Actually QL failed because duel was the main mode (c) Disrepute

That's actually the google search result for "esreality". Good fuckin grief... the worst opinion ever.

Quake demanded excellence, honesty and professionalism in a culture and industry of mediocrity, laziness and greed. I think that it's too late to change anything now, unfortunately.

This. Humanity failed, not Quake. It's not the game's fault that it never reached mainstream status.

It was mainstream at one point, being the top discipline at all major worldwide e-sports events; it was part of widespread urban humor, anecdotes, e.g. featured in a famous old German ad, and simply was a well-known cultural phenomena (along with Doom). The problem is that it lost its status somehow; exact reasons for the matter are still an ongoing discourse despite being beaten to death here on ESR (not to say that there's anything bad about that fact, not at all, — at least as long as we talk about it, Quake is not dead).

I do agree with the post in general, it is well thought and worded.

At its height it was very popular yeah, but for a very brief period of time. It got taken over by CS very quickly.

Lol at mainstream and e-sports in 1999-2006. e-sports being mainstream is a very recent thing.

This is not a mystery. The moment CS took over, it was obvious why. It was an easier, more accessible game. It was more fun for a novice than constant death in Quake, and more relatable because of the realistic appearance.

there are gameplay reasons aswell. the round based, 'scenario' driven nature of the game was new and made teamplay more obvious.

atleast thats what made my group of mates switch from q2ctf to csbeta5.5 at our lan cafe.

Street fighter is a game which focus on 1v1, has a pretty high skill ceiling as well. It doesn't have any good tutorial either.

The only thing they had were :
1) Minors unlock
2) Rankings
3) Deep involvement on the tournament scene

Seems like these points alone were enough to make the game remain pretty strong. However I would counter argue that SF isn't necessarly that much bigger compared to most of the other mainstream games.

The fact that the game is also pretty simplistic on its core might have helped as well; two health bars always displayed on the screen, characters plays out various moves to decrease their opponent health.

I do agree that it is not the kind of game that will ever be massively popular but I do thinks it could have been much bigger if the would have had ranking when it was at its peak (mostly during the beta)

Good point on street fighter, I've been a super casual SF player in that I'll play it on consoles every couple of years for a few hours, the tournaments are great to watch and I enjoy SF tournaments way more than CS, LoL, etc.

"The fact that the game is also pretty simplistic on its core might have helped as well"

Definitely. A new player can pick up the controls and will understand the basic fundamentals of the game immediately.

SF4 had a very high technical ceiling which is what drew me in to it. However, SFV is an extremely basic and dulled down version designed to appeal to the masses. This iteration is Capcom's attempt at 'eSports.'

So we'll see how Quake Champions is. My guess it'll be similar where the 'core' will be Quake, but it'll be such a stripped down Fisher Price version of it that it'll be extremely boring and lackluster to watch/play.

all good points, but all these don't explain why almost nobody knows about ql, while they know quake and q3

ql was never marketed. There many ppl that would had loved to play a modern version of q3, but never realized it existed.

it's all that u said and much more, like the above simple reason

btw, I don't think that ql failed. I mean for quake to be kept pld for so many years (and it will continue), by many dedicated players and many tournaments, is not really a failure, but the opposite. It just could do even much better, because it is indeed the pinnacle of skill and very fun to watch.

they did market it, didn't you see the in-game ads on some panels?

i always troll the community for its small playerbase lol



but what the hell i'm stick around some more gl gl gl

Reality check:
People don't play Quake because it bores them. Which is no surprise as it hasn't received any innovations whatsoever for 20 years.
'Professional gamers' (hate that term) in other games practice far more than the very most of the quake elite. Hence they are most likely better at the game the play than their quake counterparts. Yes I know, you do not like their toys, your toy is the best, cry me a river. Doesn't change how things are objectively.

Just lol at innovations. As if modern shooters innovate in anything that aren't dumbing down the movement and adding gimmicks.
How much has CS:GO innovated since the early CS 1 days? Get real.
The only thing that's objective here is the fact that any Quake player can easily transition to any other FPS and play at high level. Now, an Overkek player trying to transition to Quake would be a fucking disaster, that's what's up.

CS:GO still relies on the formula of "cops and robbers", which will never get old as long as you got people who like playing with guns. Same with GTA, if you copy reality you do not need innovations as long as you release new versions with updated graphics and new content.

Overwatch is not my thing either, but it is a new way to play a FPS, so I get why it attracts people.

Let's be honest about Quake. On release it had far less content than UT99. Sure, it got attention because of its name, the amazing graphics and the smoothness. But what kept it alive after the initial hype wore off was the community-made content, which also allowed it to emerge as an esport title. OSP, CPMA, Threewave, custom maps - those were all exciting things that kept developing. Today, it is all stale to be honest. Quake Live is not bad, it is just a so optimized and well-rounded which makes it as exciting as driving a Lexus.

I've said it before myself, there's always awkward gaps from a new Quake release until it becomes playable thanks to the community.

Overwatch brings nothing new, we've had classes-based FPS since TF1.

TF2 almost as dead as QL tho. Also Overwatch is a hyper evolved version of TF with elements from other game types like MOBAs.

TF2 dead? It has been 3rd by "current player count" on steam for years now. There are 60k players playing it this very moment.

Cereus? I just assumed since u never see TF2 streams on twitch :P

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Wow, I had no idea Dota 2 was that popular. No one on my friends list ever plays it so I never think about it

you are cute

Objectively people lately don't like to learn (deep) things (which takes quite a lot of time and patience, in this case, dedication even) and need instant gratification. And shiny gfx to make the neighbor kid jelly.

And when exactly was that different? Because for what I remember most people played Quake and CS for fun in 2000. It has always been a minority that was competitive minded and interested in learning every aspect of the game. Now only this minority is left, which does not mean that Quake wasn't also a game for Joe Casual in the past long ago.

I think there are other reasons for Quake lacking players in 2016.

If you were active in the '90s, you know it WAS different back then. Before console fps-gaming and the facebook-twitter-whatever social media shit, that is.

i think one reason is esports has turned into wwe

basically

nowadays:

drama first before competition

yesterday

competition first before drama

It's actually important to have both. Very few people watch real sports purely for the sport itself, even a lot of people who consider themselves huge fans of a particular sport will only watch when, for example, their favourite team or player is playing.

