was awesome !

sorry, had to put the bulk of content in hide tags

seriously?

yeah, was taking up too much space

just wow

lmao @ esr

LMAO@$$$ whores

dru1ds comment is next?

I dont like to see censorship on my internet.

i'm sorry what? you're afraid of zombie clowns?

whats wrong with you?

i don't know, are you a doctor?

youre drunk, go away kid

no, i'm completely sober. where should I go?

away from esr you creep

why? i like esr, and i'm not creepy about it.

Comment removed by Demiurge.

so you have a zombie net fucking clown? do you keep him on a chain? i think i actually do want to see him.

i dont understand you.. youre crazy

HOW MUCH DO THEY PAY YOU?!?!?!

i can't understand you either. let's look at what you said:

1. you own the internet, as in you say it is 'yours'
2. you're telling me I don't want to see you 'zombie net fucking clown', which implies you have a clown who turned into a zombie and who is fucking the 'net'.

on 1, i'm not sure that's physically possible, since internet is a medium, and I don't think you own this website.

on 2, you are completely wrong, I would love to see your zombie clown!!!

also, who are 'THEY'?

1. yes, my internet
2. what?

on 1. i can burn your house down because its on my ground

on 2 huh?


they=shootmania marketing frogs

1. how exactly are you capable of possessing a communication medium?

2. what do you mean 'what'? you said "you don't want to see my zooooombie net.. fkn clown". this implies you have a clown who turned into a zombie and who is fucking the 'net'. and it implies I don't want to see it. I'm telling you that I do! why can't you understand?

3. i had no idea shootmania had marketing frogs, they're not paying me anything. how did they train the frogs to do marketing anyway? don't most people dislike frogs because they're slimy?

1. ?
2. = 1.

3. You said "sorry, had to put the bulk of content in hide tags "
Why?

1. 'my' means 'yours', means you poses it, own it, in control of it. since when and how do you own all of the internet?
2. ? did you say this or not: "you don't want to see my zooooombie net.. fkn clown" ?

3. because I edited roychez's post and put the bulk of the content of the post into hide tag 'Read More'

1. Nobody owns the internet, I'm nobody..
2. hm let me see, zombie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_%28computer_science%29
fkn clown http://i.imgur.com/4yefD.jpg
No, I din't say that.. youre crazy.

3. fact is, you removed post by user "quake is alive" for no reason. Don't fuck with me.

1. no, you're somebody, and somebody is not nobody.
2. yes you did. Don't fuck with me.

3. no, actually it's not a fact. the fact is that I moved it to http://www.esreality.com/post/2280483/shootmania-whine/ and I moved it for a reason. don't worry, i don't want to fuck with you, i'm not gay.

wow, are you okey in there?

why did you edit your comment to say 'Comment removed by Demiurge'?

first of all, it is not removed, as it is still there, being displayed. second, we can all clearly read 'Edited by DedekMraz at 21:43 EDT, 23 June 2012'

are you trying to pull some kind of a funny joke???

no, read #21

ok, just read it. that comment doesn't explain why you like censoring yourself. do you like censorship now? what changed your mind?

are you for real? who are you trying to impress here? that comment is disgusting. like a school bully or something.

what are you talking about? i'm just trying to figure out why the guy edited his comment to ' Comment removed by Demiurge.', nothing to do with impressing anyone, being disgusting, bullying, or something else.

is anyone really taking this game seriously? IT HAS TWO WEPONS AND A SHIT S&D GAMETYPE! WTF!
take your bottomless pit budget that your splashing on brainwashing quake pros and FO!
XD

yes, it looks like everyone playing the game is taking the game seriously.
XD XD XD

So no one basically.

no, it's being played by a lot of people.

Thousands of players yeah.

I don't know the exact number, but I saw many full servers.

i saw 3 full servers yesterday

just when you thought CA was bad

1st - QL pros making some easy money
2nd - QL pros making some easy money
3rd - QL pros making some easy money

I'm not trying to bash the game, I'm sure it's alot of fun to play and I'll certainly try it once its available to everyone. But it just seems like these guys are only in it for the short term to make a quick buck because they have a ton of experience in a far higher skill game, and fair play to them. I would do the same.

What I'm trying to work out is why it's so appealing to people as an actual esports game. Sure it's fun to play, as we hear from every single interview with these shootmania 'pros'. Infact, It's all they ever seem to say.. It should be shootmania's new slogan.

Shootmania - It's fun to play!

And again, I'm sure it is! But should that alone make it worthy of being an esports game that people play for money? esports should be about hardcore fucking pro gamers doing crazy shit that casual gamers can only look at in amazement whilst shouting holy shitballs.. I didn't get any of that. Sure there was some nice rails and even an air rocket but that's about it. I'm not hating I want to know, what's the big deal with shootmania and where the hell is esports going?

Edit: please don't delete my post because It's not 100% positive about shootmania, this is an esports site apparently so lets have a friendly discussion about esports.

This comment will be removed in 3... 2...

I agree that the game is not as attractive visually as QuakeLive, but it's quite early on, and it is more attractive than CounterStrike, or any 'realistic' game. I don't know what game the casters came from, I don't think it was QuakeLive, so hopefully they can attract players from these other games to non-realistic FPS genre.

Its certainly more attractive than CS for me, but I can at least relate to this a little because it involves rockets and rails. But that's just it, It's just rockets and rails, 3v1 and that appears to be as deep as it goes. There are tactics of course and various ways they can move around the map but still for me as a spectator It's really lacking in depth. When I watched the stream I found myself asking some questions, like:

Why is this very basic game that is only in alpha getting its own lan tournaments?
Who funds them?
What do spectators enjoy seeing from the games?
Where is esports going?

I enjoyed watching today because I got to see some old and current quake players play a new game. But by the end of it, I still don't really get the whole shootmania movement. I'm not some bitter quake fan either really, ok well maybe a little. But I mean I don't enjoy watching sc2 but I have massive respect for it because of the skill and brains it takes to play it at a serious competitive level.

Edit: typos :(

I think it is a lot more like UT. Out of limitations of the basic maneuverability and weapon choices comes out more careful long-term planing ahead. I don't see how it's lacking depth because it is more about about moving around the map, rather than positioning in more complicated 3D space. I do think QL/ztn for example maximizes the tactical gameplay, but promote does more so, and I think because of THAT it lacks depth. And many would argue UT99 has more depth for similar reasons. Anyway, this is more of debate about the game, and less about the topic of the news item.

"attractive visually" LOL
mate. graffics will be turned down whatever fps it is.
GAME PLAY is what matters.
your game has two weapons and a strange s&d thing were they run for ages at each other and have some primitive rocket vs rail fights.
if you want this game to have the same depth in skill and longevity as quake, then you have to make it quake, unfortunately.
The fact anyone is still talking about this is a joke. and the fact your posting updates about these show tourneys is a bit insulting to the intelligent quake community that is ESR.
keep pouring your money away to attract some adolescent boys to your game.
END!

first of all, i'm not your mate, mate.
second, "attractive visually" isn't about graphics or literal visuals, it's about gameplay visuals, air rockets, for example.
third, your understanding of the game is contrived and limited.
fourth, there are many games with better longevity and depth than quake, no one has to make quake to gain those. fortunately.
fifth, I am not posting updates about this.
sixth, I am not pouring any of my money anywhere, and it's not my game.

END!

your a massive creep. arguing with you would just lead to more of your dismissive nonsense troll shit. prove me right..

first your not my mate. lol ok i wont call you that again :(
second, "attractive visually" isn't about graphics or literal visuals, it's about gameplay visuals, air rockets, for example.
oh right so you are re writing the dictionary now then.

third, your understanding of the game is contrived and limited.
oh ok sorry! let me just go a weep about how shit i am.

fourth, there are not many games with better longevity and depth than quake IN THE FPS GENRE. sry forgot im talking to a fucking citation robot.
fifth, you just did post an update about this.
sixth, then why are you?
seven, you love lists
eight. your a prick.
nine. love how you copyed my END to try piss me off it kind of worked! :*(

it's kind of creepy how you're replying to yourself

troll.

"fourth, there are many games with better longevity and depth than quake"

for example? if there are many, can you give me three names? i'm really interested, no irony.

there's nothing visially attractive in QL especially the way pro's play it. those gfx are worse than C64 era.

I'm not talking about graphics, or textures, but in terms visual perception of action, air rockets, rails, close combat maneuvers. Sort of like someone might say hollywood movies are visually appealing while being intellectually shallow.

What I'm trying to work out is why it's so appealing to people as an actual esports game.

Nothing - look at the numbers. I bet most of them are here only because of their favorite pros anyway (like me).

Nothing

But you're wrong, it is appealing to some people as a spectator esport and I genuinely would like to know why, other than because It's fun to play. Something is causing this shootmania movement, so let's get to the bottom of this. Providing the ESR police will let us.

Who? In chat there was a bunch of esr ppl and one da Bears fan. I haven't even seen fake CoD trolls as usuall. Esr ppl have already writen the reasons. Unfurtunately I haven't asked da Bears fan if he liked it.
It had much bigger French audience but it's expected. When there is a game developed by Polish studio like the Witcher it has huge sales here, ppl don't pirate it to support the studio etc.

But it just seems like these guys are only in it for the short term to make a quick buck because they have a ton of experience in a far higher skill game, and fair play to them. I would do the same.

this is what it is exactly. and actually they would be just plain stupid not taking advantage of this opportunity.

