i just dont see how this has anything to do with quakelive and the people behind it

yes, let's all pretend we have no idea what kapca is trying to suggest

I just don't see why you're trying to understand something more complex than ql ca, give it up:)

HaTa^

Great, so all they have to do is make Quake appeal to millions of idiots, and then they can sell them hats and give the rest of us free updates.

Pity that most of the stuff mainstream idiots want in an FPS is mutually exclusive with everything that makes Quake great.

TF2 sucking and TF2 being super popular == not pure coincidence.

Are you seriously think that every successful game must be a bad one, or you just trolling?

The kind of people who shop at item malls would get destroyed too hard in Quake. The game would need to be made a lot easier.

Game does not make people get destroyed (unless it's a single player game), the opponents do.
If you get enough noobs into Quake, so that they can play with each other, there will be no one in their games to destroy them.

^this. would plus if i could

in the beginning QL had a pretty decent buzz but it failed to keep people interested in it which is why its dying down. not listening to the community, lack of updates, hackers, etc..all that shits to blame to be honest

Dont forget china and india without quake servers, 2500000000 people that cant play qwuake!

I don't think that every successful game has to suck.
I do think that it would be extremely difficult to try to emulate the success of TF2 when developing a Quake game, without making it suck.

fact of the matter is every very successful game is very entertaining to play and addictive.

To be honest Quake Live fails hard on both. Also id got the micropayments model very wrongly, and made crucial mistakes along the way, particularly having massive network issues when it went open beta and when it was released which made losing a huge percentage of casual players.

i disagree. its the mentality that you have to play a game a certain way to even enjoy it that's the problem. Can't people just hop on and shoot shit enjoy the game as much as anyone else? Do you really need to time, strafe ect ect to enjoy quake... no you don't.

To understand that is to understand why quake as a whole hasn't been successful . The community itself is the problem.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Do you mean the established community drives away the people who would play casually, by being elitist and unpleasant?

Or that the people who could potentially enjoy playing the game this way don't, because they have the mentality you described?

your first point

I have to disagree. I understand that there are horribly stupid hatebags in the quake community, but you can't just generalize like that about the whole playerbase. People are different, and you can find all kind of people just like in any other game.
You can find assholes here in this forum too, people who spit out almost nothing but offensive and disgusting sentences 99 % of the times to everybody, simply because that's their natural state.

Quake is the best game ever, much better than TF2, and you don't need a special mindset to see that, you only need time to get skills, and that's where the devs should come in, and make it interesting long enough.

You don't emulate anything. You just need to update all the time, add shit lot of new contents and get the community involved as much as possible. It's "simple" is that.

Ah okay, well I'd like to see that and I hope it would work. But I think QL would always be on a completely different level of popularity than TF2, even if id managed it perfectly. The game itself, by its own nature, just doesn't have such mass appeal. So I don't know if the financial lessons from TF2 translate very well to QL either, given that (IMO) their potential audience is relatively very small.

And yes, I know Quake used to be very popular, but that was before people had all of these easier, shinier, more cynically addictive alternatives.

Tbh, it would be easy to say smart things after we saw how it worked out, that's why I wrote that I don't want to play the smartass here.

But I also remember the huge amount of research, Valve invested before making TF2 (e.g.: they spent a lot of time on the visuals by just learning how cartoons really work and what are the parts most people like about them, let alone the research about styles or animations). And they were working hard on every other aspect of the game as well ofc.
This success did not come easy and obviously did not come just because the mainstream eats everything what you feed to them, how some stupid wannabe "theorist" likes to put it.

