https://twitter.com/Zinvor/status/933458621614186496

Let's discuss.
Is cooller gonna win anything now?

I spent a lot of time for this entry to beta key contest, but unfortunately it has already ended and locked by the time I perfected my art.

I don't want my effort to be lost completely, so here it is anyway.

When you do casting of a LAN tournament, prepare.
Take a piece of paper and write an outline of your show. Get a list of players, get schedule, plan in advance what games you will be casting. Notice if there are any possible gaps in the schedule, think of what you may do during those gaps. Probably you'd want to interview some players, so plan that in advance - think of who you'd want to interview, think of questions you want to ask, meet players before the games and notify them that you want to have an interview with them after the game is finished.
Think of what you will do when there are unexpected delays. Let them be expected for you instead. Even plan on what topics you may discuss when there is a pause. Write down some trivia and stats, when you are not live, talk with players "backstage", get some cool stories from them, etc, etc. It all can be used when you have no action to talk about.
Think of who of pro players you would invite to cast with you and what games they should cast. Meet them before the games and ask them to come and cast, let them know beforehand that they are wanted to be casting games.
Think of how a random viewer experiences your stream. When someone tunes in at a random time, he should either see that something is going on, or he should instantly get an idea when things are going to happen. If there is a delay or pause, instantly put a message on stream telling when next thing is expected and always update it if something is changed.
Plan and prepare all technical features and organizational interactions beforehand. Get a test stream working a couple of hours before the tournament and test everything you can: caster sound, ingame sound, ingame config, switching between views, message display for users about delays or upcoming games, etc.
Basically, when you finally go live, you should already envision very clearly what your viewers will see in the whole 2-3 days of the tournament. It should be written on paper that you have before you. You don't have to put your show on strict rails, you should think of variations, you should think of what you can do depending on the outcome of crucial games, you should imagine all likely scenarios of the tournament and think of how you can present each scenario in the best way, but it all has to be pre-outlined and written down.
Then you will have most smooth, fluid and professional show that will provide your viewers with most pleasant experience.

Edit: just to avoid misunderstanding, let me clarify that this is just my general thoughts of how casting ideally should be approached, it is not necessary related to recent DHS'11 or any other particular tournament.

Few days ago I tried to download some demos of IEM4 QL games, and ESL website always responded with "file not found" error.
The answer from ESL support was simple and elegant:

it looks like the system has deleted the demos. We do not have any backup and therefore they are gone.

Nice system they have that deletes files at will, and also very nice gesture from ESL admins not to keep any backups.
But anyway. Maybe anyone has downloaded any of those demos at the time they were available? It would be great to make them available again on ESReality, because they are a huge part of QL history. There are some demos from IEM4 on ESR already, but only few of them, while ESL website had demos of (almost?) every single game, many from both POVs.
Fuck id! ESL!

With deep sadness and grief I am announcing that the highly regarded "Silly idea of the week" series is closing down.

It was originally created as an aid and guidance for the id software developers to help them keep the game close to how the community wishes it to be and solve various problems that people from outside the development team see more clearly than those who can look only from inside.

Unfortunately, the reaction from id software was no less than disappointing. The response from Robert Altman, CEO of Zenimax, and John Carmack, technical director of id software hinted that they are not going to let anyone than themselves affect the development direction of Quake Live.

Imagine what a magnificent game Quake Live would be if at least a fraction of the ideas pointed out in the series, were incorporated into it. But id software has willingly decided that they are not going to use all these creative gems in the game and instead will develop it on their own, possibly blocking all external help.

Our ideas are still available and open for anyone to use, and the administration of Silly idea of the week has made an unprecedented decision not to fill any patent or copyright infringement lawsuits against any party that decides to use these ideas in their own product*.

I know that every week, millions of people, were excited in anticipation of each upcoming issue of this series that instantly became world famous even before it was published. And I am truly saddened to be forced to disappoint all those people. Silly idea of the week is no more.

Fuck id.

* the decision is subject to change suddenly without any notice

Everyone likes how competitive QL duels are very complex and includes many factors like aim, positioning, item timing, etc.
What we can do is capitalize on this advantage of QL over other competitive games and add even more factors to it that will make gameplay even more complex and diversified. For example, we can add inertia to models causing them to fall down on steep turns, and additional key binds for players to control inclination of models to keep them balanced and not fall on the ground. We can also add some resource management element when players have limited amount of energy to move and they should recharge every so often at special recharge points on the map. Also, exploration element can be added with some portions of maps generating randomly and players have to learn the map every time they start a new match. We can also add some logic puzzles to key locations or items on the map so that player have to solve a puzzle that pops up on his screen very quickly to get an item and not be killed by enemy while he does that.
It's easy to think of many more additional elements can be brought into competitive QL that will make the game incredibly many-sided and interesting. Please share your ideas in comments.

We need to restrict +back'ing and promote +forwarding. The solution is to make people emit sticky gooey fog backwards from their ass that hangs for a few seconds and then dissipates. When you move through that fog, you experience higher friction and cannot get the same speed as moving through clean air. If you stand still, then fog slowly surrounds you. Thus, you are always forced to move and you cannot move to where you've already been in last several seconds or you will find yourself entangled into sticky fog that hinders your movements and opens you for easy attack by your opponent.
There can be also various details in implementation, for example: is the fog global on the map so that you can run before your opponent and hinder his movement (looks like not a good idea, but may be fun just for fun), or it's per-player, etc.

