Usually players aren’t fond of the rulebook, but this time, an event showed us how important it is. Like a wedding contract, the rulebook fullly take its role during a contentious. And the DreamHack was a great example. There is no need to remind you of the boost scandal, but this case sets focus on some points.

Firstly, the rules must be set clearly in advance and available online. In advance because teams could train some maps or sides way ahead on tricks which would be in fact ruled out. We need to let more time for teams to adapt to this rules and train with them in mind.

The online presence is also important, not only because it would prevent from reasoning on an old rulebook but beacuse it allows people to take note of it, even if there is something wrong in the diffusion of documents to the structures, like it seems to happened for LDLC:



Besides, we see no point on why this shouldn’t be made public, which would release a bit of pressure from the admins, as everyone can become aware of the differents rules and their sanctions.

Secondly, the requirements for majors events to harmonize their rules, or at least some parts. If one understands that is difficult to impose to the organizers overtimes or to choose between classic group stage or GSL, each with their preferences, it must be possible to reach a consensus on more shared aspects. Again, such harmonization would benefit all, teams and organizers.

Actually, we barely understands why Valve, who managed to impose his map pool and his veto system, didn’t push it to the rulebook. Which would have avoided many questions, such as why the mention of pixel walking disappeared when it was already ruled out in former events. According to our information this removal intervened following discussions with Valve, which would have shown that it is extremely difficult to define precisely what pixel walking is or not, therefore the rule was too prone to interpretation.

If you need to bring Hammer to check if every boost really uses piwel walk...

This removal had no direct consequences, both LDLC’s and Fnatic’s boosts were illegal because of transparent textures, but it’s hard to imagine what would have happened otherwise, and if the admins had confirmed Fnatic’s victory.

This leads us to the last point, which led us to review how an action might be legal or not. So rather than trying to get a complete list of permitted or prohibited actions, the rules should try to take into account the fundamental nature of Counter-Strike, including a rule as can already been found in the rulebook of EMS Cologne :

Standing on top of teammates is generally allowed, it is only forbidden, when such actions allow the player to peek over a wall, or ceiling that should not be allowed according to map design.

Why include a rule prone to interpretation ?

Because it is likely that new maps will rise over time, we think about season, but it is impossible to predict in advance all possible bugs, and we can’t afford the risk of such media tempest with each new map addition. But it is unclear how a bug that allows a view of many strategic points of the map and makes them practically invulnerable is not considered as game breaking.

It is also amusing to notice that if the boost used by Fnatic was not so much against the very nature of the game, no claims would have been made, transparent texture or not, pixel walking or not. In this case, it is the nature of the boost that should be a problem, not the means of achieving it. Because in this case, many commons spots should be banned.

“shox” position on inferno … prohibited or not ?

Finally, as a last choice and if the teams have a doubt about the interpretation of the rules, it is still possible to seek the advice of tournament admins. Why not a board of admins representing different major competitions.

After all, the sphere of world class tournaments admins is a small circle with most members, competent, know each other and are already working on such projects. No doubt, the Dreamhack case reinforces the interest in their work and should accelerate this process of harmonization.

Translation by Jus & akNN