I have to agree with you, it's a lot harder to do the same with Q3, but - on the other hand - It's good to point out that id had a famous name for this title, which was "working" and new people were coming quite well... the problem is that they did not enjoy what they found, and didn't stay:(

Basically I think there is a lot of overlap between "reasons TF2 makes millions of dollars" and "reasons TF2 is rubbish from the perspective of a Quake-lover".

the thing is, Quake3 actually did appeal to alot of casuals (or as you called them, "idiots") by allowing people to play on more noob friendly mods & maps (ie: excessive, freeze, padman maps, corkscrew, bid for power, ra3, etc.), this freedom of choice has been removed from QL entirely which is why its only a niche game thats being kept alive by hardcore enthusiasts.

im pretty sure if they were able to create enough custom content to match what made Q3 appeal to the newbies as a premium sub (ie: all of the mods, maps, models, etc), itd be enough to keep QL alive and kicking, and i mean really alive. obviously that would require a bit of effort & creative thinking on their part

We think alike.. even if you suck :P

I didn't mean casual players == idiots, of course that would be unfair and dumb.

But there seem to be a whole lot of people who won't play a game for the joy of it, but will play the exact same game if they are given an artificial and meaningless sense of 'progression' by leveling up and finding random items and unlocking 'achievements' and all that sort of shit.

There are also many people who simply don't like the deep simplicity and determinism and skill-sensitivity of a game like Quake.

I guess I did imply that these people are idiots, which wasn't fair.

But anyway, my guess is that there's a big overlap between these categories and the category of people who spend money in virtual item stores.

I'm actually not anti-'casual' at all.

I'm not even any good at Quake myself, and I don't equate hardcore-ness with intelligence or personal worth.

I just don't want to see Quake diluted with the bullshit that has wormed its way into just about every modern multiplayer shooter, and I think that building a mass audience by following in the footsteps of TF2 would almost certainly (though not absolutely necessarily) require and/or lead to fucking up the game in some pretty important ways.

But there seem to be a whole lot of people who won't play a game for the joy of it, but will play the exact same game if they are given an artificial and meaningless sense of 'progression' by leveling up and finding random items and unlocking 'achievements' and all that sort of shit.

ok well for one QL is just a Q3 clone meaning anyone whos been playing Q3 for years was already years ahead of the typical newb who's never heard of quake before QL. lets put ourselves in the newbs shoes for a minute, theres little joy to be had in the game when the skill level of MOST of the players in the game is so far ahead of yours that they appear botlike to you. now, the solution to this problem? simple. not a pointless, ineffective tier system that doesnt work. not a useless stats page or pointless awards that dont mean shit ingame, but something to actually make them feel like theyve accomplished something through their struggles which would make them want to come back and continue playing even harder (ie: the higher you raise your skillrating & progress in the game vs your opponents, the more custom material you unlock ie maps,models,mods, etc,). i mean, this is just one idea that couldve worked. obviously it would render the entire premium sub useless but its basically a scam anyways considering how little you get for what you're paying for.

its not rocket science, QL wouldve been a success if the casual / new playerbase actually had a reason to start and to continue playing an aged game such as q3.

when hats finally gonna be implemented im gonna go straight for the cypher beanie(homing rockets) or the strenx visor for shaft ounage!!!!

hats and other things should be bought from "Av3k's shoe shop"

you mean Av3k's finest footwear and mobile telephone selection? =))))

))))))

Turning Quake into tf2 is a horrible idea:(

For QL this is irrelevant.
You can think about improving effectiveness of extracting money from community only when you have this large community to begin with. But with QL, id/Bethesda don't even want to tell people that they have this game called Quake Live, let alone expand its community.

The key to success for the future of Quake Live lies within converting it into a hat simulator.

It'd be neat if id made premium a one-time fee that was affordable for most everyone, and then gave Pro options for things like modding and dedicated servers. *dreams*

This is not about items, but about player-base and income.

I completely understand, I was being facetious. :3

I would actually be happy if id managed to make a profit from selling cosmetic items, without changing the game in any meaningful way. I just don't think it would happen that way.

i reckon Q3 was more popular than TF2 or any HL game at one point. the reason why QL sucks is because the people behind it failed it, not because of the actual gameplay. QL couldve been a very successful game if led by a more open, dedicated and enthusiastic team, and anyone whos' played Q3 back in the day knows how much of a failure QL has proven itself to be compared to the unrivaled success of Q3.