What I'm trying to work out is why it's so appealing to people as an actual esports game. Sure it's fun to play, as we hear from every single interview with these shootmania 'pros'. Infact, It's all they ever seem to say.. It should be shootmania's new slogan.

you can trust me if it would be very good, they would be like a 8 year old at christmas morning. the fact is they being paid to promote the game with their name and face. in some cases you just cant be honest. if you heard the recent interview with avek, he said he couldnt find a sponsor exclusively for quake, tells a lot about the situation when noone want the wordwide 3-4th best quake player. what will be in the next year? if you read between the lines all the reactions was more like "meh ok... it pays money at least".

so far the only good thing for this game that its still in alpha and the developer shows interest toward suggestions...

the people criticizing the game realize that it's in alpha right...? it's not supposed to look or work like a completed game.

Then why is it getting tournaments ?
You bring your game out, you deal with it/

Doing the opposite would be strange when you make a game for competitions. We have made many tournaments with many specific improvements thanks to each of them, thanks to positive people around.

no, what should be done is consulting experimented people, not showing a not even half finished game to random people. That's business 101, but I doubt you know anything about that considering you already fail at doing your actual job.

We did consulted experimented people since years, and this is why the game is running well in tournaments, you are right to say that it should come first.

Please define experimented then because I can't believe anybody but trackmania fanboys and suits would have lead you to think this is a good game.

People with years of experience at the highest level of organizers, competitors, team managers and news sites in the FPS genre.

I had a lot of different form of meetings with a lot of french participants of eSport since years. I had the chance to be part of the ESWC, three days per year meetings, with organizers from nearly 20 participating countries. I set up round table on the subject to collect the frustration or difficulties of the team managers and in other fields at two occasions in France. I have been to many international events by myself, I also met many responsible thanks to the multiple years of our game being an official game at ESWC, WCG and others places such as ESL Pro Series. Since last year, we have welcome some high profile players also to test the game on some specific aspect ranging from pure gameplay of moving with defrag expert to spectator issues.

I also shared with a lot of experts on the forums, by mail or skype, before and during the alpha, thanks to the presence of some of the most awarded eSport player in the world of FPS.

This forum experience helps me to see when it useless to answer to somebody. But I am not doing it for you, I am doing it for other people that read it. You probably hate the game for other reasons and you are here and you make a good example of how wrong some can be when they want to just be negative.

Thanks.

What about fixing Shootmania so that one can actually bind mouse2 +forward? So that one (yes, I) can actually give it a try? : }

it's on the list and will surely be included at one point during the beta if not earlier

That's actually your second good post, although they're not really the kind of people I would have wanted to see consulted ( players before the alpha ).

Do it more often instead of dodging people and you'll find I can be quite the charming person.

I dodge flame rockets and answer the question that are straight to the point. Glad to see that you seem ok to play this type of game as well.

My clear question is: tell me which clear question I have dodged?

Btw: first showmatch and work at the studio on gameplay was 2011, with one guy that is considered as the best CS 1.6 player ever in France and a high level eSport player really known in France for his good insight on many eSports game as well as being a top level player. We have made test and showmatch on two duel mode on the occasion, one with items and weapon switch 'ŕ la quake" and the current one, more appreciated. First time I showed the game to expert was 2009, to Matthieu Dallon, founder of the ESWC and a friend of mine with great talent. The 3vs3 thinking comes from him somehow, as an example, when he speaks about the heavier logistic that is required. Maybe he would testimony of my own support to Quake years before as being part of competitions as well for me liking the game very much. I first talked with him in 2004 and decided to make a game for he eSports World Cup in 2005 while I was in China, in a middle of a NFS competition. I saw that we can make it on this genre and maybe replace the game at WCG. And it happened.

Now, we are giving a try on another genre, and we are working on it since years. When eSport was somehow going down, we were still working on it, making sometimes current eSport leaders telling me that I was the one giving them hope, and it was kind of the opposite role it should be. I don't say I am an eSport expert, but I think I am more advanced than some others in esport games development.

tell me which clear question I have dodged?

I'll get back to it, there's already enough stuff you've dodged previously in this post I can ask about.

I'd like to know who that cs player is, I'm not exactly on top of my shit regarding cs but I have absolutely no idea who you're talking about.

As for those tests with the 2 sets of mechanics, can you tell us in detail why one worked better than the other ? Cause the easy, obvious ( and apparently considered a troll ) idea would be that it's close to that cs aim 1v1 bullshit and that the quakeish system was, I wouldn't say too hard to understand or complicated, but making any use of it required too much time than what was allowed for the players ( on top of probably having terribad open maps that just don't work for that kind of gameplay )

the CS player was HarTs, winner of the WCG
http://www.team-aaa.com/news-15748-0-1-top_10...9_1-5.html

by the way, the #2 in the ranking, OliGan, played an Elite showmatch in march 2012 as well against the #1 french CS Source team: VeryGames, winner of ESWC 2011. Palmares:
http://www.team-verygames.net/fr/index.vg#palmares

Recap of the event made by a third party, where you can see HarTs and VeryGames btw. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHgOQhW4yac

The first speaker is from Millenium, a company you may know in eSport as well.

For the duel, one worked better than the other because on the Joust one the audience applaude many times during the match while the other one, it was feeling less of a fight of skill than a fight of grabbing items, even if I know how items can help build a story. We even tried many items, with some innovative tests from my point of view (since it may have existed elsewhere but I am not aware of it) One was item that permanently increased your abilities: more ammo load and stamina and another providing you boost after multiple collect but less interesting first time you collect it (short term choices vs long term, like timing on SC2)

Fair enough, I was expecting somebody a bit more oldschool and haven't been exposed to the cs scene at all during the last few years.
I'm not going to bother with that vid, considering it's a pr vid but I remember watching an itw of HarTs a month or so ago and thinking he was kinda out of topic due to a lack of knowledge of the fastfps genre, funny innit.

I see where you're coming from with the last paragraph ( it's kinda obvious ). I'll say again that tossing the word skill around the way you do doesn't help me think you're serious considering the very volatile ( and most of the time downright bullshit ) meaning of the word when applied to videogames - especially when put into the context of shootmania -
I understand what you mean about the audience. Easier to grasp, easier to cheer for somebody.
You're going to say I'm trolling again but the people who tend to go to french esports events are generally pretty clueless about what they're watching and the fact that the shoutcasters have always been more like guys with a microphone talking about the prices drops in a supermarket ( though most wouldn't be able to get a job like that considering how they struggle with the language ) than actual commentators with game knowledge doesn't help at all getting people pumped, let alone understand the game.

The way it is now ( and will be as far as I understand ), your game is going to reach a plateau pretty fast ( give it a few weeks once it's released ), pretty much every decent player will be hitting the same % and the lack of any "advanced" mechanics will make it a boring aimfest. Maybe not items, certainly not poles. I don't doubt random ( and let's be honest, bad players as well ) people will applaud standard shots during events but I still think you're trying to wrestle the problem by the wrong end.

At the moment, and until somebody somehow finds a way to make shit happen once people hit said plateau, education is the way to go. Trying to turn people into players by lowering the possibilities of the game is not the way to go.

"considering you already fail at doing your actual job"

I know you often sound agressive but that's a bit too much here, don't you think ? I mean bashing one's work like that O_o...

I'd be way more elegant if he had not dodged every single post, no matter who the author was, that didn't go his way with a 10 lines long hyperbole a few weeks ago.

People only get offended because they want to be offended. If he gets offended, he needs to grow up on top of finding a job that suits both his incredibly detailled and sophisticated vision and his litterary talents.

people get offended because they are insulted and your obviously trolling the guy. since we are all nice here we won't mention ur vast record of achivements including insulting people on esr.
but putting you on probation would be a sensible thing just to show you how there are people doing 'real' jobs.

People get offended either because I'm right and they can't stand it or because they 12 and can't brush it off.
Trying to be nice with people when you believe what they think/do is terrible or retarded means treating them like kids who can't understand your oh so complex and delicate thoughts. If they get mad it's because they were waiting for a reason to do so.
I'm not trolling him, I'm confronting him with the cloud of nothingness he has brought to the convos he's had with several people here. Perfect pr : waste a dozen lines to say nothing. If you think I'm a cunt, go back to the beginning of this post.

As for the probation, just like demiurge's powertrip, it would be 5 years too late and wouldn't change anything in the big picture.

how many more ztn's and shotguns will they add to the finnished version?

Wait wait, you want to tell me that there are only TWO WEAPONS BECAUSE IT'S IN ALPHA STAGE?!?!

Yes, they'll be adding more soon

Great news!!

How do you know ? What kind of weapons do they plan to add ?

not lg

care to elaborate ?

Because the health system is build around having 3 health boxes an attacker and one as a defender. One hit is one box gone. With LG that's impossible.

i do think that it's still possible :)

Tell that to retarded french devs.

They're not retarded. You're the only full turbo retard there, for hating the game. Rage more.

Little skinny boy.

Cause I talk with their devs and community managers quite a lot. No clue what kind of weapons.

There are 3 weapons included in the current alpha build.

the people criticizing the people criticizing the game although it's in alpha know that what they're criticizing is the over the top simplicity and lack of depth of the game which is the whole point of the game and thats not gonna change, right?

The problem is that in alpha you can change features of the game, but I doubt that you will be able to change the whole concept of it. And at the current moment the whole Shootmania concept looks bleak and hollow, comparing to what we, ESR citizens, are used to.

.

yeah and they would definitely do good at this game.

would like to see some top UT instaggibers trying the game :D, even tho they would have quite a hard time with rockets only :D

fox \:x/

fucking rofl, esports. you guys are so cool.

