hehe, hard to listen, dude never shuts up for a millisecond... you can paraphrase his multi jillion word synpasis of quake being popular again with one word. He thinks its an "inferior" game and he's wrong. Of course, adding unlocks, a skin cash shop, unlockables aint going to make it a success. The game is built around its community and its not casual. You develop a clan system so people can unite, practice and play. you develop a stat system where people can see where they stand. You make winning meaningful by letting stats be shown to others... You create a server system where communities can flourish, and you let time take over... Forcing the issue, succumbing to other games stupid because they make money on casuals altering your product, might get your ROI quick, but your longevity and your brand is sacrificed...
I think the game can be fun and competitive big time, but i dont think stealing bits and pieces from other games to patch it together is the answer (stealth trick from DOOM etc, is going to take your game to the next level..
Step back, create the interface, create the framework, make the game defined as is.. then let the players take over.... Otherwise your just another cash crab sealing the fate of the true competitive gamer, who are on their last legs that anything meaningful will ever return due to greedy capitilism
I rather like this premise. Seems like Quake as a title and legacy endured a complete lack of any relevant modern features other eSport titles had but always remained competitive. More over it is considered as a title where there is no bull-crap but pure skill.
There are a couple of issues with the complete story here. You cannot implement features in current failing game such as QL. You'd need to reboot it and setup as different beast. You also have to add something "new" so you don't get called out for having the same game/games that flopped on a global level just resurrected as copy/paste money scheme.
I think somehow on core level your idea rings true. They game and community around it endured lack of most tools and opportunities other communities had, lacked the investment other communities received and yet held up. I just might have happened that with elements you mentioned if implemented and supported properly would yield good results.
QC might be similar but different beast and I'm glad for it. It also might yield the same results and that is fine too.
I understand his point but I don't think it's actually true... people aren't "all hardcore" or "all casual" to this extent.
As a matter of fact, if we look at some of the recent multiplayer games that had a big popularity, a lot of them play in that "middle ground", having both some casual appeal and some space for skill (Overwatch, Rocket League, and I guess even the older ones (Dota 2, Hearthstone, or even CS:GO)).
If Quake Champions had gone "all pure skill" or "all completely casual", I'm pretty sure that it would have done considerably worse than being in the middle ground.
He might be right that people that don't like fast arena FPS won't make a 180° turn just because there are a few abilities, and I don't expect Quake Champions to be "super popular" on the same level as the other mastodons, but I hope it will do well enough to last for a few years in online play, and hopefully also have some big tournaments, at least in the beginning, it's been too long since we had more than 1 big tournament a year for quake.
he fails more often than a drunken duck even in predicting and analysing csgo matches.
so how should this unfaithful heathen know about how big qc will be?!
zero clue, he has zero clue my friends. XD
maybe it's his wish cause he fears a real competitor to his beloved counter strike, but that doesn't mean reality.
QC will be awesome and everything we needed to bring arena combat back under the right nameful big brand and mark with the opportunities to do so. that's what i am saying.
I think one thing to consider about Thorin is that, while he's always had strong opinions, his role in the scene has changed a lot since his days as an editor.
Instead of representing a media outlet, he's his own personal brand, and much of his brand is playing a heel role. The combo of these things naturally lends themselves to be heavily skewed and often lagging behind what constitutes an informed opinion.
His points aren't invalid, and they make sense. I don't even think they're entirely outdated, but look at how much the tide has shifted on ESR in days:
A week ago, the vocal consensus was a highly cynical view on QC borne out of years of entropy and disappointment -- a few days later, a few stray molecules of hype blanketed with a lot of skepticism and caution -- to a general very positive and optimistic vibe mainly generated from half an hour of compiled phone cam footage.
There's is plenty chance that QC fizzles out into more broken dreams, but the evidence is mounting that the game is both going to be good and/or have a run as a viable esports title. In a case like this, maybe you dislike Thorin or disagree, but given his attention is stretched thin across the global esports scene, we can't expect his opinion to be highly informed at the moment.
