I think you would have to be very biased to say that either is superior. I think it's pretty much offers the same level/platform of competition but with a different ruleset. Very much like cpm, which I am not a big fan of. But the things that annoy me about cpm are less evident in wsw so I have promised to give it a try when it comes out on steam.
But really the only real difference game wise is the ruleset.
in motorsports there are lots of different disciplines, so does deathmatch. It's like asking a f1 driver whether wrc is skilled or not; of course it is.
That's a bad analogy. Everyone know wrc drivers>all. F1 drivers take up rallying when they want a challenge. WRC drivers take up circuit racing when they retire.
Warsow is quite fun and a good game. It's a bit like CPM, in the way that it's not as much about total item control, because that's too hard because of the movement and item system. It's more about direct fights.
Don't know if that's a good or bad thing, just another ruleset to play with. I think the graphics works out pretty good and looks nice to me. One thing that stands out to me is that Warsow had this cartoony look years before big titles started doing this, looking at games as TF2, DotA 2 and lol.
A game is only as superior as the players playing it.
Even a less skilled game can be harder to win if you have a better ratio of talented players playing it, but Quake has the best players and most advanced mechanics.
That's not to say other games or players are bad, it just means they are silver but we are gold.
I'd say they're different games, so they're hard to compare. But the main thing I think that makes a difference is that the top players in QL pick their moments better. They know when to push forward and when to stay passive. Warsow players seems to be more of the +forward and hope to out aim your opponent instead of catching him off guard or something like that.
Wish Quake Live had this art style so much! The maps all seem like they use nice colour palettes (except for the second map in this video, which is disgusting.), the weapon animations are nice, player movement sounds etc. Although the weapon firing sounds do sound rather weak.
Quake Live has a higher level of play simply because more people play it. As far as mechanics go, I think it's stupid to call one version of quake better than another one. They're different flavors IMO.
I think it looks fun. I'm not skilled enough in quake to say where it compares with mechanics and ruleset.
However, I really do enjoy warsow race maps(edit: meant to say race movies, not race maps :D). I know, that's not what your OP was about, but, it's at least one thing good to come from warsow that I thought worth mentioning. :D (then again, I love defrag and anything like it, so, perhaps I am biased? :P)
I played WSW for a while but it just came out way late and took forever to get to a good state. It's in the some mold as QW/CPM but those are some big competitors with huge competitive histories to take on. WSW might be a decent alternative to QW/CPM but I don't think it has any advantages over them. It's too similar to differentiate itself and too late onto the scene to have the history and community.
Always found it surprising how fickle 'arena fps' players are. The most minute of details can put them off playing a game that is, at its core, identical to one they already play. I guess you could say it's the same across any media (mainstream gaming/film/music); so maybe it's just down to the specificity of what's being played. As in, the more invested you are in a particular thing the less you are willing to compromise on it's details. There's probably a very common theory that summarises far more eloquently what I'm trying to say.
Anyhoooooooooooooooo, having played Warsow for a good four odd years followed by a period prancing around playing CA (and occasionally duel) in QL I'd say the standard in QL is higher. Warsow is far more forgiving of mistakes in terms of tactics/weapon choice/general decision making (guess they're all one and the same though). Only Warsow'r to have any real degree of success in QL was Reload, so he'd probably be the man for this. Whatever that means.