1, quake tdm legends
2, quake tdm legends out of shape
3, quake duel legends
4, quake randoms
5, "high skill"(??) from some other game
6, "high skill"(??) from some other game

im curious how long players from other games gonna keep trying. as for the game i like how the main argument against quake its graphics being old, this game tbh doesnt looks any better (id say even worse). map design is stupid, i mean really this is the movement part of it, running on fences and bounce one from ramps? also this 1v3 game mode is catastropic. i mean just what kind of person come up with an idea like this? how it is possible to convince an actual team, boss, etc whoever that is a good idea not just even to play but for an audiance to watch? i have a feeling this game heading to a trainwreck with the speed of light...

Tbh i can imagine how this 1v3 idea came out: better for specating, which is was their prior target i think.

the format is better but given how boring the actual game is....

5, french counter-strike progamers
6, american counter-strike progamers

surprise surprise, since the game is CERTAINLY closer to quake than CS

i dont think the main argument against quake is the outdated graphics but the game being the hardest to learn/master with the highest skill cap (fps that is).

combine that with lack of support from the dev's to get more people into the game and youll find quake at the state it is right now.

Even watching a stream and understanding wtf is going on/ why moves are that awesome as they are, you need to put some serious playtime into the game...

tl/dr: game is too hard for newbies

true, but its interesting how that has not stopped sc2. i would say skill is around the same in that.
It definatly has to do with support.
the fact the friends system and chat stuff is a pile of shite and there was no ID made QLranks or LIve.ql from the start and no gtv. these are the main factors imo

and ID still wont even embrace qlranks and ql prism and such., can you see them ever posting about it like: check these mods out, they make our game what it should have been if we put some fucking work in.
massive fail by ID

well, concerning sc2
i dont think its that hard to pick up. because the playerbase is huge and the system blizzard provides placing you into leagues with equally skilled players works pretty well
so if you start to play, the game pretty much immediately places you versus equally (non) skilled players and its fun to play from the get go.
the skill cap is very high but its still fun to play if you suck.
also there is user created contend, lots and lots of user created contend...

if you pick up ql - the best thing that can happen to you is a friend who introduces you to the game, or even better someone you start to learn duel with and play against - else you better are very ambitious :]

"What an event it was; Cybsum. The six best ShootMania teams showed some amazing class and skill in their matches."

I understand that this game is being promoted heavily and since every one (by which i mean mostly quake pros looking to make easy money) is jumping on the wagon, it qualifies as news. But do you mind not treating us like 5 year old kids. I dont think anyone on this site found the event amazing. And no there wasnt much amazing skill being displayed. Please don't bother with the inane sensationalism. The game isnt even very entertaining let alone sensational.

I found many people jumping on hate bandwagon, but I know few people including myself who enjoyed some games, especially last ones. Yes, it's much simplier than Quake, but it got competition feeling, emotions and probably the most important thing right now is the skill cap. You can clearly see people who are better at this than others and I think that's a good start, since later on community will be able to mode their own gametypes.
I think everyone should relax for now and go play whatever they want.

was it amazing though?

Your mom was amazing

ooooooh classy:] unfortunately my mom is dead, so... how was the cemetery?

what's the matter? the graveyard cat got your tongue?

skill cap ? Lol, I was playing exactly the same as they did after 5 seconds when I figured how to jump and use stamina...

Wait, you can jump AND use stamina in this game?

SO COMPLEX MAN

so damn true :DDDDDDDDDDDD

So not liking something equals hate? No.

I say youre jumping on the hypewagon.

:D

23:19.01 ( @stripy` ) rly tried to watch it
23:19.04 ( @stripy` ) a few times now
23:19.17 ( @stripy` ) maybe it will be fun playing, but specing is a no go for now

COMMENTATING for shitmania:
--
nice rail.
nice rocket.
oh hes gone down to 2 health.
nice rocket.
nice rail.
time is running out.
nice rail.
hes dancing round the pole.

repeat same.
--
so primitive.
stop trying to rot kids brains -_-

I expect Merc Ops to advance first out of their group

or last place and diabetes

I watched some games and I had never managed before to watch any other game except ql and q3. No matter how much I tried, was uninterested after 1st minute. I don’t understand the whine, since it doesn’t seem so bad to me. It’s over simplistic which removes the wow factor a bit (then again none of the other games wows me anyway), but because of that is also easy to follow and watch.

and like the pros saying, it seems idd fun for casual play

LIKE A BOSS

very nice picture :)

fazz looks like a fatty americanero, his shirt is cracking ;d

I think he's standing on his toes, fox has got a good 15 cm on him on random pics :D

fazz has become a hipster

fox <3

fox <3

pic's 100% foxy..confident pose -- too bad "shootmania" is right above his head like a 'thought bubble'

It's not nice to see some real talent wasted on a crap game.

At least theyre making some easy money, and their leaving a good name for quake cause of the ownage. But random users advocating an alpha dumbed down deathmatch game, thats pure lol.

fox<3

My first time on ESR in 15 months and the first article I see is about all new multiplayer shooter. From Nadeo, wtf. Game looks cool. Sadly I couldn't find a demo or a beta so how the hell are they doing tournaments for something that's not even public lol

The game is still in alpha, which they started to hand out keys to a few weeks back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXQkhgEpcE

The battles looks like two opponents in quake 2 using the Blaster?

Is there more. I got a feeling they will add more guns, they are just keeping it simply at the start.

No way anyone would release a game like this and just be like this.

Either you're gonna have to pay for more, or they'll unlock more in time so newbs won't get overwhelmed, but they need more than they have.

I think the game actually seems quite fun, the question for me is rather how long it'll take before the simplicity and endless repition of almost the exact same situations over and over gets boring. I was thinking that from a competitive standpoint a different scoring system might add some depth. For example what if you could only score on offense and you had a time limit instead of a round limit, this would force you to defend extremely aggressive and attack fast when time runs out and the score is close. It would also create garbage time tho which is not so good for spectators

i think /M/ wasnt formed to place 3rd

Cowln was in the prior lan while /M/ players were at dreamhack keeping their word for quake.

Lets see in the next tournies?

Halo 4 will be out later in the year.

Just watched a multiplayer video of this game - had Streenx, Avek etc. playing yet it was painfully boring. It's definately no Quake3/Quakelive.

The whole game has a weird childish feel about it, dunno why.

I so much hope for this game that they are only testing it out with about 20% of what they plan to put into it. And those 20% is what currently works well enough for them to do this.

It would make a lot of sense from the perspective of creating a new FPS to get all the old quake players and ask them "what should a modern quake contain?". That way, you can get them to test out the game by inviting them to big tournaments and see what comes out of it.

But there is a quite concerning problem:

This game is too much about aim and too little about brain. That is, over the time we will learn if colwn is still taking top spot or not. If nobody can wrest the crown from them then the game will have a rather bleak future as a eSports game. And I think that new strategy and tactics are needed to do that.

Why they need to ask quake players in a first place? They aim for success not niche elitists game that no one cares about anymore.

People will be suprised when they launch the beta the first time and will see that this ''elite mode'' is only an tiny part of the shootmania universe.(in fact it isnt even a part of regular shootmania storm,its more like an dlc which is launched separately ).The alpha already has alot more to offer than that(especially gamemode wise).
If u are an person which has been able to enjoy other games then quake in the last years u will probably get some good entertainment for your money in shootmania.
If quake is the only type of game u enjoy shootmania will probably not entertain u alot.And this is totally ok btw.Its OK to dislike things.Nobody has to buy it.Simply keep playing quake live and have fun with it.

when you said shootmania universe it made me feel a bit sick.

Except elite is pushed as the competitive standard... A tiny part my ass.

Nice write up I must say, makes the game seem quite interesting. Unfortunately, I did watch the LAN, and like a lot of others, first thing I had to withstand is the 240p stream quality (whoever thought it's sufficient should shoot himself). Second problem, game is dead boring, I just don't see the fun in stermy & winz instagibbing everyone on enemy team in 5-10 seconds. Which brings me to the only strong point of the game, rounds last really short so I had the urge (even tho I was bored) to keep on watching the next round in hopes that the gameplay will improve. Who knows, maybe it's fun to play, but seeing the LAN boring me to death, I'm not really inclined to try it at all. Will wait for the game to leave alpha stage, then re-try.

Oh and, top 4 out of 6 teams = quake teams. lol gg wp no re.

Seems like quakerz are still the best at fast-paced fps, looking at the result.

Am i the only who actually enjoy watching the game ? It looks like a mixture of clan arena, counter-strike and instagib, i like it.

only one thing missing is a shaft-like kind of weapon :D

And a shotgun

and a rocket launcher

and plasma gun

and gauntlet

and grenade launcher

... bfg?

grappling hook

our work here is done

machine gun, nub XD

lol:]

our work here is never done. as long as shootmania persists.

u took it too far

Am i the only who actually enjoy watching the game?

Yes.

not only

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r2pEdc1_lI

Final Standings:

colwn (€1 800)
3 Old Men (€1 500)
Millenium (€1 500)
adK (€1 200)
Team-LDLC (€900)
Mercenary Ops (€1 200

@http://www.shootmaniaesports.com/840/cybsum-w...-round-up/

Why does the 6th place gets more money than 5th. ?

It was all given in advance, places don't decide anything. 6th place team said it was too cheap to play for 900 eur, so they paid more. Probably.

wtf, they said, they want more money and they receive more only because they demanded it, althought their performance was worse oO?

so the competition part of this lan was a farce?

