Getting Started

Welcome to Steamless CS Project! To get you started as soon as possible, we strongly recommend reading the following first, whether you're a player or a server operator. Should you have any questions after reading, we welcome you to check our Support section and to visit the Community forums.

Players (Clients)

First of all it's very important to know that you either need Half-Life or Counter-Strike Retail on CD. If you don't have either games, you cannot use any of our projects. Steam versions such as 'Half-Life Anthology' or 'Counter-Strike Anthology' cannot be used and are not compatible with WON2.

Examples of compatible Half-Life retail editions include "Half-Life (Game of the Year Edition)", "Half-Life Generation" and "Half-Life Best Seller Series", all distributed and published by Sierra Entertainment. Counter-Strike has been released as a stand-alone version, known as "Counter-Strike Retail", and is also included in the "Half-Life Generation" package.

If you don't own any of the packages mentioned, there's still the opportunity to buy one. For as low as $/€5 you can get your own legal copy of Half-Life / Counter-Strike (try Amazon or eBay, for example). If that's even too much for you, you could give it a try downloading an ISO somewhere, which we do not recommend. Apart from this being illegal, a number of users reported most ISOs offered on sites are either not working or not working correctly. Keep in mind, requesting links to images using the forums is strictly prohibited.

Buying a copy

When you decide to buy a copy, be warned not to buy any of the aforementioned 'Anthology' editions of Half-Life or Counter-Strike. These are the new, incompatible, retail Steam editions distributed by Electronic Arts.

Continue to the Step by Step tutorial for Players. Please note to follow instructions for Half-Life only if you own any of the Half-Life retail editions and likewise the instructions for Counter-Strike Retail only if you own this game.

Server Operators

The game Half-Life comes with a server package known as "Half-Life Dedicated Server", or HLDS for short. Many versions are compatible with WON2, however the latest version is recommended, which is 1.1.1.1e for Windows and 3.1.1.1e for Linux.

Continue to the Step by Step tutorial for Servers. After that, you may wish to finetune your HLDS installation.

Want to know more?

What's WON2, what does Steamless CS Project do? Visit our About section and the project page of WON2.