I'm pretty sure cs and tfc both saw levels of popularity that quake 3 never attained.. at least for team modes. Especially if you discount ra3 from the equation!

yeah cs and tfc were hella popular back then probably more than q3, but q3 had a pretty huge following in its own right as well so it saddens me to see one of my favorite games go down like this, but i suppose im even more disappointed in ID that they werent able to keep the franchise going like valve was able to with counter strike source and tf2 or cod, etc..ah well

Q3 has not even sold 1 million copies. At no point was it ever a popular game.

bullshit.
quake 1 has sold about 500.000 copies
quake 2 >600.000
quake 3 1.000.000 copies manufactured (dez. 1999!)

http://www.gamespot.com/news/quake-iii-sales-...of-2440372

not popular?
u probably missed the glory years 1999-2003

Manufactured has nothing to do with copies sold. I don't believe there is any actual information from id on the sales of Q1, or Q3, but they mention at least 1 million for Quake 2.

Manufactured in 1999.
im sure the manufactured more than 1.000.000
usually manufactured copies are sold to the merchants

... which has nothing to do with popularity.

if you are saying ~800.000 sold copies are NOT POPULAR, i can't take you serious.
you can't compare this with todays videogames market

You haven't pointed to copies sold.

if they manufactured one million copies in 1999, 800.000 sold copies is a pessimistic number

Your optimism is irrelevant - there is nothing to support your belief.

thats the part where you start trolling?

Whatever helps you accept that you are wrong.

ok, vedic says quake 3 was not popular.
i will accept your opinion ;)

Nice initiative. You're on your way to becoming a normal member of society.

im not a normal member of this society and will never be.
and it feels gooood
your opinion to quake 3 sales wont change anything :(

You can be, but it will require you to drop your delusions.

Q3 has not even sold 1 million copies. At no point was it ever a popular game.

facts? can't criticize others when you make concrete statements like that without proof.

Please point to the sales for Q3 showing 1 million, or the announcement by id that it hit 1 million. They have announced this for most of their other games so far, but only for Quake 2 in the Quake franchise.

you made a statement, not me. i'm not here to prove you correct am i?

This is because they don't exist, but what does exist is a history of id announcing their milestone achievements.

they don't exist, correct.

so you got no facts and a big mouth. right.

You haven't either

The value itself is unimportant to the argument, since id has announced every single game that has broken the 1 million milestone, and Quake 3 has never had such an announcement.

How do you know that they announced every single such game?

Their history.

History what?
They announced some games that sold over 1 million copies, how exactly do you know that it is complete list? Did they say explicitly somewhere that they have a rule of announcing each and every >1M game?

They have a history of doing so, and this was directly from the history section of their own page.

History of doing what? Where do they say that it's a history of ALL 1M+ sold games without exceptions, not SOME that they just like to tell about?

Link is up there ^

And what is there? Only mentioning that some games sold over million copies. Doesn't mean that others, where it isn't mentioned explicitly did not.
Look, it says "gamers were free to look and move in any direction" in Quake 1 section, but doesn't say so in Q3, so what, it means that in Q3 gamers aren't free to look/move in all directions?

No, it doesn't mean that they didn't. There is evidence that they announce games that manage those sales, but no evidence that they have managed more than 1 million sales.

This is a trivial argument to begin with, since 1 million sales isn't even a big deal - it's just considered a milestone. With the lack of such an announcement, combined with id directly saying that the game was a commercial failure (and obviously a failure as a game, since it died), what exactly are you hoping to prove?

What I am hoping to prove? Sorry, but unlike you, I am not stating anything about things that I have no idea about, so I am not even claiming anything.
But you are stating "At no point was it ever a popular game", basing this on nothing, and giving us "evidence" that has nothing to do with your statement whatsoever. Until you find some concrete data about Q3's popularity, the only thing you can say is "I don't know how popular it was", that's what my point is in this argument.

Carmack himself said that the game wasn't as successful as Quake 2, and Quake 2 (which actually did sell 1 million) wasn't even very popular. Q3 peaked by 2002, and was down to nearly 2000 players online by 2004.

There is plenty of evidence that Quake 3 didn't do well (even directly from id), but nothing to support your argument. If the engine hadn't sold so well, id could have been in financial trouble.

