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I am just arrived home after the event, tired and happy. Our train took more than six hours to bring us home, and this gave me the time to think of the last days, the people I met, the games I watched. So here I am, writing what probably will take some hours to complete.

The place

For those who don’t know, Cebit is a big information technology expo, held every year in Hannover. There are tons of things to see, although most of them are attractive only if you fit the particular business. Most of the visitors are people sent from their companies to do social networking, advertisement or create business opportunities.

The Intel Extreme Master Area was slightly different in terms of content, demography, and look; less business oriented, more attractive to youth, with a disco-like inspired atmosphere. The space was organized with a big main stadium with seats right in the center. In front of that, there was a smaller tournament area, shaped at U, which visitor could circumnavigate and watch the players from behind their shoulders. Other stands with gaming areas and shows were spread on the left and right, with tightly clothed girls advertising Alienware, Intel or whatever brand they were working for, and with loud and brainless “what is in the box?” games where crowds of people would fight for a bad looking t-shirt or a key holder. Overall, the impact was a mix of crowdedness, noise and flashy lights.

The tournament

As you know the tournament started with some problems. The Lan server was unusable due to a 50 ping, which apparently was due to one of the last QL updates messing up with it. The decision was to play online, but the network was under DDoS attack, which made the lagometer a packetloss fest. The players were nervous as they did not want to play in those conditions, the referees were nervous as the tournament was already behind scheduling, and ESR was probably about to explode, fortunately saved by the heroic host going down once again.

Things went smoother later on, thanks to a couple of cycles of new firewalls vs. new attacks where the former managed to win. Anyhow, at that time the scheduling for the first day was spoiled and the mood was not really restored, though it seemed that the rough road was behind. Stermy’s case, however, is worth an explanation.

When I first arrived on Wednesday, Stermy was definitely upset. He had played and lost against Avek the first match and had the feeling the game was totally weird to play. Most at that time believed it was a matter of DDoS attacks and temporary network problems, but later on, when the firewalls were up and Stermy played his first map against Cooller, the Italian rose up totally pissed off and said he didn’t want to play anymore in those conditions. This was the beginning of a friction with the referees that lasted until the end of the group stage.

The technical problem was somehow unexplainable; after the firewalls everybody did not have any problem, everybody but Stermy. Moreover what he described seemed to pop up randomly, and the referees seemed unable to replicate it. Many different PC were tested unsuccessfully. Stermy would play any new configuration just to find out that the problem persisted. The debate became warmer while the time was passing and Stermy refused to play. The referees wanted the tournament to go on, and had no idea how to fix what they could not understand. On the other hand Stermy saw that problem as a big disadvantage which already cost him a match and a map, and since re-matching was not an option he wanted to make sure to play only when all technical problems were fixed.

On Thursday, Stermy was still struggling to get his configuration working. I tried to help him, and we recorded this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-utBkzCg7r0 ), which shows the random fps drops he had. These would happen with a variable frequency, sometimes every ten seconds, sometimes only once every 3 minutes. He tried to change account, reload cfg, use other players’ cfg, switch again PC. Nothing really solved the problem.

The situation did not change until Thursday evening, when everybody had played most of his matches except Stermy. The referee approached him saying that there was no more time and he had to play. Stermy tried his last card by quickly setting up his stuff to play on a Windows 7 machine. This one improved the situation as the problem seemed to happen seldom. However, no mousefix was available. Long story short, Stermy played the remainder of Cooller’s match as well as the one against Rapha, losing both of them, and being dropped out of the playoff. He was totally frustrated, and the only consolation for him were friendly chats with Strenx and Spartie, the first one who had just lost all but one of his matches in group B, and the second one who probably channelled his frustration for not playing the finals by molesting a Calipt voodoo puppet hidden in his pockets. The only smile I saw in the Italian player’s face was when a blond young girl, apparently a reporter, approached him for an interview, and the two exchanged phone numbers setting up what Spartie would swear was a date.

The group stage ended with the long awaited match Cooller vs Rapha. This was late in the evening, when everybody but the players and the staff were forced out. I improvised myself as Stermy’s translator (lol?) to not being kicked as well. The atmosphere became really special. Most of the inner space of the building was dark and silent, and a group of about thirty people was tightly assembled around the tournament area, lightened by the bluish light of the screens. The two contenders were coincidently placed one in front of the others, at the corner of the area, where the stage fence created a small auditorium. Somehow, a group of Russians had managed to sneak in, forming a compact front of Cooller’s supporters. I was sitting on Rapha’s side with Fox on the left and Avek’s Manager on the right. The match was totally thrilling. Everybody was captured by the action, whose pace was set by the very close fights, the colourful shouts of Cooller (that Avek’s manager was kindly translating for me), and Rapha’s answer, soaked with determination and will to win. The match, the crowd, the atmosphere… this is something I won’t forget soon.

