Fond of the marketplace, MasTaSaN (our moviemaker) was really upset by his lack of success at getting a knife, despite a considerable amount of money invested in keys. Regarding the drops, Ido confirmed than it was entirely random and was not relying on external factors such as skill or the time since last case opening,... Getting a knife or not only depends on luck. It is useless to contact a Valve member to get drops, as they can't generate items on demand.

You will be lucky to get one...or you need a great bit of money !

Regarding matchmaking, two important things have to be pointed out :

- Behind your skill group, there is a number representing your level (usually called the MatchMaking Rating, MMR); two people can be in the same skill group but with a gap in term of value. It is even more true for the two most distant groups. This value is used to determine your level, not only your skill group.
- Your skill group/MMR should not be confused with experience which you can use like in others FPS to unlock new weapons. Your skill group can stagnate, or even regress. You can also progress and not rank up if other players progressed at the same time you did.

In short, the goal of matchmaking is to gather players of relatively resembling skill and with a 50/50 chance of winning/losing half of the games. To rank up, there is no secret : you have to perform extremely well on a regular basis. It should be noted that whatever the game, the matchmaking systems unfortunately depend on the numbers of available players. At certain times of day, or for specific maps, the system has to widen its research or else it won't be able to find any match.

Besides, there are a lot of players with low-end hardware even in higher skill groups. Having 300 fps already gives an advantage, and developers don't want to increase this advantage by switching the servers to tickrate 128, as it would only benefit to players being able to run CS:GO at more than 128 fps.

Finally, regarding cheaters, Valve is aware of the problem and is constantly working on it. Overwatch helps to fill VAC limits and will continue to be improved (especially feedbacks saying when a reported player got banned,...). After the DHW Winter Matt T. Wood, another Valve developper, said on Twitter the average time after a report for a cheater to become banned is 3 hours.

Unfortunately, no solution for limiting cheating

About Valve's implication to the DreamHack prize-pool, it should be noted that the $250 000 announced mid-September was a forecast upon the money CS:GO players spent on keys during one month. This sum was not gathered in one month, but from the 14 of August (the "skins" update) until DreamHack Winter. Valve still has to review this operation after DreamHack Winter.

The developers admitted that they were not expecting to have almost 100 000 viewers on the VG/NiP semi-final, and even less 150 000 viewers for the grand final. It is reasonable to assume that these figures are of good omen for the future.

Finally, about the future of the game, Ido told us that if there has to be a new CS version, it would be developed by the team who is currently working on CS:GO. As long as there are updates on CS:GO, there is no reason to wait for a new CS.

Thanks to aKNN, SicknesS and LaMangousteFurieuse for translation