Paragraphs and paragraphing

Apologies if you had difficulty.

Not as much as you had in English class, clearly.

The game was released more than 15 years ago and you think there's growth potential?

His paragraphs were very easy to read. I much prefer his style :)

What do you think?

That you're deluding yourself and probably unaware of how self serving your claims are.

Various claims you made above: (1) That team mode players are the only (or even comprise the majority of) players who support the community, (2) that no duel tournament has ever really been exciting for players and spectators, (3) that duelers are comparatively introverted to team mode players, (4) that, prior to the inclusion of team modes, no one was encouraged to fly thousands of miles to play Quake. There's also the implication at the start that no one actually enjoys duel over team modes.

I guess your attitude is to blame the half (probably more) of the community that enjoys duel instead of recognizing that the world has moved on.

ok, sorry.

Yup easy to read and understand

It's easy to read something written in bullet point (like any PowerPoint presentation) but the paragraph structure is used for organizing topics, ideas, and arguments. It demonstrates a logical structure to one's thoughts instead of a stream of consciousness rant (like the OP).

If he's going to make the claims and arguments that he does here (and in previous threads), he should learn how to organize his thoughts. This is basic, primary school level stuff...

Welcome to online gaming boards.

Thanks. A/s/l, babe?

Sorry I upset you.

No, I'm sorry that the Quake community has disappointed you. :'-(

:D

Don't know, there's another QL LAN around the corner and one of the conclusions that I've come to after this QC is that team games bring in more players that otherwise wouldn't fly over for 5 min of fame in the duel section - it encourages a more tight community, but having duel on top of that is just yin and yang.

The addition of TDM/CTF was welcome and even though the casters weren't that much into it and had about zero clue what's going on and which strats are the teams using, it was still pleasant to see some quake non-duel action.

Too late for quake? Yeah sure we've been saying that for almost a decade if not more.

Quake is dead but never truly dead.
Give more combination LANs that include team games and duel.

All is fine.

What's the next LAN?

www.esreality.com/post/2754201/ql-lan-announc...-1-heaven/

gg no re

Yup check mephistos first post about the event.

I enjoyed team modes and I hope we see more tournaments that include em, but... You seem to think you speak for the whole community when view count for each mode clearly disproves you.

Basically the only good thing about this qcon was the inclusion of team modes. Everything else sucked,; the format, the coverage, casters, production, prize distribution. The fact that you are able to take a blind eye on that just because it pushes your agenda is sad. You are a frustrated individual

Actually that's what I was highlighting. The inclusion of team modes really boosted the event. Every thread does not need to discuss every aspect of the event. We can discuss the flaws in the format but that is not my point.

As I said previously, if you want to build a game you have to support fun team based modes. If Quake had done this in a similar way for its entire life span I argue we would be in a very different place.

I don't believe you. There were already team modes at qcon before. You're praising a format that basically forced players who don't play team modes to play em and made it impossible for many duelers to duel. Number of viewers clearly shows that apectators are far more intereated in duel and this quakecon royaly fucked up duel coverage. As you stated in your last column, you believe duel should be excluded from quake.

No matter how much you wanna pretend, you're just glad the duel part was a fuckup.

I enjoy duel, especially at big events. I hate seeing the same top players play each other every 7 days.

I would drop duel just to force the focus back onto the vast majority of the player base. You think a difference of 4k viewers is worth killing your own game over?

If the core game developments built a strong team mode then duel is fine. It's a nice showpiece. But unfortunately it's been the entire focus of quake for a decade and that has cost us big time.

You say vast majority like I can't count them all on both hands and some toes...

'unenthusiastic commentary'

They did a great job and freaking out like a 2gd is just not their style it would be fake if they tried. They have wit to balance it out. And lets faceit you are not exactly a joe miller either and capable quake commentators don't grow on trees these days.

They did a great job

No.

Did they, during the round 4 matches in TDM/CTF, or during the Grand master duel final, even once say the following:

"Yo, the winner of this gets $8,000 and the loser gets $0. They have practiced for this for months! This shit is scary and intense!"

No, they didn't. Because they suck at their job. The general audience, who didn't put the effort into searching for the tournament brackets and understanding the never-before used tournament system, never knew about the importance of any matches.

edit: Also LOL at the idea that they have more wit than 2GD. They can't compare with any of 2GD's qualities: passion, knowledge*, wit, humor, charisma.

* Yes, they do have more CTF knowledge than him, but he knows more about TDM, duel, playstyles, Quake in general, the meta game, ...