It's almost like some very rich guy is paying people to play it and say good things about it to fool communities into thinking it's something that it isn't. I could be way off the mark here though. If you need to pay 6th place more money than 5th place simply because they won't show up otherwise then something is wrong.

Team-LDLC must feel like mugs.

now i see why cypher and rest say SM is fun, you just appear and get money thrown at you.

we need nadeo in ql. if they can make this happen for sm, i don't see why couldn't they do it for ql. after all, sm is the inferior product here (at least the way things are now, in alpha stage).

They probably would do wonders for ql after seeing what theyre doing with shootmania. id software is QL's problem, they have always been the problem.

this is true. but there is an even deeper agenda at work here.
the push to simplify peoples minds. targeting the young.

"It's almost like some very rich guy is paying people to play it and say good things about it to fool communities into thinking it's something that it isn't."

i hear you, but every time I watch the game it looks like a cross between quake 2 with hyper blasters with UT2k4 graphics.

I still say they are going to unlock a load of weapons after a few weeks or months, or charge you to unlock them.

Nadeo are pretty competent if trackmania is anything to go by, they simply cant make such a big mistake.

Doom 3 BFG is probably going to be the only "new" remotely capable duel game this year unless SM delivers a surprise.

Shame nobody is going to be interested in D3 multiplayer, I'd love to see one last LAN after it's been dead for so many years.

coz they get bonuses for cum air-burst power.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/-9CQbwsjyiNs/T-YbxbVGVzI...m-3790.jpg

fox using white mousepad? o.O

No, he's not playing games right now because he's busy with real life.

It's just an illusion.

its just fazz and noctis brought a hologram projector with them that pictures fox. in the reality noctis controlling two players, one with his left and the other with his right hand, but a team must contain 3 players this is why the fox exhibition... smoke&mirrors you know

...and still wining this pile of crap game ez mode.

looool

white/transparent+lighting icemat.

i think it's a shiden tbh, if you zoom and enhance csi style you can see how small the mouse cord is in relation to the mousepad. seems much larger than an icemat

looks like 66ish % of noctis' qck so that's 25ish cm to me. Would fit with an icemat.

Oh what an event it was!

amazing display of skill!



....come on, give it a fucking rest.

So Fox(!), stermy, fazz, linkin, winz and noctis attended this stupid LAN one week after DH, which was sorely lacking top-tier players. Really depressing.

It's a shame that It's purely about the money rather than the actual gameplay, since the viewers don't care about the money, they just want to see some awesome games. You're right that's pretty depressing. Can't blame the players though, they will go where the money is. None of those guys would have won QL at dreamhack, where as this shootmania LAN was certain win. Very sad indeed for the QL fans but what can we do? It's the ugly side of esports, we need someone to throw a shitload of money towards QL which nobody will do.

Edit: If I win millions on the lottery anytime soon I will throw alot of money QLs way :)

How is that depressing? DH was still great and after all it's all about people playing video games for some money, not even professionally. The only depressing thing I see is insecure people who go mad because some popular players try a different game. And yes, quake > * but calm down. You can't force someone to play your fav game and if you lure them with money, that works only temporary anyway. So if they played only for the money they will leave as soon as those sponsored advertisement events have stopped.

DH was ok at best, but that's just my opinion.

Well look at this that way: if old stars leave, new ones can rise. And I think QL needs some new faces.

DH was rapha vs cypher, which is would have been any other way...

any vods from this?

http://www.own3d.tv/Cybsum/video/681480

i'll probably play the game, looks like some mindless fun...but i can't watch it for more than 1 min

If you want mindless fun there's plenty of CA servers to choose from.

indeed, that is mainly what i play as i don't have a ton of time to play consistently...but a new game of mindless fun might be entertaining for a while

FFA all the way :D

If you don't expect quake but instead some casual, relaxing fun you will probably like it. I can't speak for the competitive side of the game but if the community gonna create lots of modes + maps this shouldn't get boring too soon.

So many lies and made up statements in this thread.

No money was paid in advance, except for flight and hotel. Americans did not get more than 5th place, just a typo.

And most importantly, all players I asked said there is more teamplay&strategy involved in this than quakelive tdm. That including noctis, fox, cypher, avek. The general feeling was that everyone also enjoyed the different pressure that the game puts on you in the 1v3 mode. And that it was genuinely fun to play in competition.

This however does not mean that anyone said it was a perfect game, nor that it should be compared with ql 1v1. Game still needs loads of work, and by the sound of it, some new mechanics to make it more exciting for spectators.

What a joke.

I think considering their extensive experience with tdm in comparison to your's kind of makes you the joke here :)

Look how many posts are suddenly missing, awesome.

gotta love how my post is just floating there :D

My fault. I deleted my own post. And everythnig under just went away. Just found the proper way to nuke now. Sorry

lol wp - "accidentally" deleting an unfavourable argument. Forum Hax!!!

Where's CSI:ESR?

Apparently, It was possible to restore em :)

haha - this is now gonna get very confusing :D

Aww. I deleted the whole thread it seems. I just tried to nuke my own post to remove the my insult :(

These admin rights are dangerous.

anything fun you can do with them?

I should be able to add a picture instantly. Lets see if it works :D

nice pic :D

i added before you. DELETE IT

best pic on esr ^^

Awesome picture lol. It would make for a good caption competition.

Fox and noctis: well played bro *high fives*

Fazz: I ACTUALLY FUCKING WON SOMETHING!!

Oh they're having so much fun not playing video games.


...wait a second.

*For those that missed it:

What followed was witty fencing of the highest intellectual order between vor and fazz culminating in a final riposte by vor which left fazz conceding defeat in the face of indisputable logic and self evident facts.

fazz promptly pressed "delete".

Do you think that pro players, sponsored to play a game, will say it sucks? Youre being naive.

I told the head esports manager at Nadeo that it had a looong way to go. Face to face.

Thats great, but doesnt diminish the fact that the opinion of pro players, which have sponsors, which are being helped by the developer of the game for travels/hotels expenses, should be taken with some salt. Its common sense.

I agree. Only a few that has that though right now though.

And that's why your team got only 1500 eur while colwn got 1800.

On this site its really hard to know if you are joking or not after reading that :D

Well, while you are wrong where Vor is concerned (he certainly has enough TDM experience for that kind of game analysis) I have no trouble admiting my TDM experience is laughable compared to any of those players.

I would like to learn something about both Quake TDM and SM, and you being top Q3/QL player and one of the few with access to SM alpha is perfect person to enlighten me. Would you? :)

So, how exactly is game stripped of items and with such a limited range of weapons more tacticaly and strategically deep than QL TDM? There are no coordinated attacks to get armors, powerups, nothing.... cannot the same gameplay be achieved with QL clan arena only with railguns and rocket launchers?

Maps we have seen so far aren't competitive maps at all - it's just empty space where railguners frag helpless opponents with RLs. Where's strategy in that?

Instead of just arogantly proclaming "I'm top player and you are clueless noobs" explain us what's so great in SM. After all, most of us don't have access to game yet.

My point was never to mean that I have a higher understanding. The point I wanted to make was that the depth that vor/disrespute communicate out on their casts is abit more than what is actually going on. QL tdm is just about awareness and experience, and most of all good aim/fighting skills.

The fact that Shootmania is round based makes it way more open for actual tactical setups. You have to vary your strategies so that you are not easy to read. Wheras in quakelive, you have a 20min chaos going on. You might have an idea of positions/plans, but they rarely turn out to be doable because of the chaotically of tdm. At least when playing teams of similar aim/fighting skill levels.

I think quakelive tdm has just become hunt for aiming good while getting items. Listening to top teams teamspeak there is not alot of on the fly decisions being made. Just times being called and statements about whereabouts about enemies.

In Shootmania you have to collectively react to the attackers position. You have to communicate that the guy aims for YOU so that the other guys can move in closer without risk getting shot. This is very hard because of the bad maps though. The uncontrollable chaos from quakelive isn't there. In quakelive a top team would do just fine with 4 players that know the game in and out but without voice communication vs a similar top team. In Shootmania I very much doubt my team would beat even a semi skilled team if we didn't have voice communication and they did.

Unfortunately the maps chosen for this event was abit poor as there actually was better maps available. And even when this was the case, it was still a lot of fun to play at a serious event. Can't say that I felt that when playing quakelive at dreamhack even though that was the first tdm event for years.

I hope that explains it a little bit at least :)

/wall of text

ahhhh how I miss the days of OSP.... when we actually had entire documents for a single map on how to coordinate attacks while distracting the nmy...

I agree that quakelive tdm is more like ffa, but c'mon what teamplay and strategy you can apply in a 3v1 mode? From a spectator view it looks rather like: 3 guys are rushing +forward and spamming "rockets" and one guy is implementing excelent strategy that involves strafe jumping around and hiding in a tunnel with railgun ...


Don't get me wrong, I believe that this game might bring us back competitive fps emotions, but right now it some weirdo looking thing.

You should play it with a proper team in 3v3. It's ALOT more fun than it looks. Something needs to be added to make it more spectacular for spectators, no doubt about that.

3v3 ok I am able to believe that it might be fun. But if it is, then why they are pushing 3v1in a tournaments ...

To attack alone sets alot of pressure on you. Quite an exciting feeling. Dno if you played cs. But winning a round 1v3-4-5 feels pretty awesome. This is similar to that :)

Clan Arena anyone?

>Dno if you played cs.

I see its funny cause it similar to cs.

ROFL

I guess you never won a 1v2 situation and simply cannot relate :)

I guess you dont understand that promoting a game by comparing it to cs on this site isnt the best idea.

