minimap would be cool

and I think you should keep the bloom for your vids.

If Vo0 doesn't play in tournament, does anyone really win?

if nobody really plays the game, does anyone really win?

I'm gonna download this and watch it, hopefully it's still not just CPMA on a modern engine.

C'mon, you liked cpm. Admit it.

it made CTF awesome, because vq3 ctf is a snore fest and always has been.

Duel is far, far better without such free movement though.

I guess it boils down to whether you're a boxers or briefs kinda guy.

I don't know about that, Vq3/Vql style duel isn't any more marketable than CPM duels. There's simply no control of pace in CPM. The maps are small and generally contain far too many options at any given time to run around to. After a few minutes of watching players hop around and seeing the blurs of the same old textures as they engage in skirmish after skirmish, the game loses any emotional investment. I don't really care WHO wins, and I felt the exact same way about the most recent QL Quakecon Duel finals. Even as a Quake fanatic and player, I can't connect to the games anymore. There's nothing that hasn't been done in the Q3 universe. It really is time to move onto something truly fresh.

I think if arena FPS is to survive at all on a competitive level, and not just played by those of us who have been infected by its glory, it needs to become far, far more strategic and far less mechanically demanding. Watching a CPM duel, or even a vql duel that isn't being played by players who can match shot for shot and keep the game slow, is a snoozefest. The speed of Quake is precisely what's killing it for good. I think something like Carmack's 3 jump limit and then cool down for strafe jumping is an idea that needs to be more fully explored. Also more punishing maps and far less options (particularly in the CPM universe where everything is stupidly open and accessible at all times from a stupid number of angles) for both players. Maps like ZTN and dm6 and CPM3 became staples for this precise reason - there's a set number of routes, and they are predictable. It is up to the player to discover their way back in, and that fact alone is what made dm6 such an iconic map for vq3 duel.

Just my two cents as a Quake Live dueler. Do you honestly think a CPMA clone could capture even a fifth of what, say, CS:GO has for a player base lolo?

I get it, you're jaded. But there are FPS players out there who have no idea what the "same old textures" are in QL/CPM. To them, the game may appear new and fresh compared to whatever it is they've been playing. It's all relative. And the reason a game becomes popular is multifarious: gameplay, skill depth, "deep" (# of players in each skill tier) population of active players, community/social, marketing, gimmick, timing/luck?, etc.. It's no one thing or small set of things.

I disagree about your comments about strategically and mechanically demanding. The strategy is proportional to the variety and interactions of gameplay elements (weapons, pickups, movement, maps, etc.) and if you load up too many of these elements with too many gameplay interactions, it starts to make the game not fun. It either becomes seemingly random or not enjoyable. It's a balancing act. Also, mechanics are the essence of FPS and really any competitive game: StarCraft, LoL, CS:GO, take your pick. At the high levels, mechanics make profound differences between high tier and top tier players.

I've given up trying to predict what the "masses" do. All I know is what I've enjoyed playing. It works for me. Whether or not that style gameplay becomes popular or not doesn't really matter to me. It's a game, I'll do what i can to support the community (CPM, QL, or Reflex), and continue to enjoy the game while I can.

I think any fps game whose main game mode is duel can never grow a huge player base. SC2 even at its most popular era had a fraction of what LoL or Dota has. Duel is just too demanding to spread outside a few focused individuals. You would need solid team modes for any game to grow.

I'm not sure looking at the history of "esports" is that great at predicting the ways things will turn out. Esports is a fairly new phenomena and has included various gameplays successfully.

Also, just in purely competitive terms, there are many 1v1 sports that are very popular (tennis, boxing, and MMA for example). So I don't think there is anything about the 1v1 competitive format that would inhibit popularity. Spectators and players alike enjoy the format.

You could say the same thing about how "demanding" MMA is but it's got a huge audience nonetheless.

<how "demanding" MMA is but it's got a huge audience nonetheless.>

So you really think if 10 people play a game while 1000 others watch it has any potential to grow ? it's just dumb to think esports can grow that way, it works for real sports but not games, you need participation.

I think so. Enrollment in martial arts classes around the US has grown along with the popularity of MMA. They may not all be going to actual fights, but they do participate casually.

