" - April 6: Amateur Tournament Series VI (CSS) - Pittsburgh CyberConXion in Pittsburgh, PA
- April 12: Putting the LAN in Orlando (CSS) - Gigabits LAN Center in Orlando, FL
- April 19: CyGamZ $2,000 Spring Fling (CS 1.6) - CyGamZ in Ypsilanti, MI
- April 19: iZ3D $2,500 West Coast Open (CS 1.6) - Howie's Game Shack in Moreno Valley, CA
- April 26: SCGL Spring CS:S Open (CSS) - Sin City PC in Las Vegas, NV"

"Fans and visitors of the Samsung Euro Championship see the living contact with the technology at the CeBIT: The trend-sport type eSport has long become a symbol of a dynamic digital lifestyle.

The year 2008 will be the year of eSport in Germany, with the Samsung Euro Championship as a brilliant kick and the crowning conclusion, the worldwide finals of the World Cyber Games in November in Cologne"

""I think it is unfair to lose a game that we won in the server and playing with 30 ping more than our opponent.

"The rule is ridiculous, and all the best players in the world do it, it does not make sense to forbid a skill like this, they are following what WCG 2007 did and we all know the kind of tournament it was.""

"Nevertheless, Lima stated that Procon has already notified Brazilian on-line stores with Counter-Strike and EverQuest titles available for purchase in order to have these products removed.

According to the Procon superintendent, as Justice has not prohibited the use of these games - only their distribution - LAN centers in Brazil are not forced to delete these titles from the computers.

"We are notifing all LAN centers of a Judicial decision. To play or not to play depends on a moral criteria from every person and every family, since the games are prohibited for minor," Lima told told UOL.com.br."

"The 5v5 Counter-Strike: Source tournament has consistently proven to be Multiplay’s most popular tournament over the past five i-Series events, seeing up to 500 players taking part in each competition. The prize fund is guaranteed and is not linked to how many teams are entered.

First prize is €6,000 and free entrance to i33 in spring 2008, second prize €3,000 and third prize of €1,500.

The top eight teams in the tournament receive cash prizes, with 8th place taking home €250."

"It is our utmost pleasure to be able to develop Counter-Strike Online with Valve," said David K. Lee, CEO of NEXON Japan Co., Ltd. "We will be devoting our expertise in online game development and service know-how for Asian territories to Counter-Strike Online. Already a global phenomenon, we are confident we can grow the success of Counter-Strike with this new product by tailoring the gameplay for the millions of gamers in Asia, one of the gaming industries fastest growing territories.""

"Valve has told Eurogamer that it has no intention of charging customers who download additional content for games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, despite the widely spread increase of paid-for updates in the PC and console world.

Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi admitted the company had "pretty strong opinions" about how to handle post-release content. "Our philosophy there is, if you buy the product, we put more content out to keep the game interesting, we sell more products."

"Counter-Strike is number one and has been since '99 because we kept the game interesting, not because we tried to charge people more, and that's come back in sales of Counter-Strike," he added."

"Version Update Info:
de_battleship_hdr: Updated version, added custom props, green radar and hdr.

de_kilo_hdr: Heavy changed version with custom props , day setting, hdr and green radar. Also removed the underground route and opened extra gates instead.

cs_beirut2_hdr: Updated version with hdr, green radar en gfx improvements

cs_logistic_assault_hdr: Added HDR, green radar and some custom props."

"As we understand it Sky has purchased the broadcasting rights from Valve Software for Counter-Strike in the UK and the firm intends run regular TV shows around organized competitions for screening on Sky Sports Extra."

"Changes and Additions
- Added sv_pure 2. When set, then pure_server_whitelist.txt is ignored and all content files must come from Steam
- Changed ent_fire to only be useable from the host client on a listen server
- Changed soundscape_flush to only be useable from the dedicated server console or the listen server host
- Added sv_allow_wait_command. If set to 0, then clients can't use "wait"
- Added sv_allow_color_correction. If set to 0, then clients can't use mat_colorcorrection
- Fixed player count bugs in serverbrowser
- Added "findflags" console command, which can list all cvars with a specified flag
- Fixed a bug with sv_minrate and sv_maxrate not applying properly on the client"

"The headline feature is one-click matchmaking, both for new games and existing ones such as Counter-Strike. You'll be able to jump straight into a game with players of your skill level, with no history of griefing, by pressing a single button. It also lets you form a party with your friends, and automatically find a game that you can all jump into and play together."

"Police discovered five swords in the bedroom of a Clements High School senior whose home they searched after getting complaints about a 3-D computer “shoot-‘em-up” game map the student designed, which depicted a portion of the school. "

"How did he do it? And is this even for real? According to him, "it's not a hack on the Steam application itself; there are flaws/bugs on their servers." Thanks to these flaws, there are all sorts of exploits he claims to have pulled off: "People with a little bit experience can create their own 'fake' but working Café certificates."

We ran all of MaddoxX's proof by a software security expert who requested anonymity. "This looks real to me. He found a way into [Valve's] Cyber Café software," the security expert confirms, "but what I've seen — the files pulled down — don't indicate whether or not he breached Valve itself."

Doug Lombardi, director of marketing at Valve, says, "There has been no security breach of Steam." However, he does confirm our expert's findings by adding, "The alleged hacker gained access to a third-party site that Valve uses to manage the commercial partners in its Cyber Café program. This Cyber Café billing system is not connected to Steam. We are working with law enforcement agencies on this matter, and encourage anyone with more information to e-mail us at Catch_A_Thief@valvesoftware.com."