My argument is not that Q3 was popular. My argument is that if you are acting so pedantic and demand proof for everything that people tell you, then you should also apply same standards to yourself and always provide proof to claims of your own.
And the bottom line is: "there is plenty of evidence" that you haven't shown at all yet. This does not make your claim invalid, but also if people argue with you, then it's YOUR responsibility to prove your point, not others' to disprove yours.

If you refuse to accept it, and argue against it with nothing, that's your problem.

Okay, then I say that Q3 was extremely popular. You don't believe it? Well, it's your problem if you want to believe your own false information and don't even care that it might be false. You want proof? First provide proof for your own claims. OK?

You can say whatever the hell you want, but it isn't supported by any evidence.

It is equally supported by evidence as your claim about Q3's unpopularity is supported by evidence you provided.
To make things simpler, why don't you just share the data that led you yourself to believe in correctness of statement that Q3 was unpopular (obviously, you first had to encounter that data before you formed an opinion about popularity of Q3, right?) . Then we can just see whether it's objective facts from which that statement follows logically or you've taken some predefined position and twisted inconclusive data in support of that biased position.

stop arguing with lunatics / trolls please

Okay.

This is getting a little out of control here:) You linking documents what probably nobody updated since 2004, and now you writing down numbers from nowhere?

In 2007 (on weekends), there were more than 2000 servers with players, not 2000 clients.

2004: http://web.archive.org/web/20040604082534/htt...index.shtm
2007: http://web.archive.org/web/20070818231920/htt...index.shtm

And how many admin put the gamespy master server into his server cfg? I remember I could never found any of my fav servers in Gamespy, nor I had those masters in my server's cfg either.

Do you expect me to take anecdotal evidence?

vedic wants to tell us:
900.000 sold copies wont make a popular game, u need at minimum one million sold copies. this is requirement that you can say "it is a popular game"

They released the game three times on the PC (1999, 1999-linux, 2007-steam) The game received really high scores on every review sites (mostly above 9/10), and it looked really good at the time (the engine is still one of the most successful game engines ever)

I admit I'm cba to Google it atm, but pretty sure they sold millions until now.

Q3 has not even sold 1 million copies.

I don't believe there is any actual information from id on the sales of (...) Q3

How do you know it sold less than 1 million copies?

(...) id has announced every single game that has broken the 1 million milestone, and Quake 3 has never had such an announcement.

You do realize that you'll need to prove that your implied argument is correct, don't you?

I'll break your syllogism into its pieces for you:

Premiss 1: Every game with >1 million sales gets announced by id.
Premiss 2: Quake3 never was announced.

Conclusion: Quake3 doesn't have >1 million sales.


In order for you conclusion to be right, your two premisses have to be right. Go ahead and prove premiss 1. I bet that you can't.

lol

What are you capable of, again?

just laughing at your priorities in life. did you just correct your spelling two days later? how could you live 2 days with that flaw?

Yep, when I notice a typo, I sometimes correct it. Is that bad? :(

Especially a typo like "you" instead of "your" which makes a post hard to read.

i try to find a mistake, but it's all perfect now. flawless. tight facts. you must be a genius or something.

If you can come up with a reason why they would claim the 1 million milestone for some games, but not others, I'd love to hear it.

They only do it when they want to spur the sells of the game? Maybe Q3 sold so good that they didn't find it necessary? I guess there are plenty of other possible reasons. I don't see the point in discussing them, because it's pure speculation.

Why do you even expect such consistency from id?
How about proving your claim instead of ůrging me to disprove it?

Did you see what I linked to for those numbers? I wasn't even talking about release hype, I was talking about their own history page. They took the time to point out the sales of all of their successful games, and the only Quake game to get a mention was Quake 2.

I read it. It isn't proof, though. You've got to accept this. Apply the standards to yourself that you apply to others.

Maybe they didn't write about the sales because it's much more important to them that Q3 "has become the defacto standard for professional gamers and is the game of choice for tournaments around the world"? Given that the game was "designed to be the ultimate multiplayer experience", this is much more important than its number of sales.

