Competitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level Design

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive stands as one, if not the most popular competitive video game of all time. In fact, tens of millions are awarded at Esports tournaments – a testament to the game’s popularity. As such, game designers should seek to understand exactly why the Counter-Strike series is...

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Main Authors: Willatzen, Jeppe, Karakurt, Edin
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för speldesign 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-416170
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spelling ndltd-UPSALLA1-oai-DiVA.org-uu-4161702020-08-19T05:33:43ZCompetitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level DesignengWillatzen, JeppeKarakurt, EdinUppsala universitet, Institutionen för speldesignUppsala universitet, Institutionen för speldesign2020KompetitivCompetitiveCounter-StrikeCS:GOLevel DesignDesignDesignCounter-Strike: Global Offensive stands as one, if not the most popular competitive video game of all time. In fact, tens of millions are awarded at Esports tournaments – a testament to the game’s popularity. As such, game designers should seek to understand exactly why the Counter-Strike series is so popular. One critical element to any game like Counter-Strike is the level design. This study attempts to provide an analysis of competitive level design by looking at the differences between a highly popular Counter-Strike level, Dust2, and one that is considerably less popular, Cobblestone.  Level design has already been scrutinized heavily by game designers throughout the years, and this also applies to Counter-Strike. The trend has mainly been to analyze levels from a high-level perspective, however. We hope that our study will contribute to the existing knowledge from an exceedingly low-level perspective. The study relies on data acquired from the massive Counter-Strike statistics database HLTV.org which primarily consist of 2 heat-maps that display hotspots for “killer locations” on the levels’ Bombsites. These heat-maps have since been subjected to two formal analyses and a subsequent comparative analysis. The study found that the occurrence of several indicators of flawed level design are present in Cobblestone. These flaws contrast with the level design principles and guidelines laid out by experienced designers. As such, the study concludes that these flaws are the primary contributing factors to the drop in popularity for Cobblestone. However, the study also acknowledges the need for an expanded study comprising the entire levels and involving other types of data Student thesisinfo:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesistexthttp://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-416170application/pdfinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
collection NDLTD
language English
format Others
sources NDLTD
topic Kompetitiv
Competitive
Counter-Strike
CS:GO
Level Design
Design
Design
spellingShingle Kompetitiv
Competitive
Counter-Strike
CS:GO
Level Design
Design
Design
Willatzen, Jeppe
Karakurt, Edin
Competitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level Design
description Counter-Strike: Global Offensive stands as one, if not the most popular competitive video game of all time. In fact, tens of millions are awarded at Esports tournaments – a testament to the game’s popularity. As such, game designers should seek to understand exactly why the Counter-Strike series is so popular. One critical element to any game like Counter-Strike is the level design. This study attempts to provide an analysis of competitive level design by looking at the differences between a highly popular Counter-Strike level, Dust2, and one that is considerably less popular, Cobblestone.  Level design has already been scrutinized heavily by game designers throughout the years, and this also applies to Counter-Strike. The trend has mainly been to analyze levels from a high-level perspective, however. We hope that our study will contribute to the existing knowledge from an exceedingly low-level perspective. The study relies on data acquired from the massive Counter-Strike statistics database HLTV.org which primarily consist of 2 heat-maps that display hotspots for “killer locations” on the levels’ Bombsites. These heat-maps have since been subjected to two formal analyses and a subsequent comparative analysis. The study found that the occurrence of several indicators of flawed level design are present in Cobblestone. These flaws contrast with the level design principles and guidelines laid out by experienced designers. As such, the study concludes that these flaws are the primary contributing factors to the drop in popularity for Cobblestone. However, the study also acknowledges the need for an expanded study comprising the entire levels and involving other types of data
author Willatzen, Jeppe
Karakurt, Edin
author_facet Willatzen, Jeppe
Karakurt, Edin
author_sort Willatzen, Jeppe
title Competitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level Design
title_short Competitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level Design
title_full Competitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level Design
title_fullStr Competitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level Design
title_full_unstemmed Competitive Level Design : A study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Level Design
title_sort competitive level design : a study on counter-strike: global offensive level design
publisher Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för speldesign
publishDate 2020
url http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-416170
work_keys_str_mv AT willatzenjeppe competitiveleveldesignastudyoncounterstrikeglobaloffensiveleveldesign
AT karakurtedin competitiveleveldesignastudyoncounterstrikeglobaloffensiveleveldesign
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