I know ID doesnt care about QL anymore, but a quick idea I had for the spectator hud would be to have a HP/AP bar on the big names on top left (like most mmo games) instead of just showing the HP/AP of the player you are following on the bottom, with this you would also free space on the bottom so you could move the weapon bar there and then add a radar/compass showing where both players are where the weapon bar is currently (top right below timer).

I was a bit nostalgic remembering an old star wars game I played on the gamecube called Jedi Outcast, and looking through youtube gameplay vids I eventually found this and was surprised to not found that game on the list, only to find out that it was actually the number one game.

Jedi outcast was a rather slow paced DM game based off star wars, and it was also made on the q3 engine so it had stuff like strafe jumping. It was quite a shock to see it on the number spot, because despite the game being brilliant, it doesnt seem the kind of mainstream game that you see these days.

So it occurred to me that a DM game with Star wars weapons and characters could have more chance of succeeding than yet another Quake/UT/Painkiller copy. A few problems that I can think of that prevent DM games to take off:

-its not realistic (unfortunetely we will probably never cater to this public since there are games like cs/cod/bf out there)

-the skillgap and learning curve are too big (this can be "easily" solved by having skill tiers/matchmaking ala QL and also by having loads of tutorials in the game itself or atleast on the official site of the game, explaining all the techniques like strafe jumping)

-its too fast (this is mostly a stereotype of DM games being "twitchy" and apart from games like QW, PK and HLDM the pace is perfectly fine)

-its not a team game (now despite DM games being better than other FPS games for 1v1 gameplay, this doesnt mean that team gametypes must suck. This is also a bit of a stereotype, altho the team gametypes could be improved a bit further)

Now Quakelive has kinda covered all of the items above (the idea of QL is good but the execution is poor), but its still not a sucess, so what else could be holding back DM games?
The answer is: a good storyline. So why did games like CS took off? Because you dont need a storyline when you are living it.

Games like Cod (the first few), Moh and some BF ones are based off WW2. Everybody knows how it ends, but its still an epic story to play, not to mention the games are kind of a tribute to the people who have fought in the war.

While games like CS, Cod (the recent ones), some other BF ones and a bunch of other games like Rainbow Six show our current time, with "real" issues in the middle east and such, with realistic weapons and vehicles.

DM games have usually very simple and shallow storylines, and even if the gameplay is amazing, its doesnt draw too much attention. If you remove the story of mmo games like WoW, how many people would play it regardless?

Now star wars has a very good story, known by pratically everyone and is set on a retro futuristic scenario. Raise your hand if you didnt wish you had a lightsaber when you were a kid.
Maybe this wont make a difference and DM games will never be "mainstream", maybe it will, who knows?
Just throwing this idea out there.

Okay so last few days there have been numerous topics about QL spawn system, if there is any way to fix it, and Hoony mode. Now im gonna show you why there is no way to fix it:

This is q3 spawn system, furthest away from corpse, means you wont spawn at the same place 5 times in a row, but its easily predictable, thus allowing situations like in this video.

This is CPM (PM2) spawn system, biased player respawns mean that a player CAN respawn at any spawnpoint,
but is more likely to respawn some distance from where he died. While not being as predictable as baseq3's spawn system, it allows for "spam 5 rockets get 5 frags" situations.

This is PMC (PM1) spawn system, true random, means that a player can respawn at any point in the map regardless of killer position/corpse position. While being the least predictable spawn system out there, it allows for unlucky situations where one player spawns in the same place over and over again.

Now This is QL's spawn system, furthest from killer position, means that you will most likely not spawn in killers POV, but can be spawn raped due to being easily predictable.

To explain a little bit further, I consider "spawn raping" any situation where you kill your opponent before he gets any PU's. While the situation in the last video doesnt happen that often, baseq3 and QL's spawn system are too easy to predict, meaning that you can easily deny RA and mega by simply choosing to kill your opponent in a certain map position.

So does this mean that promode spawn system (both pm1 and pm2) are superior to baseq3/QL's? No. While the fact that they are random means that spawn raping situations happen less often, they can still occur (as shown in both vids) and you can still predict pm2 spawns to a certain extent.

Does this mean that all previous spawn systems suck?No.
Does this mean that there is a perfect spawn system out there, waiting for us to discover it, but somehow after 10 years we still werent able to figure it out? Absolutely not.

The answer is: There isnt any "best" spawn system, they all suck at some things, and they are all better than the other in something else.

Quoting arQon from the cpma docs, talking about the pm2 spawn system in CPM gameplay:

My personal opinion is that that there IS no
"best" way to handle respawns, because of the variance in map layouts etc
and in the events that lead up to the frag in the first place. Still, to
paraphrase the ELM docs: "All respawn schemes suck. This one just sucks
less than the others". :)

So if all spawn systems suck, and all of them will allow spawn rape to a certain extent, what is the solution?

Having no spawns (pretty obvious right?)
While some people are skeptical about Hoony mode, most of them have never even tried and have never seen a match between top players with HM.

Hoony mode is a huge improvement over classic timelimited duel. It removes spawn raping (both the situation where you spam rockets/plasma and get a kill, and when you force your opponent to spawn on the other side of the map and not being able to pick 1 PU), it removes the noob-friendly factor of near spawns, where you can finish ur opponent off with the mg, which shouldnt be allowed because the fact that you hit a lower LG percentage now means that you get to live with more health, ur opponents weapon and also the next PU that spawns, and also allows better commentary on the frags since the game is alot less chaotic.

HM is also a better system for different skill levels in matches. If you have one match between players with a huge skill difference (say av3k vs Jamerio) the game will most likely end in less than 4 minutes with a 5-0 score. Now if you have a match between players on the same skill level (say av3k vs cooller), the match could easily last over 15 minutes. While this might be worse for tournament organizers because they cant be sure how long it will last (altho in theory timelimited games can also go to 10 overtimes), the cum sprayed per minutes of quake watched ratio will go through the roof.

Now I'm not saying that Hoonymode is perfect, but it sure is better than our current system.