My view is that although we're talking about virtual vs. real world competition, human psychology is still the same. It's the constant in this issue.

The problem with this analogy is MMA engages people far more than Quake does. There are fighting games, which have a massive fan base of spectators and players, and SC:BW which is now defunct. These are the only two HUGE 1v1 style of games I've ever seen.

MMA is more popular than Quake, no question about that. The point was whether there's something intrinsically problematic with 1v1 games/sports. There is not, in my opinion.

You have a point with the mechanics, SC:BW was pretty impressive just because it took so much mechanical skill just to play even competently, let alone professionally. I'll concede on that front.

I don't think Quake appears very fresh or new to many new school players, if it did we'd have at least a moderate influx of newbies. Quake death match really hasn't altered its formula since Quake 1, and if it is going to continue I really can't see the same old thing going forward. We can glorify it all we want, but Quake really died by 2007/2008, much like many older arena fps style games (TFC saw the end of its competitive days around then as well). I don't really care what the masses do either, but I can't keep playing the same 8 people in both Quake and TFC. It just gets old. I'll support quake and tfc till the end but really, as a player (a diehard player at that) my days are very numbered if nothing new comes out with a fresh take to retain at least a moderately sized community. I'd like to be able to compete with a team and not have 1-3 other teams, all composed of the exact same players as before. Even when Quakecon in 2011 had TDM as the team tournament, there was only wYz, ufx, and us (Nx) that really played a lot of tdm. Nx. didn't even attend qcon, we just wanted to play some TDM.

Don't confuse how you feel about it after so many years versus someone who has just started. Talk to new players and ask them what they think. There are occasionally new players in CPM (shocking, I know), and when I ask them they seem genuinely intrigued and enjoy the gameplay. But the player base cannot support new players as much (hard to find similar skilled players). It's sad to say but I think if anything it's the graphics that have held Quake back. It does look dated compared to other games. Maybe Reflex will break out because it looks much better. Who knows?

Anyhow, I think there's fundamentally nothing about the Quake style arena FPS that's holding it back from being popular again. Given the right circumstances, I think it could return as a big genre in esports. But I wouldn't hold my breath, either.

If the gameplay wasn't going to be altered, you would HAVE to segregate players based on skill. And then you would need sufficient numbers of players for each tier. Newer players enjoy Quake game play, of that I've no doubt. But I very much doubt they enjoy it when a player of say, memphis/gaia/Vo0 caliber plays them and crushes them into itty bitty little bits across the map.

Despite his very crazy nature, raythenoob did have a point on the whole tierslumming thing - it is extremely off putting to new players, and sadly the ones who tierslummed weren't even the actual greats, they were the guys who got slaughtered by the actual greats.

However, even with a ranking system people will still try to circumvent it and find other ways to play people of less experience than themselves. Valve has introduced a number of ways to deter this in CS:GO, such as requiring an account to have a certain 'rank' (essentially, game time outside of competitive mode is required to play. something like 20 hours? :O ) The idea is two pronged: One, help newbies who have never played CS before get a handle on the game before jumping into competitive, and two: keep toxic players who would willingly spend $20 on the same game away from lower caliber players. I am personally all for it, and a new Quake would do well to follow in Valve's footsteps on this front.



Edit: As an aside, Reflex's current graphics are not 'breaking out of the box'. They are identical to the minimalist design of Warsow and offer nothing of visual enticement to even a very casual gamer. The weapon models are equally bland. I understand they're very short of resources on that front, but it is still the truth.

I agree with everything you've said. Good ranking and matchmaking is crucial and stopping new players from getting relentlessly crushed by higher skilled players is important. I think there's sort of a critical mass of new players that's required to keep a game approachable for subsequent new players.

As for Reflex, I was under the impression that the current design work is still beta and that they plan to release theme sets for models/textures at some point. Newborn had a lengthy post about it somewhere on ESR.

Also, I don't think Warsow has all the fancy shaders that Reflex currently has. It's still beta but I think it already looks quite good.

Xerosawyer has a good write-up on plusforward about some of the other things in the near future for Reflex: http://www.plusforward.net/post/3227/Reflex-Roundup-Oct.-3-2015/

so thats reflex huh

top left

PCgaming is dying only way would be to go console.

i forgot how fun dueling in warsow was compared to vq3