I disagree profoundly on knowledge 2gd is not even uptodate on whats happening in ql for years now. humour is subjective 2gd is too much of a prole for me sometimes and with charisma you mean him playing Rovert Downey Jr, the arrogant but brilliant and goodhearted go-getter. Its his brand and I dont fully buy it. but whatevs, opinions and shit I just dont want to let a diss on this years cast stand unchalleged for I am satisfied with the result and unenthusiastic is not an accurate way of describing it.

I disagree profoundly on knowledge 2gd is not even uptodate on whats happening in ql for years now.

As if that was so relevant. He knows the players, he knows how they can play together.

Just before the deciding 3rd map Infinity between MD and Averagers, zoot said that MD won "90 to 95 percent" of their CTF practice matches against Averagers. For someone who's supposed to know what's going on in QL, that's a hilariously wrong statement.

In the last few weeks before Quakecon, MD won about 60-65% of their matches. IIRC, they even lost Infinity pretty badly in the last practice match they played because fazz hit like 40 impressives. That's the type of information I know, so it's the minimum I'd expect from him.

(The other qualities are subjective, so I won't argue about it.)

As far as I know, fazz kept the stats on our practises with MD and we were at a winning rate of about 33-35% by the end of it all.

We started at a solid 0% though ofcourse :D.

(and yeah, having BOTH infinity and ironworks was a mistake in my opinion in our qcon matchup but that's past now)

Ok thanks, then my estimate of the winning rate seems to match fazz' stats relatively well.

Yeah, I didn't understand why you played Infinity. You only won it once against them in practice, didn't you? I feel like you would have had better chances on Spiders and on Pillbox. Which one of those did you drop btw? Pillbox? I'd given you a 50% chance on that because it seemed to basically be all about getting a lucky quad run.

I had the impression that MD don't particularly like Pillbox because it can result in stand-offs when both RA players play defensively (kind of like Siberia used to play). Also, after losing Spiders against gHs, I suppose they weren't keen on playing it again.

any of those two maps I would have prefered, I wasn't there for the pre-talk of what maps we wanted to play and I think fazz and noctis came up with infinity for some reason I still don't know about xD.

really not wise on their part. too ambitious maybe, but that sort of ambition levels just ain't realistic. stats said that ironworks and infinity were clearly MD's maps. stats may not predict future. but they are a good estimate. when i heard that tie-breaker is infiity i was sad:/ sad and angry (at the one who made that call). you could have been champs in both mods. and as 1st day MD beasted it and wellplayed for them. 2nd day unfortunately it was defaulted loss by your team. too bad, as i cheered for you guys.
you will get them next time ( hopefully if there will be one).

You dont need to be "up to date", because there hasnt been a breakthrough in quakelive's meta for a long, long time.

It seems you have something personal going on against 2GD, because his casting is full of reasoning and logic. Take the pre-qcon faceit for example, even though he didnt know some of the newer maps, his reads were usually spot on.
I personally think his flaws are insignificant compared to the thoughts he provides, because its then so much easier to really get into the games and fully appreciate high-level Quake - something very few people can do nowadays.

As for Jehar and Zoot, I agree they did a reasonable job during the first two days. Even though Jehar referred to BattleSuit as "Power Armor" and kept calling the arguably best tdmer of recent years "Latrom", he did his homework and had loads to say about strategies and plays.
Zoot kept his usual crap at minimum and was his better self, providing background info and talking less about rockets and more about what was going on in general.
Overall I wouldnt say they were "unenthusiastic", but rather more serious and focused. Collected.
On the 3rd day, however, it got all zlive with zoot pissing himself every time someone fell into the lava or missed an easy jump, and lecturing pro players on they plays ("what are you doing, you arent supposed to be here"). Neither him or Jehar can read the game in duel and desperately need a colour caster.

his reads were usually spot on

That's because he's just extremely fast at reacting to what's happening on the screen. He's a very good ad-libber. He's also very good at making himself sound like the smartest person in the world.

That being said, he's also very entertaining. (And he does know a little about quake, it's not all bad.)

the foundamentals of the game haven't changed that much to be honest. 2GD still has one of the best understanding of them because of his history as a pro player in quake.

Additionaly he is one of the few that "we know what's the player in control doing, let's watch the other guy, you are as good in duel as your out of control game".
In a world where you know what happens in the mind of the player out of control and the rest even ever show those situations, your casting will open up like a blossom in the spring and you'll sound 3 times more knowledgable simply because you'll show and talk about 3 times the situations.