I guess you have to understand that I don't promote the game. I'm just sharing my feeling about it.

Call it sharing your feeling, i used the term promoting vaguely. Sharing your good feeelings about it with cs comparisions on esr isnt the best idea.

I believe the common reader here has enjoyed watching some cs from now and then. It's not very hard to grasp the concept about how cs is exciting. I couldn't care less about anyone who would dismisses stuff based on such stupid bias/elitism. I see your point though, it just doesn't bother me.

Not enjoying a camp/aim based game is stupid bias/elitism? Dont think so. You have your right to enjoy it tho, and i have the right not to, like most users in this site. Hence my comment.

However, dismissing a game without trying it surely is bias/elitism. Which most people on this site seem to do :)

Does that mean you are calling quakelive in its current state for a not aim based game?

We're dismissing it as an esport game, not as a fun game.

I think we have different definitions of what an esport game is. But either way, it's stupid to dismiss anything without trying it. Especially when its a game still in alpha version.

Imagine if everyone would have dismissed quake 3 demo version :) 3 years after that it was actually a good game. Mostly thanks to the community who didn't dismiss it.

IIRC The Quake 3 Demo had little to no resemblance to the qualities that most people on ESR don't like in ShootMania.

It also had little to no resemblance to the game ESR loves today =)

It's extremely difficult to see that kind of potential ShootMania, having seen what the devs have done and consider doing.

The trend with games nowadays seems to be like going from football to bowling. I'm not sure I could see this in a positive light even if I was flown to Paris.

We probably do have different definitions. Mine is a game that is entertaining to watch and hard to play. I said in another post that I never really enjoyed playing bw(cause I get my ass handed down to me) but I love watching tasteless vods where 10 seconds of flash's fpvod make me crap my pants thinking "I can never do that". And I am sure that a lot of the bw fans are the same way. So whether I enjoy playing it or not will make no difference to my opinion of it as an esport game, which it is marketed as. And yes it is still an alpha and hopefully by the time it goes gold it will make me a fan. Sadly though I don't see a game that requires 7 buttons(correct me if I'm wrong) to fully utilize everything it has going that far.

Then we indeed have different views. My view is that if it has players playing it, why should it not be an esport. The problem we have in the fps community as a whole is that we are simply not growing. More people play flashgames and farmville than any fps title. We need to reopen the worlds eyes for fps games. And I think Shootmania is simple enough to do that. It is still fun enough to play at an early stage of development and somewhat high level.

If the game attracts a huge community, then maybe that community will be ready for the next proper dm1v1 game when/if it comes out.

If quake 5 were to be released today, it would still mean jack shit. Because there would be no community to play it except what we already have got with quakelive. And that wouldnt make it a healthy esport. A game needs to survive its first year of developer money pumped in to it. And by looking at how much effort id puts into quakelive, I very much doubt they are gonna pump in any money for quake5/doom4 or whatever the title will be.

It's hard to see the whole picture without knowing the economic side of the "esport" industry. Come pay day, people involved needs to get paid. And that is just not happening with a community of 2000 that doesn't contribute with any money.

(And hopefully there will be some more mechanics when the game is actually released aswell :) )

I disagree with your Quake5 comment. The reason being because take Shootmania for example... a game that clearly doesn't have a solid spectator appeal yet is gaining a ton of hype (in part by Nadeo) but also because it's simply NEW. Quake5 being created would garner a huge interest because it will be the next new id game. Rage had tons of hype behind it and not just from the Quake community. A Quake5 would be even more hyped than Rage... and hopefully not shitty like Rage.

If id did Quake5 properly, ie. heavy community involvement, providing all the tools necessary, etc, it could become a success again simply based off its name.

I don't know, this Shootmania shit looks like garbage to me and I'll give it all the chances in the world to make me think it isn't a steamy pile of garbage. Just because you, Cypher, and other Quake pros are saying, "It's fun, but has a long way to go" doesn't do anything for me and shouldn't for anyone else. It's sad that people think saying, "it's only alpha/beta" is some irrefutable defense to sucking. We've all played beta games and how often are those "beta" games pretty damn close to what the "final" product is? Pretty often.

Anyways, I hope Quake5 happens. Hell, I almost hope Doom3:BFG has some saving grace multiplayer, or 2GD gets Reborn funded. This Shootmania garbage looks like a quick way to make a buck off people who have no clue what or how a eSport FPS plays like.

If id did Quake5 properly, ie. heavy community involvement, providing all the tools necessary, etc, it could become a success again simply based off its name.

Not necessarily. You're assuming everybody who played q1/2/3/4/L would buy and play quake 5. The thing is, a big percentage of them are now in their late 20s and have grown up, had kids, and have no time for gaming. For Q5 to work and evolve it would have to appeal to the younger people, which at the moment with the state of the FPS genre, It's unlikely to happen. Kids just don't like deathmatch games like they used to in the 90s/00's

just like doom3, quake4 and rage? lol. Id software does not appeal to the masses since 1999 and releases one AAA title every 500 years (quake5 won't be released before 2015 even if they outsource it again), hence why it ended being bought by zenimax.

You have to admit it'd be superb having more people on this niche genre.

and I can't believe someone has any faith on doom3 or in 2gd making a game.

Doom3 sold 3.5 million copies. Was one of their most successful games. Quake4 was made by Raven, and unfortunately sucked. Rage failed (in my opinion) because id Software tried too hard to appeal to the console crowd and abandoned the medium that made them in the first place. Didn't help that Rage for PC was god awful and littered with problems.

@dru1d

I'm not assuming anything. I think any NEW game with some hype behind it can appeal to many people, even if they don't know the history behind it. Like I said, Shootmania has a lot of hype behind it (in part because of Nadeo marketing) but also because it's simply the NEW FPS game out there. It spectates like shit but people are still intrigued because of it's new factor.

I'm not saying Quake5 will succeed if it DOESN'T have those "casual appeals" because it should. What I am saying though is Quake5 would easily garner a LOT of attention just based on the market for an eSport fps game being pretty starved and Quake having that name recognition. Also, PC is having a resurgence due to digital downloading (i.e.. Steam) being extremely prevalent and convenient. I think a solid Quake5 Arena game could be hugely successful with everyone. Rocket Arena 5, newbies comon in!

doom3 was their first AAA title in 5 years so 3.5 million copies is not as good as it sounds. Quake4 was a part of the franchise we care about and it also didn't sell well despite its name (it's debatable if it's good or bad), and Rage failed because they took too much time developing it. In all of them id software thought they could handle more than they could with their few employees.

I'm just saying quake5 will not get as much consumers attention as you think. E-Sports is a very, very, very, very, very small portion of videogames that no one cares about.
And remember there's no way it'll be released before 2015, if they decide to do it (I expect rage2 before that and who knows how hard that will fail), and that it'll probably suck balls like everything they've been doing since 1999.

Pretty unfair to say that 3.5 million copies "isn't as good as it sounds." It's good, period. Starcraft 2 is hitting, what? 4.5 million? 5 million now?

I honestly couldn't find numbers on Quake 4. If you can find them for PC, I'd like to see them. I think Quake 4 was a failure, not because of sales, but because the game was bad for multiplayer. It didn't hook everyone in like Quake 3 had and people were simply unwilling to ditch Quake 3 for it. But I don't know the sales numbers but I'd be curious to see them with some links.

Rage still sold about 2.75 million copies between consoles and PC. Obviously it was a failure when you only sell about 1 to 1.1 million per console. PC only hit like 270k and we all know that's not cause of piracy but because the game was just riddled with issues.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is id Software hasn't failed in terms of using their names to sell their product. Clearly, even when the games are BAD, people buy them. Simple as that. Their problem is that they have a huge disconnect as to what the people want and who their fans are. Doom3 was great... but it was Doom, not Quake. Fun single player. Quake4 was handed to Raven who, arguably, ruined it. Rage was made for consoles with almost no interest in PC multiplayer. All in all, I still think id could make Quake 5 and be a success... they just gotta do it right.

with the difference blizzard prints money and id doesn't, particularly at that time. They released exactly 0 games in 5 years and they didn't have games on steam and others.

can't find too lol, but I remember it did decently both in sales and reviews though it was a collaboration. I think the biggest problem for the "hardcore quakers" was that it ran at 60fps and at release date models and hitboxes were simply weird (maybe in SM too?). The latest version (patched by id) is quite playable and the game was almost the same.

and Borderlands1.5 was shit.

Yes people buy their games based on their reputation and franchises, but they take so much time to finish them it ends up in losing money. I don't see doom4 coming before 2014 (or maybe november 2013) and getting more than 3 million sales, which is a failure considering rage was released in october 2011 and they've been developing doom4 since ...4 years so far?.

Latest game of the franchise was QL, which as we all know was handled very, very, very, very, very poorly.

For all those reasons I have more faith in Nadeo than in id software.

My argument wasn't whether or not id Software has sucked huge amounts of cock in the last few years, but whether or not Quake 5 could be a success.

I think it could be. They have the name to gain the initial sales, then it's up to them to patch it properly, have a great SDK involved, let the community work with it, and promote/market it. Have they shown they can do all these things? Nope. Not at all. I'm just hoping that they've got some semblance of a clue as to how things work in this day and age after seeing Rage fail miserably.

I don't know who Nadeo is and having faith in id Software has at least some base. They did after all create Quake 1, 2 and 3 which were awesome. Nadeo, however, created Trackmania. Congrats, like that has anything to do with FPS games. Then, to make matters more annoying, you got Hylis coming into ESR threads almost bragging about how Trackmania was successful with 4 keys. Don't know about you, but that doesn't make me very solid in my faith for Nadeo and the people behind it.

