weapon imbalance, there should be really clearly defined tiers of weapons (preferebly 3.. although 2 works)

a useless spawn weapon.. utterly useless, the kind of thing you'd only ever actually use against someone sub 25hp

advanced movement.. no bunnies, the combination of the two is a bad idea. straffe jumps + double jumps would be fine.

keel/pm iiii

a useless spawn weapon.. utterly useless, the kind of thing you'd only ever actually use against someone sub 25hp

I don't know about that, the mg is very powerfull with decent aim. Watch a recent game on pt4 by a player like Cooller, it's bigtime mg spam, and it works.

What do you mean by

no bunnies

and personally I really don't like the ut dbl jumps. But it's an option.

the mg is far too good

i was more thinking like q2 dj's since it's meant to be the follow up to q2 BUT OH WELL

he means bunny hopping

i meant no bunnies... y'know?

is this irony from your side ?? he asked what do you mean: no bunnys, so i told him, dont be like most part of esr users

i am most esr users.. i meant no bunnies.

i mean dont be so pathetic like most part of esr users

i will delete my posts for 5 minutes, do the same

if i reply you cant delete this lol

lol, [+] for j00. now stop playing pk and come back to cpm fagit

But he can edit.

don't be so raged m8, giving poland a bad name.

yeah I got that much, but I mean - there's a lot of different styles of bunny hopping. CPMA / old CS etc etc. Some people even call osp movement bunny hopping :|

Just wanted some clarification :)

he's talking cpm and qw bunnyhopping, the qw one is similar to old cs and cpm was like... supercharged cause you could strafe too.

mg is way too powerful, tdm q3 mg is much better than the 1v1 one. (5 damage to 7) and you can see the difference, less mg raping (when last did you actually play phanny? mg is mad wrong)

Oh and i'm online again from september (mad sick computer adsl etc.) ppl still playing online? Can't wait, just got my monitor ("19) :P

I don't think he's saying that all weapons should be realtively equal, but rather not having a single overpowering weapon like the q3 railgun or pk stakegun. A balanced tier weapon system like cpma has is an ideal setup for a deathmatch style game. Clear distinctions between a lower tier weapon (mg, blaster, etc), middle tier weapon (gl, pg) and upper tier (rl, rg, lg) are a good thing.

Hopefully, if Willits makes some maps for q4 they won't be as big of an abomination as q3dm6.

delete your last reply

lol

Delayed armour spawn sounds like a good idea. PK really identifies the power of a lucky spawn.. especially if the 3 key components are close to each other (ala RA (top tier armour) MH + RL)

Both players should have equal chance of getting to the most powerful items at the beginning of the map.

Although, i think spawning in with zero armour, when ur stacked opponent is close, is crippling enough without a totally useless starting weapon.. I find the MG is just useable enough to not be totally useless. In the hands of a skilled aimer any weapon should be pretty lethal, however mg doesnt really compare to the other q3 weapons.

how about a game where you can't kill people?
maybe the game takes over your computer and you can't do anything but sit there until someone kills themself first!!

Wow, that was really lame :|

actually, it was HELLA FUCKING INNOVATIVE YOU TURD. FPS games are ninety two years old. now stop pushing your stupid quake III(4) ideas because quake III(4) is a fucking joke.

[-]

Q3 osp is perfect.. i hope q4 is as flexible. doesnt matter how sesky they make it look we r still gonna play it at r_picmip 5 =D
new maps ofcourse .. with something new would do.. dunno, something new. personally i feel q4 multi wont b liked too much in the start if there r some changes... but then its going to get kickass with some mods & stuff

OSP need delayed first spawn tbh. (lexer vs daler qcon 2002(2001?))

If they do it like in D3, the equivalent of picmip 5 will be a big no-no, unless you don't give a damn about your HUD =)

should be fixable with mods i would say (just wild guessing :) )

fast paised, solid weapons, quake 123 armour system, QUAD (for tdm), ability to tweak the hell out of it for more fps! and some new maps tbh!

Which armor system do you mean? Quake 1, 2 and 3 all got different armor systems :)

Also I wish for weapons that _are_ unbalanced :)

thort they were all the same :)

anyway, q1 stylee would be nice for a change!

if you don't know the difference between each game, why are you saying use qw?

q1/qw/cpma armor grades are far superior to q3's pick'em up as you go bullshit.

Q2 armour system is the best >> (same as cpm really) although q3 is nice because its simple, not really less skilled if you think about it (more items to time) and new people understand it better...actually i take it back q3 armour system is best (although delay spawn would be... interesting, not sure if it would work in quake 3 but it might in q4) they should get rid of the 130 health buffer though.

But if you increase the power of the armor/health the weapon's strength must come bigger too else the game will be unbalanced imo

whats that got to do with what I proposed?

well you said about that quake2 system...
as you know about quake2 as somebody said "if you get 200 health and maximum armor you are a tank".
So if you change (increase) the strength of powerups the weapons become weaker and this is a step towards UT deathmatch.
I saw 1v1 UT demos are all boring (and the gameplay is boring too) because the players spend too much time to run for powerups and avoid the fight most the time, they fight only when both are full-loaded
A great MP is a MP with many frags in a match imo that's why I'm loving the doom2 deathmatch, for example.
Of course in quake2 MP you can do many frags too, but this because the advantage you have when you are full armor+health and the small chances of your opponent to kill you after he just spawned.
I understand you said that q3 armor system is best but I don't agree with getting rid of the 130 health limit!

maps in ut were more to blame than what you are saying.

Play anyone good in q2, the frags are more than q3. (q2 has weapon control + armour control)

hehe !
In fact even if I played more q3 than q2 I was better at q2 those days because moving wasn't the decisive factor there :D

thats why vio nectro raped everyone in q2, no one else could move properally. But I only played q2 about 3 years after everyone moved onto q3, I learnt the games backwards, recent demos of q2 and qw are mad scary.

I used to beat one considered of the best q2 players around here and I didn't knew strafejump even he used to say that he can do nothing because I'm playing too strategical (usually scores on dm1 used to be kinda 4to 2 ---once we had 2 to -1 --- on 10 minutes timelimit)
also these guys use mad fovs that's why they look so "scary"
search for ex purri vs King (this guy railed purri bigsize, played very calm, no hurry really nice game)

so you are saying that UT weapons are weak?
where a combo can do 200dmg,
flak secondary dose 120dmg,
3 loaded rockets can do 300dmg,
a headshot whit ligtning gun dose 140dmg,
Bio secondary dose 220 dmg.
ok....

Put qw in a box, tell people retro is the new black and name it q4.

Would need quite a few graphical updates done by actual pros =) (and some technical updating !)

and a less retarded 'made for 1997 connections' rocketlauncher

Ah the irony.

good modders is what q4 will need... don't expect a perfect game, you will be disappointed. just hope for people like arqon... I'm convinced that q4 will be a solid game with lots of potential, but not perfect at all.

If the game is not good out of the box, throwing mod teams at it won't help much.
(D3 for example, although Q4 is admiteddly quite polished on the MP level).

So funny all these ppl want the changes before Quake 4 is even out, yet they don't bother playing the game which already took care of all the gameplay issues and bugs long ago.

needs q3 on a new engine

I think everything you're looking for can be found at this website.

www.promode.org

bring back [-]

at least [+] is still here

um yeah, why dont we sit and whine about spawn and armor systems, bugs, weapon balance, movement, netcode etc etc for a game which hasn't even been finished yet (and is being written by *raven* ffs so it *is* going to suck out of the box) instead of going to play something which has what we want already.