Final point: A lot of people got to know duel through his his style of analysis, so it also sounds more natural to plenty of us (me included).

Additionaly he is one of the few that "we know what's the player in control doing, let's watch the other guy, you are as good in duel as your out of control game".

Haven't watched him in a while on his channel, but Zoot used to do that all the time as well.
Not sure what your point is. At this point Zoot probably has more understanding of the game than 2gd.

Then that's too bad he never shows it.

Just wrong.

But whatever. All it takes apparently is act like a fast talking cocky smart ass and fans will come slobbering at your altar.

Or maybe you like to think he's all bullshit and tricks because you just don't like his personality. Is that why you compare him with a play-by-play caster who has no competetive experience as player?

I understand that it may seem like that from these comments. But I don't dislike him, he's entertaining and does know something about the game.

But at the same time I don't think he's the casting god some people like to make him out to be either. A lot of it is a matter of style, he talks too much, quantity over quality, that sort of thing. A lot of this is subjective of course.

I don't mind him casting, but everything in moderation. ;)

2GD was a top-level 4v4 TDM, 2v2 TDM, and duel player who won prize money at LANs, including Quakecon.

"Does know something about the game" is a bit of an understatement.

Meanwhile, jehar has a duel ELO of 1177 (CTF ELO 1183, no matches recorded for TDM), and zoot isn't even within the top 20 duel players in the UK (TDM ELO 1402, CTF ELO 1430).

"jehar has a duel ELO of 1177"

LOL

"All it takes is act like a fast talking cocky smart ass"
lulz ok

it's hard to show it with followkiller always on.

I'm not sure about that. Personally I've never heard Zoot analyze a match nowhere near as well as 2GD used to.

Here's one example,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6NuMyXw1Hs&t=76m0s

Now compare that video with how the Quakecon 2015 final was cast.
http://www.twitch.tv/quakecon/v/8606084
http://www.twitch.tv/quakecon/v/8606336
http://www.twitch.tv/quakecon/v/8606752

I think it's night and day, especially when it comes to having a better understanding of the game. Zoot merely reacts to what he sees on the screen, whereas 2GD knows in advance what is going to happen.

Plus 2GD's understanding of the game made him get a second place at Quakecon, among other achievements when the game was still being played professionally. That superior skill and understanding does show, just like when rapha casts from time to time.


edit: Since I was editing the links might as well say that the criticism to both of them is rather unfair to begin with, since people's appreciation of them doesn't have anything to do with their understanding of the game. Zoot isn't liked because at the beginning he came as an apathetic person, which rendered the matches boring, but he has improved a lot on that aspect and he isn't somniferous to listen to anymore. 2GD isn't liked because he appears to be a bit unprofessional, but to me he was the most professional Quake caster of them all. Unlike other people's favorites, 2GD never was caught on Facebook and playing other games while matches were being streamed, never was an annoying fanboy of American players and never dodged showing up to events.

2gd is the overall best commentator ever, period. Rapha comes second. ddk is also good and what a surprise - also a top player from the past. :D

Btw, 2gd & joe <3

2gd & joe GOATs

I honestly don't see why the video that you highlighted would be so much better than what zoot/jehar were doing.

If you look carefully at the first video, 2gd is also just reacting to what's happening on the screen.

2gd has an alpha-male charisma, and that stuff clearly works, as you just demonstrated.

Think of Zoot casting that same dm6 match, the same way he did at this Quakecon's finals. His reaction would only have been to say "Cooller missed the rocket jump and hit two lucky rockets" (at the beginning) and then stop there. because his analysis stopped at describing what was on the screen. That leaves viewers completely lost about what is going on, and if the casting is going to be just that then I'd rather watch the match without casters (i.e. watch Fazz's stream).

Instead, 2GD's reaction was to first say that phrase (obviously) and then followed it by talking for over a minute about the implications of that play, including describing what goes on the players' minds on a tactical level, styles and whatnot. That way viewers are not lost, as they now know the importance of denying the weapons and how they work in duel, and makes them be engaged with the match, the individual players and the game as a whole. That matters a lot in a game where so much of the action is not on the screen but on the players' heads. Some produce that engagement by explaining those things (2GD), others by shouting (DJWheat), while the rest does not produce that engagement and end up as background noise you'd rather not have (Zoot).

