Counter Strike 1.6 + AMX mod X + bots + customization

Introduction

Last 2 months I made myself sure in how customizable Counter Strike is. There are lots of mods that can be easily installed and also there are tools for programming these mods.
This post has a purpose to share my experience in running CS 1.6 with AMX mod X installed and also the tricky part - installing bots with the mod. Also I'm gonna show how to customize the game by changing sounds,names,logos,texts and so on. Creating maps and mods is something I haven't tried yet so this is not included in this article.
So lets start from the begining.

Counter Strike Instalation

First install Counter Strike 1.6. Then if you want update it to the last version.
I updated to 1.6 v18.

The AMX mod X

After that it is time to install the AMX mod X. I downloaded it from
here. This is an archive. Extract the files in a random folder. You should have a "cstrike" folder and a .dll file. Copy them to the folder where you've installed the game.
For example if you have installed CS in "D:\Games\CS1.6" copy these dll and folder to that folder. OS will prompt you whether to replace existing files - do so.

The Bots

It is time now for the bots. I use ZBOT which you can download from
here. When you extract the files you will have again one "cstrike" folder. Remove the file liblist.dll from it and then copy this folder to the folder you've installed CS to. Again it should be something like "D:\Games\CS1.6" as it is on my PC.OS will prompt you whether to replace existing files - do so.
Now we should "tell" the game that there are bots installed. Open the folder (This is my folder tree, use yours) "D:\Games\CS1.6\cstrike\addons\metamod" and create a file named "config.ini" there. Easiest way to do this is to copy the plugins.ini file and rename it. Then open it with notepad or other text editor application and clear all the lines. Then add a single line "gamedll dlls\zbotcz.dll"(without the quotes of course).
And that is all. Enjoy the game.

Using AMX mod X and the Bots

What do you get with what we did so far? The AMX mod X gives you great variety of options. I use it to see how much damage I've done/received and to/from whom.You can also get statistics like "top15" which gives you the best players on this server,can vote for next map, can kick/ban and so on. Feel free to explore the console for other commands(there are many of them!).
When you start the server it is necessary to set your password in the console(it could be hardcoded in some of the .ini or .cfg files that are executed too) by typing rcon_password .
After that you can add bots with the menu or by using the console,set their difficulty,join team etc.

Counter Strike customization

This part is my favourite.

1) The auto buy configuration - Find and open the file autobuy.txt, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike". Change the sequence of items to buy first.

2)Bot customization - Find and open (with notepad) the file BotProfile.db, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike". Explore the content. You will find there bot names, templates and so on. Feel free to change Skill,Aggression,ReactionTime ...
and the funniest of all - their names. I changed their names to funny names and every time I kill someone I laugh at his name :).

3)Command menu configuration - Find and open the file commandmenu.txt, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike". This is a template, from which the menu is generated.

4)Game menus texts configuration - Find and open the file cstrike_english.txt, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike\resource". This file offers you a chance to customize almost every piece of text you will find in the game, including menus,descriptions etc. Feel free to experiment.I tried to add cyrilic characters but they appeared like hieroglyphs.

5)Theme music configuration - Find the file gamestartup.mp3, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike\media". This is the music you hear while in main menu of the game. Change this file with some .mp3 you like but if the .mp3 file is larger than 2Mb you will experience some delay when starting the game. So I cut 2Mb from Guano Apes-Lords of the boards.mp3 and now when I start CS that is what I hear.
NB -> Be sure that you rename your file to gamestartup.mp3.

6)Maps cycle configuration - Find and open the file maps.ini, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike\addons\amxmodx\configs". List there the maps you want to be shown when choosing next map.

7)Game logos configuration - Explore the content of the "resource" folder, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike\resource". Try to replace the .tga files with your logos. be sure to use only .tga (targa file) type 2 or 10 - don't ask me why,but Valve use this file format for logos.

8)Server start template configuration - this is my favourite one. Find and open the file motd.txt, located in my case in "D:\Games\CS 1.6\cstrike".This is the template that you see when connecting to a server. This is an HTML template and you can engage all your fantasy to edit it. I tried adding images and links and it works just fine.You can browse sites from Counter Strike. It doesn't have scrolling capabilities but you can check your e-mail from the game. This is incredible, isn't it?

Conclusion

Counter Strike is outstanding game which allows everybody to adjust it to himself. Installing mods and customizing makes the game more interesting and keeps the gamers obsessed and interested.
Recently I installed Half Life 1 and found that it can be customized too. By the way this is my favourite game :).

Destitute animals at Sofia ZOO

Two days ago I went to the Sofia Zoo to have a nice stroll among nature. It was nice like every time I go there. There were plenty of children with their parents, sun was shining, grass was green :) etc. One thing made bad impression on me howsoever.
Some of the animals were very miserable. They were looking hungry and missing elementary necessities. That is unpleasant of course, but that is the situation in Bulgaria in all aspects of life.

The prices of entrance ticketsfor Sofia Zoo are as follows:
1BGN(50 euro cent) for adults;
0.5BGN(25 euro cent) for children above 7 years of age,students,military etc.
Free for children below 7 years of age

These prices are hilarious. I think they should be 3 times more. And the money should be spent for food and improvements.
It is a good practice companies to adopt animals at the zoo. This is good for them as a marketing strategy but is good for the animals too.

Here are some pictures I took. Pictures of thirsty brown bear, risking her life for some drops of water, bald camel, begging racoons/lama,dirty pond and skinny tiger. I couldn't take a shot of the lion, cause the king does not deserve to be seen in such a pitiful condition.

Problems with Measure Up tests.

I got strange problems with Microsoft Press Training Kit. They were crashing in almost all use cases that I tried. When starting a test with a timer I used to had this exception:




I got other exceptions when I wanted to score my test too:




Measure Up Support gave me this as a solution:

Hello,

This error indicates there is an incompatibility issue between our test and the settings on the PC. In the control panel, please double click on the icon labeled Regional Settings. Please choose English (United States), and click the box that says "use default properties for this input locale."

Alternatively, in the regional settings, look at the Currency tab. If it is set the decimal symbol to . (dot) instead of , (coma), that may be enough to get it working properly.

If the trouble persists, try setting the keyboard language layout to English (United States). In the control panel, double click on the icon labeled "Keyboard". Then click on the tab labeled input locales. Select the Add button. And then choose English (United States) as the input locale.

Thank you
Tammie
Customer Support Specialist

Obviously their tests run good in US only :). This is an example for how much important it is to implement globalization.
The good part is that that solution works.

What is AVI Chunk Viewer and AVI Splitter?

Some days ago I had a strange problem. While I was watching some series a window popped up with a strange graph. It was some "AVI Chunk Viewer"(ACV) which was telling me that my video was out of synch with its audio or something like that. It was quite annoying. As an option ACV offered to start some tool named "AVI Splitter" on the .avi file. I checked the web for a solution but what I found were lots of people complaining and wondering WTF ACV is.

Today I found that the problem is in the K-Lite Codec pack I've installed on my PC.

I'm not a guy who installs applications like "next->next->...->finish", but this codecs are horrible for me(look at the screenshot below and especially at the codec names).

You can rid of ACV with reinstalling the pack or with a witty K-Lite Tool called Codec Tweak Tool located at: Start menu -> All Programs -> K-Lite Codec Pack -> Configuration. Scroll down until you see AVI Splitter under "Disable the following filters" section, and check it off. I did it with all the filters that had "splitter" in their names :).

Here is the Codec Tweak Tool:


I almost forgot:
I found out this solution thanks to a guy with nickname Squirrel from this forum.