Competition by itself is not enough for widespread interest, there's competition in basically any game and sport. It all needs to be boosted by interesting personalities, people you care about winning, people you want to see lose, great long term rivalries, seeing people develop over the years, moments in matches you talk about years later. All popular sports have this in abundance and the more popular esports are developing this now as well.

the downfall of quake (right now) has nothing to do with the game or gameplay. it also has nothing to do with the current state of gamers either, that they lack a desire for skillful games or want 'dumbed down' gameplay. the answer is simple, there isn't a current 'quake' that meets the standards and needs of gamers.

when I talked to people at lans, tournaments, and events like PAX, one thing was common between many people there, they loved quake. whether it was someone who was casting a CS or LoL tournament, a competitive player from a different game, or a dev from a popular company, they liked watching or playing quake. some people didn't care for playing it, but loved watching it. they were around for the WCG/WSVG/ESWC era where one stream showed many games, so while waiting for CS to start, you might watch something else. It didn't matter who it was, so many people loved Quake. I think it's easy to think it's unpopular because of the small player base and tournament turn-outs, but the reality is that it's a loved and respected game by many people, even today.

one thing we can recognize is the failure of ID software. quake live struggled out of the gate, it was a dated game in a browser. support was too little too late, we all know the reasons it failed

DOOM is a game that has little depth to it, but the new game has it's perks. it looks great, you can make the mouse feel good, hide your gun, max fps support. I have been playing the multiplayer and couldn't help think about how much more fun it would be if it was a traditional arena fps shooter. weapon pickups, no loadouts, advanced movement. if you added server support and more, you would have an alright game. Alright in the nicest sense possible.

If they made a Quake like they made doom (focusing on visuals, netcode, things like that) a new Quake would actually be half decent.

This is why Quake has failed, we don't have a new one. DOOM wouldn't have made it far because the entire game was designed for consoles.

Games live on, CS:GO is extremely popular, so is DOTA. The idea that gamers want something simplistic is just dishonest, gamers want and love hardcore mechanics. Smash Bros Melee is still hugely popular today, the mechanics are a big reason for it. Smash Bros Melee is a great example because it shows how a mechanically deep game can be extremely popular (make the base game fun and enjoyable, allow for advanced mechanics for competitive growth)

I bought DOOM with the idea of supporting a new Quake, I think it would be next down the line for them. I am not sure about how well it would turn out though, being made by ID software. We saw their attempt at loadouts in QL, and they did the same for DOOM. I would not be surprised if they didn't 'get it' and repeated the same thing for the new Quake, just dumb it down and keep it simple for everyone. Quake doesn't need to be easy for everyone to play, it has the name attached to it. It would have a huge amount of eyes and hype on it, from the first announcement.

The ideal is to have a game that looks like DOOM, have great visuals. You stay true to the gameplay and keep it similar to Quake 3/4. You offer customization of characters (not like in DOOM), with weapon skins as well. You offer rewards for playing, which include cosmetics. You allow for community maps to be made, as well as servers (the CS:GO system). Friends list, matchmaking, "events", and more.

It's possible, but is it likely? I don't think ID will do its self a favor and make a great game with longevity. the newest doom tells me they want to do the typical AAA game route, map packs, DLC, and more. Doesn't look good

You can't blame id because there's an entire generation of games on the way out.

All it has to do with is money. Team Fortress Classic has gone the way of Quakeworld. At one point it was the 2nd most played online game behind CS. Immediately, CS got all of the money, and continues to do so. CS was a much simpler game to be introduced to. Where does the money come from? The casual market. What does the casual market like? Simpler games.

quake was doomed when cs got out. The kids really enjoyed that game (+ it was free iirc, i've never played it).

Quakers in general overestimate the "skill difference" between games imo. The best paid pc gamers are the dota 2 pros and fats practice practice practice regime is probably like a holiday for them, same for the top cs teams. I believe the skills are different, not necessairly on different levels. Calling top level cs or top level dota casual or of lesser skill is a mistake imho.

Seeing which games are most successful as competitive games i must agree with disrepute, people like team games more. The numbers should speak for them selves by now.

I disagree, you can't simply compare the amount of hours put into 'practice time' with Quake. You compare Quake to SC2 for example, there is lots of down time in SC2, a practice schedule for SC2 is very different for different reasons.

Quake taxes you mentally and physically more than other games, especially duel. It would simply not be an efficient way to improve your game to play the 10 hours a day that the koreans do with SC2, you would burn yourself out and develop RSI in your mouse hand. I'm going to be honest, SC2 is not as mentally complex as Quake duel, it has a lot of mechnical skill though, more than Quake, but once you have mastered the mechnical and muscle memory skills it's just a matter of applying your mechnical skill in very small quantities over and over again between micro and macro, the actual tactical thought processes that go in in SC2 are along the lines of 'ok i need to scout now, i saw building X, Y, Z, that means he's going to be doing one of three possible builds', etc. Whereas in Quake, your mental calctulations are non-stop timing items, keeping mental track of your opponents position compared to your own, calculating health and armour differences all at the same time while strafe jumping, aiming, thinking of the macro/overall strategy of the duel itself where the variables and landscape are changing every 2-3 seconds of game time.

I am not trying to say Quake is harder that SC, SC is in a league of its own when it comes to micro and macro management of units and perfecting multi-tasking. I have huge respect for the SC pros and admire the level of skill they have built up to be able to play the game at that level, I consider the skill ceiling of SC equal to Quake. I simply disagree with the statement 'SC players practice more hours therefore it's harder and they are better.' I will say however that the individual mechanical and mental skill requirements and skill ceiling of Quake players is higher than CS, Dota and LoL, that can be quantified and shown very easily.

I've played both SC and LoL to death, and I can say from first hand experience that 2-3 games of intense duel with an equal or better oponent >= hours of gameplay of SC2 and LoL. You have to be very smart with HOW you practice Quake, practicing to get better at Quake is a skill in itself because it's simply not as simple as old Fat made it out to be, you can't just 'practice, practice, practice' and hope you're going to get as good as the top % in the world. His famous quote is one of the most inaccurate quotes ever.

Well said. Quake is by far the most exhausting game i've ever played, especially dueling. And you are right, comparing practice hours isn't fair at all. I didn't think about that. My only excuse is that i have almost only played q3/ql.

One thing though. Not proof or even a strong suggestion, but i think it is interesting. dahang plays mercy with liquid in overwatch. I would for sure think he would play widow/mcree. Instead in a team of six he plays the charactar that doesn't need to aim or have good movement. I find it interesting that the only top quaker in a top OW-beta team isn't playing a deatmatching character.

There are more top quake players in OW teams?

Winz won something, I saw Rapha on some stream as well.... There are probably some others as well.

Winz also played support btw.

I guess that both of them try to read the game and predict how the other team will attack rather than spending their focus on aiming.

There are several top/ex top quakers now. In raphas team a couple, cooller and cypher are also in a top team together.

As you said winz and rapha seems to be shotcallers/team leaders in their respective teams, don't know about dahang. Best position might be second support playing lucio, winz has hinted at that. That said, there seems to be good enough aimers from other games to play dps heroes. I just wanted to probllematize the "quakers aim better than everyone else" statements i see here often. We are a bit full of ourselves as a community from time to time.

it also seems to be the case that aiming, in overwatch, is more similar to CS. You kinda always know where the opponent is coming from (if you don't you pretty much die fast unless you're a tank in which case you don't have to aim).
+ there are headshots etc. So quite a few more similarities to CS over quake.

The only 3 chars that do require some 'quake aim' are pharah, zarya and that grenade/bomb guy. But most maps are too open at a lot of places which is not really too much quake like as you don't have to adjust your aim too much in a short amount of time.

overwatch hitboxes are huge, really good aim is not really an advantage over just good aim, also a big chunk of the skills are auto-aim, or aim assist.

you seem to imply that I think that CS requires a lot of aim, am I right?