Another example in the same video is the way 2GD described the game to new viewers, before the first map (T7). That explanation was ten times better than what I've heard Zoot doing so, with the same consequences. Or imagine how much better the TDM finals would have been if it was cast by Disrepute and Vor, who can describe the match as a whole.

Of course charisma is another important factor on the perception of how good a caster is. Not only charisma, also having a better voice tone and overall have great casting skills for any game. Problem is before Zoot the Quake casters were much better than him in all of those regards. That includes 2GD, Tosspot, DJWheat, Joe, DDK ,etc. Here's the thing though: DDK thought he didn't have enough charisma, so in his way to casting CS he focused into the factor of having a superior understanding of the game, whereas Quake is now stuck with a guy with both way less charisma and way less understanding than DDK, so that left we the audience really missing him and the others; spoiled by some of the best in the industry.

I don't know, I think in five years from now no one here is going to remember how good Zoot's casting was, even today I don't see not a single person praising it, while the audience will still be fired up every time 2GD pays us a visit. I'm just trying to elucidate why is that, and while doing so I don't see a single factor where Zoot is better than any previous major Quake caster. And again, Zoot has improved a lot, but it wouldn't fair to say that he isn't the worst major Quake caster (in a place that had some of the best), nor to not acknowledge 2GD was the best.

Wanna expand a bit on the matter. For a long time i was of your opinion.
I tought that he wasn't updated enough on the scene to really make a difference with nowadays casters (incidentally it was when DDK was casting every possible related quake match basically).
This is why i really hoped we got 2GD to cast Evil's games in these days (or even better, in 2012\13, when Evil opened up the meta), to see what would he think of that madness... But then i realized that Evil's is an oldschool style, proper of a time before quake live... When 2GD was playing :D! So he'd probably be surprised by Evil pulling that shit off at the highest level but i doubt his analysis would be thrown off by that much. But let's not digress too much.

Time passedx by and it is still very hard for people to replicate what 2GD had going in term of analitical casting and reading of the match... And some of his casting is certainly fluff more than substance, but that's a skill the best casters need to have. That's maybe a little unfair, because that's more about personality and your social "skills", character and so on, but it still goes into the show.

Adjusting your analysis on the fly, and keeping your head cool, is everything in quake duel, therefore it's a great skill to have in quake casting.
That's why when we had people like Fraze in the booth it was appealing: As soon as a kill happened or a shot landed he snap-read and talked about a tricky situation to avoid, a spawn to abuse or predicted what would happen at the next items. Or we saw a grim result if one of the players did the opposite..
Initial damage change everything all the time and the balance is everchanging in duel.
If you just blabber when these sudden shifts happen, or you are late on your analysis the casting will suffer a bit.

Anyway i think people bash Zoot too much, he's come a long way since his early years in every possible aspect of casting. The style is still the one we know and some people hate, but there certainly is place in time for that.
He can do a bit of everything nowadays, add some colour, has some good and fun lines, tries to keep a vibe and reedom in the casting, talks clearly... Sadly he doesn't excel at any of those, and people find it hard to see the bright spots. Others just hate his style.

I think he had a decent time at quakecon, clearly he doesn't know enough about TDM... But he was decent in duel and CTF. Comparably Jehar was clueless in TDM in a lmao level, but he really knew his shit in CTF (NA represent) and was knowledgable about both the general tactics of maps and specific strategies. Apart from some cliches i really hate some times.
In duel they kind of lacked a bit of colour commentary, but who would that realistically be nowadays? If players don't wanna show up this is what we have and i think they did a good job at that.

I wanna close out by saying that i think Qcon really puts you in a position to fail. It's just their history. They do stuff nosensical to quakers over and over, probably to appease sponsors and a broader audience. Then there's the fact that Quake is not a focal point, the budget is what it is, volunteers and such. And all the pressure of 20 years the past fuck ups adds to that.

I didnt mean to flame 2gd I actually love his commentating and appreciate all he did for the game. There is many great things about him, I just pointed out the things that i dont like.

tbh, Dis is not really a CTF expert, but has more knowledge than those guys for sure

I thought the stream was bugged, all I heard was "lots of damage at the moment"

This year's casting was pretty bad. Zoot and Jehar just don't have enough knowledge to talk about duel. I remember during the pre qcon na showmatch dahang left up mega on t7 to trap rapha at the fifty and ofc rapha doesn't show up because he reads dahangs read and instead of recognizing the situation zoot and jehar started wondering if dahang was mistiming the mega. That stuff doesn't really matter if you only have noobs watching, but there aren't many of those left in Quake. I'm willing to bet >50% of the people who watched duel this year either got annoyed at all the misreads or did what I did and drowned them out with background music.