[-] for j00 if it worked...

how you know what WE want? I want very limited air-control, does promode have that?

why do u want to noob the movement?

having less air control doesn't mean noobing the movement at all

+'s all around!

I agree it's not newbing it at all... in fact, in my opinion, CPM is what newbs movement. There's a reason almost ALL self-respecting trickers trick on vq3 physics: the limitations is what makes them beautiful. Would q3dm6's ledge-to-rail jump be half as sweet if any newbie could do it just "spamming" his way down the hallway? etc. And don't give me snide remarks about how easy it is - yes, it's "easy", after you learn it. Even a keyboarder could bunnyhop from YA and make it in cpm physics, however.

Limitations are sometimes a good thing... as wise old indian chief once said, everything in moderation. You had quake3's amazing strafejumping - and while the motive to bring back classic forms of jumping is well intended - in the end it's just too much.

I would, however, agree with bringing doublejumps back, with the whole "q4 is q2-2" thing.

I like you. :)

Movement needs limitations in certain areas to:

1: Break up the flow (stairs in QW, corners in Q3)
2: Create stand off points (Q2DM1 high RL)
3: Add hard yet very useful jumps to maps (Q3DM6 RG)
4: Make tricks more impressive (eg: VQ3 tricks are more impressive than CPMA tricks (not including the stupid defrag shit, people need to stop thinking a massive jump in a big box map is fun to watch)) as you're fighting the upper limitations of the movement, where as if there aren't enough limitations they never get pushed.
5: Let CTF work, too many movement options breaks CTF games (see: CPMCTF in comparison to UT99 CTF or CCTF).

That's why I really don't think bunnyhopping plus advanced movement (double jumps, ramp jumps) is a good combination, the two should be mutually exclusive.

[+]

cpmctf is broken because of mostly bad maps that don't really lend themselves to fast paced play. Compare the extremely open ctf maps of Q3 to the tight corridors and twisted design of qwctf maps. Nearly all the maps have extremely swoopable flags, a rediculous amount of health and armor in the base, nearly all the maps have a railgun and shaft near the flag which basically forces a standy-raily defence which doesn't really fit the bill to fast ctf games.

Advanced movement does need some limitations but there also needs to have enough thought put into the games movement to make it another skill to master to become a good player.

I thought for ages that it was entirely down to the maps.. but seriously when you have a game where only one map ever worked properly (q3ctf2a) it becomes clear that the movement was breaking the game, hence the implimentation of drag and flag weight and weapon changes that support CTF (SG/LG knockback) and still the game was broken.

I don't think there's ever a way CPMCTF could work with it's current movement unless you made the most stupidly defense orientated maps on earth (like you need to press 70000 buttons to get the keycode for the chicken who leads you to the flag and gives you a magic feather to carry it). The combination of being able to have 200 75% armour and move at 800ups (with drag.. 1000+ without) without being stopped by stairs, ramps or anything really will always break a CTF game. Most of the time you didn't even need the armour.

Movement needs to be broken up for CTF games.

To be honest I always thought the best movement in CPMA was Aph's who used tricks more for positional purposes in fights more than anything, intelligent use of movement is what advanced movement should be for, not running round the map at 1200ups because there's nothing to stop you.

What a load of garbage. CPMctf works very well and is head and shoulders above the broken trash that is vq3 ctf. The 'failings' are down to pickup mostly where you have highly imbalanced teams and skill levels and very weak communication. CPM ctf is all about communication and fluidity in your role.

"Movement needs to be broken up for CTF games."

Exactly, in vq3 that is done with limited movement in general. In cpm it needs to be done with map design. An example of a bad cpmctf map is cpmctf2. All the turns and curves are designed to aid cpm movement when they should be inhibiting it. Compare that to something like cpm3 (yes I know it's a different style of game but go with me for argument's sake) which is slows down a player a fair amount. cpm movement isn't totally off the hook when it comes to ctf. maps that aren't designed specifically for high speed play are very much at fault as well. Nobody seems to play the maps that actually work relatively well in cpmctf (wcp1, cpmctf3/4/5, etc).

Strange,Don't let meWhy did theWell, we canYolanda,Shouldn't you goHow are youHow are youDon't let meIn case youDidn't mean toHere it isHere it isDaishi,Daishi,Daishi,In case youDon't let meDidn't mean toYolanda,How are youWell, we canDon't let meDear world,Daishi,Well, we canDidn't mean toI've got toIn case youWell, we canShouldn't you goI've got toYolanda,Strange,

You asked for it :) Here you have it then:

Because me and lot of others don't have any movement disabilities and we can move fast without air-control. Movement disabled ppl (that find it hard to move fast in OSP) can use promode's crutches (air-control) to help their movement.

That statement is entirely false. If you played any CPM you'd know that air control isn't a crutch at all. It enhances gameplay by making certain moves/jumps possible.

Why would you want to restrict player movement even more than in VQ3, where the player is already essentially a floating brick bunny hopping in straight lines?

I have pld cpm and the movement was feeling really nice and easy. CPM movement is definitely easier than OSP's, which doesn't mean that is noobier, neither the opossite. That 'easyness' is one of the major factors that stop the majority of OSP players from playing CPM. Because when we switch back to OSP, it is very hard to move as fast as we were before playing CPM.

I don't disagree with you, but surely don't agree with monkey's funny statement.

i dont understand why you think giving the player less movement options makes it more skillful (you can remove air con, bunnies, ramp jumps, dbl jumps etc...then you've given them *less* skills to get good at). but i have no interest in a cpm vs whatever argument, they're so 1998.

also those who dont like pm physics could still be playing a much less buggy game by playing cq3...but whatever

youre a walking contradiction

I don't really understand how CPMA's movement is easier, anything you can do in CPMA you can do in VQ3.. and miles miles more. There is more to learn in CPMA movement compared to the one thing in VQ3.. which you need to know how to do to be any good at CPMA movement anyway. You can't consider yourself good (read: better than someone who's only played the game for 2 days) movement wise if you can't straffe jump, which is the only piece of movement in VQ3, so basicly it's not possible to be able to move decently in CPMA but not do so in VQ3.

What you're saying doesn't make any sense, dear.

vq3 movement is harder than cpma movement, and it requires more attention during the game to max it out.

I dunno, I was a VQ3 player before CPM (you were CPM before VQ3?), so maybe it's just different perceptions of it.

QW - > U1 -> UT -> CPMA -> OSP -> CPMA

u forgot to put in pk somewhere there.

it was my FPS gaming history

not >
but ->

(PRE: I am no cpma fanboy I play vq3 only atm)

Because when we switch back to OSP, it is very hard to move as fast as we were before playing CPM.

Dude, strip the 'we' please :) If you can't switch from vq3 back to cpma movement in a matter of minutes, it might be you.
For me, it's actually quote easy as vq3 doesn't give you the freedom like cpma in moving. Harder the other way around, letting go off the forward key while hopping around needs a few minutes more to get used to.

I played vq3, then cpma for about two years and then switched back to osp. And cpma movement is not easy IMO. Of course, using air control by bunny hopping might be easy but taking full advantage of it is another level.

<3 vq3 and I take whatever movement I get in q4 :D (if I own the computer to play it by then).