Just read this post and it's a bit late however
What quake taught me in regards to CS for instance is how to practice efficiently rather than just practice a lot.
Quake is very meta-ish if I could use this made up word
Because every situation you are in might be slightly different than the situations you had in your previous games so in a way it's like a big tree that spreads out or like a step by step algorithm that constantly evolves.

Elitist quake players killed quake.

This.

kick this shittie

Where did it fail? An arena fps was supposed to live for 30 years? Quake 4 failed, that's why they remade the one before, in a way. Not only did q3 in whatever form not fail, it succeeded in an epic fashion. If there is ever q5 it won't come even close to this in the long run.

All of you cocksuckers jumping on the bandwagon 3 years ago and going emo cause there's already nothing left, well, you were kinda late for the show.

This

Fun games are team games. Team games build a community. Communities watch streams.

And Angry Birds does not exist.

Not in this discussion no

yeah, just cuz. you made a bunch of claims with just cuz reasoning, okey.

Fun games are fun, this is why TDM can be dead and Cut The Rope can be most popular game on the planet.

People build communities. Teams games require teams, which could require clans, but doesn't. Yet, neither clans nor teams create a different subject, but are not a stronger incentive for gamers to communicate about the game, to discuss tactics, to contribute articles, to post news, to invite novice players and teach them. In fact, you can argue that clans create exclusive cliques that are stagnant and isolationist. Anyway, communities are not build by anything but people who want to communicate, ask advice or share it, and the sheer numbers and fun of the game is the main factor here, not any team aspect.

I can't even begin to comprehend what communities have to do with streams. Streams are just media that's either interesting or not. A community might share common interest, stream that is showing a thing that they are interested in, will be watched. But, an interesting stream will also be watched by a random person. regardless of how big a community is. The only thing that determines the watch count of a stream is how interesting, entertaining and captivating it is. Community is not a factor, it's just part of the flow. Team game is not directly a factor, but it can change whether it is interesting to watch or not.

Fun games are drugs. Drugs build a drug den. Drug dens smell.

We want different things if you want a commuters game

Because you don't want a commuters game? You never commute?

How completely irrelevant. A game is fun if it's fun, regardless if you play it while on a train, or on the toilet, or on the PC, or if it's a single player of multiplayer, or team, or duel.

No I don't want Quake to be a 10 min break game I can play on my phone.

Yes I want quake to be fun and we all know elements that would make it more sticky. But I want it still to require investment to improve in. I want it to be skilled and I want it to have a community of hardcore fanatics.

It can be easy to enter and hard to master like football. I also want it to be spectator friendly, which will in turn grow users.

This is not that complex and going off on a tangent about a completely different type of game, kind of suggests you are not really a fan of competitive games. Which is fairly ironic considering this site.

Why don't you want Quake to be a 10 min break game you can play on your phone? If I could connect a mouse and keyboard and the screen was big enough, I'd play a duel on a break, if I could. Why wouldn't you?

I'm not going on a different type of game and I'm not suggesting I don't like competitive games. You're suggesting causality and implications that simply do not exist.

Team play have nothing to do with whether something is fun or not. I gave a counter example.

Team games do not build a community, I gave a counter example.

Stream popularity has nothing to do with whether the audience is part of a community.

But yeah, I guess its SOO ironic that I've been playing quake since 96 and use this website, because I'm kind of not really a fan of quake. That it. Touche.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but the reality is people are more likely to play something their friends play and you do that best with teams.

and you do that best with teams.

Do what? Who is 'you'?

I'm sorry you think in terms of 'feelings' as opposed to facts and logic. I do not feel one way, or another. I'm giving you factual observations.

A game will be played as long as it is a fun or enjoyable experience. Whether there is a social aspect involved, is not a prerequisite. It's one of many factors in terms of games popularity.

If you do want to leverage human social tendencies of wanting to interact or be like their friends, putting them on the same team inside the game is not a prerequisite either. A leader board, a tournament system, a chat room, a clan system, a website, a club venue, bar, tv show, all these things are avenues for shared social experience.

So yes, of course, it is an observable fact that people are more likely to play something their friends play, but you have to back the claim of why team games as opposed to duel games, or even single player games, 'do that best'.

Well, unless you've been living under a rock for the last decade, you know that team based games are by far and away the most popular games. You know, stadiums full of people to watch LoL tourneys and all...

Rated T for Team. Not a prerequisite, no, of course not, but the writing has been on the way for many years now. That's not to say it cannot be rewritten, but currently team games still rule the roost.

We probably disagree about whether the T is the main factor of why those games are most popular, and whether it applies to popularity in a way it can apply in a 'hardcore' game we desire. Take WoW for example, it's a team game! It's crowds of silly characters are integral to the game and the leisurely enjoyment of it. Does it mean you can just have a bunch of quakers roam around a ra3 map and it will be as popular? Or, back to chess and go, is there a team variation of these games that will be more silly and fun for a drinking crowd? Probably. But it's self-defeating, and the game will still lose to a proper drinking game.

So, what we have is a correlation, but not a causation. I could be wrong, and I'd love to see a logical rationale for the causation, I don't mind learning something.

u know nothing

obviously quake needed a team mode

I think it does, just for me, because I love tdm.

its 2bad quake doesnt have tdm

;_;

Why Quake failed.

Did it really fail as such and per se?

Take a look at older Quakes, they all simply passed away as any other game when their time was up. I remember one of Polish gaming magazines (CD-Action to be precise) pointing out in their Quake4 review that id Software has stopped being visionary, what with much better games in terms of graphics and actual teamplay (FEAR, FarCry, ET, etc) eclipsing id vision of gaming. They pointed out that the time of simple arena shooters was at end, and that was written in 2005. Why I bring this up? I sometimes read old reviews for fun. Sue me. Also, it shows where Q was already back then.

Point is, after Team Arena rolled out there was one big nothing from id software and the genre moved forward on its own accord (the famed boom on "tactical" shooters like Enemy Territory, CS revival). Simple TDM, CTF or FFA were already seen as archaic back then. Fine, Quake scene died for mainstream and became a small community. Nothing new up to this point, it was supposed to and had to happen, Also take note that the people who now call QL unorginal and "the same shit over and over again" were usually the ones who cried back then that Quake is not innovative and id can't invent something cool with it.

Enter Quake Live.
Problem with QL is twofold:

1) Problem with vision and aim of the product
2) Problem with marketing/revenue model

1) What's the deal with that vision? Well. QL started as a more-or-less port of Q3 into a browser. It sounded cool, a Quake in your browser eh? Even though the browser was basically a...game browser and the game still launched on its own accord. Nevertheless, it was a nice feature in 2009 (I skip beta as we are focused on mainstream performance of the game). All seemed to be well. Then the problems started:
-extreme mix of veterans and newbies caused lots of new people to go away
-chaotic implementation of half-baked ideas and arbitrary changes ingame alienated many oldschools (tweaking speeds, weapons, maps, etc)
-removal of bugs that constituted the fun of previous Quake (overbounce, infinite plasmaclimb, etc etc) alienated oldschool trickjumpers
-gameb-breaking updates

Then the real fun began. Community backlashed HARD. People started to quit the game in droves and many who stayed in made black PR for the game. So what did the developers do? You know, what they usually do. They fucked it up even more. Even more changes. Weird updates. Meanwhile the browser was dropped - it was a good idea, and the game began to be a full standalone. Who cares if the bugs reported by players weren't removed (but overbounce HAD to, eh? as it was killing 100 kittens a day by its mere existence?), if people abused the system and slummed low tiers, who cared if one day you had QL and the other you had QL v2 with totally different weapon balance, netcode changes and what not.