Friday was arguably the less interesting day. There were fewer matches to watch, and the area seemed even more crowded and noisy. Everything went quite quickly. Fox seemed not to care too much. He has always been quiet, connecting every now and then to his PC at home via VNC, to chat on irc or read ESR. He would then switch to QL without much of practice and play his match with Avek (which style-wise was probably a bad match-up for him) just to get back to his previous activities without showing much of a difference.
Rapha vs. Dahang was also weird. Dahang appeared nervous and shaking, while Rapha was simply mentally on spot, and overall there was not real pathos among the spectators.
From a spectator point of view, both matched seemed more like practice games, with the consequences of the loss privately handled by the poor guys, but where nobody else really seemed to care. Two matches that came and went like nothing, letting me wondering what happened to the special moments of the night before.

Saturday was a different story. The event started earlier in the morning, and the matchups were really interesting. Both semi-finals were played on stage, with a growing crowd of spectators loudly cheering for the beloved contenders. I found myself in the middle of the ESR guys (thanks Anarky), with Carmac and the US players right behind us. Avek vs. Cooller was so freaking amazing. Our side of the audience was Cooller oriented (I realized Carmac was there because of unexpected hand clapping), and I enjoyed the strong emotions the games gifted us. The only little pity is that it didn’t go to a fifth map, which would have been gorgeous. Needless to say, Rapha vs. Cypher wasn’t a lesser show. I guess a lot of people were cheering for Rapha to get the so long waited finals, so having him getting back from a two nil to victory was really the best we could hope for. I have to say that seeing Rapha live was quite impressive. His mental game seemed so strong. He was capable of making the right choices no matter what situation, punishing for anything the opponent did wrong. And at the same time he was very polite and professional, being an example in how to take winnings and losses. His in-game style may not be the most popular to spectate, but overall the way he behaved both in and out the game should be of lesson for many.

After the semi-finals, there was a bit of scheduling confusion. Due to some delay the decision was to show directly the final, but the ten minutes break became longer and longer. Another issue was the people walking right in front of the stage. This was due to the building being so crowded that the people interesting in crossing to the other building would pick that route as the fastest. The screens invited people to come and sit in front of the stage, but people interpreted that as an invitation to go there and stand, preventing the first rows of seated people from seeing the screen. Somehow things got better. At the time I thought it was a combination of the long break before the final that made the standing people either sit or go away. I also appreciated the intervention of Becks, which rose from his seat fully armed to go disperse a bunch of non transparent emo kids disturbing our sight. Anyways what happened was that people sat down (Edit: Thanks Chance!) and the final started.

I won’t comment too much as there isn’t much else to say except it was an exciting set, which could have easily gone the other way, or at least to a fifth map. Cooller took the loss extremely well, though I guess that having a number of kids with the press shirt and a camera 50cm away pointed to his face was a powerful rage-killer. I am not sad that Rapha won. He totally deserved it. Cooller did show amazing play either, proving once again how cool his style is. Awesome final indeed.

The people

During these four days I had the chance to meet with a lot of people. I won’t comment on all of them, but there are particular characters, or groups, that deserve some words.

The Party Pros: Spartie, Strenx and Stermy! Spartie was possibly the pro I knew less about, and ended up being quite a character! I can’t say why, but I think he is the funniest guy I met there; maybe because of his look, or his smile, or his party mood attitude. We did not talk too much, but he was just casting a happy aura wherever he was. My girlfriend and I ended up spending a bit of time with him, Stermy, Strenx, and the winning CS teams (fnatic and na’vi) to a Bier-hall place where they did eat. The overall mood was quite energised; people would start dancing on the chairs, singing etc. Strenx and I were close enough to chat briefly. He was keeping a low profile which showed a much better character than what he usually look with quake. Stermy was finally on a good mood, so we could chat about the years in Los Angeles, where he used to pretend to be a UCLA student to sneak in to the university structures and the students’ parties. It was a good couple of hours, which added a bit of depth to my understanding of the three guys.

