It's no longer under the US filter heading which implies this was done on purpose?

I did a search on the QL forum's and didn't see any mention about chicago servers, are they completely removing it or getting another provider? This would suck if its gone, considering it's one of the only server location's that I manage to get decent ping too, also sucks for all Alberta Canada people in general being in the same boat as me :(

-- You'll understand if you read lol, and don't take it seriously just its an interesting question lol --

So my tinfoil hat popped on and I was like what if this update and zotac cancellation thing was all planned out? So For 80% of dissatisfied customers tell 10 people and in addition 20% of dissatisfied customers tell 20 people. There even seems to be more activity on the ESR/QL forums, even i'm posting and i'm not big on posting frequently. So hey that's not a bad idea, bad publicity is still publicity and hey well just fix the update later down the road and will be like were sorry , and we'll be like oh youuuuu



But gaming for instance maybe this doesn't apply to this rule. For example: I haven't mentioned this update to anyone besides posting on ESR. So my ultimate question to you ESR. Why don't we talk about QL to none quakers? (good or bad) And in addition why don't we talk about games to none gamers?


Reference for the statistics
http://www.jvmarketing.co.nz/perspective/Why+...omers.html

I keep going on this site lately out of boredom so I figure I should put in my 2 cents. Here are some ideas for QL:

//Note. might be long so just read the headings that sound interesting, and also excuse my lack of editing/grammar


Duel tracker <or> opponent tracker
- Basically rudimentary list, where if you beat a player. You will be put above him on the list. The idea comes from when I first playing and had a very linear way of thinking of things. Where I would beat a player and then look at his/her profile and be like okay he/she beat x,y,z players so chances are I can beat those players. In addition he/she lost to a,b,c players so chances are those players can beat me. The tracker would then compile a small list of worthy opponents. So by looking at the duel tracker you will have a good idea on what players are around your skill level and then the next time you duel you can look for them. (can do this now, just makes it easier)


Demo viewer
- Have crazy options, like search by plasmagun kill. Which then list all plasmagun kills in that demo and have a time beside it. Then you could click on one of those particular plasma kills jumping into the demo or just preview. Should probably have playback options like start 5 seconds before the kill and end 10 seconds after or play through. With such an easy way of finding awesome frags that anyone could find a nice frag and submit it to a movie maker or better yet have best frag competitions where your demo has to take place within a certain time frame. eg. this month. (encourages some people to play a bit more)


Make streaming for streamers easier
- so I guess ladders would help that
- gtv.. which in turn would auto join ladder matches or high profile players who allow it..
- maybe a betting system?? even winning funnymoney can be rewarding cause you know your taking it from someone else (also encourages team spirit, I want that underdog dude to win!!)
- Have an auto duel cup, basically top most active players for that week/2 weeks get an invite to participate.
- Have a separate page for GTV with quakelive running in the middle of the page(about the same size as justin.tv so you could maybe have a chat beside it or something). Like it always bugs me to see quake streamed, when in a sense quakelive could the the stream codec, all you need is voice overlayed onto quakelive and boom a good quality stream* lol, and hey the unlikely might happen, carmac makes a gtv for the iphone so you can watch quakelive on the iphone haha.


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//ladders rant -- skip this if you want//
I don't' really understand how ladders can by themselves miraculously save quakelive(they are defiantly a nicety though). So having a ladder does have its benefits, most of these benefits can be achieved already. Soo here's a list of things I think ladders can do:

- players have a better chance to play their own skill level and or slightly better players
- easier to track progress I suppose
- can generate some excitement to be more active
- easier to look up a ladder see that on the tier 3 ladder that rapha is on the top and then develop some sort of fanboyism
- know who is the best and who is up in coming (although if your already immersed in the community you already have some sort of idea)
- make it impossible to climb up because the top3 players play 20 games a day
- challenge inactive players over and over until you give up
- Have tier slummers join low tier ladders
- Play the same 1 or 2 people over and over
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- In game tutorial
Yeah there is that strafe guide stuff, but like most games the single player usually incorporates a mini tutorial in the first chapter of the single player or they have a separate optional training mode. I think this would be beneficial to have. For the first part of the tutorial it would step through very carefully through some of the basic mechanics movement, weapons, setting up your weapon keys and sensitivity, armours/health, basic positioning, and weapon utilization(tf2 tutorial comes to mind if anyone has seen it, it makes you shoot rockets are moving targets and encourages you to switch the SG when they are low/out of ammo). Also encourage very new players to either play with their friends who also haven't played or to play bots for the first few hours??? Have some sort of achievements to help aid this, eg. Play all official duel maps x times against bots.