Also, Punkbuster. Mwahahaha. Ha. Then PB was removed. uhu. The Carnival of Cheaters as strong with this game, as most of the tools used for hacking in q3 could be used with little modification. Also the game was open to injection of malicious code from the day one and many cheaters abused it. You think that QL team cared? Maybe. Ask Danstar how many people he reported along with lots of our other pals from QL who too reported cheaters on a daily basis. We basically did id's work for them banning people who rreturned 12 seconds later with another fake account. Cool!

That was fun eh? remembering all of what happened, you can already see how clueless QL was. The devs were like a yo-yo, jumping from not changing anything to wildly changing everything to appease falling game population charts and combat negative PR. People felt that cluelesness and responded accordingly. The main fail here is that when a team has no vision or aim for the game, they are doomed to fail (cue Daikatana or DNF bada bum TISH) They should've stayed firmly by what they had and thought about implementing

PROPER MATCHMAKING
PROPER NETCODE
PROFESSIONAL GRADE ANTICHEAT

Then the update v2 happened, loladouts, item timers, let's not get back to that. It wasa proper mess. Granted, it caused a temporary spike in interest but then fell flat on its face. Because the devs forgotten that if you ahve a closed, balanced environment as QL was at the beginning, messing up the variables will cause all of it to go bonkers. Q3 engine was very finely tuned in terms of game balance. QL by extension was too. Making extreme changes to the gameplay was destined to fail, but what do I know. The only piece of code I ever wrote was a java applet showing big ASCII dick in browser.

Then the switch to Steam happened. Cool, finally someone opened their eyes. Even though many of us proposed it years before. Okay, carte blanche approach has its merits, and maybe they couldn't do it anyway due to the technical reasons, but why the removal of stats and game history, no demo compatibility...I know it was the way to go but still.. We all started anew.

And don't get me started on debilitating the QL. Part of the charm fo Q3 was that it was bloody and brutal, like real gladiatorial combat. What the great devs did: Remove "satanic" imagery and gibs. Dying model becomes grey and falls to the floor. HOLY FUCK THIS IS NOT REAL. This is not happening....no. Yeah, it did. And it does. Quake for toddlers.

Sadly, the devs overshot their aim if they ever had one. They failed in development department and failed in terms of vision, or lack thereof, but that was closely intervined with another issue...

2) Marketing? Money? Sssh. QL was supposed to be ad-based. Would that business model fly? If the ad space was bigger, maybe yes or maybe no. Hard to tell now. But apparently the beans didn't add up from the start, and after a brief period of being a loss vehicle with hopes of hooking up partners QL moved to paid version. Or a dual paid/non paid version. The price was not great, but hell it was their game and people had to accept it. It was not disastrous, even though I think they should've gone full paid model from the day one and skip the bullshit so that every client would know where he stands instead of murky free/premium/pro model that was just both confusing and unappealing. Simplicity was the key here. Ad based model seems laughable to me now, given the expenses the team had to go thru on a day-to-day basis and general bad moment for b2b arrangements when QL rolled out (recession of 2009). Never mind.

But the marketing, ooh the marketing. I remember my post from 2011-12 on old QL forums. I wrote that the only hope for this game is to stop trying to be mainstream, as both its intended target (teens and preteens) along with mainstream community have moved on a long time ago. I proposed for QL to be marketed as a hardcore oldschool shooter. You think that would close doors? Nah. In fact,
-people would know what they are getting into (hardcore, old type game, no loadout or COD bs)
-a playerbase would evolve, having at its core the veterans and new people willing to try something "oldschool" and challenging.
What QL did? Changed rating to TEEN. Began to dumb down the game and make it teen-friendly. Dumbass devs forgot that even though Q3 was marketed otherwise, kids and teens played it anyway and who stopped them? The ESRB Morality Team? They also forgot that modern teens had other games to play and teens had different ideas of gaming. They basically equalized QL with other FPSs on the market and that was a big mistake - QL was no more a dark, olden niche game, it was pretending to go toe-to-toe with Battlefield or COD. Where it failed HARD.

If you want to market a product based on an archaic concept and using an archaic game engine, the only way to do it succesfully is to be honest about its limitations and market them as its strengths (cool classic game for hardcore players that ephasizes gameplay over visuals and story). But QL tried to hide its lineage, was shy about its age. It was like a 60-yr old woman coming to a teen party and trying to look and behave like a teenager. Guys, gamers are not blind. They know BS when they see one. And the players again responded accordingly.

Did QL fail? It still has a playerbase, a semi-competent base for modicifactions, anticheat of sorts and finally there are no earth-shaking updates. So no, it did not fail. The fact that the game still has players even after the Golgotha of failures that it endured only shows how powerful that playerbase was back then and how loyal it was and still is. Hell, it's like a praetorian guard of gamers who stood beside their beloved game thru thick and thin. If the devs knew about that and put that knowledge to proper use, the playerbase would be bigger, much bigger now.

But the devs did not see that. They did not listen.

Gamers are a problematic bunch: They're hard to appease, extremely vocal and difficult to work with. But they're also EXTREMELY LOYAL. Each and every game's dev team battles the community and struggles with their demands and criticism. IMHO the QL team was very inexperienced with containing playerbase communication, channeling it into proper piepelines and responding to it. They jumped from appeasing every moron idea to total nazi control and elimination of dissent. That did not work and couldn't work.

I still hope for QL. If a game has a playerbase that stays with it thru a literal hell, it might actually have a future.

I don't think game itself failed, it's still the only game I go back to playing above all else. That's why I quoted the 'failed' word in the title of the thread.

I think you are right that developer and publisher support has played a big part in Quake's popularity decline though and I agree with pretty much everything you've said.

But it's easy to point out the flaws of the QL dev and admin team, I can't see what goes on behind the scenes in idsoftware. Perhaps syncerror did try to improve and implement things the game needed but was not given any support from above and received no permission for proposed changes or funding for any kind of marketing.

The whole loadout, autohop, universal ammo thing really made me think to myself how well the current QL devs/admins understand Quake and the gaming industry as a whole though, that was a huge and badly timed blunder and I can't imagine what decision making process lead them to think that was a good idea. I would love to get an interview with syncerror about how that update happened and what lead up to it one day.

Ha, interview with Syncerror. That would be...enlightening.

I don't know neither Sync nor Sponge. But for me they were either very inexperienced younguns or people who were doing totally different things before QL and were given it as their pet project to try their skills on.

By "inexperienced" I don't necessarily mean programming skills, more like managing the project in terms of timelines, goals and methods of achieving them.