Again, just because they point out the sales for 3 games, this doesn't mean they have to do so for every game.

It's called evidence. In this case, straight from the source.

It's not compelling. Apply the standards to yourself that you apply to others.

edit: One piece of circumstantial evidence isn't enough to prove your claim.

It doesn't have to be compelling.

stop arguing with lunatics / trolls please

it's like trying to explain integrals to someone who is convinced that 1 + 1 = 5. would you argue with a 3 year old kid? i guess not :)

Again - as I pointed out already at #67 - , id released most of the games on Steam which could have been quite successful, especially when they were on sale or when they advertised it together with blockbuster titles from Bethesda, not to mention console and mobile sales (We know that Doom RPG sold more than a million for example).
Looks like 2004 was the last time they updated that the history page anyway, and I also think that anything around 1 million was a very nice outcome from such a small company.

Could have been? Sure. Could not have been? Sure. Has this gotten us anywhere? No.

Valve got it right by making mirotransactions completely voluntary, and offering a completely free path to everything that you can pay for. The TF2 item economy is estimated at $20 million (source).

A lot of people get the wrong idea about what Valve actually did with the item system in TF2. All items that get released are side-grades, so there is no significant impact on gameplay. Sure, occasionally a new item comes out that is unbalanced for a few days, but it gets fixed.

You get about 10 random item drops per week, and you can both trade items, and craft specific items with your items. All items can be crafted into metal/tokens, so if you really want a specific item, and you also don't want to trade for it, you can get it without ever spending a dime.

Most people don't even bother crafting anymore, since there are now people who act as "scrap bankers". You can craft any two weapons from the same class into 1 scrap. 3 scrap makes a reclaimed, and 3 reclaimed makes a refined. Scrap bankers will take ANY two weapons, and pay you a scrap. They also offer to sell you any weapon for 1 scrap, so they make a 1 item profit on every weapon sale. If you have doubles, or just don't have two items of a single class, you can find a scrap banker and get scrap metal.

There really is no reason to buy a weapon from the store, and the only thing that really sells is "keys". During normal gameplay, you will sometimes get a "crate" drop. These do not count against your normal weekly drops, and require a key to open. If you don't want to ever bother with it, you can generally sell a crate for 1 weapon. A single key costs $2.50 from the store, but they trade at a value of 2 refined, and 1 reclaimed metal.

This is where the real money/interest comes from. Each crate has certain things that drop from it (hats/weapons), and you get a random item. If you get a regular hat, or a regular weapon, you've taken a loss - a regular hat has a base price of 1 refined, and a weapon is only 0.5 scrap. There is a 3% chance that any crate will drop an "unusual hat" (a hat with a special particle effect), and that is what you're really after. Even if you don't care about actually using the hat, the MINIMUM that an unusual will trade at is about 14-15 keys, which is around $35. People will use paypal to pay for rare/themed hats, and some of the more rare hats have sold for more than $600.

This crate simulator should give you an idea what it's like. Hold spacebar for warp speed.

what excactly was the point of this post, to explain how ridiculously stupid tf2 as a fps game is?

how about coming up with quake related ideas that would work for QL (stuff that people would pay for besides maps etc) which doesnt a) split the playerbase and b) give an unfair advantage ingame. obviously that job is id's to begin with but just posting a shitty pseudo-rpg item collecting simulator as a guide to be a succesfull f2p game is beyond pointless

No, it's to show how well Valve managed to add in this entirely new set of features, without hurting the core game at all. Many people will dismiss the ideas for a game like Quake, simply because they don't know how they work to begin with.

