In memory of Gooseman...
Do you actually.. remember the original Inventor of this brillant and genius Half-Life Modification?.. Do you have even a slight grasp of what this game's initial spirit was all about? Yes? ... Insulting other players and being rude over internet?.. errrr. No! Well yes, maybe.. but that's only a side-effect.
Personally i started with Beta 5.7 of the Original Mod. Although many favor Beta 5.2, due to its faster game-speed, and although i could have maybe started even with Beta1.. I didn't. I really prefered the time between Beta 5.7 and maybe 6.1 .. 6.5?..
Now people might ask "Wodsefak is he talking about??"..
I will tell you:
Before Valve got their hands on this Mod, and dealt it off Gooseman (While he's probably somewhere on Hawaii, slurping tasty cocktails by now)
The netcode was crisp as ice. A Headshot, was a Headshot and period. There was no misery about having Tickrate 66 or Tickrate 100 servers. Because no one cared.. You did not have to set any network console settings before you could actually plunge into terror warfare.
And i really really miss some of the older maps.. specially the night-maps... and naturally hostage jumps ;) and also the vehicle fun maps.
Alright. So much for the nostalgic part.. I must say that im not specially proud of Valve. Due to their strange patching and the absolutely awkward lag-issues with Tickrate 100 Servers.. even when i am connected with a ping of under 15ms.
The Source graphics are sweet.. i like the animations. The Gameplay is actually almost all the same as with Gooseman. Apart from the Maps, naturally. Which were much more original in the initial Releases. And yes. The Noobified Hitboxes done by valve are really making me wonder. (Specially when you see AWP-Hits which actually are not.)
Anyway.. the original Mod is so genius, that its hard to ruin this game. (Although regarding netcode and recent issues i often am afraid that they manage to waste this fabulous "Mod".)
Post-Instant Classic.