As I said above, I'll give Shootmania all the chances in the world since I'm equally starved for a FPS game, but right now, it looks like they're going for the fun fisher-price appeal and not for the fun LEGIT competitive appeal. 3on1 just seems so contrived and fake, I don't even know what to do with it.

You are trying to reduce the content of my post and what is game development by making it look like simple like a fisher-price.

About my posts, people where complaining about the apparent simplicity and I just answered that you can have really high skill level with only four keys, if you look at TM. I did not said that any games with 4 arrows would work. By the way, I think I have read that Carmack himself was for limiting the number of keys as possible somehow and I have great respect for what he did with Quake. I think that Quake 3 was not a big success enough on a commercial basis and I remember how the industry was surprised with the great success of Doom 3, even being released in the middle of the summer, what Starcraft 2 did after as well since you mention it btw.

When you say that our work has anything to do with FPS games, you should consider what is 90%+ part of game development. TrackMania made us develop map editor, scripts for modes, dedicated servers, ladders, tv system, customization, video making tools and other stuff that are pretty much useful in the area of FPS. And it is one of the biggest work you have to do. The remaining most complicated part is on the moving (you can imagine that programming a railgun is less difficult) And on the moving, I think we got some lessons from TrackMania as for some deepness to be able to go faster than the others with simple control schemes.

As for the mode, I think you will simply play other modes than Elite. This mode is more for competition with team of 3 that can be well watched. You are just more likely to enjoy Siege, Joust or another mode made by players.

My view is that if it has players playing it, why should it not be an esport.

Because then every game would be an esport rendering the term meaningless.

While I agree that you need a simple game to get players into it I think it needs a lot of depth to become an esport because otherwise it will quickly hit a plateau and that would transform it to boredom. Your other points I agree with.

Its the way I look at it. Every sport is a sport. That doesn't render any of em meaningless. It just makes the sports without a lot of active practitioners a sport where no one can be professional because there is no money involved.

I'm sure there is exceptions to that rule but for something to grow big in the field of esports. There will HAVE TO be a LOT of active players willing to spend money.

here's an example: you can't make tic-tac-toe into a sport. why? because every game between two moderately intelligent people will end in a draw.

now, i remember everybody played it when we were bored at school, so it had/has quite a big playerbase. don't see it being included in the olympics though, for obvious reasons.

do you now see the connection between the depth of a game and it being exercised as a sport?

With this logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game) would be the biggest and best sport in the world I guess?

no, nowhere did i imply that the most complicated games are also the most popular sports. i said that there is a connection between the depth of a game and its applicability as a sport, which your example showcases beautifully (also a wikipedia link):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_Go_tournaments

now find me a tournament for the 3x3 tic-tac-toe game.

edit: btw, the prize pools of all esports event together are laughable compared to those go tourneys. 500k, 300k, 250k? i think that makes this game pretty fuckin popular.

So you are telling me you ACTUALLY mean that shootmania 3v3 is as simple as tic-tac-toe?

i didn't mention shootmania anywhere. you said that EVERY game is a sport if people are playing it and i said that this is simply not true.

Ok. Missunderstood. Since tic tac to has a 100% optimal strategy I doubt we will find alot of tournaments. Same reason as backgammon sites are broken since you always can calculate the optimal strategy with a simple bot. And ofc it's not comparable because there are not so few factors involved. I guess you are trolling cause this kind of reasoning leads nowhere and no one can seriously be this stupid.

how am i trolling ffs?

tic-tac-toe is a game, right?
it is actively played by a lot of people, right?

so by your reasoning (#349), it must be a sport. it is not, and many other actively played games are not a sport either. this is all i'm saying.

this kind of reasoning exposes logical errors. but yea, let me call you stupid too since this is how arguments are won and be done with it.

You can calculate the optimal strategy in chess, too. That's irrelevant.

Please link me to that source. Can't find it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_chess_matches

Might be wrong. But that is not an optimal strategy. Since it calculates a optimal decision based on every move your opponent makes. So every game doesn't turn out the same. From what I remember from tic-tac-toe. Played optimally, the guy starting always wins/draws.

Either way, the backgammon comparison might have been stupid as well. But the fact is that you cannot calculate the optimal strategy in any game where 4 brains are jumping around with infinite factors.

Just because someone made a pic comparing quake/sm with chess/tic-tac-toe as a METAPHOR doesn't mean it literally is that way.

I don't think anybody implied that. As you said yourself, it's a metaphor, and it means that SM is limited rather than solved.

It's not similar but he described a feeling you'll never ever have in tdm and that's winning a clutch round all by yourself because you pull off the impossible. Might be a reason why tdm will always be a niche mode.

Ofcourse that I played cs. I see your point but it is a different situation when you start a map with other teammates and at the end you are the only one survived and a different one when you start alone vs 3 and your teammates are spectating.

CS actually has maps where teamplay is needed. Compared to SM maps we saw in this tournament even CA on thundestruck is insanely interesting.

yea maps are pretty retarded. That will easily change with the easy mapeditor though. And the fact that people dont have to go through the publisher to get the map in the game........... HELLO ID

do they pay you now to make internet posts? =))

Another one bites the dust...

Man you losed the final cause L1nkin, Stermy and Winz hitted every rail in attack. Even when you tried strategy you were intagibed...

I have much repect for you, but your statement is biased. It seem you forgot how hard it is to learn to play QL tdm properly.

Most maps were shit in this SM tourney. No doubt about that. Also no doubt about that link/winz/stermy have sicksicksick rail aim, also no doubt that our team, consisting of 3 basically inactive players still beat 4 teams of very much active players with way better aim than us by teamplay and strategy.

I have never seen any quake team print map overviews and doing proper strategy analysis. I'm sorry to say this but you guys clearly dont understand QL tdm at high level. It's communication and game awareness and aim, but not so much strategy/tactics.

The hard thing about QL tdm is to find 4 guys that are at the same level of understanding/aim.

No one said shootmania is a good finished game yet, but it still provided more excitement to play in a tourney than a quake team game has done many years. I fully understand it sucked ass to spectate though, which is where you guys come in. Just don't complain about something you haven't tried nor understand. Feel free to complain about the illusion of game depth that you think to have a understanding of though. Go right ahead.

In the Millenium team only Strenx was on Shape. Av3k and Cypher looked like they discovered the game 1 week before the LAN.

There is only map and position control with two weapons, how this can be more teamplay/strategy than TDM. Of course TDM rely on aim too, but a weaker team can actually win with map control, item control and powerup.
My opinion is that all the tdm strategy is like an automatism for you, so you don't see how it's hard to learn for a new player.

I'm not saying Shootmania is a shitty game, the show was okay imo, but at the moment it really lack of deph, and can't be compared in this point to TDM.

I also understand that pro quaker enjoy playing something else after all this years sticked to Quake

Pro Tip - How to insult and alienate an audience:

"Just don't complain about something you haven't tried nor understand. Feel free to complain about the illusion of game depth that you think to have a understanding of though."- (c) Fazz the Patronizer

fazz is awesome... but this made me lol at work.

It isn't ql for sure, but wasn't bad to spectate also imo. The stream's quality was bad though.

Even though I am a hardcore quaker, I think this game has potential. It is just missing the wow factor, watching a pro play and say “I would never be able to play like that”. But this could be good, attracting more players and allowing for casual play.

Have u pld with high ping? Is the netcode any good?

I reply here, not because I want to reply to you directly, but because I feel is part of this discussion. Sorry for the wall of text.

I think there are some misconceptions regarding what tactics mean, and how that relates to Quake. I want to point out my opinion on the subject, which hopefully makes some of the other posts more clear for everyone.

Definitions

When a game requires to act under time constraints, these constraints impose to offload the thinking to a phase prior the game, i.e. the training. During training hypothetical situations are discussed and options are considered. This is what tactics are. The goal is typically to reduce the burden of decision making to simple immediate logic that takes up little concentration while playing. So, instead of being put in front of a new situation and have to figure out what to do, one goes into the game expecting certain situations and knowing already how to deal with them.

An other important definition is experience. It can be seen as the collection of these "correct situational decisions", which is what one understands as "tactics", but while tactics are generally defined explicitly, experience covers many cases a player does not necessarily know consciously that that's a tactic, but still applies some decision making and does the right thing "by instinct".

Tactical games?

Now, if one wants to discuss how tactical a game is, the real question is how much thinking can be offload to the training session. Part of that is discuss whether key situations can be described.

To make a few examples, playing on a grid simplifies the identification of situations a lot, while playing over a continuous world forces to make approximations, ultimately weakening the domain of tactics. Similarly, playing 1vs1 makes it easier to analyze than playing 4vs4, as situations are much more controlled.

The second thing to consider is the importance of tactics in a game, considering the rest of the elements.

Tic tac toe is fully tactical, as you can actually consider every single situation and define the optimal response, but overall the number of situations is so low, and the outcome of the game so predictable, that it is considered a stupid game, no matter what. Chess or go are totally on the other side of the spectrum.
A game like tennis has a great number of tactics, but still requires so much physical skill, and a player needs both are necessary to play well.

Quake

Quake is very hard to describe. Maps are complex, the world is continuous, health, armor, weapon damage, etc all have a wide possible range of values. Extracting key situations is very hard. We can only define approximations, general cases, knowing that in practice there will be a lot of "experience" required to properly handle situations.

We have made a lot of progress as community into defining theories, cases etc, but still there is a big gap between what's on paper and the actual play.