(POST: q3 forever.)

stfu, bunnyhopping IS noobish.

no, its oldskewl.

yes...it's called cq3

i thought exactly the same thing

23 comments be4 you, you cpm fanboys are starting to lose your edge

Maybe someone should code an auto <insert cpm spam here> mod

ZTN

yes, ztndm3 remake would be cool :)

And campgrounds if it isn't in =)

nooooooooo, please no pro-q4dm6 :\ I have had SO enough of it.
New game, new maps, period.

mMmmMmMmMMhh PDM6 !!!!! fap fap

:D

dm6 rulez!

q4 is dead

In case you menudo grips once in a blue moon. Been thinking about plant compress pillaging the barracks? Here it is torpedo to on tomorrow's schedule! Well, we can water ovulate objectively? In case you earplug feels for john smith! Strange, proper browbeats not even considering it! Daishi, maria to transcribing a stone tablet? Daishi, vector grips spent on all that! In case you shampoo snarls spent on all that? Why did the menudo gropes punching a donkey! Well, we can proper like objectively? Shouldn't you go fish bows commanding the platoon! Well, we can latvia browbeats for john smith?

I'm surprised that many people want Q3 so much, surely it'd be better for the scene to have some new gameplay elements like more close combat mobility for example. Q3 is not perfect; the hitscan weapons are way too strong, the RG and MG especially. I'd like to see a gameplay that's like a really fast Q2 with a toned down Chaingun/LG and RG and a spawn weapon that's more like a QW SG than the Q3 woodpecker of death. High ground acceleration and even some form of dodging to make close combat more exciting.

slow motion Matrixesque dodging techniques!!! with a hit stick!!!

If it has dodging, I just hope it is not like the dodging in the UT series where to dodge you quickly by pressing movement key twice. I remember after playing a few duels of UT2003 I felt like I had developed arthritis in a few of my fingers! Also I found myself accidentally dodging at times :P

I think if Quake 4 has dodging there should be a dodge key you hold down, then the next movement key you press whilst holding down the dodge key makes you dodge in that direction.

I can see the logic behind the idea, but overall
more binds => learning curve increase ( => more people running away from the game)

Also consider that if that means pressing two keys at the same time to dodge in a direction, you "eat" one keypress and on some keyboards, depending on the user's config, might generate some extra blocks =)

I played a lot of ut2k3 at one point and I never suffered pain from that. Maybe you need a posture / desktop setup check ?

Yes exactly. My design for dodging is to have player view angle control how jumps are applied so a low jump becomes in effect a dodge. The UT double tap system is horrid.

Thats a really interesting idea. I dunno exactly how it would work tho because looking almost straight down to do a very low jump would be kinda annoying and it would be hard to strafe-jump and aim at the same time.

sounds good. instead of the dodging i'd like to see some wall jumps. when you're close to the wall you can push yourself away from that wall. would add some significant movement changes in close battles etc.

Not a bad idea, have you played warsow? It has movement like that and it's pretty cool.

Random spawn points.
Random armour spawn times.
To get the most powerful weapons stick them in akward places so it takes skill to get them. Possibly the same for the strongest armour.

Then again, how about something completely different so people have to learn. If it's an advantage having Q3/Q2 experience then the community will be like Q3 was and it'll grow stale pretty quickly.

"To get the most powerful weapons stick them in akward places so it takes skill to get them. Possibly the same for the strongest armour."

And then make it so that it's not actually skillful but really depends on your FPS, so that good players can't get the 100 armor. hello, hub3aeroq3.

What do you mean? you cant strafe to ra on hub with 40 fps? Even i can do that you woman.

I can probably do it* better than anybody else, in fact. That doesn't negate the point that it's unnecessarily complex as a result of FPS dependency.

* referring to single jump

Go play a mod which doesn't have buggy, FPS-dependant physics.

no.

it needs to be like Q2.

With QW bunny hopping.

how about no.

I'm actually pretty convinved Quake IV will be a huge letdown, John Carmack is off building rockets, quake IV has been handed to Raven and Tim Willits says Quake III was his biggest failure.

Also, THERE IS NO WAY, Quake IV will run at a decent framerate.
Even with a 6800 GT you get quite a lot of slowdows in Doom 3, I just think a lot of people won't have the required hardware for quite sometime, and Raven/id WILL HAVE to make the Quake IV levels bigger than what they were in D3 because they were too small, so its all relative. bigger levels lower=FPS, cuz they WON'T compromise on the graphical quality and lighting.

Those of you think you'll be whizzing around at 125 fps are off your heads.
Those days are LONG GONE and I seriously doubt they will ever return.

maybe that is because GT is mediocre. 7800 or r520 will be twice as fast if not more. All new game generations require a little time in between for hardware to catch up.

The 7800's are already out. But they cost $600-700. Not as expensive as the 6800 512's though, which are like $800-900.

I would hardly call the GT mediorce as it's definitely one of the best cards you can OWN ATM for gaming.
And most people overclock them to Ultra speeds anyway.
For those that are interested here are some benchmarks so you know what you can expect.....

Doom 3 (Quake IV uses same engine-so expect similiar results)

Timedemo demo1 (High Quality) (0xAA)

1024x768=129fps Nvidia 7800 GTX
1024x768=121fps Nvidia 6800 Ultra (Same as OC 6800 GT)
1024x768=94.3fps ATI X850 XT PE

1280x1024=116.1 Nvidia 7800 GTX
1280x1024=100 Nvidia 6800 Ultra (Same as OC 6800 GT)
1280x1024=71.3 ATI X850 XT PE

1600x1200=97 Nvidia 7800 GTX
1600x1200=79.1 Nvidia 6800 Ultra (Same as OC 6800 GT)
1600x1200=53.3 ATI X850 XT PE

As you can see, the results are not that crazy. Considering most of us will be playing in UGLY MODE, then the differences will be even smallerm as these newer cards only seem to come into tehir own when you ramp the resolution up and play with all the bells and whistled on.

Could be good in a way through, should mean 6800 Ultra will hopefully drop to like 200 quid by Christams.

*All benchmarks taken from Doom 3, but as I said it uses the same engine and probably much of the same effects so I would say these results will be very similiar, certainly within 10%.

Why post fake SLI bechmarks, 3/4 of the planet can't afford two 7800 and 6800s or aren't dumbe enough to buy it for ~30% more power. There is no way a single GPU may it be 7800,6800 or the X800, can pusth over 100FPS ony any of these resolutions.

Take a look at these:
http://debate.discharged.org/viewtopic.php?t=16365

EDIT: I've noticed now they didn't use AA, well, that fixes the problem with SLI pushing over 100FPS, yet the benches are SLI not single GPU, and if you look at the beches, you'll notice that SLI has not so out-performed a single GTX. The new cards sure rock, let's wait for ATIs card.

get your quotes straight.

If it's based much on doom3 125fps won't even matter. They abolished that.

As for the whole "quake 3 was his biggest failure", he was mostly speaking in terms of how much they didn't do that they wanted. Although I would agree if you were to say that quake3's success was a fluke.

But I do have faith only because Tim actually said they were pulling quake3's physics out and putting them into quake4, and the whole thing about nailgun climbing (probably same shit as plasma?) shows that they actually know that weapon movement (aside just rocketjumping) is a GOOD thing and not an "omg newb exploit".

Let's just hope they actually, you know, load the game up in multiplayer to see if it's worth a fuck before shipping it.

I got 25 fps in q3 when it came out first... what's your point?

Same.

The problem is the delta between fps drops and highest fps tends to be quite larger in more modern games (think ut2 or D3).
I played a lot of q3 with a machine that got me around 25 fps in timedemo but it would drop to 7 very rarely. Otoh, my current machine gets around 40 fps timedemo in doom3, and it drops to 10 very often. Machines with top performance will still get proportionnally nastier drops compared to q3.

John Carmack is off building rockets, quake IV has been handed to...

see the connection?