The famed 11th sept udpate (of all fucking things! The 11th september WTC date! Talk about coincidence) was IMHO a desperate attempt at saving the project. But it was done improperly and was useless. The real dealw as going Steam and that's what they should've done from the start. I know, it means sharing money with Valve. but you've gotta make deals where you gotta make them, unless you have such a powerful juggernaut of a game that it can stand on its own.


QL always looked to me as a side project, something akin to throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. It's common practice in business with regard to small, promising projects, really.It worked - more or less - as the project wasn't cut down, only it didnt bring the money the authors thought it would so they sized it down, trimmed the fat, ported it to steam and left it as a small revenue earner. So I don't think it was not profitable - even the dumbest company wouldn't let a project that's bleeding cash to hang around for almost 8 years - but it failed to become a big hit.

Anyway Sponge and Sync are not necessarily to blame, as they played with toys the company provided them with. Since 99% of QL time was udner auspices of Zenimax, id had really low amount of wiggle room. To put it in other terms, the company that acquires you wants to see a return of the investment unless you want yourself dissolved, people delegated to other companies in the porfolio and IPs either shut down (put in a permanent storage) or awarded to other teams within the mother company.

Quake was always too hard to understand to most people. 90 percent i know always wanted to play " real life shooters" like COD and Half-life later CS. I could never understand why people just dont like Quake. There exuse was like " thats that game where nothing feels real ". People want boring games because they have boring minds.

My irl friends never wanted to play HL or Q3 beacause it did not give them 'a fair shot', as I was playing the game more and those games were unforgiving. We had a lan once and after one dm in hl with a ridiculous score (77/0 or something) they only wanted to play CS, where we were mostly even. At most I could play UT with one of them, but it was hard to involve the others. Eventually the whole group of people moved to consoles and halo.

I had exact same experience with my friends. I tried to get em to play quake, hldm, team fortress, ut at lans. They never wanna play it. According to them its unfair because I'm apparently pro at all these, which is ridiculous as anyone how played quake with me will agree. All they are willing to play with me, out of fps games, is cs. They don't even wanna play cod 2, cos i climb impossible places and its not round based.

People don't like games where skill difference is not hidden by dumbed down design. They don't want to be raped and yet they dont want to work to get better either. This is not exclusive to gaming, today everything is like this. Its a culture of mediocrity and inflated egos based on nothing that is present today in everything

It's not even 'today', it's pretty much a biological instinct to conserve energy and multiply. It is also an instinct to explore and try things, but probably less prevalent. It takes extra intelligence to think about things, create long term goals, work for something.

I can understand wanting to have fun while playing a game. Not everyone likes constantly feeling useless. The wall is very high to climb. At least in difficult single player games there is progression.

First of all, Quake hasn't failed. Quake is the most puristic FPS, which makes it have hight skill ceiling, and very steep learning curve. It's a lot like other games that have failed, like chess, or go, or IQ tests. How many people in the general population play these? Not many. Just the same, Quake fills a niche, and it fills it quite well, as well as any develop could make it, [id] did as good a job as any other large organization could.

Of course, the fact that Quake can't be mainstream doesn't mean that it is reaching all the people that would actually be interested in trying it. More marketing, outreach, community friendliness, could increase the overall healthiness of the gaming population. However, with a difficult and extremely competitive game, you get an interesting asocial personality type that is not conductive to outreach. So, things are pretty much where the universe thinks they should be, an equilibrium of like and dislike.

If you want to change things, you can work on it, by starting from yourself, how you conduct yourself, how you well you're presenting the thing that you think deserves peoples attention, to those people.

Comparing Quake to chess just show how stupid you are. The general quality of Quake, to the point that the game being dead or alive would come from the players as their number matters a lot. These days it would come harder and harder to find an opponent in QL. There is not "equilibrium". In 2008 servers were full of duelers, these days it is empty. You are an imbecile!

I didn't compare Quake to chess. I compared how Quake compares to other FPS to how Chess compares to tick tac toe. That was the main point. There is no general quality of anything, quality is determined relative to other options. If Quake is the only game, it's the best game, if it has to compete, it is less so. So, yeah, of course there is an equilibrium of preference based on accessibility, reward, and other things. Hope this helps, honey buns.

The most popular games are much more fun to play casually than Quake, and competing is something only 1% of people do. Without 'casuals' renovating the playerbase there's no way to expand, or to maintain. If they don't like the game the game dies. It is what it is.

Plus id software fucked up royally in Q4 and QL. Without new popular games (or remakes) there's no renovation possibility, as that's the only time when there's enough exposure. The only way Quake and the "arena" subgenre is going to matter again is that Quake 5 (or just "Quake") is a hit with casuals. We the community could host a ton of events, create tons of contents and whatnot for Q3 and QL, but at the end of the day that won't make the game any more popular. Best case scenario is some casuals will try, which is an accomplishment considering the little exposure QL streams have, but they won't like the game anyway so they'll drop it instantly.

You are incorrect about competitive player numbers:

http://loldb.gameguyz.com/statistics/league

NA stats:

Bronze: 158,267 (17.31%)
Silver: 344,373 (37.67%)
Gold: 250,670 (27.42%)
Platinum: 120,524 (13.18%)
Diamond: 39,182 (4.29%)
Master: 1,011 (0.11%)

That's a lot more than 1% playing at the higher tiers.

Gold and above requires you to be a competitive kind of person who likes ranking up because it's a grind to get there.

4.40% (Diamond + Master + Challenger). Still not a lot, isn't it.

Every League player knows Platinum and below is not competitive level at all. Reaching Gold tier is only a grind if the player loses all the 10 placement matches.

Other tiers have such numbers because in LoL the way to play alone is to play ranked. Playing normal games alone is awful, because everyone takes it so casually that they AFK and all. I'd know considering for a while I was top100 in NA in S1 and S2.

More than 1%.

I have no idea why quake 'failed' but I'm pretty sure it's not because it's too good for the normalfags to appreciate. I'm sorry ESR but it's time to get real here.

Quake didn't "fail".

It faded out over a long period of time, and new gamers just wanted something that evolved beyond what the original game was. id's Quake Live exeriment was a half-assed measure to revive things, after they missed the mark with Q4.

Arena style FPS in general have been declining in popularity since the mid 2000's, and Quake was not immune to that. What was the last truly commercially successful arena FPS game? It's been awhile..UT3 was the last "big one", and that one had it's share of problems(though I personal feel it was underrated). I hesitate to count QL because frankly that's just a rehash of an existing game. Maybe QL could have been a success had they modernized the graphics and content, but otherwise, partying like it's 1999 isn't going to bring in many new players. All it really did was siphon off players from other free arena FPS games, then kill itself with a somewhat toxic community.

We live in a world were everyone gets a trophy for showing up on a soccer field, so it's no surprise that games that emphasize individual contests of skill are not as popular as team oriented games were kids can just sit back and play casually while others pick up their slack. My teenage daughter plays LoL non-stop, and she, and her friends all mention that as why they favor LoL to arena FPS games.