Another example is even gauging what guys like DaHanG and Rapha have said on stream about it recently -- there's still many with a highly vested interest who only keep QC's development in the periphery until there is actually a game for them to play.
Thorin's 'why Quake can't be #1' thoughts make more sense than this clip.
There's enough market demand from gamers and competitors for something that at least has heavy AFPS elements. I agree that market demand likely doesn't equal the top game or 2, but the market is there for something that's still big + long-term.
Fundamentally there are different approaches to appeal to both casual and hardcore players. We know some things worked in the past that don't anymore, some things that work today, and different things will work in the future.
That's simply the market.
Bear-ish looks at id of the past that usually just made shit because of some cool technology they (Carmack) were working on -- subsequently expecting a game designed and marketed to nobody.
Bull-ish looks at id post ZeniMax and assumes that they have better focus on the balancing act of distilling the fun aspects of their legendary franchises with marketing a game that turns a profit and then some.
What do you think Rapha would say?
He's a company man, his future earnings depend on this game in particular since his OW career kinda flopped, so he'll say the same Politically Correct stuff that he said about Overwatch and Shootmania: "Interesting, original, funny, looking forward to play in it"
You can't expect honest opinions from people who aren't financially set for life, it's understandable. I'd do the same.
But Rapha is a stoic, pristine, old school player, so you can imagine him throwing up in his mouth a little with any new gay ability, character or game detail released.
I am also afraid, it wont be like quake anymore, all these special abilities might negate true skillz ... and it might make quake a casual game, where it wont stand a chance against CS:GO and Overwatch
Thorin knows what he's talking about most of the time. The problem here is that id is not a part of the esports scene since god knows when, and bethesda and esports have nothing in common. Timing is terrible, overwatch has like 30 million players with asia going crazy over it and ow league starting this year (so they say) and cs is more competitive than ever. It's gonna be a nostalgia act but it's hardly gonna find its place in esports. And if there's not a couple of million people playing it at any given moment, there's no future for it moneywise. Valve has money, blizzard has money. Esports-wise, id is like a guy waking up from a 15-year coma thinking he still knows what's up. The target audience is questionable at best.
Even if QC won't have a duel/fair mode included (which would take like 2 days to make for an intern) it still won't be as braindead as OW.
Just look at the footage of their tournament games. It's one of the derpest FPS games ever and the people who play/stream it are mostly pseudo-nerds with 1950's glasses, beards and sleeve tattoos. It's pretty much all click-bait, and it works because people don't care and/or are gullible. They record their video's in front of a huge collection of never opened XBOX/PS4 games, gaming/comic action figures to feign credibility the same way that Ayatollah's or even Netanyahu film their speeches in front of shelves of books and encyclopedia's to feign intellect. The whole thing is a scam, it's the only way they could make these losers earn money, and people are buying into it so they'll just keep doing it while gaming slowly goes down the drain.
Quake 3 came out in 1999, most people who even had internet had 200MHz computers with 256KB/s ISDN at best. Now we've got 4+ GHz monsters with 16GB RAM standards and we're supposed to believe that Overwatch/COD/Paladins or all the other garbage out there is the most they can squeeze out of it?
Money has fucked up everything. There is more money, more interest and more demand for gaming than ever, yet games keep getting dumber. It can't be fixed anymore unless more of you seriously start learning how to do brute coding (not casual CryEngine modding). Until then every novel concept will be wasted on you because you'll turn it into garbage anyway. And guess what happens then? Companies like Blizzard will run with it instead and they'll make financial analyses beforehand that will rule out the possibility of anything difficult or just too out there. Morhaime didn't end up with $3B on his Steam account for nothing.
P.S. Making a Quake (it's "a" Quake now, it's become a genre, like aroguliekierogeulkieklikelike or a Hemorrhoidvania) with balls instead of characters is not the solution either, sorry English guy but the whole point of using BALLS as characters was that it could deliver a new movement system that didn't look as derpy as strafejumping, because balls don't strafejump; they FUCKING ROLL.
Oh yea 5 whole people disagreed. Must be that literally everyone nowadays gets triggered by an ounce of skepticism. #2017 #EverythingIsDrama #ICantEven