TF2 is good as an FPS, but these features expanded the casual crowd by a ton, without hurting the competitive scene.

edit to your edit: If you had bothered to actually read it, you would find out that there is NO unfair advantage in the TF2 system. None.

what competitive scene? you keep on saying QL is dead but tf2 pro-scene is in even worse shape. i never said the hats/side-grades give an unfair advantage in tf2, i said the ideas for quake should not give an unfair advantage either

The TF2 competitive scene isn't amazingly active, but it's still more active than the likes of QL. The competitive scene isn't the whole game, and TF2 is still rather active as a game.

if the tf2 competitive scene isnt massively active then the game is a failure in the eyes of quake hardcores. it is also a failure in terms of a fps game since 99% of the playerbase is there for the pseudo-rpg hat collection shit instead of the fps element. it is however succesful at being a popular cashcow for valve, but in terms of an active, competitive e-sports scene its a massive failure

if the tf2 competitive scene isnt massively active then the game is a failure in the eyes of quake hardcores.

It's more active than Quake, which would mean that every Quake game is a failure in the eyes of "quake hardcores". If "quake hardcores" cared about success, they'd all be playing Starcraft, or LoL. There isn't much growth, but TF2 competition is growing.

The vast majority of people who play are still there for the casual FPS aspect, not the items. Pure item trading still makes up the minority of the game, just as the competitive side does. The whole F2P/item features merely added to the core game, by giving people more incentive to play, without damaging the game itself.

yeah i think its a well established fact that none of the quakes never made it as big as people hoped? (besides qw, qwtf and q2 which had huge online scenes for their time) quake hardcores dont want only success, they want success in a quake(ish) game. i dont see people claiming that sc2 and lol arent popular and succesful, its just not the game type we want.

the question here is how to make quake more casual friendly and adding a viable f2p model without completely selling out the gameplay like tf2 did, because like you said, its just a casual fps game with some pseudo-rpg elements. it completely raped original tf aswell which in the early stages of online fps gaming was the highlight of competitive fps, in several of it's iterations

I didn't say that it was a casual FPS game, I said that it had a big casual base. This is true of every game, and even Q3/QL has the majority of players who play CA/FFA.

TF2 as a competitive game is pretty good. I'm not saying that the skill cap is nearly as high as Quake, but it's significant enough. I recommend TF2 to Quake players because it does share a lot in common, in terms of the skills/mechanics/strategy you employ.

TF2 is a boring teamshooter.

CS is still the nr1 after 10 years and a successor. Without a crappy item shop.

Up until Skyrim came out, TF2 was actually beating CS in players.

Y because it went free and the hype existed for a couple of months. I just don't like the gameplay at all but the numbers proof that others do ;). I can't even play cs anymore. Got soooo boring :X

Why not? The gameplay in comp is so much better.

I might think different nowadays but back then when I was still playing mainly cs I wasn't really hooked with the game. Never was a big fan of class shooters don't ask me why :x. Atm I'm enjoying sc2 ladder and the occasional duel.

http://etf2l.org/league/tables/

far more teams and players than qlive will ever get playing in the usual leagues.

doesnt look like much more than all the modes of ql combined. when's the last time tf2 was a part of a big lan like dreamhack?

Have you heard of ESEA? Season 10 just ended.

obviously i dont follow NA scenes of shitty games that closely.

You follow QL, which even has less LAN tourneys. =X

but its not a shitty game

It is, though.

I appreciate your input, but i think you really narrowing down the success of TF2 only to the marketplace, which is - imo - the lesser part of the story.
While visual-only customization for QL players could do really good to gain/keep playerbase (as I said it many times on this board), I don't think we have to dumb down QL to TF2 levels to make it successful.

The parts relevant to QL are the ones I quoted. If you look at the changelogs of TF2 since release date, it's almost a small book in size now. And if you inspect how much they changed with the community involved, you will understand what I was trying to say.

They went free to play because of the marketplace, though. The store was outselling the game itself, so the logical option was to simply remove any barrier to entry, and give people even more reason to use the store.

Because I really liked TFC and Valve was one of my favorite (even before it got so popular in the world), I was following the progress of tf2 as much as possible, and I still play a few games in each month.
If you take out the store, you still got a completely different and much better game compared to the original released version. The amount of change and fine-tuning there is just mind-blowing imo. It seems that they are willing to do everything to attract new players and to make the game more appealing for the community, and that pays of big time (e.g.: players can even render out a HQ movie from the game which is awesome).
I don't think the store is why people playing the game, it's the FPS aspect what makes it fun, and you need no items for that. As the linked article says:

"There's a fundamental tension between building the game to satisfy existing players and attract new players."