But, there still may be a market for arena FPS games. While Doom's multiplayer leaves much to be desired for hardcore players, it's got a chance to at least spur some interest in the genre. If people start making mods that are more traditional, Quake-like game rules, then you just might see a real revival. Let's not forget UT4 is on the horizon and it seems like they are at least trying to get things right.

Doom 4 graphics standards with option to go full insane to bring my computer to a standstill option.
Gibs so over the top with gore that at the end of the match you are swimming in claret.
Good matchmaking of course
Micro transactions ; no millner fetish shit but the ability to buy a necklace made of ears or baby back ribs would be a plus ;)
Personalisation of character so it means something to your or your team. Used to enjoy all the skins in q2 etc
Movement vql is enough; no air control/supersayen shit please.
Damn good spectator viewing options. with quick look at players stats,history/bio.
Needs a mode like domination that isnt as brutal as tdm but has objectives of some sort to encourage obvious teamwork. (personally I can take or leave this).

This game could easily be re-booted with a tournament style single player mode where you have to go through an actual tournament and work your way up to a top boss or something.

Then on the multiplayer side of things, the gameplay is already rock solid...it's just the game is behind the times when it comes to matching players against other players.

There needs to be matchmaking playlists...for all the modes. There needs to be stat persistence, cosmetic armor skins, etc.

This game could easily be re-booted with a tournament style single player mode where you have to go through an actual tournament and work your way up to a top boss or something.

I can't tell if you're making a joke or not.

what was sarcastic about my post?

I was being completely truthful.

Have you ever played Quake 3?

yes... and quake live... what's your point?

Describe the Quake 3 single player to me in one sentence.

simulated tournament against bots.

How is this different than what I quoted?

The primary reason Quake is no longer mainstream is the same reason Quake was overtaken by Counter-Strike all those years ago and the same reason many gamers won’t even consider touching a multiplayer game at all.

Quake is a high pressure game.

My irl friends never wanted to play HL or Q3 beacause it did not give them 'a fair shot’

We all know that Q3A, the game, gives you a fair shot but when you are inexperienced and ignorant about a game a great many people feel anxious about the thought of even trying to pick it up. Then the product itself required all sorts of ‘hidden’ settings to be on a level playing field (Quake Live is better to be fair).

Quake is by far the most exhausting game i've ever played, especially dulling.

Very few people want to be exhausted while playing a game for some casual fun. People look at Quake and they think “Wow, that looks intense I bet those guys are super talented!”

I can understand wanting to have fun while playing a game. Not everyone likes constantly feeling useless. The wall is very high to climb. At least in difficult single player games there is progression.

People consistently misread the issue as being one of skill and players wanting simplistic games whereas it’s mostly just other products and games making the steps to even start playing easier whereas Quake and deathmatch games in general have always put barriers in the way instead.

Such as free for all deathmatch or duel being the primary modes of play in the eyes of the designers, that third party modifications will add features the game blatantly needs or that anything remotely competitive needed to be hidden from sight.

If a Quake game is ever to capture the mainstream again it must breakdown these barriers and instead provide ways to ease peoples anxieties.

And team modes distribute that pressure, while duel increases it.

It's sad that after my column we came to a community consensus that duel was the issue and team mode focus was the solution. Yet still the tiny minority of loud mouth duel supporters keep pushing it as the answer. We have lived though the cancer of the duel era and watched our game die. Next they will be pushing for CPM movement too...

Community consensus lol. You're delusional

shitrepute gone done sodium overdosed

I don't think that was the consensus that was came to here, but I definitely think any 1v1-based game has an uphill battle to maintain a community. Be it Quake, Fighting games, or RTS like Starcraft etc. Even perfect matchmaking and 1:1 W/L ratios still have people ragequitting duels and feeling much higher amounts of pressure than your average team mode.

There isn't really a solution. It'll just have to be accepted that competitive games based around 1v1 are going to be super niche and super hardcore. I loved duel both playing and watching and I'd rather we just accepted that then try to pretend otherwise or try to replace it with TDM or something.

roflolcat :P

May I have some empirical data to support your claim about that community consensus please? :D

What's really sad is that, a Quake 5 Arena could actually be successful without "cutting out the heart" I think.

Quake has never really cared about any form of realism. So in a game like this, costmetic items, skins etc. make much more sense than in say CS. If this helps other games, it can work in Quake too.

The gameplay being hard to master is NOT a bad thing. It is THE best thing to make people keep playing. The real problem is: how do you make a Quake game that gets millions of players AT LAUNCH so that noobs can play with noobs and have fun? We werent strafe jumping in 99 people. We were running around like idiots. But it was ok, cause we still scores some frags by killing other bad players.

Quake 5 would have a shit ton of players on launch and if they make matchmaking, so noobs play noobs like you said, then it has great potential for success

Yep. Quake 5 Arena with Doom (2016) engine maybe. They have a progression / XP system in the game already. They just have to remove the loadout crap for Quake 5 and insert loot boxes ;)

I mean it boggles the mind really. id focused the new Doom on Single-Player but also release a progression system with all the things such a thing needs to keep noobs playing:

- XP levels check
- new skins / models check
- new taunts check

Why do that if you don't make a good MP game? Why? This stuff has zero effect on the SP.

So just make Quake 5 now I guess. Use the engine, optimize it for MP (netcode etc, if necessary I don't know), cut & paste the progression system + build on it a bit, screw loadouts, re-build Quake maps.

Be done in under a year, sell for $$$.

IMO q3 is a not a matter if, but when

5 you mean?

yes

Instead of following the trends of modern FPS of dumbing down gameplay and make it more simple

Is this what you wish to see for the next Quake?!

People like to shoot rockets and guns, so it's a matter of finding a way to keep people engaged. Then have duel as its competitive component on the side...profit?


For a new quake I think CTF, CA and TDM are terrible and add unnecessary complications for new people, at least for me they weren't things that drew me to quake :) team vs team games aren't a silver bullet argument for success imo.

Hope to see a quake 5 especially if its not like quake4.

Incorrect.

10/10 did not read.

http://imgur.com/5xjIv1u

ugh

There is room for duel to come back into focus with there already being plenty of team games on the market another one is not needed, CTF & TDM will have their place but duel needs to be the focus if it wants to be a lasting esport, While at the same time they need to focus on casual mode's since casual players are important to a games playbase but lets be real aside from CTF pickups the only thing thats left of Quake as of now is Duelers & CA stoners

"The more popular something is, the easier and more friendly it is to lower skilled players."

Nah, look at Dota 2. It is super complicated, inconvenient and noob unfriendly compared to LoL. Yet people still come and play it and aspire to be good at it because they feel the value of it all. LoL is your everyday pop culture shit, engineered to make you feel good even if you suck. Dota has actual depth because Valve understands sometimes some players just suck and deserve to feel bad for sucking. It makes the game feel fair and entertaining in the long run.

You can make a game where skill matters, there just has to be a lot of common sense and production value involved along with market for competing in that kind of skill.

Naw your wrong homie valve doesn't understand shit its only because they have the OG's from Dota working on it, look at CSGO they gave the game 5 pistols that 1tap and are accurate while running and jumping, removed wallbangs & crouchwalk spraying is a thing.