I found it flat. I have seen both do much better jobs. It was clear nether liked TDM, knew any of the basic strategies or cared about the outcome.

lets faceit

yes let's \o/

I think that MD-102 and MD-avg in TDM, as well as MD-BREAK and MD-avg in CTF, might have been the most high-skilled TDM/CTF matches ever played on LAN in Quakelive.

It was incredible fun watching them. Thanks to id for the tournament, and thanks to the teams for practicing and participating.

Is it too late for Quakelive? No. Ql and Qcon have one thing in common: despite all the fuckups and wrong decisions, they're still both quite enjoyable as long as all you want is some quake.

But it is too late for Ql to fulfill its potential and become a decently-populated game. And even though it was refreshing to see TDM and CTF appearing at this year's Qcon, I think we all agree the main issues lie elsewhere.

Didn't we have a teammode competition each QuakeCon? How is this different, what are we even talking about?

Exactly what I was thinking as well, actually.
So the whole argument falls a bit flat.

It's more about prose. There was some lengthy in the past and now we're supposed to understand that it was important writing it, while being served with some more prose. You can't be good at prose without exercise, you know.

money

Placing the team modes at the core of the competition and having the duel as a side show..

Is that what happened with duel having 2 tournaments and twice the price fund of each teammode?

Obvious team modes had two days to one for fuel and the majority of the players were there for team modes.

Plus the duel was actually a team duel (not as good as the eswc).

Majority of EU players that played only team modes would also play duel I they were allowed. So forbidding duleres from dueling is a good thing?

Fewer people would travel for a duel tournament than would go for a team mode.

Most people don't even think this way. To most, this was a shitty format that risked us having a rapha vs chance finals.

Having a little more "respect' paid to teammodes didn't change anything.

The format of the tournament was not perfect but it didn't actually take away from the spectical of the actual duels.

What do you mean it didn't take away? Cypher and cooller got only a few matches in, most matchups we wanted we didn't get to see, and we almost had chance in the finals, who beat NOBODY good. It almost ruined the whole experience.

The question is really; now id have found a winning formula for competitions, can replicating it grow Quake Live or even make their next area shooter actually succeed in modern esports?

Hoping for QuakeCon to save QL?
I'm don't know about that.

Yeah it is probably the wrong question actually. It is more about, does this proof that team games are more popular and successful in competitive environments finally focus the development time on team modes? And if it does will this save QL?

It would also be nice if streamers payed a bit more attention to team games. I tremendously enjoyed all the practice streams we got this year.

WINNING FORMULA

god you really love the smell of your own farts dont you

is too late of course 6 year later

doom 4 multiplayer and map editor is better potential

Give QL a total facelift so it looks like a 2015 game graphics wise, and add ragdolls to the corpses, so when its streamed on Twitch the kids don't say "LOL is this game from 1990? what is this?"

Gameplay is good. Is more a million times more advanced than CSGO which is the most famous FPS right now (other than COD).

Add gamemodes different from duel to try to attract plebs, but most importantly, keep duel 1:1. IT DOES NOT NEED ANY CHANGES. Whoever things sighlthy changing a thing here or there, adding or disabling GUI Timers, this and that... all that is complete nonsense on the big picture, newbs don't care about any of that.

Add matchmaking, ranked games and unranked games, let people host servers... etc etc. Just COMMON SENSE.

Make ql graphics awesome + ragdoll n crap, name it QUAKE2020 .

relaunch with more focus on tdm/ctf , without spitting at the gods of duel .

If not QL will continue to die as it is currently doing .

Or redo quake1 , buuuut dont see that turning out good neither

This past week saw Quake finally listen to the community. <-- Hmmmmmm no ?
You mean that they did something you liked to see.

Did it work out... meh reasonably.
Was there excitement... Meh okish...
Did the casters suck... Well Jahar was fine imho. Overall it was crappy though.

Is it too late for QL? It's been too late since 2010...
After the launch failed so horribly in so many regards, and pretty much only the existing q3 community played QL.
The attempt to restart it through a relaunch on steam was a nice idea.... But was probably several years too late, and didn't quite get a large enough following to be successful due to reasons we already discussed earlier. (or at least I know I discussed them on esr)

Yeah maybe too late for QL, but a foundation could be setup for a new Quake.

i mean people used to think cs1.6 was pretty much a failboat of an esports till csgo came out and look at where its at now. even the console call of duty "pros" play csgo on their streams when killing time. quake needs a game i m o. with that brand name + focus on esports, shit could be gud

Yes!