CTF flag carrier should get a wall hack, while carrying flag. Flag runs will get so much more exciting!

Why not make www.esreality.com also accessible via simply esreality.com?
Billions of people hear stuff about some "esreality" site, enter esreality.com in their browser, get reply that site is unavailable and go away never to return. If they had actually came to this site, they would have seen how great competitive QL is and they'd start playing QL themselves and we'd have tons more players.

Maps. They need to be tougher, for competitions at least.
I remember old platformer games, where you had to jump through levels filled with obstacles, traps, pits, moving platforms, holes in the walls shooting balls of fire, etc, etc. Some games were really tough, you had to move your character with pixel precision and time your moves up to milliseconds. One tiny mistake and you're dead. Some levels took 200-300 attempts to beat.
QuakeLive competitive duel maps should be like that. They should look like staggering contraptions, mind-boggling labyrinths of hell, filled with dangerous traps and intricate architecture. They should require defrag-class movement techniques and inhuman precision to traverse through them. There should be all sorts of usual obstacles - lava pits, spikes, moving walls that squash you, floating platforms, etc, and it all should be done in an amazing 3D design, using vertical dimension to the full extent. The levels should seem absolutely freakin' impossible. It should take hundreds of attempts by a typical QL player just to learn how to, for example, get from MH to RA without falling down. And of course, all movement mistakes should be punished by nothing other than death.
And then there will be REAL pro players, players who learned every inch of those maps, who practiced their movement to the absolute perfection, and who could sustain moving through those wild mazes for the whole duration of duel matches, without making a single mistake, without missing a single jump. And then imagine battles between such pros, who jump with insane speed and incredible ease through absolutely impossible mess of ledges and platforms, moving in cryptic trajectories, with balls of fire flying around, and dangerous pits of lava below, firing at each other and dodging each other's shots, collecting items and at the same time playing a deep strategic game in their minds. It will be absolutely unbelievable experience to watch.
Show that on big screen for big audience, like IEM at Cebit or Gamescom, and spectators will drop their jaws and stare in amazement, unable to move. Then they will see Starcraft II with its tiny boring units crawling slowly around flat map, and they will scream "FUCK THIS SHIT, GIVE US QUAKE LIVE!!!!".

Actually, I am lying, this time it is not a silly idea at all.
id software needs to completely remove the obligatory registration for QL and pre-game ads. Many people just randomly stumble upon quakelive.com through some search query or whatever. Generally the main QL page with screenshots and slogans, etc, gives some percentage of visitors just barely sufficient interest to make them click a "Play now" button, but when they see a registration form, 99% of them will just close the page, because it just requires more effort than people are willing to give to some unknown random website. Similarly, when people are forced to see a video ad on some random unknown website, they usually close the page immediately. They don't know yet how good the game is, so they don't have ANY incentive to stay, especially when they know many other websites, familiar to them and proven to be good, but they immediately see that this game demands some actions or some time from a visitor. And choosing between giving effort and time to something unknown and visiting a well proven website/playing well proven game instead is awfully easy.
You need to give user the reward first, and only then ask them to do some effort. If you first require effort, then give a reward, you will just repulse away most of the people.
People should be able to play QL just by clicking a link. It will make a lot of random people actually play the game, and some part of them will become interested enough to stay, thus enlarging the whole QL audience with each day.

One major problem of current duel gameplay is that for player who manages to get item control the game is too relaxed. He doesn't have to doo much, it's always the other player who has to think of something to turn the game around.
Solution: damageable/destructable powerups. Shoot a rocket at MH, and it doesn't give full 100 hp anymore. Do enough damage and you destroy it entirely. Now it's not enough just to time items, you have to make sure you get them fresh and undamaged or not destroyed completely. You have to control not just items, but also the opponent, to not let him destroy your powerups. On the other hand, if you're out of control, now it's easier to switch it, by damaging your opponent's stack before he gets it.
This will also make gameplay less limited. Player's won't be anymore forced to play under "I have control, therefore I win" dogma, it will open new ways to gain a victory.
If you have or have not any comments, please discuss.

In this series of journals I will be posting each week some crap moronic idea to help id make QL a better game.
Many players complain that they lost important duels because of bad 1st spawn...
Solution: make 1st spawn similar to clan arena where you can move before game starts. But make it even better: "non-attacking" period should be expanded to something around 10 seconds, and each player gets a "push gun" which he can use during this time. As the name suggests "push gun" can push opponent around, also can be used to push-jump. Powerups and armor don't spawn in this period, but spawn only as the game begins.
How it will change QL duels? Will it make game beginning more balanced? Is there something that players can exploit to make this idea completely ineffective? Discuss.
Insightful comments like "lol, what a load of crap..." or "you don't have a clue, just stfu and gtfo" are welcomed.
P.S. Spartie is not a top player.

1. Hack av3k/rapha/cypher/stermy/k1llsen accounts.
2. Go to some carder forums and ask anyone to pay Pro subscription for these accounts.
3. They get banned for life.
4. COOLLER BEST PLAYER EVER!!!!!11111

why?
what would changed if they said it 2 weeks before?

btw I just discovered that when frozen people exlode it looks like they're exactly spraying cum everywhere! djwheat must be kicking himself that he didn't notice that first.

It finally works in version 10.60!
Just set it to identify as Firefox in website preferences.