This is all nonsense. It's actually the exact opposite in many respects. What OP has said is like something some casual looking at things from the outside would come up with.

1) Increased popularity of the gaming industry -

What kind of a reason is this? This doesn't even deserve the dignity of being addressed.

2) Inept adaption by iD software:

Not at all. iD had no business trying to chase the tail of the current trends, they had every reason to believe that Quake 4 would be just as wildly successful as Quake 3. It's easy to look at something after the fact and suggest an alternative and pretend your way would work perfectly when it would be a disaster. .

The Quake series could have survived as a niche market if they had kept the FTP model and stuck with it. If anything it was listening to that sort of bullcrap (introducing stuff such as loadouts, all the new gametypes, nerfing weapons, randomly changing key elements of the game etc.) that was the final straw. iD should have seen that they were never going to corner the main market with the Quake series and not attempted to do so with games like Rage. They should have knuckled down and worked on getting Quake Live to work as it should have done - servers, elo ratings, anti-hacking... all the REAL stuff that makes or breaks the experience. But no, that was too boring to them, let's routinely change the rules.

What you want is to stick with what you know and do well. Not go changing to copy something else. Then over time the reputation would eventually grow and grow. You don't have to be #1 or #2 to survive. But what iD did instead was double down with their mistakes, refused to listen to the established players and instead were always focused on trying to break into the popular masses.

Instead of following the trends of modern FPS of dumbing down gameplay and make it more simple,

Tired of this argument. At its core, Quake gameplay is extremely simple. You have a couple of weapons and a couple of movements, a handful of items and the game is that simple. It's Quake's simplicity that gives it incredible depth. It's a simple game, just like most professional sports are. The only way you can say Quake is not simple is by the fact that at higher levels it can get very complicated, this does not make the game more complicated in general. Games with complicated contrived rules are usually inherently weak, so they have to distract the players or "fix" the gameplay with all the contrived extras.

When you consider what is an 'electronic sport' skill, Quake is a timeless skill that still hasn't been matched today in any popular modern FPS games. With a more regulated eSports body that is honest and operates on integrity and focuses purely on the most skillful forms of 'electronic' sports, Quake may have seen more success than it did for a longer period of time.

Regulated huh? What? "honest", huh? What the hell are you talking about? There was never any question of integrity or that the player with the best skill was winning quake tournaments. You appear to be talking about some other game entirely.

Food for thought:

id was really late into the social trends of the internet in general. IRC was a long time king, but QuakeLive introduction of built-in chat was a major step in the right direction.

1. Having no way to congregate though, was a major gap too. As the result, IRC's power was undermined enough to nearly kill it, other messaging services (facebook, skype, etc) replaced P2P messaging, but nothing replaced team, pug, and misc. group rooms. Having this from the start would be a major help toward building a better society in QL and social aspect is hugely important when we talk about keeping people engaged and simply around.

2. Another feature I keep contemplating about is Quakelive web clans (up to 10). Clan used to be a point of longing and pride. People (with exception of vakal) used to stay in one team for years and that IS very socially engaging, and it brings people back every day.
With introduction of QL clans, this culture got completely watered down. Clan started to mean nothing, so the dedication to the community was significantly undermined too. In this environment people care less to stay around for the team or to join a team.
That's what happened to me anyway. Since I saw that't everyone was doing wtf they wanted and all my teammates were in several different teams I had nothing to come back to.

What do you think?

i try to get son to paly quake live

my son says game sucks

i slapped him =]

he learnt now why quake failed

I remember the condescending answer of a good Romanian Quakeworld player after some finals in 2000-2001, whether he would move to quake3 -it seems he skipped q2. His name was Hunter. He answered: too much aim.

The biggest problem with Quakelive is that the game went even further down the path of constant solid aim. The idea was to make the game more brain oriented, with a lot of strategies involved. The result was a pussie version of a duel where if having the right skills (dodge, good knowledge of the map, positioning) you could actually play very passive, keeping your nerves, timing the items, and ultimately win with good constant aim. It's the reason cooller couldn't dominate the scene of Quakelive -although his performance was quite remarkable.

The biggest difference between Quake3 and Quakelive is that Quakelive has a bigger stack/damage difference. What this actually mean is that you have to show even more consistent aim -you have to keep your crosshair longer or to track onto your opponent during the entire match or event than in Quake 3. This is a simple mathematical fact: that in order to rip 200+200 health and armor off your enemy, you have to show greater aiming skills if you provide 35 damage/sec than if you provide 50 damage/sec., WHATEVER YOUR POSITION AND GENERAL STRATEGY. (Some would argue that positioning and strategy would automatically give you the aim advantage. I think that this is flawed, as there are exceptions where (mostly cooler won many matches with much lower aim stats), plus the fact that aimbotters like Sombra were able to have such big an impact with surprisingly results in competitions unless he got caught and on personal level I could say that if my aim is high than there is an increased chance that I would be able to put my opponent in difficult situations and develop various strategies for my game!)

This inability to finish off your opponent even in case that you made the greatest tactical move of all times in Quake, because he would be able to run backwards and actively pick up items again as you would continue dealing him damage is very bad for the suspense of the game and thus for the viewers, as bad for the unfortunate players who would still lose the opportunity to take full advantage of the frag.

So in order to be good at Quakelive as opposed to Quake 3 you need additional aim, remember, the time you would spend to track your opponent with your crosshair. This would prove devastating for beginner and intermediate players who could not raise their aiming skills to the level of good and very good players because constant decrease of even 10% of hitbox size would require exponential time for training in order to achieve decent aim. In the end, players ended up spending more time for their aim training, while the rest of games' aspects went down behind. Because this affair very good players and pros who both were heavy aimers thanks to their many years of experience, not being out aimed or on par with normal players, had the occasion to experience different strategies and positioning thus becoming better on these aspects, while the second wave of players, with the lower level, were still struggling to become better aimers. This thing alone severely widened the difference between competitive and casual players who could not compete with the pros training methods and barely stay close to training schedule (pros who would still train 6 or 8 hours a day). So in order to get to be as good as experienced players you would have to train non-stop, with maybe even small amounts of sleep, to be able to come closer (Burned is a good example here). The superhuman effort requiring medium players to fill the gap aim wise -would forever keep professional stage alone and isolated.
This doomed Quakelive at professional level.

Thanks to the different damage/stack ratio the game would also discourage aggressive playstyle (one of the main attributes of males) against a mathematical emotionless braindead style. I am not saying that strategy does not exist. It is just that if you are going to run on one of the marked attributes of male, like becoming nervous thanks to your higher level of testosterone, you would lose 80% of your matches. There is even a pro argument here, regarding the high skill scene: the fact that zanzan, apparently a female player or one who shows big feminine traits (patience and nerves of steel or lack of emotions), and who would never rush in the way av3k used to rush, is able to win quite impressively even over players like k1llsen, although his/her style of play could hardly call someone "impressive" especially compared to av3k or cypher's surprising acrobatics.