Generally, thinking teammodes would have saved Quake is delusional.

First of all, there were teammode competitions, and teams kept dropping out. Compare that with TF2, no esports money, no anything, and they still pull out huge brackets. People didn't want to play Quake Live TDM & CTF, it wasn't about being facilitated.

Secondly, there are super popular 1v1 games, such as SCBW, SC2 and fighting games. If the game is good, people will play 1v1.

Finally, QL was obviously just a shitty, unfinished product, with no ladders and lacking in the most basic of features. The team was delusional in thinking these were not the point, and that they could just keep on implementing useless stuff instead of what everybody wanted. Devs to this day think ladders are impossible and one of the most diffiucult games ever is fine with a 4-tier system. With this in mind, nothing could have saved QL but the dev team.

Could teammode competitions have helped? Yes, especially CTF, as TDM is so hard to watch. But would they have saved a shitty product? Well that's impossible.

TL;DR Quake needs a new game or a massive overhaul for QL, as opposed to a ridiculous noobification that the devs can only come up with.

First of all, there were teammode competitions, and teams kept dropping out.

What are you talking about? All (prioritized) teammode LANs were huge successes, and the teams that intended to go didn't drop out.

Look at DH Summer 2011, The Party, Prague LAN, Quakecon 2015. The number of players in attendance far exceeded any duel LAN, possibly ever.

Now if you're talking about random online cups without prize money, that's a different story. Attendance generally wasn't great for those. However, that's not an argument against teammodes at all. Imagine what would happen if the duel cups on Sunday didn't have any prize money; would you expect evil and cypher to participate? I definitely don't think so.

My point is that if TDM/CTF were actual game-savers, the the brackets would be huge with little to none prizemoney. Reality is they're just a bit inclusive than Duel, so they're good, but nothing miraculous.

But Disrepute's point isn't about *today*, it's about the last 10 years.

10 years ago, the creme de la creme of TDM/CTF was playing very actively in Clanbase Eurocups, and at that time they already didn't have any prize money.

The point is, TDM/CTF had the *potential* for a sustainable community and thus being the game-savers, while duel never had that kind of potential. He argues that it was wrong for the developers and tournament sponsors (e.g. Zotac, Faceit, 125fps, ...) to put most of their effort into duel *over the course of the last 5 to 10 years*.

Now you might not agree, but you haven't really shown any counterarguments.

so they're good, but nothing miraculous.

Did anybody claim they were miraculous? Reaching that goal obviously needs a lot of effort. Just a week ago we got some basic teammode spectator features like health/armor bars. And they were pretty crappy. I think we can all agree that those features should have been available ever since Quake Live went public. It's no wonder a community shrinks when it has to wait >5 years for the most basic of features.

He argues that it was wrong for the developers and tournament sponsors (e.g. Zotac, Faceit, 125fps, ...) to put most of their effort into duel *over the course of the last 5 to 10 years*.

Just below he says he wasn't talking about the tournaments as much.

The point is, TDM/CTF had the *potential* for a sustainable community and thus being the game-savers

Potential for a little more than we have with duel? Yes. Potential for a whole different QL? How? Where are the players? TF2 players play without anything on the line. Quake teamplayers don't, that means that with this state of the game, no matter the history of the last 10 years, it can't be game-saving.

You're saying I didn't give any proof, but I did.

Secondly, there are super popular 1v1 games, such as SCBW, SC2 and fighting games. If the game is good, people will play 1v1.

That, plus the TF2 point. Now, the ball's in your court. Where is your proof that we'd have a community at least several times the size if we focused on teammodes? Because if we're talking about saving Quake, even 5 times won't cut it.

As I can see, we agree that it was the lack of features that held Quake back. Now let's agree that regardless of the most popular mode, we couldn't save Quake without them.

edit:In other words, yes, I do think disrepute is portraying teammodes as miraculous. He's writing articles about saving quake live, not mentioning the shitty efforts by id, focusing entirely about teammodes. What else am I supposed to gather from his articles?

Just below he says he wasn't talking about the tournaments as much.

Literally the first sentence of his original column is: "Can we finally accept that listening to organisers who wanted to reduce costs, and the money hungry egos of a few top players all demanding duel was the way forward, COMPLETELY and UTTERLY KILLED the game?!"