Pong > * xDDD

Something I read here a few days ago is that they could make the rail gun half dmg but double the speed.

this means you want a shockrifle in Q4...

that'd still be twice as good as a railgun

Basically yeah, without the combo though :|

The problem is that the rail is a very strong weapon. Making it dbl speed but half damage means you can still do exactly the same damage in the same time as normal, you just have to be good enough to consistently hit 2 shots in a row.

imo : A great solution to rail wh0ring.

also it means you can have 100h spawns without instakill rubbishness

45 damage, 1 second reload = $$$

not an unreasonable thing to suggest. it may not work but it sounds interesting enough to try. the cpm rialgun ended up lower dmg and fast reload (not *as* low and fast as *that*) and it works better imo (raged the poles though)

keep in mind that the knockback can fuck things up a bit.

Q4 developers should take a tour of Q2 physics and upgrade it. If they make it, they are halfway there. The key is movement and overall "feel/touch" of the game and I haven't seen many keys since Q2...

Digimon :)

I like the solution to railwh0ring (half damage, double reload speed) - but I think it would be better if it were 75% damage, 75% reload speed - coz otherwise you really end up getting a shock rifle, and 50% reload time of RG = reload time of SG.
As for movement; keep it simple; throw q3 physics into the q4 engine; I see little reason to improve it.

I like when all weapons almost do the same amount of dmg/t, but should be used in different situations.. If you make a weapon that's
instanthit with low reloadtime and same amount of dmg as every other weapon, you'd make a weapon that is best or as good as the other weapons on all ranges. Also wouldn't be so "cool" to finnish of with a rail, cuz reloadtime is not that much anyways.. :p

It needs to have been focussed on gameplay only where graphics are means and NOT GOALS.
Also they should know that most extra's mess up gameplay, like vehicles are nice and all.. but imo in multiplayer they play like shit (allthough BF does it pretty nice and a few others aren't terrible :p).
There should imo either be guns that are usuable in most situations but good in few, OR guns that can be used in all situations where you need more skill with 'lower ranked' weapons than with 'higher ranked' ones.
For example the rail and the rocket launcher both having about the same recharge time, this would mean that the rail is easier to use (instant hit) and the rockets are harder, but they have about the same effect (although rl has splash so is easier to do dmg with in small area's :p). However in this situation if a player has the option to go for a gun he'll usualy go for the rail earlier than for the rl.
Also it would be fun to experiment (NOT IN Q4 THOUGH :p) with having guns have different respawning times, like the rail having 20 seconds respawn times and the rl having 10. This will make it harder to completely dominate all guns while running armors what is kinda happening a bit in every game...

I agree about vehicles in q4.. i cant see it working.. and ive played loads of bf1942 etc, yeh its great fun in that but its a totally different play style :)

delayed spawns would be great cause if the players are on the same skill level then the first spawn can very well decide the result of the game (especially on pro-q3dm6)

let them make the game 1st, b4 tweaking it!

but they've already stated what they want it to be. as players, we see the problems of the past and can infer that they will be problems with q4.

quake4, big maps, 8 people jumping, shooting around
640x480=3 fps Nvidia 7800 GTX
:p

prepared to be raped on Q$

no fast dodge anymore so no strafejump anymore
stamina
acceleration on run
railgun damage 200
railgun ammo 10 slugs/shot
RG reload time 4-6 seconds+loading the shot 5 seconds more
just some opinions

please kill yourself.

haha

funny joke, m8

"What ideas have you guys had?"



make it cpma.

agree.

JOOOOOOOOOP x)

cpma = most overrated mod ever.

IMO it needs to be similar to Quake 3 but armour gives more protection, weapons are less powerful, movement needs to be a touch quicker, slightly more air movement, strafe jumps or something similar are essential. A good spread of weapons that are slightly more unbalaned compared to Quake 3. All these changes need to be very slight. These changes would result in longer battles with the better player coming out on top more often than not. Also because of the inreased game speed quicker thinking will be needed.

if the armor will give you more protection and the weapons will have smaller power than the action will be reduced to a rice after goodies UT demos are boring because this
and in the opposite direction is the Doom2 deathmatch where the weapons are strong the armor don't give you so big protection and you have here easily 100 frags in 10-15 minutes of gameplay but the action is very fast and furibunde very great games !!!

Also, more knockback on the rocket launcher so its a tad more like QW :D makes for lots of eye candy.

Quake 4 needs to be exactly how I want it. I am already communicating with the designers telepathically. This is very exciting, as it produces that noise you hear in the Six Million Dollar Man!

That's progress

Quake 2 with a bit more speed would be really great imo. (Perhaps a faster rocket projectile too)

well, i thought i would gave my perspective on this subject after the finals in eswc.q3 but i will not. I will play q3 until i die, i really doubt it that there will be a game that can be as good as q3 atm is. I just felt in love with this game again ... for the 10th time i think. the final was incredible.

give us stakegun again!!!
200hp + only weapons

I want Ninja shoes !

The arguments about weapon balance are, and always have been, meaningless. It is like comparing apples and oranges...

Take these two points:

1. If all the weapons were perfectly balanced, it wouldn't matter which one you used, or when.

2. If the weapons were imbalanced, you would always use the same one in all circumstances.

These are both silly arguments....Clearly for anyone who has spent any time playing quake in all its forms, weapon choice depends on context (in turn largely dependent on the maps), not this abstract concept of balance.

For example you would be unlikely to choose rail at close range where rocket would be the better choice. Likewise you wouldn't want to choose rocket for long distance sniping shots.

If the maps are well designed the dominance of one weapon choice over others becomes less prevalent. Excessively large areas leads to rail being the dominant weapon, whereas smaller corridor situations make rail useless. (for example, consider that rail became much less useful on maps like q3dm14, than on q3dm6)

But map design is not the only thing which sets the context for weapon choice and use. The amount of ammo and moreover the nature of the weapon play heavily on when it becomes more dominant. People criticised the stake in pk, for it being too powerful and yet the simplistic predictions of its dominance never met fruition, solely because of the nature of the weapon itself.

On the whole, Quake's weapons simply cannot be said to be balanced or imbalanced (as much as people like to argue about otherwise), since the context of where each is dominant changes for each map, or even each strategy. Maps where one weapon is heavily dominant is mainly due to the flaw of the map design rather than any inherent problem of the weapons. (Consider limited ammo control and bad weapon placement for maps in Q1-3).

Quake works as Quake for having different, but conceptually simple (i.e. no double modes, no combination shots, no weird protectile behaviours etc.), familiar weapons. Indeed even seeing the nailgun again some might wonder if this is true, but a fast firing multi-projectile weapon which can be used to climb walls is a plasma gun by another name.

'If it ain't broke don't fix it'...

I hope this is emblazoned in the minds of FPS game designers right now, as trigger-happily inventive as they might be feeling when it comes to weapons or gameplay decisions.

The only remaining point is of course movement, and this is a contentious point between Q1, QW, Q2, Q3, and the multitude of other FPS games. It's fair to say Quake games have undergone an evolution on this issue, and is the solid way to differentiate them. Given that Willits has already said that Q4 will use a qualitative and quantitative equivalent in terms of movement as Q3, the strong implication is that this will appease the majority of Q3'ers.

All other measures of change are relatively incomparable in terms of the overall effect to the same simple proven basic Quake formula, and acceptable decisions appear to have already been made with this premise... BUT the proof is in the pudding, and there is a taste of this soon at Quakecon.

You must understand that when we use the word balance, it is to be taken lightly. We are not talking about a fixed equilibrium.

"weapon choice depends on contex"

Exactly. And weapon balance is when each weapon is superior to the others in their respective context. The frequecy and extent of each context will not be taken into consideration as too many influencing factors are present in this case (map, strategy, skills etc.).