This also hurt the competitive scene, as although strategy remained, the passivity of Quakelive matches put down many outsiders (mostly males), and for good reason. People like to pretend that smartness actually matters, but if let alone the thing would become boring as fuck. This would extend to live itself. And the answer is right here: why the game died. The gameplay of Quakelive versus the gameplay of Quake 3 is like the feminine version of a duel against a masculine version.


Thanks to this constant unsurprising aim requirements caused by the damage/stack ratio, gameplay (not the game itself) became almost devoid of any violent trait, and thus it lost its interest or never appealed to the majority of people. The creators could not remove all the traits of the Quake universe at once, but they did it gradually, with a little step on every repetition, without even realizing, because this is the new cultural norm. Welcome to the cultural matriarchy of computer games!



How did bots used to reply, back in 1998 when this used to be a joke? "So what, two frags an hour?".Unbelievable as it may sound, thanks to the culture of the XXI century, who tend to artificially increase the intelligence of the players through so-called strategy disfavoring violence, like smartness would automatically remove violence (false, unrealistic and wrong on so many levels) the much awaited follower or the improved version of Quake 3 has become a joke.

>female player or one who shows big feminine traits (patience and nerves of steel or lack of emotions)

These are not female attributes.

This is the real reason why Quake died and it's insane to me that practically nobody else seems to get it.

I've posted about this before, but raising the aim floor by neutering rockets is boring for professionals AND casual players. No newbie is going to play a game where they have to practice for weeks just to get a single fucking kill. Machine gun as a starting weapon killed TDM too.

P.S. regarding Quake Champions

QC would have a chance to become big if it would not kitschfully add too many absurd and stupid elements together as Overwatch do, but would pick good elements from OW and Paladins (surprised no one would mention this game), like the idea that if you would pick up the right weapon at the right time from the right positioning, with proper aim you would be able to do the frag in 2 seconds.

If regular fighting 1v1 when on a corridor one member of a team would find another of the opposite team, would drag on for 10 seconds or more, with a disproportionate ratio of stack/damage with both players having to fully prove their potential to constant aimtrack during a big period of time, which is the big opposite of DOOM I and II great deathmatches, then QC game would also become a big failure.

I see the lack of tutorials and lack of community offerings such as community hubs, smart matchmaking, advanced server browser and lack of sponsor integration as the point QL 'did not become big' (it did not 'fail', what a stupid thing to say in a black-white worldview)

I think the think we should all be wondering about, how is an article that says "iD" featured and why does it have a >50[+] score?

quake failed for 1 reason, and 1 reason only.

Skillcap.

nobody likes to lose. people try it, get owned and never play it again. the strronk skillcap weeds out the noobs and the weak until only the concentrated few who are left are either better than you or a better troll than you.

everybody knows quake is a masterpiece, but only few have what it takes to become a master. Stop trying to come up with convoluted extravagant theories as to why.

Human Nature.

basketball killed quake, yall on some theoriez

oh come on cs killed quake 2 times over whats the discussion for . . .

I really hope they stop that picmip > 1 crap in future Quakes. That is one of the most noob unfriendly feature. Some has to distroy the game graphics to get even with the beter players, making it look really ugly. In Counter Strike this is considered cheating.

how is the picmip stuff relevant for casuals? What they could stop of course is showing picmiped streams. But as far as gameplay is concerned they wont even know it exists.

Boo fucking hoo. I can't see anything without picmip 5. It's taxing on both - the eyes and brains. Cheating...

When I think about quake and starcraft bw... games I love/loved so much in my life when I was young, I always remember twitts from Garry Kasparov from few years ago when he was in Korea

Here is a c/p of few interesting ones:

"Tough for chess to overtake League of Legends, the most popular game here, but I don't think they'll play that in 100 years. Chess, yes!

"People get bored with a computer game as soon as a new one comes out with slightly better graphics. Chess has captivated us for centuries.

As lazy as we like to pretend we are, our brains crave challenge & development all our lives. Chess feeds this need perfectly for all ages.

You can't change your hardware, that's your DNA. But you can definitely upgrade your mental software by questioning & learning every day.

I am in no way dismissive of e-sports or videogames. Many offer rich environments & strategic decision-making, not just cool pictures.

Point was that the strategic purity of chess (or go, etc) is timeless for a reason. No storyline to tire of, no expansion packs to buy!

Only the best books, movies, & songs age well & only classics last many generations. Videogames too, but much newer form so more change." -Garry Kasparov

I think the real problem is a lack of matchmaking and consistently pitting players against other players around the same skill level.

Well, my take on Quake! Here it goes...
Here were the milestones of Quake...

In terms of viewership, the game grabbed peoples' attention. However it was all at a time where things like twitch did not exist. You had to be a seriously lifeless human being, attached to the internet to ever hear about a 'Fatal1ty' or a 'ZeRo4'. I had heard of popular competitions for money before, but it never gained real publicity until Quake and Unreal were dropping in popularity. I think it was just bad timing, and the price that is paid for putting a game out that is WAY ahead of the curve. Even today, it is still WAY ahead of the curve. My thoughts? There WILL be another era of the finest game design. Quake is simply chess. Regarded by all as a great game, however the learning curve is simply too steep, and it intimidates new comers that aren't pure competitors by nature. Obviously not everyone on this planet is a chess player, and therefore not everyone is a Quake player either. It takes way too much time, dedication, and courage to challenge better players. Viewership ends at the starting line. Why? Because people realize they're stepping into the abyss the moment they play, and so they want something they can feel they are good at, and to be a part of (even at a competition).

Well, my take on Quake! Here it goes...
Here were the milestones of Quake...

In terms of viewership, the game grabbed peoples' attention. However it was all at a time where things like twitch did not exist. You had to be a seriously lifeless human being, attached to the internet to ever hear about a 'Fatal1ty' or a 'ZeRo4'. I had heard of popular competitions for money before, but it never gained real publicity until Quake and Unreal were dropping in popularity. I think it was just bad timing, and it is the price that is paid for putting a game out that is running circles around future concepts. The game is simply suppressed because companies know if Quake were to ever gain popularity, money in this esports venue would soar to it's death. Even today and for a while into the future, Quake is still WAY ahead of the curve. My thoughts? There WILL be another era of the super brilliant games, just wait and see. Quake is simply the first of many to come folks. Regarded by all as a great game, however the learning curve is simply too steep, and it intimidates new comers that aren't pure competitors by nature. Obviously not everyone on this planet is a chess player, and therefore not everyone is a Quake player either. It takes way too much time, dedication, and courage to challenge better players. Viewership ends at the starting line. Why? Because people realize they're stepping into the abyss the moment they play, and so they want something they can feel they are good at, and to be a part of (even when watching tournaments. The only real way for Quake to make a comeback is for there to be a huge swing in brain\skill oriented games in the future, and it is almost inevitable to happen. We're already seeing a rise in it, games like Dota for instance. Those are simply the beginning, and FPS will make a turn into that direction, but it takes TIME. We could all be in our 50's\60's before it happens. Some people immediately jumped onto the Quake train, most people didn't, and the reason is because most people aren't super IQ's and they're more likely to find newer and more popular titles a better time.