Clearly, his disagreement with tournament organizers favoring duel
over teammodes is a crucial part of his arguments.

TF2 players play without anything on the line. Quake teamplayers don't

I just said that this used to be different. Historically, the competitive Quake community has consisted of teams playing without anything on the line. You can't judge the community from their status after 5-10 years of being neglected.

Even recently, a #TDMpickup draft without prize money gathered ~90 players, while the last 125 Sunday Cup with prize money had 27 players. Now how can anyone even pretend as if duel was maintaining a noteworthy competitive community? How is not obvious that team modes gather more players?

Secondly, there are super popular 1v1 games, such as SCBW, SC2 and fighting games. If the game is good, people will play 1v1.

None of them are FPS games. Do you know any 1v1 FPS games with a large community? None. How many teambased FPS games with a large community are there? At least two: TF2 and CSGO. That's the point.

Where is your proof that we'd have a community at least several times the size if we focused on teammodes?

There can't be any definite proof because it's a hypothetical scenario. However, I do think that all data available suggest the same conclusion: More players would play QL if it was focused on team modes rather than on duel.

You can't judge the community from their status after 5-10 years of being neglected.

But I can compare it with a similarly neglected community, TF2. And I did. And it isn't pretty.

How is not obvious that team modes gather more players?

Generally they do, I'm just arguing that it isn't that much of a significantly higher number.

Though you do have to account that not playing competitions doesn't mean not playing at all, lots of them practice duel instead of going to a competition to lose in first round.

It has long been noted that teamgames are more focused on participation, but duel games have proportionately higher viewership. We do need viewership more than participation. So even if we were generous and say we'd have 3x the playerbase if we focused on teamgames, which is naive, we wouldn't have 3x the viewership.

Which means the suggestion

demanding duel was the way forward, COMPLETELY and UTTERLY KILLED the game

is just ridiculous. It wasn't the mode, it was the devs.

Edit: I don't think excluding FPS'es is fair at all. If not for valve, competitive FPS'es would even be dead, so to analyze which single competitive FPS game is still alive just isn't fair. Isn't it obvious, even CS:GO was doing terrible for a very long time. It wasn't being a teamgame that revived it, unless it wasn't a teamgame back when it was down in the dirt. It's the DEVS that made all the difference. How could anyone even argue against that.

It's the DEVS that made all the difference. How could anyone even argue against that.

I don't understand it as arguing against the importance of the devs, it's simply discussing a different aspect of what is important.

If we want a FPS to become successful, all data suggests that it should be focused on team modes rather than duel modes.

If there was sufficient commercial potential for a duel-based FPS, don't you think that valve would have developed one by now? The fact that a smart company like valve solely develops team-based FPS games is already a big argument against the future development of any duel-based FPS games.

If there was sufficient commercial potential for a duel-based teammode deathmatch FPS, don't you think that valve would have developed one by now?

See, your argument works against you too. Besides, CS is their brand, Quake isn't. That's the main reason they developed it.

We're all hoping for the unlikely here, for a deathmatch FPS to be popular. What we don't seem to agree on is whether the devs fucking up were the main factor in Quake 3/QL failing, or was it the wrong mode.

If you honestly think QL could have been as big as a duel game, SC2, with the same devs it had, just a different mode, you're delusional.

This boils down to you saying that the whole TDM/CTF argument isn't wrong, it's just not important enough to you.

Meh, can't really disagree with that.

Howoever, the main argument holds:
If a *deathmatch* FPS game wants to be popular, team-based games have better chances than duel-based games.

And, the starting point of our discussion was:

First of all, there were teammode competitions, and teams kept dropping out. Compare that with TF2, no esports money, no anything, and they still pull out huge brackets. People didn't want to play Quake Live TDM & CTF, it wasn't about being facilitated.

By now, I've presented multiple arguments why this is a wrong (or at least misleading) conclusion. People have always preferred and still prefer playing TDM/CTF over duel. There's no evidence that would lead to a different conclusion. Thus, your discrediting the TDM/CTF activity makes no sense.

This boils down to you saying that the whole TDM/CTF argument isn't wrong, it's just not important enough to you.

Not to me, but to the success of Quake. Remember, we're discussing in a Disrepute thread.

If a *deathmatch* FPS game wants to be popular, team-based games have better chances than duel-based games.

Sure they do. But the main argument is whether or not duel is the reason quake failed. It's just not, flat out.