Chance won the “friendliest award”! While during the event most of the pros were just answering possible questions interacting for a brief time before getting back to their business, he seemed really interested in the people around. I made the longest conversation with him, and he really turned out like a nice friendly guy. I asked him about his new guide and gave him a bit of feedback, so I hope to read more on that in the future. His help with the standing crowd was priceless. He definitely has two new fans here.

Unexpected character: Cooller’s brother! When we arrived on Wednesday there was this tall Russian guy moving around Cooller’s location. He was wearing a shiny suit, a dark expression in his face, talking with rough gun bursts of English that would freeze your spinal bones no matter how kindly he was trying to be. Somehow he and my girlfriend broke the ice (he initially thought she and I were brother’s too) and he turned out to be a really nice guy, which was there to support his brother as best as possible, fighting for him when needed. Right before the finals we went to the food booth. Somehow one of the two girls serving there was slower than the other, and Cooller and his brother picked that line. The brother was so pissed that when his turn arrived, he became even darker and colder. The poor creature tried her best, but there was no redemption possible. I felt I met a new hero representing Russia there!

Avek’s manager. I met him the first day and saw he was close to both Avek and Cypher. We ended up having interesting discussions, about Avek, about ESReality, and Quake Live in general. One thing which was nice to hear is that he had recently chatted with ESL about QL as a choice for them, and apparently they said that it was doing very well, that supporting the game fitted the business model, and that they were happy to continue with it. If confirmed, these are good news for everybody, I guess.

ESR guys. I won’t name them because I would forget somebody. It was nice to give a face to the nickname, and I am sorry we could not interact more. I guess that the combo of being scattered all over Hannover, of my girlfriend sickness, and of the cold did not help in getting the proper evening meet up we all wanted, but I’m happy I could meet with you guys during the event. A hand clap to all who where there!

Highlights

These are small highlights of the event that somehow got stuck in my head.

- Cooller vs. Rapha in the group stage
- Cooller’s brother
- Nukm ESReality t-shirt
- The brief chat with 2GD during the first day where I was thinking "wtf, how tall is he?!?" just to realize that the inside of the tournament stage was almost one foot above ground.
- Chance smile when taking a map to Cooller in the group stage match. Cooller was gone in enrage, completely red, with thick veins visible on his neck, punching the table and shouting who knows what in Russian. Chance saw his reaction, and turned away to hide a reserved funny laugh, which suggested he was quite happy to be out of range of the Russian wrath.
- Toxic return? On Friday I was spectating Cypher (who did not have to play that day as he was first in group B) playing Toxjq (the swe toxic). It was just a practice match over a bunch of maps, but he looked really really solid. Stay tuned with this, because it could be very interesting.

Conclusions

This was a great experience. I don’t know how people felt from home (still have to read a thousand messages), but being there and see all that happened was really something. I wish to thank Carmac for making this happen, Rondrian and Xou for not kicking me out when they should have, 2GD for being the gentleman he is and for his casting, the ESR guys for being there and cheering for Cooller, and of course my girfriend for bringing me there. Best Christmas present ever!

Edit: photo gallery here: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1849222

I want to share my experience convinced that there are others in similar situation which might benefit from this, and maybe give something back.

I'm that stage of life where I already live with my girlfriend, no kids, but we behave more or less like a married couple. Unsurprisingly this condition changed the way I play videogames.

When you are a nerd lone wolf, you tend to develop various hobbies, which may or may not involve other people, but that primarily are between you and the thing you interact with. I grew up playing guitar, videogames, modelling, drawing and later programming.

When two of this kind meet, they might share their passions, have nice discussions, and then sit and do the hobby with full concentration. One enjoys the other people company, but retains the ability of staying on his own and still be happily entertained. Most of my friends are of this kind, and I really enjoy their company.

Then, let's define a very general category of people, which could be called the non-nerds; those who never really developed individual hobbies, and always relied on the interaction with other people to be entertained.

When you form a couple, there are compromises you do. These are described as "since I like to stay with you, I will bend this or that aspect so that life together is better". Usually, with good communication, this process becomes some sort of self organizing haggling process which produces a certain balance.

One subtle aspect though, is how to handle the free time and the hobbies. Ideally, a couple decides to spend some time with a common activity, and some time with individual interests. This however is difficult if one of the two is in the non-nerd category: either he/she has no hobbies, or lacks motivation, or has no available friends.