Better on-site tutorial
- For instance when I first started I only wanted to know how to duel. I already had a decent grasp of the game already but nonetheless I checked out the quakelive guide thingy they had. And wasn't impressed cause I could careless about the other gametypes and the little content I found in regards to duel didn't really help me. Could also have a glossary of terms eg. RA = Red Armour(with a nice picture), could also have map locations with a nice picture of just that particular area. Because for myself I don't play other gametypes besides duel so in tdm, CA, ctf.. if someone says /bridge/"need help here" I generally have no clue what they are talking about so I would assume for players who are interested in those gametypes, learning the locations of maps can be harder than it should be.


Official maps for each gametype
- For example for duel most tournaments use certain duel maps, and in a sense what ever quakecon announces as their map list is essentially this list. But basically the idea is to have some spot on the site which would list this maps. So new players have an idea of what to play if they are interested in competitive play.


CA lobby
- Basically spawn a CA lobby (unranked CA server) per location. And even if all the players f3 ready the game won't even be logged on their profile. So people can join/quit/spec at will without being scared of their sacred stats and none existent sacred stats. The idea is to just have a place for the more casual players to join and jump around and talk or do w.e. The idea comes from my preference to just pregame with a good quake buddy for the sake of jumping around and to maybe chat. For when you join a typical server there's always that pressure to ready up(f3, RUP).


Optional signup achievements
//Could revamp the whole QL achievement system, cause some don't even work anymore...
- So if your interested in a particular gametype eg. duel have specific achievements to help encourage players to research/practice certain elements/fundamentals of that gametype(some can be really simple). Some examples:
- lock down 2 armours and mega against a bot
- in offline shoot all spawn locations on a map
- bridge to rail jump
- ztn plasma to RA
- in a real game shoot a spawn location after a frag
- get a conversion kill(make sure the opponent is weak after a fight)
- keep 'x' weapon away from a player for 1min
- rocket jump to RA (on aero)
- ztn - get a plasma frag at a tele exit
- against a weak opponent switch to SG and finish him/her off(giggidy)
- in a LG fight switch to rocket launcher and win the fight
- Delay your spawn to avoid being hit 10 times
- rail someone in 'X' spots in 'X' maps(basically to teach people where some basic rail spots are :D)


Player numbers
//Its nice to see if you even have a chance to find a game
- Got this idea from someone/forum. Could break it down into different game types. eg. - Total online right now
- Total players in your vicinity or specific server who are in duel, ffa, etc servers
- Total players in your vicinity who aren't in a server(could be tricky to implement)
- Total unique players on an hour ago


//Final thoughts:
People who say ql is dead.. next please(quake 5) are silly, even to make quake5 would take a couple years to develop :o. so an interesting solution to this graphics thing could be to have a desktop quakelive client(which im not entirely sold on myself). But it would use the same files as quakelive and still connect to the site. The benefit is it might run a bit better for those hardcore people are or people like me with a crappy computer. Some people could just use it for their friends list like steam. In addition could beef up the graphics with the client down the road. Although I don't mind the graphics of quakelive for example COD Black OP's on the xbox, you stare at one of their textures and it isn't that impressive. Most games look good cause they squeeze as much sprites/models/etc as they can eg. foilage, trees, cars so it looks like a well polished game **rolls eyes**. I think quakelive in particular is similar to fighting games. You want good gameplay, simplicity, and flashy techno neon colors. No story and no random barrels laying around the map :)