Spot on

Concerning your edit.

He's writing articles about saving quake live

His main column was titled "CAN WE FINALLY ACCEPT WHY QUAKE FAILED". Discussing why something has failed is the opposite of planning to save it.

The title of this more recent column is "TOO LATE FOR QUAKE LIVE?", which might be understood as hopefulness, but seen within the context of his main column, I understand it as a rhetorical question.

not mentioning the shitty efforts by id

Another quote from his column:
"The major mistake id made was to listen to the community and focus on duel."

It is true that even the duel-based development was shitty, but that's not the point of his column.

Okay, it may be about saving QL, it may be about saving the next upcoming competitive deathmatch FPS (be realistic, he wouldn't care if he didn't think it could change something). Doesn't matter, it's about saving.

Now,

not mentioning the shitty efforts by id

is my whole beef with his argument. He thinks not focusing on teammodes did it all, which is just ridiculous.

It is not so much about the tournaments. They are just the evidence of my point. Focus on team modes and the game will grow.

I thought your point was all about the tournament organizers not organizing CTF/TDM instead of duel.

So what it is about, then? The community having a from of "sickness", that is being focused on duel? That's a weird point, people focus on what they like, after all. It's hard to imagine anything that would change that, especially if we exclude, exactly, tournaments.

It's a combination.

The small but vocal community that backed duel and supported tournament organisers in dropping team modes to focus on the cheaper to run duel sideshow.

id in turn supporting that by focusing development efforts on duel and ignoring community building features in team modes.

Both sides are the cause.

The hope with these discussions is the community take a second to think about what went wrong with Quake, and how can we avoid the same mistakes in future. The community can have a big impact on the developers.

By building a team based community you would have more duellers. You should support it.

There are some points against this, as you well know, so I don't agree 100%. But sure, teammodes deserve more attention.

I definitely won't agree with the delusion that duel killed Quake though, that's ridiculous.

"The hope with these discussions is the community take a second to think about what went wrong with Quake, and how can we avoid the same mistakes in future. The community can have a big impact on the developers"



Maybe ql developers are wrong people to run game? blame has to go on manager of game. this syncerror adam person.

is not fair to blame community completely without put fault on ql managers.

tdm dead when the disrepute an vor stoped casting imo

light a lil candle for quake live
peace

I like turtles.

Why would it be too late?

It was not too late for CS:GO to become big, a game that, arguably, doesn't look THAT much better than QL on full graphics. If at all. It's only a question of support from id - they would need to revert that loadout shit and implement something else to attract new players. Valve did it with weapon skins, they did not dumb down the gameplay.

Then we need more spectator friendly featues, maybe the spec hud we saw during Qcon is a first step in the right direction. Once we have this we would need to promote more team mode leagues. I hope we'll be able to do something more with HoQ. Maybe set up some donations to give a small amount of prize money and attract new (or old retired) teams.

Yes

According to fellow chat trolls, Syncerror said that the upcoming patch will be the last update Quake Live will receive.

It indeed is too late for QL. I hope that if there's a next Quake the developers finally re-make it from scratch, essentially receiving the CS:GO treatment. That especially includes top notch graphics and overall not being stuck in 1999, with somehow less features.

will still be run by same developers thou it appear.

if it is realy too late for ql
i hope please that the disrepute and vor show face and cast one last tdm final =] maybe even the model nvc can make a guest appearene cameo.

failing on that.
you just get we are talking it podcast going weekly

Just gonna say this year QC casting lacked enthusiasm, a lot.

Better late than never.

Too late for what? QL lives its niche life totally fine, maybe we need to just forget about 2000's ambitions. Dont try to find in classic gamemodes some sort of breakthrough, they are not attracting crowds with or without spechuds, supeuber stats and tutorials, more streams analitics or whatever... 1 out of 1000 newcomes cares about a super interactive tutorial that you'll make, and 5 get some interest after stream with analitics.

So what I mean is - improving current shape of tdm, ctf with some features like ladders, leagues, chatrooms, tutorials, improved spec shit, stats etc along with streaming and tournaments will make numbers grow probably by some x% or xx% and thats it.

If someone wants numbers to blow up - its about dramatic changes that would go beyond the real Quake - casual way of giving certain roles and abilities in team modes, clear objectives... nobody even ready to accept automated item timers to speak in voice chat about strategy but not telling numbers.

Quake if fine, its changing for good slowly. Looking forward to upcoming update

Thank you, great points.