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Counter-Strike 2 News

CS:GO pro Twistzz leaves Team Liquid after three years

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Russel 'Twistzz' van Dulken revealed he is parting ways with Team Liquid in a surprise announcement. He broke the news while being interviewed after the culmination of the Intel Extreme Masters Season XV Global Challenge, which Team Liquid came runner-up in.


Twistzz, 21, joined Team Liquid in 2017 and has enjoyed much success in his three and a half years playing Counter-Strike with the team. He helped the organisation win eight major CS:GO tournaments, including the one million dollar Intel Grand Slam Season 2 prize for being the first team to win four out of ten S-Tier tournaments in a season.


Team Liquid lost 3-0 to Astralis in the final this time around, but it's Twistzz's announcement that has stolen the headlines. "I've enjoyed all the support over the years," he says in the post-match interview. "The org's been nothing but family to me, and I hope that I'm back next year in a new home."


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RELATED LINKS:

CS:GO coach kassad parts ways with Cloud9

Jakob Lund Kristensen on Astralis' growth: "we thought we were better than everyone else"

Neymar clutches up in CS:GO against Vitality pros ZywOo and shox

New tech allows AI to detect toxicity in voice chat, but I think humans might be too smart for it


Toxicity in games is no fun, and in this year of our lord 2020, there seems to be a growing trend of using artificial intelligence to find and deal with toxic players. I don’t just mean in text chat either; the companies Modulate and FaceIt have both created AI that can supposedly detect toxicity in voice chat from the way that someone says something.


Part of me that feels like this is a good idea. Having a way of quickly and easily getting rid of them is great. However, I’ve heard one too many stories about AI learning to be racist, so I do wonder if it’s the best sort of tech to put in video games.


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Jakob Lund Kristensen on Astralis' growth: "we thought we were better than everyone else"

Jakob Lund Kristensen is about as experienced as they come in esports. Having been involved with the scene for well over a decade, he started out working lower-level jobs in the industry before founding the Copenhagen Wolves in 2012. Once the Wolves disbanded in 2016, Kristensen founded Astralis, BLAST, and most recently, Astralis Group, which brought together Astralis' various brands and titles. He's witnessed the esports ecosystem grow from infancy to its current state.


Most famous for their catalogue of Counter-Strike:Global Offensive successes, Astralis is a household name in the world of competitive gaming. However, the organisation has also set benchmarks in the often overlooked commercial side of esports, becoming one of the first publicly listed esports teams in late 2019, as well as expanding into League of Legends and FIFA in recent years before bringing their teams together under the Astralis banner in 2020. It's perhaps characteristic of its success that these milestones occurred close to a year of economic and logistical turbulence.


So how does Astralis go about navigating the esports landscape? And what does the future hold for an industry that continues to strive towards profitability? We talked to Kristensen to find out.


Read the rest of the story...


RELATED LINKS:

CS:GO coach kassad parts ways with Cloud9

Neymar clutches up in CS:GO against Vitality pros ZywOo and shox

CS:GO star ZywOo signs new four-year Team Vitality contract

2021 Can’t Come Soon Enough

We've updated Broken Fang Agents, fixed bugs associated with incorrect star progression, and added a donation key (CTRL) when purchasing a weapon to donate to teammates without dropping your primary weapon.

[h2]2021 Service Medal[/h2]



When you reach Global General (Rank 40), you’ll have the option to reset your Profile Rank and earn (or upgrade) a Service Medal. After January 1, 2021 you’ll be able to receive the new 2021 Service Medal, an inspectable display item that will be visible wherever your avatar is shown.

Today's Updates:
[ OPERATION BROKEN FANG ]
– Adjusted first person arm models for Operation Broken Fang agents.
– Adjusted end of match animations for Operation Broken Fang master agents.
– Fixed a bug that could allow extra stars to be earned from missions. Going forward players will be correctly limited to receiving the total number of stars available from all unlocked cards.
– Kick player vote is now disabled in Broken Fang Premier pick/ban arenas.
– Fixed kill distance in missions UI to be correctly rounded for display.

[ MISC ]
– Added 2021 Service Medal to be awarded for outstanding service and achievement starting from January 1, 2021 GMT.
– Donate weapons to teammates in need! Hold the buy menu donation key (CTRL by default) when purchasing a weapon to donate to teammates without dropping your primary weapon. You can change the “Buy Menu Donation Key” in settings.
– Game settings now have a search box to quickly find and jump to any setting or key binding.
– Zeus restrictions in Casual, Wingman, and Competitive modes are now the same as all other weapons.
– Adjusted Retakes clip areas in Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Train, and Vertigo

[ MAPS ]
Guard
– Repacked radar

Elysion
– Fixed a pixelwalk outside on the glass.
– Fixed a pixelwalk on the Elysion sign on A site
– Fixed a pixelwalk on the umbrellas outside.
– Fixed the pixelwalks on the doorframes
– Players were able to jump on top of the A sign on A site
– Player were able to jump on top of the small palm plant
– Players were able to 2 man boost outside and see into the site from an unfair position
– Players were able to run boost on the windows railing on A site
– The ladder outside has been removed
– Reduced the foilage outside, players were able to hide
– Waterfalls have been deleted from the white walls. Caused the smoke to become see through.

Apollo
– Reduced props that draw for people on very low and low settings to hopefully help FPS levels across the map. (Thanks Shavitish)
– Reduced CT spawn Cover to make it easier to clear
– Improved model shuttle collsions to make walking over nicer
– Reduced non-designed headpeaks across map (Thanks CF-166)
– Fixed car fade in CT spawn (Thanks Sylikoira)
– Fixed a few boost exploits
– Updated to radar to a more simple single layer one
– Reduced foliage over key angle (Near moonroom/CT spawn)
– Fixed a number of grammar and spelling mistakes (Thanks Dogman15 + Marisakiri)

Anubis
– Widened A main entrance
– Simplified A connector area
– Got rid of the deep corner below the windows on A
– Got rid of the wall near the pillar at Waterfalls A site and reduced some corners to hide in as a CT
– Some other minor things 3kliksphillip will probably find out