The marketplace was just one of the "things" to reach the goal which was going F2P. Just as how they did, QL could also do/use many other things to be successful.

Oh, I know, I have played TF2 semi-actively for about 5 years.

The store only really increased the playerbase, so I don't know why you think it was a better game beforehand. Perhaps you mean before the entire item system? The store wasn't around until the polycount update.

so I don't know why you think it was a better game beforehand

where?

If you take out the store, you still got a completely different and much better game compared to the original released version.

Are you not saying that the original was better?

no:) I'm saying it's much better now even without the store.

Oh, okay. Then I agree. =P

What the fuck. Keep MMO out of FPS.

If you can lower the dosage just by as little as 1% every day, you might still have a chance, me thinks.

what he say wrong? btw, you're a fucking idiot.

1. Playtesting with new players.

Going free to play and using microtransactions isn't the only thing Valve has done to make TF2 popular.

Playtesting the maps and the game with new players is also a huge part of what made tf2 popular.

If id software decided to create a couple of new(or modified) game modes and maps. With the focus on having them be forgiving and newbie friendly. Playtesting the game modes and maps a lot with completely new players they would be a step closer to having a more accessible and popular game on their hands.

They wouldn't have to change anything about the old modes. Just making the new player experience smoother, easier and more fun would be smart in the long run.

Giving new players training wheels until they feel comfortable to move on to something more challenging shouldn't be something that's frowned upon.

2. Visual style.

I think if you wanted to bring microtransactions to Quakelive you would first have to revise the visual style a little bit. Make it more iconic. Not necessarily make it more cartoony just more distinctive and less generic.

@1, yes, I agree. As I already wrote it above, I think store was just one of many things Valve did to make TF2 successful.

@2, I also agree that the visuals are very important, and - imo - the right way has very little common with things like removing weapons from the hands of the characters:)
I would definitely revise and detail all the ingame characters and would add the ability to upload personal tags and skins to the backend (could be ignored in competitive play ofc). Kids love to personalize their ingame look, they get attached to their online characters fast, and love to brag about it on Facebook too;)

tf2 popular?

it s a crap shit wtf dudes? Most people instal it because it s free, play it 15mn MAX and then uninstall or let it go.

TF2 is a five year old game that has around fifty thousand people playing it around the clock. I'd say that qualifies it as a popular game, wouldn't you?

f2p + a panda bear model is what's needed to save ql

edit: look at the evidence

correction: only a bloody and sad panda bear shitting radioactive mines at every jump would do the trick, nothing less.

nah, just needs the model.

warcraft3, starcraft, wow, L0L, HoN.

every successful game has a pandabear

that's why QL needs a better one:p

not about hats? :( im off

what a bunch of hogwash: tons of new content, involving the community ...my tallywhacker. tf2 is sucessful for the same reason that WoW is successful. because people are fucking idiots.

hats killed it for me

this is not about hats

Boooring

but was interesting enough to post about it?

Quakers might scoff at TF2 for not being hardcore enough for their taste, but comparing the state of both franchises it's pretty clear which way is the better one if you want to keep your shooter alive in today's market.

As i said a few times before, there are a lot of things i don't like about TF2. I don't like the items, i don't like crits, i don't like the cartoony graphics and all the other gimmicks... but i see why they are there and i know they are what helped keep the game sustainable. Something to consider, if you could go back in time to QL's closed beta stage and somehow influence their decision on how to market it to the world.

"Something to consider, if you could go back in time to QL's closed beta stage and somehow influence their decision on how to market it to the world. "

like what?

the community said everything they should have done but didn't implement anything that required some work (mods, maps, lan support) or resources (advertising and getting a better interwebz connection when the game went open beta and released, which happened to LoL a while before).
ESR and QL's closed beta forums are filled with threads and posts like that.