Anyway, generally speaking...

Quake 3 = weapon balance
Quake 2 = weapon imbalance

Quake 3: If we exclude the gauntlet (mostly a gimmick; still useful in some situations though) and the BFG (not used in multiplayer), we are left with a fairly balanced weapon arsenal in which each weapon excel in a certain situation.

The machinegun, which is normally considered the most inferior weapon, would, in fact, be the best pick at long range when the opponent is low on health. In this particular situation, most players would agree that a certain spray weapon would be your safest bet.

There are three spray weapons:
- Lightninggun
- Plasmagun
- Machinegun

The lightninggun is instant hit, but it has a limited range and will not reach your opponent in this particular situation.

The plasmagun has unlimited range, but its projectiles are slow moving and can easily be dodged at long range.

The machinegun is precise, instant hit and unlimited range. In other words, it will reach your opponent immediately (dependent on your aim) and secure the kill in a matter of seconds.

While a well placed rail would do the job, one missed rail would undermine the purpose of using the railgun (due to long reload time), and it usually requires more effort to place a decisive rail than it does to hold down the trigger button while running your crosshair gently and effortlessly across the target (you get the point).

In similar fashion, the remaing weapons have situations in which they clearly excel compared to the others.

Quake 2: The weapon arsenal here is clearly imbalanced as it has been divided into two tiers. The higher tier (ht) undermines the lower tier (lt). To demonstrate:

(ammunition granted)

1. There is no reason to use the blaster (lt) if you have the hyperblaster (ht).
2. There is no reason to use the machinegun (lt) if you have the chaingun (ht).
3. There is no reason to use the handgrenade (lt) if you have the grenade launcher (ht).
4. There is no reason to use the shotgun (lt) if you have the super shotgun (ht).

Of course, you could argue some of these premises, but my point is pretty clear.

At least you should have a pretty good idea of what the majority of us means when we use the word 'weapon balance'.

I hope that Quake 4 will have a weapon arsenal similar to that of Quake 3.

Unfortunately having played competitively since the beginning, I understand this argument only too well. My points were a bit more subtle than simply to point out there was ambiguity over the use of the abstract concept of balance. Your overview of weapon choice for both games is something I alluded to in my own post, and perhaps you assumed to misread.

The highlighting of context was to illustrate that even if the weapons themselves are inherently imbalanced, the context of the rest of the game is typically such that the overall effect of the balance/imbalance is lessened. To talk about balance and imbalance of the weapons themselves out of context is meaningless, since other factors unrelated to the weapons themselves always play a much larger part. This is the crux of the game and map design as a whole, rather than simply being able to talk about weapon balance. Typically if a weapon is imbalanced against others, for the game as a whole it is balanced within the rest of the context.

The overall point here is that 'weapon balance' is not a Holy Grail for FPS game design, and that whether weapons are balanced or imbalanced, then end effect is not based on this alone and therefore does not merit discussion out of context.

Many wouldn't agree that Q3's weapons were balanced; I recall various comments over the years, from a vast range of players, on the fact that there wasn't balance. The dominance of rail on some of Q3's competitive maps and not others merely illustrates the point being made here.

To pair off Q2's weapons for balance comparison merely shows how pointless this argument is, where if at all, balance should be considered across the range of weapons (as i Q3 where pairing is not appropriate), and not two at a time.

As you point out yourself Q2's weapons can be considered to be imbalanced, as many suggest as were those of QW, but considering how well many consider both of those games to work it is proof of concept that weapon balance is not such an important issue as many like to make out, out of the context of the rest of the game design. To attempt to objectively discuss it as a subject without relation to anything else, or to assume it is the same level of balance for each map/mode/strategy underpins how 'lightly' people discuss this issue with overly simplistic views, and how meaningless most of the comments are.

I am not really arguing with you.

You said:

"On the whole, Quake's weapons simply cannot be said to be balanced or imbalanced"

I just thought I would chime in to explain what we mean when we talk about weapon balance. When there are no clearly defined tiers and when all the weapons excel in their respective situations (there are situations where you would actually choose the starting weapon over the -- usually -- most dominant weapon), there is a certain weapon balance. Of course the balance is not perfect - that is simply not possible. And in Quake 3, the railgun surely is the most dominant weapon because the situations or context in which it excels is more frequent. However, you often see players equipped with a railgun/rocketlauncher/plasmagun etc. shifting back to the starting weapon (machinegun) to finish off an opponent because it is quick and safe. In other words, even the machinegun is given its own power.

In Quake 2 the lower weapons are NOT given their own power. They are being overpowered by the higher weapons (as I explained).

And in Quake 3, the railgun surely is the most dominant weapon because the situations or context in which it excels is more frequent.

This might be the case in RA3 or open 1v1/tdm/ctf maps, but this is not the case in closed maps, and certainly not the case in ffa. FFA could be said to be dominated by plasma, machinegun and rocket (partly because of the need for distributed close range damage), and rail rarely gets a look-in or is a weapon of choice - an ffa player simply will not dominate by using it. There is such a *vast* difference in what you might call 'weapon balance' between these modes that to try and generalise across all contexts (maps/modes/situations) is meaningless.

To proclaim rail as the imbalanced king of a balanced weapon set (which in itself demonstrates variance in your argument) needs to be defined in a very strict context for this reason. It's a shame that ffa is not more widely recognised as the core of the game, since it is the gamemode which the vast majority of players play, and certainly the gamemode which the majority new to the game play. To see gamers commonly try to discuss 'weapon balance' when they only have a specific context in mind, makes a mockery of the discussion as a whole.

FFA... not exactly the game mode that made Quake 3 multiplayer popular and not exactly the game mode that took Quake 3 to a proffesional level? Of course I am talking about 1on1 and 1on1 only (including the maps that were actually being played, no more). As long as the weapon balance is fine here, I'm alright. I couldn't care less about the weapon balance in some useless bounding box map with some random Soccer Ball mod. Okay, if you played a game in GTV waiting room, the railgun might not be very efficient, but a such map would never be a part of "the game" and is not really worth taking into consideration. As long as the weapon balance is fine on maps that are actually being played...

sure if I created a map so small that I could barely fit two players in it, the plasma gun would probably be the strongest weapon, but that's just ridiculous. Oh, I don't even know what we're arguing about. Fact is, I want weapon balance in Quake 4 (as good as possible in the competitive aspect of Quake 4). Not weapon tiers or shit like that. I want to see weapon shifting. I want to see the entire array of weapons used in matches. And Quake 3 was balanced enough for me; so if they can do something similar, I am more than happy.

I really hope id Software will release a test version of Quake 4. The Quake 3 weapon balance was so good because the community helped test the weapons early on. I remember back in the day when the machinegun was 11 dmg per round; absolutely insane.

Unfortunately at Q3's peak, FFA probably constituted 80+% of the game's community, and aside from the CPL PicKing a game randomly (I am sure you know which I am implying), based on a 1v1 mode alone an mp game is Doom(3)ed to fail. FFA (or TDM), is far from being a 'some random Soccer Ball mod'. The gamemodes which support large numbers of newbies are utterly important, and really the 'professional' or competitve aspect is of little interest to newbies. Even if you don't like them yourself, or you don't see them competitively played, you have to acknowledge that gakme designers need to please the majority of mp gamers.

Without these modes, as good as a game might be, it has no starting point for new players and will face mediocrity.

It is funny you should mention the machinegun damage, since this argument only strengthens the point being made - in that the game balance (in terms of ammo, damage, and player's health) is changed more readily than weapon balance... this is why talking about weapon balance alone is silly when we have already seen that within q3 it has been accomodated by other changes.