In my experience the balance between individual and common time depends on the total free time available. If you have a very busy period at work and do late evenings or even work full nights, for the good of your relationship you'd better to spend all the remaining time in common activities, or soon the next common activity will be a couple of hours discussion on how the state of the relationship recently deteriorated...

Among my hobbies, one I love is to play videogames. I recently divided videogames into two categories: relationship safe vs relatinship dangerous games.

The former category contains all games which:

- Do not require time to get into the atmosphere
- Can be harmlessly paused, or have short periods of play between which you can interact outside the game.
- Do not suffer too much from you not playing them for days.
- Do not require you to coordinate with others, fix dates, etc.

In my case, I found that quake live 1on1 is a perfect relationship safe option. I can do my matches without interruption, but then still be there if my girlfriend wants something etc.

The latter cathegory (opposite of the former) are games which:

- Require time to get you into the atmosphere.
- Are likely abandoned if you stop playing them for a while.
- Require coordination with others, weekly training, etc.

In here I put both online clan play, and most of the single player games. I have tons of very good games I never finished because I was forced to discontinuous play, and later I never caught up. The most recent one is Mass Effect 2. These are games I would play for 6+ hours a day, piling up dirty dishes, emptying the fridge, forgetting to bring the trash outside. I know no other way to really enjoy them.

My experience is that the only safe way to handle the relationship dangerous games is to take days off work if you can, or simply renounce to them. Squeezing them in the evenings stealing time from the common activity time will not work, as you won't fully enjoy the game, and will cause pressure in the couple. I am sad I cannot play certain games as I did before. I can have a couple of free evening, but that's not enough, so I'm sure I won't finish mass effect 2, as I did not finish fallout 3, back to Vampire Bloodlines...

To finish with a happy note, my girlfriend developed a passion to quake live. She sits next to me, coaching me (wonder why my timing is very good sometimes? :p) and watches ESL cheering for fox and stermy. Tonight I will do the mass effect 2 test. I will ask her to play the game for an hour, then tell me her impression. I have little hope she will like it, but it's worth trying.

This is probably a cyclic discussion. Yet, I think it might be interesting, since the duel activity is not bad lately, and for sure there is people who could benefit from the help of others.

The questions for you are:

1) What items do you time...
1.1) ... when in map control?
1.2) ... when out of map control?
2) Timing Math? What's your mental scheme?
3) Timing statistics. How do you predict the spawn time when you're off timing?
4) Timing delays. When, how, why?
5) What do you think is the hardest thing related to timing?

You will get a [+] for elaborated answers!

Let's have a thread for those who wants to go and see the finals live.

I have to admit I did not search thoroughly, but there is little information available at the moment besides the events dates, and the fact it is within the cebit.

Update: according to an ESL admin, Quake Live will be played from Wednesday 3rd until Saturday 6th.

I will come with my girlfriend (she gifted me this trip as Christmas present <3) , and our hotel was booked around the end of November. It was already difficult to find something reasonably good and not too expensive at that time, so if you don't have a reservation, hurry up, because with Cebit prices explodes, and all places are super busy.

Let's update this post with useful info when available.

Schedule

http://www.esl-world.net/masters/season4/hann...#wednesday

Tickets

You need a ticket to Cebit
The area age restriction is 16+

Participants

Memento_Mori + girlfriend
unHuman + 2x quakers
becks
rind
c1(?)
extaleR
Nukm + n1ghty
frs + children
Anarki320 + kan1
manc + friend
ischju
cracknigger and MACKER

When this whole thing about lessons started, I had mixed feelings. Actually, I was a bit sceptic. The prices. The very concept of paying in a context where almost everything – knowledge especially – is usually there for free. I was tempted to think that these lessons were only for kids worshiping him on his site, willing to pay for a match with Stermy just for the sake of it.

On the other hand I was curious. Curious to see what he could teach me and how he would do that. Even if this had to be a joke, I wanted to experience it. My curiosity grew up to the point that, on Friday, I finally took my decision and booked a 2 hours of lesson. I silenced my conscience thinking that, after all, that was not big money compared to many other things I pay for. So I made my reservation for Sunday afternoon and send the money.

I remember Stermy from the old days in the italian community. He was the kid with the pro mentality. He was eager to get better in a way nobody could match. And even now, after many years, and after seeing him competing in the pro scene, I cannot remove this image I have of him. He giving lessons now feels like the natural consequence of the perseverance he always had. He truly is giving his best to promote his gaming career.

