First I would like to make it clear that this is an opinion based on opinionated facts.This article is about how the actual scene is, and touches briefly on why the scene is in decline and or stand-still.
My name is Vincent "vi0lat0rs" Dutkevitch and I have been a participant in online dueling for about 6 years now. I started with Unreal Tournament 2004 and quickly found myself in the world of Quake. I briefly played WarSoW from .12 to .4 as well as touching on Half Life 2 DeathMatch. I would like to make it very clear that Quake is the King of One vs One Deathmatch games, but this is the problem. We have seen this game for X amount of years now, simply updated with new graphics and a few new maps. The mechanics of the game do not change. Thus making the skill gap larger and larger as years go by. As a new player trying to embrace quake, it is very difficult. You can learn the basics of the game fairly quickly, but that is as far as it goes for most. You may argue that its because of people being uncapable of playing or being just plain out bad, but I would prefer to think of it as a battle of experience, which is fine, and should be as so. Quake Live in my opinion is a great idea to "renew" this process of players learning the game on a more regular incline but it would seem as though it doesn't matter. The range of skill between bad and good is still very much apart with very little median. Players often find themselves either winning by absurd amounts or loosing by absurd amounts, and when your in that stage, what is there to do? You can memorize all of the spawns, learn how to out position people, have the aim of the gods and still be light work for a majority of players. What I am gettting at is, why are we still playing the same game, if we want to make it a sport, the sport isn't "Quake Live" the sport is One vs One DeathMatch. We have seen many failures due to games lacking at launch, examples being Quake 4, PainKiller, WarSow to name the few that come right off the top of my head. They all had terrible online quirks that set them back from being a good game for dueling ONLINE. Be it netcode, or some unbalanced game mechanics. So, we naturally fall back to Quake 3, why is that? We claim its the most balanced, which is true about the game its self, but if we want to introduce new players into the "Sport" keeping the age old game alive isn't the way because we will continue to see the same top tier players until they reach the age their reflexes start to decline, in theory anyway. At this point I may be rambling, you may think I am a whiner because I am one of these sub-par players but I think I am speaking for a high number of players, and the sport its self, we need a new game, or a tighter stat tracking for players to be matched with each other to get the quality practice they need to hit high levels of play. Thank you for reading, all comments, and additions are welcome, I am sure there are a few points I missed.
![shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann](/files/avatars/2007/51852-shaftwhore.gif "shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann"){kind=small}
Quake 3 Challenge Promode Duel Ladder for North America! We are hosting our ladder through 
QuakeLive Amateur Duel ladder through fraggednation.com. Its about time DeathMatch Radio spawns onto the QuakeLive Scene and with full force! In time we will be offering prize tournaments and events for both Quake communities. When the leagues are ready for sign ups we will announce that on our facebook and youtube channels! 
#DMradio
