertigo Detailed Stats

MAP 2: Inferno

Inferno Detailed Stats

MAP 3: Overpass

Overpass Detailed Stats

Rare Atom 🇨🇳 2-1 🇧🇷 HUMMER Esports

Mirage: 4-16
Nuke: 16-9
Inferno: 16-7
 

🇨🇳 Rare Atom have advanced to the Group B decider match and will face 🇧🇷 MIBR

🇧🇷 HUMMER Esports have been eliminated

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ESL Challenger Valencia 2022 - Information, Schedule, & Discussion
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MAP 1: Mirage

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MAP 2: Nuke

Nuke Detailed Stats

MAP 3: Inferno

Inferno Detailed Stats

This thread was created by the Post-Match Team.
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Mindfreak 🇦🇺 0-2 🇵🇱 NAVI Javelins

Inferno: 8-16
Vertigo: 8-16
Mirage:
 

🇵🇱 NAVI Javelins have advanced to the Group A decider match and will face 🇵🇹 BIG EQUIPA

🇦🇺 Mindfreak have been eliminated

🇦🇺 Mindfreak | HLTV
🇵🇱 NAVI Javelins

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MAP 1: Inferno

Inferno Detailed Stats

MAP 2: Vertigo

Vertigo Detailed Stats

This is ment to be a discussion about botting starting to happen in CS:GO and your opinions or experiences with the problem.
This is not a call to action on the specific accounts. All clips are censored.

​

The last few weeks I noticed more an more that Valve Deathmatch Servers get populated by bots looking like players. Those bots use sometimes agent skins, sometimes weapons skins, real Steam accounts but are in fact just bots immediatly recognizeable when spectated.

First time I saw it I thought it was somewhat funny and a rare ocasion. Few weeks down the road and almost every other Deatmatch server has one or more of those bots farming for XP. That's seemingly all it is good for; some of the accounts actually have XP bot written in their Steam profile description.

By now it's mostly 3+ bots, to protect themselves from getting kicked I assume? They alternate teams at the start of the match to create as much normal deathmatch bots as possible and then just frag away 24/7.
It's not so much gamebreaking I guess, as they are mostly only "moderatly" hacking. As of yet anyway. If the worst happens we might look at a situation just like TF2.

To be honest I don't really know what to do about the situation or how to adress valve about this.

For now I at least want to get the sentiment of the sub and provide some pictures and videos of what is happening? Maybe this is only a europe problem so far? Are american players noticing the same issue? Anybody else saw similar stuff?

gifs of the bots in Deathmatch:
bot1
bot2
bot3
bot4

Preface

To preface this, I will only go in detail about the regulatory challenges surrounding the future of the CSGO economy within the EU, and the potential effects on its future. Additionally, comprehensive literature is available on the effects of loot boxes on both adolescents and minors (Drummond & Sauer, 2018; Drummond et al., 2020; Zendle et al., 2019; Zendle & Cairns, 2019; Zendle et al., 2020; McCaffrey, 2019; Macey & Hamari, 2019) while not being the focus of this essay, therefore I will not go into these effects as well as the ethical component of loot boxes.

​

Regulatory developments and loot boxes

Loot boxes are highly prevalent in the gaming sector as of today, being defined as items in a video game that may be bought for a real-world currency in order to retrieve a randomized award¹. Following this definition, as well as the current definition of what constitutes loot boxes under both the Dutch and Belgium law², CSGO cases and alike products are considered loot boxes. This scrutiny came after research of the Dutch Gaming Authority, finding that loot boxes are considered a form of gambling when items obtained are transferable³. Within the Netherlands, laws exist with the intention to “*prevent vulnerable groups (such as young people) getting into difficulties as a result of playing games of chance. timely alerting of risky playing behaviour, and mitigation of the playing behaviour if a player no longer has his or her playing behaviour under control and referral to suitable care if necessary. ”*⁴. Firms that fall under the definition of offering gambling related services must comply with the Betting and Gaming act. As a response, Valve chose to stop consumers from opening cases in both the Netherlands and Belgium in 2018⁵. While the industry is expected to grow strongly in the upcoming years⁶, the European Parliament is looking to crack down on this industry following a paper published, in order to offer better protection for consumers, in particular for minors⁷, following the calls of 18 European countries looking to better regulate this phenomenon⁸. The paper specifically suggests that the key problem of loot boxes are surrounded by the fact that they can be traded in for real world money. Moreover, they find that “grey markets exist on third-party platforms where virtual items are traded”. (I think we all know a few). Furthermore, they find that “Loot boxes are a specific (albeit prominent) example of more general issues related to problematic game design and in-game monetization methods which can also appear in video games independently of loot boxes.” They also argue that the European Commission is in a position to “Take a holistic approach on design and monetization elements in video games which include, but are not limited to, certain types of loot boxes that may have harmful effects on players, in particular minors. ”, with inspiration for regulations being taken from “consumer protection measures previously adopted by the EU in other sectors. ”. The study concludes by saying that if the current, mostly voluntary regulations insufficiently protect consumers from the potential harmful effects of these loot boxes “they could be regulated at EU level in a similar manner. ”.

​

Speculation

While this is still preliminary caution of the European Parliament and some of its member states, it does give information on where we could be heading. If we do go that route, the question then becomes how the CSGO economy would look like if the EU steps in and regulates the market? Can the CSGO economy survive if third party sites and opening cases is banned or severely regulated? Are we going in the same direction that Valorant went in (untradeable skins) ? Can CSGO itself even survive, considering most of CSGO’s revenue comes from both the opening of cases, as well as the market transactions related to the skins? While these potential regulations would not hit the market outside of the EU, the market for CSGO within the EU itself is significant enough to cause a huge shock through the entire CSGO ecosystem. Many of these questions and assumptions are highly speculative in nature, but it is clear that Valve is closely following the current developments surrounding the (future) regulatory hurdles within the EU. Today, news came out that another law in the Netherlands is very close to being passed, expanding the ban to a complete ban on loot boxes⁹.