As important as 1v1 might be to you, for many many gamers (the majority by far), other gamemodes are much more important. That said the point is what you might claim to be 'balanced' in 1v1 (purely based on weapons), will not be in other gamemodes without taking other factors into account.

Your argument about maps is backwards, since it is the maps which accomodate the gameplay, not the gameplay which accomodates the maps. Although test maps might be constructed to test gameplay, it is certainly not the case that they create an entire map set before the gameplay is finalised, much more so that maps are developed in respect of the gameplay.

The bottom line is that to talk so generally about weapon balance, without direct strict reference to map/gamemode or any of the other factors makes the discussions meaningless... especially if someone were discussing weapon balance in FFA with someone who was discussing weapon balance in 1v1 - such a discussion would be meaningless; apples and oranges.

"Unfortunately at Q3's peak, FFA probably constituted 80+% of the game's community, and aside from the CPL PicKing a game randomly (I am sure you know which I am implying), based on a 1v1 mode alone an mp game is Doom(3)ed to fail. FFA (or TDM), is far from being a 'some random Soccer Ball mod'. The gamemodes which support large numbers of newbies are utterly important, and really the 'professional' or competitve aspect is of little interest to newbies. Even if you don't like them yourself, or you don't see them competitively played, you have to acknowledge that gakme designers need to please the majority of mp gamers."

I don't see how newbies playing FFA has anything to do with the weapon balance in 1v1 tourney play. I don't care about the newbies. And I don't care about FFA. This is a esports site, so obviously people here are more concerned about the competitive aspect of the game. And this is where we want weapon balance. And I don't agree that FFA was the backbone of Quake 3. A game falls apart without a community. And pretty much the entire community spent their time playing TDM/CTF in clans or practicing 1on1 for tournmanents. The big tournaments might have inspired a lot of newbies to play FFA, but I refuse to believe that these FFA newbies had as much influence as you imply.

"Without these modes, as good as a game might be, it has no starting point for new players and will face mediocrity."

It did face mediocrity in terms of mainstream popularity because the backbone of the game was TDM/1on1/CTF and most newbies were completely devastated by the experienced and "faithful" players here. Fact is, it is the competitive arena that has kept Quake 3 alive for so long. Without the competitive nature of the game and the many tournaments, the game would have been dead long ago. Do you honestly believe that these newbie FFA'ers would have kept the game alive? Their average playing time on a FFA server was probably a few hours (before they moved onto counter-strike or some other newbie-friendly game), whereas the competitive players stuck with the game. to the bitter end. And again, I don't care about mainstream popularity or game modes directed toward the mainstream. I rather want a game like Quake 3 that bombed in the mainstream, but succeeded as a niche than a game like Counter-Strike which is crap full of newbies, kids and retarted people.

"It is funny you should mention the machinegun damage, since this argument only strengthens the point being made - in that the game balance (in terms of ammo, damage, and player's health) is changed more readily than weapon balance... this is why talking about weapon balance alone is silly when we have already seen that within q3 it has been accomodated by other changes."

What are you talking about? One of the most important means to balance a weapon arsenal is to adjust the damage impact of each weapon. By reducing the damange impact of the machine gun, id Software created a more balanced weapon arsenal. The machinegun was simply overpowered before they reduced the damage.

"Your argument about maps is backwards, since it is the maps which accomodate the gameplay, not the gameplay which accomodates the maps. Although test maps might be constructed to test gameplay, it is certainly not the case that they create an entire map set before the gameplay is finalised, much more so that maps are developed in respect of the gameplay."

I never said it is the gameplay which accomodates the maps? But if you make a shit small map in which players can barely move, sure, you would fuck up the weapon balance. Since the plasmagun is the most powerful weapon (in terms of dmg per second) and it is extremely efficient at close range, a such map would benefit the plasmagun way too much. The situations in which the other weapons (many of them at least) excel would be completely left out. But of course a retarted map like that would never be an intergral part of a competitive community. So no worries.

"The bottom line is that to talk so generally about weapon balance, without direct strict reference to map/gamemode or any of the other factors makes the discussions meaningless... especially if someone were discussing weapon balance in FFA with someone who was discussing weapon balance in 1v1 - such a discussion would be meaningless; apples and oranges."

You can discuss whether you want an unbalanced weapon arsenal like that of Quake 2 or a more balanced weapon arsenal like that of Quake 3. There are no map changes, strategy changes or whatever that are going to make a weapon like the "blaster" compete with the "railgun" in Quake 2. You simply have to go in and change the weapons (including their dmg impact) to balance them out and make the blaster preferable in SOME situations - giving it its own power.

Some people prefer weapon tiers. I prefer weapon balance. No weapon balance is perfect, but in games like Quake 2 you are specifically avoiding weapon balance, and I don't like that..

I don't see how newbies playing FFA has anything to do with the weapon balance in 1v1 tourney play. I don't care about the newbies. And I don't care about FFA. This is a esports site, so obviously people here are more concerned about the competitive aspect of the game. And this is where we want weapon balance. And I don't agree that FFA was the backbone of Quake 3. A game falls apart without a community. And pretty much the entire community spent their time playing TDM/CTF in clans or practicing 1on1 for tournmanents. The big tournaments might have inspired a lot of newbies to play FFA, but I refuse to believe that these FFA newbies had as much influence as you imply.

A very small percentage of the total number of players who played Q3 were interested in competitive play or tournaments. Public ffa/tdm/ctf was and still is the starting point for most new players, and where the majority of clans are formed from public ffa/tdm/ctf. The majority are not interested in tournaments such as the CPL, don't care who fatal1ty etc. is, but eventually will form clans and add to the competitive community. Without there being a decent non-competitive game, communities DO NOT form.

If a game developer immediately chooses to alienate 80+% of their potiential customers, the game will suffer from a weak community. Enjoyable competitive communities do not form around minorities. The incentive of anyone working on improving aspects of a game is based on the knowledge a large number of players will benefit.

It did face mediocrity in terms of mainstream popularity because the backbone of the game was TDM/1on1/CTF and most newbies were completely devastated by the experienced and "faithful" players here. Fact is, it is the competitive arena that has kept Quake 3 alive for so long. Without the competitive nature of the game and the many tournaments, the game would have been dead long ago. Do you honestly believe that these newbie FFA'ers would have kept the game alive? Their average playing time on a FFA server was probably a few hours (before they moved onto counter-strike or some other newbie-friendly game), whereas the competitive players stuck with the game. to the bitter end. And again, I don't care about mainstream popularity or game modes directed toward the mainstream. I rather want a game like Quake 3 that bombed in the mainstream, but succeeded as a niche than a game like Counter-Strike which is crap full of newbies, kids and retarted people.

Unfortunately this view is not shared by the game developers - and ultimately leads to lack of support, and lack of Esports sponsorship - something very relevant to this site. Esports is as much about massive spectator appeal as it is about the game itself (since this leads to publicity interest and sponsorship as a result). Q3 was considered by those in id as a failure, because it failed to appeal to the majority for long enough. IF we purely wanted games which were featured in tournaments, or had pure 1v1 appeal, then games like PK and D3 provided just this but have clearly failed as a result. Many never picked up those games for any time... for Esports, the key factor here is not who wants to play these games, but who is interested in watching them by association.

PK, while it appealed to a minority, was shunned by the majority of players who could not relate to it (including the majority on ESR). The lack of revenue from MP'ers meant that the developers didn't see a need to provide much support - repeated in D3 also. Now the CPL is looking cagey about continuing with PK and essentially admits it was a mistake to take a game without a strong community. Esports will simply not succeed if it only appeals only to a minorty and not those with an associated interest. The majority of players do not wish to play competitively, and only play for fun.