The icing on the cake was that on last quakecon some id employee (can't remember who) said it was the community's and market's fault that quake live didn't do well, whereas it did everything possible and at the end of the day it is id's work to read it well.

oh I agree with all you wrote but what's that to do with tl2? we're talking apples and oranges here.

I think it's just a little frustrating for many of us ,that it was so obvious how well valve is going with TF2, and how "bad" was many things with QL, and now TF" is still growing while QL is in deep shit. We have the Quake series in our hearts, and seeing it going down like this when it's so much superior to any other fps out there (including TF2.) just hurts a bit.

We can't go back in time, and we also understand that (id is a small company compared to Valve and) they can't roll out huge updates in every two weeks without money, but perhaps they could in every 2-3 months or so with our help.... but no... no help is needed, everything is OK how it is, and lets just wait until it bleeds out completely.

I think TF2 turned fucking stupid (and I'm talking about pubs) long ago, but it's clear that a fair F2P model is the way to go, except for a few selected games. Just look at some MMORPGs revenue going through the roof when switching from paid to F2P and the tens of small and unknown F2P games being profitable.

And then you have Riot, which, according to PC Gamer, is making more money with League of Legends than any other PC games company (including Activision Blizzard).

What game has same player base as QL and making profit with a "fair F2P model"?

I'm not reading through this entire thread because I'm lazy, so instead I'll give my own interpretation of this bit of info as applied to Quake Live:

this is an option that I think ID software should use only once Quake Live begins to lose them significant money. As of now, QL doesn't make them money, but it doesn't really lose them much, either. This type of strategy would be best only when ID really begins to feel the weight of QL on their wallets, because at that point there's nothing to lose.

Updates and community involvement only as a last resort?

no, smartass, I mean going completely free2play.

I'm not a smartass, and I'm also not really sure if you even understood the meaning of the quotes or not. How on earth could I know what you "mean" if you didn't write it down?

As to the point: I obviously agree that losing more money is not an option for Quakelive, but luckily enough, nobody wants to turn QL into TF2 anyway. They are different games with different F2P models.

how did I not write it down? I said going f2p would be the last resort. that's what I 'meant'. as for the differing f2p models, I'm really only familiar with a handful of f2p games like TF2, Tribes Ascend, and LoL (which I haven't played). All 3 games have items that can be bought which can potentially alter the outcome of a game (because of things like more powerful weapons one can buy). obviously no one would want this for QL, but I think a store in which random shit can be bought would be good

well, you did not say anything like "going f2p", but I think I understand now... you replied to the title of the thread.

FYI: QL is also F2P, just in a different way. The example about Valve's success is only quoted to show that it's possible in 2012 for a FPS game to constantly grow and to be successful, and to start a discussion how could that happen with QL.

Tribes Ascend is also F2P and seems to be doing well. I'm not sure I like their model however as it seems closer to P2W (pay2win) and unlocking all the required stuff you'd use in competitive play would probably be $100 or so?

I did not touch it since the big wipe, but iirc you can unlock everything for free if you are dedicated enough.

Of course, but you'd need to be very dedicated. I think to unlock everything you need 2.7 million XP. If you are great you can maybe get 1000 per match, if you suck it'll be more like 300 or less.

You don't need to unlock absolutely everything, you can focus on a single class and it won't take that long to unlock everything you need.

It's similar to League of Legends: you don't need to pay to be competitive, but it definitely helps if you want a lot of variety.

Easy to say that but most of the best stuff is expensive unlocks such as the 100k XP bolt launcher on pathfinder. I've been playing since it went open beta and haven't saved up 100k XP yet but I have unlocked all classes but two. Also how the fuck are you supposed to know which class you want to play without any testing? :-) I do agree there is stuff you don't need but really you need to spend money or be very good to unlock things in a reasonable time frame.

EDIT: oops reply to 157

i spent about $10 and then + the free gold on their facebook I unlocked bolt launcher, the OP sniper for sentinel, 4 perks, and got both path/sent to about 60% with just gold + my lvl 15 exp

too bad it doesn't run quite right on my laptop, hopefully my fps goes back to normal with a new patch

wow players, what a sad bunch.