The result is that Quake, compared to other games, is not very tactical. Not because the games does not require tactics (in fact, every single situation in quake has good or bad responses, and a player would benefit from knowing the tactics that apply), but because it is impractical or infeasible to discuss tactics to a fine level, and the best we can do is to rely on our "experience", which will solve problems based on instinctive responses, rather than explicit tactics.

Shootmaina

It does not surprise me reading fazz saying that Shootmania is more tactical. The game is much more controlled, because of its rules, only 2 weapons, uber simple damage system, etc. You can print out maps, as they are mainly 2D, you can describe many situations etc... This is what tactics are.

I think quakers should not feel offended there. Quake is much more complex. So complex that defining tactics if fucking hard, and after a certain point we have to rely on our brain to solve things subconsciously. Is this really a weak point? I don't think so. This is what makes the game at high level so magical. Of course it's also what makes it so inaccessible, which may be its doom, but that's an old story, isn't it.

Well spoken. And as for a team game. I find that its better to solve problems as a team rather than individually doing it subconsciously.

When we are talking about a duel game though, then it's just boring. Rocketarena 1v1 anyone?

Shootmania for the spectator is where I see problems. Hence I want to add something that would make for more spectacular frags. Have some ideas and we'll see if Nadeo will listen :) The esport manager said to pm him "at any time".

Your idea is to throw flashiness at the problem, not the actual gameplay? Maybe air kills can have fireworks go off in your FACE!!

Your idea of my stated ideas are made up. Move along.

I love you, fazz.

Shootmania for the spectator is where I see problems

I think that's pretty much what this whole controversy is about. We're seeing this big hype going on about this new game called shootmania, we don't have keys, we are not going to ask or beg for keys, we can't try it out, so we watch the streams and we see what appears to be a crappy game. Maybe It's all designed this way to get communities talking about it. It's working here..

I don't think they're that smart.

I mostly agree with what you are saying. People playing quake are showing interest in shootmania, also I saw noctis smiling most of the rounds, which was weird. All that would be needed to say to each and everyone of those quakers is to consider this:

Attack & Defend (AD): Capture The Flag mixed with Clan Arena. Take turns attacking and defending your base's flag. 1 point for a flag touch, and 2 points for capturing or eliminating the enemy team. First team to 15 points wins.

Set teamsize to 3 players
Set custom weapon damage to rail to 305
Set starting health to 300
Set rocket damage to 120
Limit rounds to 45 second or a minute

Each attack uses only 1 player and 2 guys stay on the perimeter.

Now this is easily accomplished with a game most guys here a familiar with. It has maps that are okay, it could have specially designed maps for it. Casters, high skilled players!

You can mix it up setting a game handicap with 3-attackers-2attacker-1attacker, you can have cusom attacker selection leaving best for last, or using best as first. You can put in more weapons or leaving just 2 weapons. You can input runes, you can make players fly!

Isn't it more value for any ones money having an option or playing whatever you could ever want and supporting quakelive then this.

vor and dis could do an invite tournament of shootmania only in quake!

We have been saying the same thing about playing q3 instead of quakelive to be able to do what we want with the game. It's a good thought but I doubt it will work. We need a new audience, that is the core of the problem for us. Not the actual game.

Agreed, but consider latest shootmania results you won't keep the cat out of the bag for a long time. Past experience of players that can beast around single hand will do what it did in quake. Release teams like 102, aCt, 4K, mamut, play, broken, DP, coma, colwn, nEu on unsuspecting shootmania noobs, you'll be where you are with quake now :D

New audiences come either with better promotions of a certain game, or by creating hype over a new game.

As quakers we don't need new audiences for shootmania :D

Now as to why a shootmania mode wouldn't quite work in quake, we all know main reasons which include elitism regarding game modes, less player base and organizational interest in promoting or scheduling tournaments and lans.

What I don't get is at least quake has a spectating platform pretty run in with disrepute, zOOt, vor, 2gd doing and having had a nice job done so far. Wouldn't you think it would be like shootmania on ROIDS having such a custom server and mini tournament set up for them to cast?
Shootmania done quake style :D

I liked shootmania personally to an extent, it was interesting to see if the attacker can do his jobs, and Cybsum brought some games which were pretty nice to watch with 4-1 or 5-1 turn around. But personally I know I'd rather watch that damage dished out in quake then in shootmania

Quake viewer numbers are a joke. Quake player numbers are a joke. Quake pros playing 2 weeks for an event to win the easy cash, its a joke. Even if we might have had 8k viewers on some gdstudio. It most likely was because it was put on the front page of twitch. It's just not possible to keep the pro's playing. There are maybe 5 players who earn a salary of less than 500euros/month. Probably not even that anymore. I see it from a fps community perspective, I guess you are seeing it from the quake community perspective. Which is the reason why all this fear and conspiracy theories have been thrown out there.

About the fact that the pros will rape the shootmania newcomers, sure it wont be a surprise. But with matchmaking and ladders done right, that is not an issue. As I said before, there is alot of things that needs to be done right. And time will tell if Nadeo can pull it together.

They've got more chance than iD anyways. Especially if they read any of the complaints quake players have with QL's state. Plus the hype and more investment.

And looking from an FPS perspective there will always be next game which will maybe suit the average FPS gamer more, than the previous title which brings it down to hype mass title exodus.

I hope they do ladder and challenge system good, it's what most people hoped for quakelive also!

I hope they release it for free aswell. I see no hope for it if they make people pay =/

It doesn't have any chances without being free.

It just isn't that good.

No deathmatch fps has a chance of growing a big enough audience to sustain a healthy export. Without beeing free.

Are you saying that ShootMania is more exciting and more complex as a teamgame right now (QL TDM being very old, ShootMania new, with new maps and so on), or are you saying that it has more strategic potential overall than QL TDM?

I can easily understand the first. Playing InstaGib-like games with friends being flown into a LAN after ten years of playing a single game could and should make it seems so even if it's against personal taste.

But a game, in which there is to consider:
3 rocket positions
1railgun position
1 railgun healthbar
Having more depth potential (disregarding it's age) than QL TDM? Could you please explain why all those elements in QL TDM don't add depth? Is it just the old age, lack of popularity and motivation for competition, or is the game inherently imbalanced like that? Is that just your opinion, or do, in your knowledge, most other Quake players agree about how simple TDM is?

Furthermore, if QL TDM is so simple, is qw tdm a 100 times more difficult strategically? Of course, I don't mean the current stance of the competition, I mean the potential of the game.

PS. Despite the fact that I'm not positive about ShootMania, I'm not trolling. Weirdly enough. I'm honestly interested in the discussion, if it's allowed.

he just argues the definition of the word 'tactical' not the complexity of quake

I have never seen any quake team print map overviews and doing proper strategy analysis. I'm sorry to say this but you guys clearly dont understand QL tdm at high level. It's communication and game awareness and aim, but not so much strategy/tactics.

who and how doesn't understand ql tdm at high level (I don't play it 'cause I'm a shitter, but I get the jist)? afaik reading from your post you just misunderstood memento and me.

I replied to fazz ;)

lol. fair enough

Do you print map overviews / do proper strategy analysis for shootmania?

Do you think chess involves strategy?

you've been bought, haven't you?

I have tried to enjoy watching these competitions but have always ended up switching off the stream or vod after a few minutes through sheer boredom.

It's not through being biased against it because it's not quake, it's because it's rather shallow and limited. The movement seems laggy and slow. Even at 720p+ the crosshair is not very visible, nor are the enemy models which makes appreciation of the players' aiming rather limited from a spectator's perspective nevermind the players themselves.

There's only so many times you can see 2 players dancing around the pole trying to shoot each other before it gets old. I think it looks like something that would be fun for casual gaming on the PS3 or Xbox while you're lying on the couch with a console game controller, but as a serious fps it seems limited.

The game modes so far are also too heavy handed and contrived like Attack & Defend in Quake. Alot of the fun in fps games comes from the freedom of the virtual world with only the lightest touch of contraints to create the game rules. Heavy handed rules and structure take away from the freedom of exploring the virtual world and what tactics are possible within it.

"It's good (for streamers) if they're not interested in any type of tactics" (c) Disrepute <--- This

Introduce more weapons, weapon choice, rocket jumping or something similar, more open free moving game modes and it coud be pretty good though... Imagine viewing a CTF type game mode via the bird's eye spectator view in sh*tmania, it would be really great fun. But the current mode is just bleh...

I never said it was interesting to watch. But I must say that quake tdm has been pretty retarded to watch the last 5-6 years aswell. CTF was way more enjoyable for me if we are talking the later years of quake. But tdm rarely get exciting at all, only the last couple of minutes, SOMETIMES.

Yeah tedious stuff that's just no fun to watch really:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB6ycm36kr0&t=18m12s
Couldn't find the vod I intended nvm:
http://www.esreality.com/download.php?file_id=83899

Score is 236-180. That is not exciting. That segment is impressive and awesome. But not exciting.

I'm not gonna get into a debate about the semantics of what is meant by the use of the term "exciting", but I'm quite certain that I found that much more entertaining than watching sh*tmania pole dancing to win a grand final when both teams are closely tied. And I'm pretty sure also that Noctis probably found that playing that match much more entertaining than any really closely matched sh*tmania pole dancing.

They already added capturepoints without poles to the editor after we complained on this.

I think I have never seen noctis look so happy when hitting 3 rails in a row. I very much doubt he would ever admit to looking happy at all though. ;)

dm20 please.. you can't be serious if you want to disprove his point with THAT. Always the same all-aim crap.

you could have picked a much better clip to defend your side of this debate..