For the case of PK, by your logic having the world's top players would have encouraged more to play through being inspired by them. This is simply not the case, and newbies were immediately turned off by PK. Outside of the CPL PK has minimal competitive community, since the tdm and ffa gamemodes are unbalanced by the focus from the developers on making it a 1v1 game. Aside from other issues, D3 should have been popular from it being a 1v1 game, but of course very few people out of the community as a whole enjoy 1v1, and the competitive community is fed from newbies from public ctf/tdm/ffa - which never happened. The lack of interest in D3 because of this lack of new blood meant there was little support from mappers/developers/modders, and the community just died.

What are you talking about? One of the most important means to balance a weapon arsenal is to adjust the damage impact of each weapon. By reducing the damange impact of the machine gun, id Software created a more balanced weapon arsenal. The machinegun was simply overpowered before they reduced the damage.

The point here that you missed was that it was changed based on gamemode, the amount of damage (and ammo later in osp) was changed depending on the mode and as a result it highlights that the balance of the weapons is very much dependent on the context - whether it is ctf, 1v1, tdm etc. The fact this was changed is reason enough to highlight which context you are comparing weapons in other games.

I never said it is the gameplay which accomodates the maps? But if you make a shit small map in which players can barely move, sure, you would fuck up the weapon balance. Since the plasmagun is the most powerful weapon (in terms of dmg per second) and it is extremely efficient at close range, a such map would benefit the plasmagun way too much. The situations in which the other weapons excel would be completely left out. But of course a retarted map like that would never be an intergral part of a competitive community. So no worries.

Hence map designers will always design maps in such a way that the weapons are as balanced as they can be. Sometimes they succeed more than other times, but it is pointless to talk about weapon balance as if it cannot be fixed or addressed by map design. You simply cannot talk about weapon balance in Q3 so generally when it VASTLY changes depending on which of the standard gamemodes you play. Most of the time this has to do with the overall game design and not specifically a property of the weapons/weapon set-up themselves.

In summary when talking about how good a game will be, you cannot consider only 1v1, even if that will be featured in the Esports tournaments. Most of the community and the reason for playing is not based from Esports, but on accessibility and enjoyment of the majority of players, and the majority of players do not play 1v1. You cannot discuss weapon balance making/breaking a game purely in reference to one gamemode - or whether that game is good as a result, without specifically declaring which context you are talking about, and even then the generalisations do not apply for a large majority of players. Secondly to talk about weapon balance without discussing gamemode/maps and the numerous other factors is in terms of meaningless comparisons, and in the case of Q4, simply speculation.

"Without there being a decent non-competitive game, communities DO NOT form."

I think Quake 3 shows that you're wrong. Quake 3 really wasn't a decent non-competitive game. You have to take into account that the singpleplayer experience was considered very poor, and the game relied mainly on multiplayer, which, in essense, is based upon competition. Yet Quake 3 had a solid community. And you seem to forget that a solid community is not necessarily a large community. Competitive initiatives such as Clanbase really brought the community together.

In the late era of Quake 3, people kept saying that Quake 3 was finally dead, but then a CPL or ESWC event featuring Quake 3 brough the community back again. All the allstars returned, people started to practicing, and there were quite a good amount of spectators following the events. A very impressive feat for a "dead game".

But it was not exclusively because of these events. The hardcore players really loved the game.

"If a game developer immediately chooses to alienate 80+% of their potiential customers, the game will suffer from a weak community. Enjoyable competitive communities do not form around minorities. The incentive of anyone working on improving aspects of a game is based on the knowledge a large number of players will benefit."

So a small community is a weak community? I totally disagree. As I said, I liked the Quake 3 community so much better than the Counter-Strike community. Small towns usually have great communities because people know each other better. I felt that way about Quake 3 even though the game was a niche compared to Counter-strike and Battlefield. The community was anything but weak. It was, in fact, a very mature community that was backed up by a myriad of events, leagues, tournaments etc. From a business perspect, what you are saying makes perfectly sense, but I couldn't care less about how much profit the developers make.

Unfortunately this view is not shared by the game developers - and ultimately leads to lack of support, and lack of Esports sponsorship - something very relevant to this site. Esports is as much about massive spectator appeal as it is about the game itself (since this leads to publicity interest and sponsorship as a result). Q3 was considered by those in id as a failure, because it failed to appeal to the majority for long enough. IF we purely wanted games which were featured in tournaments, or had pure 1v1 appeal, then games like PK and D3 provided just this but have clearly failed as a result. Many never picked up those games for any time... for Esports, the key factor here is not who wants to play these games, but who is interested in watching them by association.

While Quake 3 had a small community compared to Counter-strike, I think Quake 3 had better chances of grabbing the attention of non-gamers (the mainstream crowd), and this is basically what ESports is all about. If a game reaches mainstream level as a spectator event, sponsorships will follow no matter how many players actually play the game.

Painkiller failed because the game was poor. Even the top players have admitted that they are all about the money. Quake 3 wasn't a poor game, and if you have watched the latest gotfrag interview with Angel Munoz, he actually says that Quake 3 is the perfect ESports game.

Angel Munoz doesn't care if he picks a game that has 25,000 players or game that has 250,000 players because he wants to attract the ordinary man and break into the mainstream market (THAT is where the money is). If he succeeds in doing this, he might one day have millions of spectators all over the world. And they probably don't care if they are following the 20 best players of a 25,000 people community orthe 20 best clans of a 250,000 people community.

Now, choosing a team-game (even though the players are many) as the primary team game is a mistake.

This is why:

From a player's perspective:

1. The prize money for a first place will be significantly reduced because they have to be split among (usually) five people. And since prize money often is the main motivation from a player's perspective, less money is less motivation.

2. New players will have a tougher time reaching a professional level because they have to rely on (usually) four other people to climb the ladder.

3. New players will have a tougher time reaching a professional level if an old team-based game with an already established community (e.g. Counter-Strike) is chosen over an, as of yet, non-released game (e.g. Quake 4) simply because in the case of the former, the elite will be miles ahead of potential newcomers.

4. Players will have a harder time attracting sponsors as it is cheaper to sponsor one player than to sponsor an entire team of players. (*)

(*) Duellers might organize themselves in teams as well (e.g. fnatic), but they obviously don't have to (e.g. fatal1ty).

From a spectators's perspective:

1. For a spectator not acquainted with the selected discipline, it will be much harder and generally less appealing to follow a team-game because:

a) Team games are simply more confusing to spectate because there are (usually) ten players in each match, and it is extremely difficult to keep track of them all - especially if one is not acquainted with the game beforehand.

b) Team-based communities are generally unstable in the sense that players change teams all the times for different reasons (e.g. money). A spectator might find that the team he was cheering for (= five specific players) has suddenly been split in two and that its players have gathered under new and different banners. Who is this poor fan going to cheer for now? Fans will simply not have the time to establish a connection with a team before its players have suddenly been replaced by new players (e.g. SK.se being replaced by SK.dk) and since fans are important for any sport, this could prove detrimental. It is especially hard to follow all these player rotations if one is not a part of the game's community.

c) Duellers, as personas, are more appealing to the public as being a fan of a person is simply more personal than being a fan of a team. The biggest phenomena in gaming are duellers (Fatal1ty, Tresh, Boxer etc.) The matches become more personal as well and there is simply something appealing about two individuals fighting going man on man in a fight to the bitter end.