"Everyone who owns Counter-Strike: Source will have a guest pass available to hand out to a friend next week. Guest passes allow folks to play the game for free for a few days. So if you've been trying to rope someone in to Counter-Strike: Source, now is the perfect time.

Recently we invited members of the press out to Valve to play Team Fortress 2. Game Informer has published a huge story broken up into three parts. You can read part one, which focuses on the history of Team Fortress. Part two is centered around some of the new features people will get to see in Team Fortress 2. The third part is a write up of Game Informer's play experience based on a match we played with them for about two hours. Apparently some people around the office didn't "get the memo" about going easy on the press in the playtest. We thought the article might be in jeopardy when our guys playing as spies repeatedly backstabbed the reviewer playing as a sniper. Luckily, we showed him how to clean up by placing sentry guns as an engineer... Spy soup is best served cold.



"

"We have a beta update for the Source Engine available for Dedicated
servers. To get the update run the hldsupdatetool with "-beta srcds0407"
on the command line.

This update addresses some lag issues that have been seen when running
the Source Engine (in particular, it programmatically does something
similar to using the net_queuesplits cvar)."

"Steam Client

* Added uninstall links to the Windows "Add/Remove Programs" Control Panel for installed Steam games
* Fixed "The Ship" Half-Life mod not showing in the games list
* Fixed double listing of Half-Life games in the Serverbrowser filter list
* Fixed hang when uninstalling media or tools from the game properties page
* Fixed backup and restore wizard to correctly handle very large files in a game
* Significantly reduced memory usage during reinstallation of a backup
* Improved speed of multi-disk backup and restores
* Made the "the registry is in use by another process" error much less likely to happen

Source Engine

* Fixed crash when running in Offline mode"

"Project Gamer is the next great evolution in online eSports, a league that will pioneer many innovations in the industry. Project Gamer is designed to be a so-called “Continuous League” which integrates the best elements of pool and ladder play into a league format. Seasons will not exist for Project Gamer; instead playoff teams will be invited to compete in a tournament while other teams will continue to be scheduled for on-going matches. When the playoffs finish those teams will rejoin the on-going event.

During registration, teams will be asked to specify their top two preferred server locations. This information will be used to assign teams to one of seven local conferences. Teams will be scheduled against other teams with the same preferred server locations (conferences), which will enable improved pings and fewer disagreements over servers.

Teams will also be asked during registration to identify at least two match times that they are eligible to play at on an on-going week-to-week basis. The team Captain or A-Captain will be able to change these times anytime. Teams will be automatically scheduled with pre-determined match times against other teams with the same eligible match times."

"We've added a ton of games from Eidos, including all of the Hitman and Commandos games. We offer the games individually and in collection packs. If you purchase any of these games or collections before March 26, you'll receive a 10% discount off the regular price. More Eidos games on the way in coming weeks.

With the update this week to voice communication in Source, we want to point out some of the options out there for headsets. At Valve, we tested using a bunch of these Logitech headsets. They are fairly inexpensive, easy to set up, and the microphone does a really good job of picking up your voice. Also, once you have your microphone set up, make sure you go into the Voice section of the Options screen to test what you sound like in game.

Silverfall will be released on Steam and at retail on March 20. Check out the demo here, pre-purchase the game now and be ready to play when the game is released.

Finally, Black Mesa windshield parking permits are now available in the store (along with a couple Half-Life themed bumper stickers). The Black Mesa permits are individually numbered, so get them while they last."

"We'll be releasing an update soon to both text chat and voice communication in the Source Engine that will improve communication for people in multiplayer games. We've completely rebuilt the text chat system, adding the ability to browse your chat history right in the chat window and a filter to remove messages that clutter your game screen. Voice communication will be getting a huge boost in quality, so if you have a microphone sitting on the corner of your desk collecting dust, now would be a good time to plug it back in."

"To run this beta version you will need to add -beta cs to your command line when you start Steam. This can be done by opening up the Windows shortcut you use to launch Steam and adding -beta cs right after Steam.exe. Please report any bugs or issue you find in this article."

"Electronic Arts, the world's leading interactive entertainment company, and Valve, the award-winning studio behind the blockbuster franchises Half-Life and Counter-Strike, today announced the naming and product configurations The Black Box and The Orange Box, two of the most anticipated action game offerings shipping worldwide this Winter 2007.

The Black Box will ship for the PC, and includes Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The Orange Box will ship for the PC, PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, and Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system, and includes all the content of The Black Box, plus the original Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One.

Innovative games included in The Black Box and The Orange Box include:

# Half-Life 2: Episode Two -- the second installment in Valve's episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17.

# Portal -- a pioneering type of single player action game that rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment - much like how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun reinvented the way gamers interact with objects in the game.

# Team Fortress 2 -- an all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games. The game's daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.

"In less than 18 months, we've shipped 10 new products to retail outlets with EA Partners," said Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve. "The Black Box and The Orange Box represent a new approach to publishing multiple products, on multiple platforms and we know through our experience that no organization in the industry is better equipped to successfully launch new product types on multiple platforms than EA Partners."

"Valve is one of the world's premiere independent developers and EA Partners is thrilled to help them bring the groundbreaking action games in The Orange Box and The Black Box to market as their publishing partner," said David DeMartini, vice president and general manager of EA Partners.

The Black Box and The Orange Box are targeted for release this winter 2007."

" * Added language support for Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish
* Fixed scrollbars not appearing on pages that change size dynamically
* Fixed crash when IE is running in offline mode"