Well I'm at work and flash video is blocked so I had to just try to remember some match that was entertaining at the time and hope for the best :D

And I also think that TDM pretty boring to watch. :D Than let's make competetiv QL CA, if you think that 1v3 is tactical gameplay.
Or better: CTFS gamemode (Atleast in q3cpm). :)

I tried to watch more than a couple of minutes of the VoD but having seen that 1 guy kill those 3 guys a few times that's all there is. It might be the best game ever to play but frankly its fucking tedious to watch.

Not played this game and it's alpha stage and all that.
But the vods tell me enough for my personal taste not to get exited :)

Good marketing though!

in ya face, fazz!

No.
I love Fazz, so unless it's something nice thrown at his face, then no!

some nice rapist glasses:] like that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-prfAENSh2k

Yes they should rebrand it as: Hypemania :D

excitement through timelimit@40seconds ! what a great idea

i'm actually happy to have some new blood in the arena shooter genre.

sure the haters will hate everything that isnt quake, hell ... they even hate quake and say it's been dead for 10 years

this game and tribes ascend give me as a customer a chance to say: "yes i want a fast shooter with some movementmechanics that is not modern military styled"

sure the games might not be perfect, they are not quake3 so what do you expect.

but they send a message to other AAA developers that there is a market for fast arena shooters.

tribes isnt fast at all

not as fast as quake doesn't mean it's not fast compared to contemporary aaa shooters

related to the map sizes u move like a snail

most maps are pretty small and you get most of your speed not from skiing down mountains but from discsjumps which are similar to rocketjumps in quake.

the walkspeed is indeed snail-like but once you learn the mechanics you can get fast quick.

last i saw its just a big open crather with hills at places. players visible for 10 sec at the time

the longer you play the smaller the maps become.

it's one of those games where you have to invest some time to get familiar with the different roles and the gameplay mechanics.

it's comparable to quake in that sense. just that you only need about 2 weeks to get half competent as opposed to 2 years in quake

do you really think this game will be commercially successful, considering all expenses made to make and promote it?

I don't see SM getting more sales than doom3 bfg edition.

considering all expenses made to make and promote it

what expenses? seriously, does the game look like it would need an army of developers? Also what expenses to promote it? The price money for the tournaments and the costs of flying out the players arent even a tiny fraction of what TV ads would've cost. The e3 stage was used to promote other ubisoft titles as well so the costs solely dedicated to shootmania at e3 aren't THAT huge either.

Or did you want to say that the game has been poorly promoted and thus will be a commercial flop?

all games are expensive to produce. Hylis could clarify this, but the game will obviously cost more than 2 million dollars to make. The promotion we've seen is just a very small part.

Advertising has been great so far Thing is with that business model it doesn't have a market. We've seen the very same like 5 times.

but the game will obviously cost more than 2 million dollars to make

yep my point exactly, in this day and age, thats just not a big budget for a video game.

I agree that the advertising has been great. Getting known pros from different games gets communities involved and watching it also gets them to talk about the game, just look at what happened here, for relatively little money.

i didn't write that i think it will be commercially successful. Nobody can predict that for a niche genre.
But i am able to use the only power as a customer i have, money

stupid me, thought the guy under me was replying to me :o

.

I think I judged Shootmania too early. A couple of weeks ago I found it hard to get in to the game. though I think the presentation at Cybsum was pretty good, and the excitement/tension you could see between the players - especially in the 1v3 rounds was unmatchable. When you're down 4-5 and you have one player attacking in order to tie the game up. If he's successful then it's absolutely huge, if he fails (which is often more likely) it can decide the match.

You don't get that kind of pressure/tension in other games. The defensive aspect of this game is also very interesting, it seems that 'pole hugging' has become standard as a tactic (which could get annoying). Though I am curious about what kind of new maps will come out. New maps coming in constantly.. cycles on maps in the map pool. Something that QL tried to do but most of the community rejected? Map knowledge is important in shootmania, like it is in Quake. Although people who will be playing shootmania will have the opportunity to play fresh maps that people haven't been playing on for the last 13 years.

I think Quake could take a leaf out of Shootmania's book, but from what I've seen of the QL community - no one is really willing to accept that. Such a shame.

how about every single fps game that's not quake or ut, lol. They aren't reinventing the wheel.

I'd say a team game which is in the style of clan-arena is far less pressuring than starting the round 1v3 from the beginning.

that situation happens in every single game that's not quake or ut, just not from the beginning. Also it's more pressuring and impressive doing a true comeback (starting 5v5 then getting 1v3 or more, with lower health, map control and all that) than 1v3 rounds.

I like the idea though, and I also think it should get implemented in QL along with a bomb and defuse mod (or both combined like in SM). Right now both are very, very easy to implement.

I don't agree about maps in QL. Duel maps changed constantly since it was released (like 15 maps used), something you will never see in other competitive games.

duel maps changed constantly? There have been a couple of changes, but nothing consistant and always going back to maps that are ancient. T7 is the only exception, but it still hasnt been taken out of the map pool since it was introduced in the first place

you don't see cs changing their usual 3-5 maps. QL tournaments used like 15 in 4 years and people complain there's no change lol.

All of them were used in events and online tournaments repeatedly. Moreover, dm6 is still removed from map pools and ztn was for more than a year. And seems you forgot about toxicity (no one played that in q3).

Only classic maps that have been in most map pools are dm13 and aerowalk, and no one on his right mind would want to remove those.

15 whole maps in 4 years? Don't go crazy!

I'll try to remember the duel maps... Trinity, Dismemberment, Bloodrun, Campgrounds, Toxicity, Aerowalk, Hektik, Lost World, Furious Heights, House of Decay, Battleforged. I may have missed some, but from what I remember - it was just these 11 since QL was around.

Half of those maps have been in Quake for many years. There is no change. Shootmania is going to be rotating maps far quicker than Quake does. How are people meant to approach a game that is already dominated by veterans who have played those same maps over and over for how ever many years?

I guess you could say the biggest problem is that community members can't upload their own maps, but meh - there are other things that could be done instead.

> How are people meant to approach a game that is already dominated by veterans...

a) Becoming veterans themselves with time and sweat
or
b) Jumping to a dumbed down game where they get nearly instant gratification

I would always pick a), but i understand the majority of new age gamers going for b).

kids love ez games now, no doubt about it.

I posted the list like 2 months ago and couldn't find it. Just from memory add almost lost and T4 there.

So lets assume it's 13 then. Almost lost, toxicity, trinity, hektik, t7, t9 and battleforged are new or weren't played extensively in q3.
Which game changes gameplay balance and adds 7 new maps to its map pools? You won't find one that's close.

So I guess it'll be an interesting experiment to see what happens when/if Nadeo decide to do it for Shootmania :)

Which game changes gameplay balance and adds 7 new maps to its map pools? You won't find one that's close.

ye, no, thats just pulling shit out of your ass!

SC2 has 8 maps in it's battlenet ladder mappool none of which were there at release and I would bet there there were a lot more that have come and gone.

BW has also had a healthy rotation of fresh maps despite it's age.

I don't think I even have to touch on gameplay changes.

sc2 =/ scbw

and maps don't matter that much there. In fps games a different map means a whole different play style

I never said that SC2 = SCBW I merely gave two examples that disprove your argument.

and maps don't matter that much there. In fps games a different map means a whole different play style

ye, no, thats just pulling shit out of your ass!

what do different maps change in quake? positioning? well thats just about the same effect different maps have on starcraft. more drastic changes like missing weapons or a relatively big distance between major items like on t7 would affect strategy about the same as extreme map designs in strategy games.

also you should consider that there has been some distaste by the community about the newer maps because the majority of them cater to the same play style.

you don't know shit about duel lol

well how about you actually try to prove something of what you're saying. you know, with arguments and such.

everyone can spew random bullshit like you without backing it up

dm13 is played completely different than toxicity or t7. Any player that has tried those maps will tell you that.

haven't you played against people that only know how to play ztn and suck on all other maps? That doesn't happen in sc.

duh

but explain how different maps in SC do not have the effect as drastic an effect on strategy.

I'm sorry your point about ztn doesn't count as you can just as easily fuck up people in SC2 who only now strategies that don't suit the specific map.

All that you're proving is that theres SC players play a wider vareity of maps whereas quake players are stuck in the past, or russia.

have you played sc or quake once? This is getting retarded.

Of course it does have an impact but nowhere near like in duel. But then again you have to know both games to understand that, and it seems you play none.

it seems you played some quake but I'm not so sure whether you played some SC.

you specifically picked out the one map in the current pool that is missing a weapon to illustrate your point yet you completely leave out maps that play similar and like I said this community has been critical of mappools that has too many similar maps.

what I'm trying to say is that "extreme designs" like leaving out a weapon change the strategy just as dramatically as extreme designs in other games although it might just be that the current mappool consist of "similar" maps.

also, to get back to your inital point.

the balancing process in starcraft has been WAY, WAY, WAY more extensive than in QL

What makes you think that?
It's not like q3 accidentally turned out to be great competetive game. id software had a lot of experience and q2 and qw pros worked on balancing it.
There is more possible unbalance in maps designs. There were gazilion duel maps for q3 and only very few of them got accepted by players.

BW: Version 1.16.1 (21 January 2009)

Q3: Version 1.32c (2006-05-08)

And I imagine the majority of the tweaks in q3 were bug fixes, not game design alterations, whereas bw has been finely tuned for years. Also q3 was never intended to be a competitive game.

Also q3 was never intended to be a competitive game.

really? just lol