People keep plusing my posts. I don't get it - I'm a newbie here. I should be getting flamed into the ground, shouldn't I?

Is it normal for a new user to rack up this many pluses in a matter of a week? Or are my ideas really that good? Am I really that awesome? Is SyncError actually reading my posts?

I have few confessions to make.

I'm not very good at Quake. Sure, I can beat up on pub nubs in Quake 4 okay, and I've made significant improvements in skill on Nobody's Alternative (the QW FFA server) over the past few months, but I'm horrible and always have been horrible at dueling. I don't know whether it's because I don't have the time to get into serious practice, or because I just suck and will suck forever.

I posted anonymously here for like four months because I figured I'd get flamed into the ground for my ideas, but for some reason, I'm not. They're not based in any of my own experience at playing the game at all, only spectating because I died in clan arena again.

I'm a fan of starcraft and quakeworld "almost everything should be comically powerful and the pace of gameplay should be twice the speed of light" style gameplay. I tend not to think of anything in terms of what would make the game more balanced, but would make the game more imbalanced, because I have this game design theory in my head that the best games are the ones where every weapon/unit is just so damn imbalanced that it all evens out and the game becomes awesome. I should learn to program.

I WANT THE ROCKET LAUNCHER TO THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON IN THE GAME. I WANT IT TO BE SO POWERFUL THAT THE 100 DAMAGE RAILGUN IS A JOKE IN COMPARSION. Even if the rockets did something overtly stupid like *300* damage, the rail would still have clutch uses, because of the nature of hitscan weapons.

I think Quake 4 is basically a shitty version of Quake 3, and I did not like Quake 3. I think it's a shitty fps game compared to Quakeworld and Unreal Tournament 99, and I think the "make everything too good weaker" attitude flying around this place will make Quake 4 the UT2k3 of the Quake series. I regretted buying UT2k3, and I'm going to regret buying Quake 4 unless they kick the movement speed up and put in enough balance tweaks are made to make the game something I would like to play. I want John Romero to get off his ass and make the real sequel to Quake alrady.

I really enjoyed the Quake 4 demo, played it on a friend's comp (he could do it on high quality with 60 fps, which made the game very impressive at first) and rushed out to buy the game shortly after christmas, because I knew it would be 20 dollars cheaper then. About two weeks later I suddenly remembered all the reasons I didn't like Quake 3. I hadn't played Quake in years, and it took a while for everything to come back to me.

Here's the story of how I ended up here: I found this place backtracking from the q4max website, said "holy shit! people are still playing quakeworld!" I immediately dug up my quake cd, rarred the game up with ezquake and an acceptable starting config, and talked some of my friends from other forums into playing it with me, unknown to them for the simple purpose of using them as cannon fodder while I learned to play the game again.

They all really liked the game at first, but eventually, they figured out what I was up to, and by then, I got to the point where it became evident that none of them could ever beat me under any circumstance ever. I tried explaining things like bunnyhopping and item timing to them, as well as the novel idea that maybe you shouldn't attacking a guy with the rocket launcher and red armor if all you have is 100 life and a boomstick, but it was too much for their infantile counterstrike minds to comprehend.

I think the apex of the whole newbie bashing adventure was when I beat one of my friends using nothing but *boomsticks* on dm2, and ran circuits on the armor and quad. Not only did the guy have the aim of a soldier in a james bond film, he fell in the lava SO MANY TIMES that he had nearly ten times more suicides than kills, and he COULD NOT FIGURE OUT THAT AT LEAST A THIRD OF THEM WOULD BE AVOIDED IF HE QUIT PUSHING THE BUTTONS IN BIGROOM. He said he's never going to play an online game with me ever again. Ever.

It is pretty depressing, because jumping on any pub server makes it evident really fast that I'm not very good :( I kept telling my friends over and over, if you think I'm good, people who are actually good would make you break down in tears from the spawn rape.