The lesson was as good as I hoped. On Saturday we had exchanged a couple of mails where I gave him the info he needed, and he came prepared. We discussed tactics in a map I chose, he coached me while playing other players there, and did a debriefing afterwards, discussing various aspects of my game that could improve such as weapon choices, routes, the way I aimed and dodged. He was professional, knowledgeable, and keen to make sure I was an happy learner.

Was the lesson helpful? Will I be a better player after this? Well this is not really the point here. These are the same questions anybody asks himself after a guitar or piano lesson. Everything will boil down to my daily practice and the way I will use what was thought to me. Was this a good lesson? It was indeed.

Overall, I’m positive about the experience and completely satisfied in my curiosity. I actually plan to book other lessons for the other maps when the time is right. I think the guy knows what he is doing, and I would like to see the other pros following the example. Is the current state of the scene too premature for a service like this? That’s a question I cannot really answer, but time will tell. So far I’m just pleased with what I got.

Scheduling

- Submit your idea until 01/12/2009
- Discuss all the ideas until 08/12/2009
- Participate to the pool from 08/12/2009 until 16/12/2009.

Prize

- Most popular redesign wins 50 Euro (Paypal account required)

Details
Submissions

- blackdragon #1 : http://rapidshare.com/files/308265398/qzdm6_databd.rar.html
- blackdragon #2 : http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/2603/72509...lsmall.jpg
- GreenMeanie #1: http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee232/fps_...niebig.png
- Extone #1: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1781211
- Frame #1: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1787684#pid1787684
- Stuntz #1 : http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1677/qzdm6e.jpg
- Yellack: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1788213#pid1788213

I'm mostly thinking of 1on1 but I guess it applies to all game modes. Almost everybody agrees that maps stagnation is an issue. An healthy game should have map cycles and renovation to keep the gameplay evolving and the scene growing.

I might have a limited overview of the current situation, but this is what I notice.
* Lack of new mappers. It seems to me that the number went down together with the game popularity (talking about q3), and that at the moment there is only a handful of mappers scattered here and there. The fact that QL is not officially supporting external mapping is not helping inverting the tendency.

* Lack of knowledge of what makes a good map. There are tons of tutorial about making maps from a technical point of view. But when it comes to good maps gameplay-wise, google is no longer your friend.

* Lack of an infrastructure for mappers. By infrastructure I mean the part where the quality of the map (in terms of its playability) is truly tested and good feedback is given. More precisely there are different things that screw this process: 1) Most people are lazy and will not download a map unless it's at a super polished state and others already tested it 2) Even when someone does spend the time trying the map, quality of the feedback is not granted at all.
3) Virtually nobody vote for maps that have not been played in tournaments, regardless of the long process they went through to be on the server.

Let's now consider what happened with t7, which is one of the few successful cases lately. It was released at a very polished state both visually and in terms of gameplay, which is something that screams for internal prior testing. After that, there were these testing session were beta users were kindly invited to play the map and give feedback, and the map evolved quickly toward what we know now. Finally it was included in official tournaments map pools, which basically is what seals the deal when it comes to maps.

I wonder if it could be possible to find the right formula such that mappers could have support along these lines. As I repeated countless times, the good thing about quake live is that there is a recognized authority that can propose things which the people will follow, so if there is a place this can happen, I think is QL.

What do you think?

Hi, this week I started laying out a duel map. It is quite small, has a mega and two ya, and there is no railgun. At the current state it is still very crude. I did not start working on the texture yet.

My hope is to collect some feedback about its playability, and eventually iterate here the layout a couple of time until it is more solid, doing the expensive eye candies only when it's not going to change much.

You can find the first version here: link and some screenshots here: 1, 2, 3, 4

Update:

Following some suggestions, I removed a couple of stairs and modified the mega area.

You can find the second version here: link and some screenshots here: 1, 2, 3, 4

Hey,

I made a post in the official ql suggestion forum, but this is probably a better place to get meaningful feedback. I copy the text below.

Suggestion

Short version: add default lag to it, increase its damage.

Long version: Back in the days, when internet connections were slow and the netcode a bit crappier, shaft had a certain "amount of lag" (*) which made it usable only in certain situations. It was powerful if used well, as the damage per second was high, but you could not abuse it (use it in the wrong situation) or would get raped by other weapons.

(*) this is a bit imprecise, but I hope it's clear enough.