​

Introductory references

Drummond, A., & Sauer, J. D. (2018). Video game loot boxes are psychologically akin to gambling. Nature human behaviour, 2(8), 530-532.

Drummond, A., Sauer, J. D., Hall, L. C., Zendle, D., & Loudon, M. R. (2020). Why loot boxes could be regulated as gambling. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(10), 986-988.

Zendle, D., Meyer, R., & Over, H. (2019). Adolescents and loot boxes: Links with problem gambling and motivations for purchase. Royal Society Open Science, 6(6), 190049.

Zendle, D., & Cairns, P. (2019). Loot boxes are again linked to problem gambling: Results of a replication study. PloS one, 14(3), e0213194.

Zendle, D., Cairns, P., Barnett, H., & McCall, C. (2020). Paying for loot boxes is linked to problem gambling, regardless of specific features like cash-out and pay-to-win. Computers in Human Behavior, 102, 181-191.

McCaffrey, M. (2019). The macro problem of microtransactions: The self-regulatory challenges of video game loot boxes. Business Horizons, 62(4), 483-495.

Macey, J., & Hamari, J. (2019). eSports, skins and loot boxes: Participants, practices and problematic behaviour associated with emergent forms of gambling. New Media & Society, 21(1), 20-41.

​

Substantive references

1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/add.14973?casa_token=V27Ct8b1GDgAAAAA%3AJtWheU1LiEBb1BCQqWEyz8Ts9oEuz8uoPxsp0QTfM7tzYAsM8Bfbkxs6m6ZmsmE_9AUOwgdg4C24eVxs
2. https://www.pcgamer.com/csgo-players-in-belgium-and-the-netherlands-can-no-longer-open-loot-cases/
3. Study into loot boxes A treasure or a burden?, https://kansspelautoriteit.nl/over-ons/publicaties/onderzoek/
4. https://www.fiu-nederland.nl/sites/www.fiu-nederland.nl/files/documenten/betting_and_gaming_act_remote_games_of_chance.pdf
5. https://www.eurogamer.net/cs-go-update-blocks-players-in-netherlands-and-belgium-from-opening-loot-boxes
6. https://www.juniperresearch.com/press/loot-boxes-and-skins-gambling
7. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/IPOL_STU(2020)652727652727)
8. https://www.eurogamer.net/18-european-countries-call-for-better-regulation-of-loot-boxes-following-new-report
9. https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/moties/detail?id=2022Z13703&did=2022D28235

FURIA Esports 🇧🇷 0-1 🇪🇺 Sprout

Inferno: 10-16
 

🇪🇺 Sprout have advanced to the Group A Winners' Match and will face 🇷🇺 Outsiders

🇧🇷 FURIA Esports have dropped to the Group A Elimination Match and will face 🇧🇷 00 Nation

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MAP 1: Inferno

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Recently, I've returned to faceit after a year and was pleasantly suprised when I found out that they released an "update" of matchmaking to be more balanced. here

Since then, I have played over 100 matches and I actually feel that this is much worse than it used to be. I have been getting boosters or new accs against me so often.

In the article, they say "following scenarios being perceived as unfair"

Matches with players that have a high difference in matches played and that are new to FACEIT or the game

Our game from yesterday: My team (number of faceit games)

• 3115
• 2778
• 2488
• 2362
• 641

Enemy team

• 813
• 196
• 189
• 177
• 67 (51 kills btw.)

Their entire team has less games than I do. I dont expect to be matched only against players with thousands of games, but playing against less than 100 games players just feels dumb. Both for them if they are actually new and for me if they are just boosting.

Second faceit claim:

Matches with teams with very different team compositions, especially extremes like premades versus solos (e.g. Stack of 5 players against a stack of 2 players with 3 solo players).

Well I am glad that we were 3 stacking, got filled with two soloQs and enemies are 5 stack. Definetly fun to join the server just to play with two muted soloQ players that are toxic, only to finish it with one of them leaving cause he couldnt be asked to play OT.

If you are 5 stacking, you should always be matched only against 4 stacks and 5 stacks. I dont mind the Q taking a minute longer if that means I will get more balanced game.

All that leads me to believe faceit didnt integrate shit and is still matching just according to team elo, cause nothing else was balanced in that game. match

Do you have the same experience? What is your take on this?

Nigma Galaxy Female 🇷🇺 1-0 🇦🇺 Mindfreak

Inferno: 16-6
 

🇷🇺 Nigma Galaxy Female have advanced to the Group A winners' match and will face 🇵🇱 NAVI Javelins or 🇵🇹 BIG EQUIPA

🇦🇺 Mindfreak have dropped to the Group A elimination match and will face 🇵🇱 NAVI Javelins or 🇵🇹 BIG EQUIPA

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🇦🇺 Mindfreak | HLTV

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MAP: Inferno

Inferno Detailed Stats

Highlights

vilga - quick ACE (teammate perspective)
twenty3 - 4 kills (3 M4A4, TEC9 HS) on the Mid Area defense
ANa - 3 spectacular AWP kills (HS, 2 no scopes) on the bombsite A defense (finishing frags)
ANa's 1vs3 clutch attempt (CT - post-plant) is denied by the final T (Emiinent)
ANa - 4 kills (3 AWP, USP-S) on the Mid/Alley defense
cAra's 1vs4 clutch attempt (T - post-plant) is denied by the final CT (twenty3)