When connections and netcode started improving, the weapon balance got screwed up. Shaft became usable everywhere, up to the point where top 1on1 was pure shaft raping, putting everything else in the shadow.

Solving this was problematic: lowering its dps would make it useless, increasing it would make it overpowered.

The solution in quake live is to change the dps based on the distance. The design behind the current implementation is that you have a low dps for long-mid range combats so that it's not overpowered, mid dps for mid range and high dps for close range which pays of but put you at risk against sg and rl.

This solution is appealing in some sense because it reduces the shaft spam, but is somewhat "choppy" as it breaks the distance in discrete intervals which are not represented graphically, making the shaft damage a bit obscure to the player. The habitat in which the shaft is now optimal is also debatable.

Adding lag to the shaft would solve the problems of balance, bringing it back to what worked well in the past. Because of the delay, you must predict. The difficulty of prediction depends on the distance and relative speed / direction of the two players. This is something that a player can master, because everything (as well as the weapon lag) is there to be seen. But no matter how good you become, the other weapons will prevail in their respective habitats.

The goal of this thread is to discuss how to catch cheaters. I will try to use my best English, but please understand my limits. If I’m too verbose or trivial, my apologies, it’s for completeness sake. If I miss a point I’m sure you will politely correct me with the friendly spirit ESReality users are very fond of…

So, the topic is how to catch cheaters. The controversy here is mainly due to the limited existing tools to get evidences as well as the speculative nature of almost any judgment based on these.

Current Situation

There are various types of cheaters, but not all of them are considered to be a problem. As rule of thumb, the more legit-skills a cheater has the bigger the problem he represents, as not only it is harder to catch him but there are also more changes to see him competing in tournaments, eventually with prizes.


Although we would like Sombra’s case to be the first of long series, this is sadly unlikely. The cheater we are considering is smart enough to avoid stupid demo/screens management mistakes as well as clear overuse of the hack. Sombra’s case however exposes the first big problem of the current witch hunting which is the personal relationship between accused players, inquisition and audience. Not only evidences are usually quite poor, but any judgment is pre filtered by personal feeling about this and that person, which strongly influences the outcome of any scrutiny even against quite convincing proofs.
One urban legend arising around this very concept can be expressed by: “you can find similar things in any legit demo! You see the hack because you want to see it”, a statement that indeed contains a portion of truth and to the least require a bit of investigation.

Unfortunately given the current state of things, we cannot rely on anti hack software such as pb. This is not going to change in the near future, so we can take anti-hack software out of the discussion.


So. in terms of existing tools, the only (yet usually insufficient) evidence one can provide is demo.
As you know the problem with demos is that they do not show exactly what a player sees and hear when he’s playing (this without even considering GTV/spectator demos which are just wrong). As we cannot expect people to put a camera and record their games, demos provided by the players themselves are the best we can get, and within competitions this can be enforced.


Proposal

The trivial requirement of a judgment system is that it should avoid too many false positive/negatives. A judgment system should be able to distinguish between lepic (legit + epic) and hacked shots.
A second point is that personal matters should not influence the judgment at all. Anonymous demos (although complete anonymity is impossible) might be a first step in this sense.

I figure the following fantasy. A central official list of inquisitors is created. Inquisitors will take vision of anonymous demos and will seek consensus to deliberate. Numbers can be discussed.
To become inquisitor a candidate should pass an exam. A selected set of demos is presented to the candidate. Such set might include any number of cheaters (included zero). The candidate is requested to deliberate about each demo, highlighting what is wrong with those he marks as cheat. To pass the candidate must reach a certain number of correct judgments. Exams might be repeated in time to make sure the inquisitors are not degenerating into zealotry.

I know I’m putting it as a joke, but I believe that with id support (regarding anonymous demos + temporary demo uploading) and a bit of participation this could actually work.

What do you think?

Hi guys,

I'm cooperating into a project of computer vision to extract the rotation speed of a camera given recordings of videogames. You can see preliminary results here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAItpMLJHKs

What I need know is a way to control exactly the input I send to the game. I would like to use +left and +right, but the only trick I found at the moment to change the rotation speed is using timescale. This actually change the speed of everything (dynamic textures, item rotations etc) and therefore is not the best method. Moreover I am experiencing strange results for timescale values above 1, and I cannot say whether it is our application that sucks or timescale that is not linear.

So, briefly: do you know how to change the rotation speed for +left +right ?

No, sensitivity, m_yaw etc do not work.

Thanks a lot,
meme