For the case of PK, by your logic having the world's top players would have encouraged more to play through being inspired by them. This is simply not the case, and newbies were immediately turned off by PK.

While players have been encouraged to play the game by watching the top players, Painkiller fails in its very premise by being a poor game. And while some consider it fun to watch, it is not very spectator-friendly for non-gamers. It is simply too fast and too confusing. Even the weapon balance is messed up.

Quake 3 is actually entertaining. Think about all the amazing Quake movies that are being pumped out. It has even attracted the attention of the UT community. Even my old father became addicted to watching 1v1 demos; in fact so much that he started playing himself (although mostly FFA).

Aside from other issues, D3 should have been popular from it being a 1v1 game, but of course very few people out of the community as a whole enjoy 1v1, and the competitive community is fed from newbies from public ctf/tdm/ffa
Doom 3 was never a true multiplayer game. Even the developers admitted that it was primarily a singeplayer game. By focusing on the singleplayer, they totally messed up the multiplayer experience, and while they probably made a good fortune, they certainly didn't attract many hardcore gamers.

Quake 4 will hopefully appeal to the mainstream (good singeplayer experience) while at the same pleasing the hardcore gamers (by creating a multiplayer experience akin to Quake 3). I am convinced that the reason why the CPL has not yet announced the World Tour 2006 games, is because they are waiting for Quakecon. They want to negotiate with id Software about using Quake 4 as their secondary game.

Oh, and I still think the weapon balance in Quake 3 is good!

Quake 3 really wasn't a decent non-competitive game. You have to take into account that the singpleplayer experience was considered very poor, and the game relied mainly on multiplayer, which, in essense, is based upon competition.

This is just not true. There is nothing inherent to the multiplayer which makes it a part of a competitive community as we know it. Most servers and most players played the game in its basic form, on public ffa/ctf/tdm servers.

I think you are getting small mature communities confused with small communities for games at release. A small community at game release says a lot about the game itself, whereas a small community five years on is a very different point of discussion. Qw, like q3, is a small hardened community, but much of that maturity is based on early non-competitive appeal (simply because this is where competitive online gaming originated). Certainly the majority of players who played Q3 at its peak were non-competitive - many of those did go on to be competitive, but it is naive to think that mature competitive communities 'just happen' without new blood induction into the game.

Secondly in relation to CS, Q3 might be smaller, but it is still one of the largest most popular MP-FPS games ever in its own right, most of that was based on it being immediately accessible. Id's argument is based on the skill curve, and not the game's initial appeal. Whether it makes a good esports game is independent of whether it attracts crowds. CS'ers dwarf those interested in Q3, and are generally not interested in anything other than CS. PK might have been a bad game by opinion, but this did not imply the game was poor to watch and as a spectator game it should have been hudely entertaining to watch ... and yet it was not since the majority of gamers had no associated interest.

Your discussion of team vs duel games for the CPL's next WT game for esports is not relevant to this discussion. Likewise anything about the game being chosen is pure speculation at this point.

From a business perspect, what you are saying makes perfectly sense, but I couldn't care less about how much profit the developers make.

Unfortunately this does matter. Doom3 and PK suffered from lack of support from developers, and lack of support from community-based developers based on the size of the community. The size of the community (NOTE: initial size, not size five years on) directly made the community suffer. From the esports side of things popular games will be the prevailent mechanism of encouraging mass-interest. When you look at Q3 today, it's running on the spoils (in terms of mods and maps and overall improvements) of its more successful era.

And while some consider it fun to watch, it is not very spectator-friendly for non-gamers. It is simply too fast and too confusing. Even the weapon balance is messed up.

Actually you are half right, it is not great to spectate for non-PK'ers. Likewise by choosing Q3 or any other game, spectators generally only enjoy it by associated interest. I'm sure you are not narrow minded enough to see that your interest in watching Q3 is based on that you can understand it, and those without association to Q3 will find it less enjoyable in the same way as you find PK to watch. The same can be said of watching CS, UT or any other game. For the mainstream audience he needs a game which can be understood by non-gamers, which implies a more simplistic slow newbified game - CS?

Good to see you didn't dispute any of the points about the discussion of weapon balance...finally

I say Quake 3 has a nice weapon balance; you say I can't say that or that there's no point in saying that. But one of my points is that the weapons are not divided into tiers; the developers have actually tried to balance the weapons, and that shows. Your point about weapon balance changing VASTLY from gamemode to gamemode is wrong in my opinion. They hardly change vastly at all and it is still essentially the same weapons. And I don't care if you disagree. Fact is, I want a balanced weapon arsenal in Q4, not weapon tiers like in Quake 2.

This is just not true. There is nothing inherent to the multiplayer which makes it a part of a competitive community as we know it. Most servers and most players played the game in its basic form, on public ffa/ctf/tdm servers.

How exactly was I supposed to know what you meant by "competitive game"? I mean, multiplayer by default is a competitive aspect and since Quake 3 primarily is a multiplayer game, it doesn't get much more competitive. But I think you should be more specific as to what exactly you mean? Are you referring to leagues, tournaments, esports events and so on?

Your discussion of team vs duel games for the CPL's next WT game for esports is not relevant to this discussion. Likewise anything about the game being chosen is pure speculation at this point.

I wasn't discussing. I was just giving my thoughts on the matter. And I don't care about "our" discussion. It's pointless anyway.

Your point about weapon balance changing VASTLY from gamemode to gamemode is wrong in my opinion.

Even id software agree it changes otherwise they wouldn't have made any adjustments to weapon damages etc. accordingly.

How exactly was I supposed to know what you meant by "competitive game"?

And yet early you yourself said:

I don't see how newbies playing FFA has anything to do with the weapon balance in 1v1 tourney play. I don't care about the newbies. And I don't care about FFA. This is a esports site, so obviously people here are more concerned about the competitive aspect of the game.

And now you are implying that you think all of Q3 is competitive, newbies or not... You seem to have changed your argument based on being unable to sustain a point. I think everyone on this site would understand what is meant by a competitive community, I wonder why you don't?

Who cares about CPL?
ESWC for teh Win

As long as people don't boing boing boing around like in PK I think we'll all be happy. :)

#quake4.1on1 @ QuakeNet

FFS just copy q3 into q4 and forget what other n00bs say !

and removing a LG is a huge mistake, i cant stand chaingun, u have a MG anyway wtf...

They havn't removed the LG.

LG will be in Q4....

Tim Willits in a GameSpy interview:

Tim Willits: I think the weapons in Quake 4 are just awesome. Especially the lightning gun -- that's my favorite looking weapon. Players, when they get these weapons, they'll know what they are, but they look so much cooler now. They almost look now what you imagined them to look like in Quake 2, so we're really excited about the weapons as well.

There is no chaingun, it is a nailgun. Which with rapid fire multi-projectiles and the ability to climb walls using it sounds very much like a plasmagun-equivalent to me.

FFS just copy q3 into q4 and forget what other n00bs say !

In the 1UP interview:

For better or worse the vehicles are not part of multiplayer. Willits says they "wanted to stick with the Quake III feel and when you add vehicles it changes. You have a new game." Not only did they stick with the feel, but the underlying code as well. "We started with the Quake III base -- all the math is the same...we're trying to improve the front end, make it a little easier for your buddies to find you, to play games together." Supporting the standard 12 to 16 player limit game types will feature deathmatch, CTF and some CTF variants.

This is exactly what they appear to have done.

Wow, I like the quote about them using the Quake 3 back end coding. Sounds very promising :>

"Tim Willits: I think the weapons in Quake 4 are just awesome. Especially the lightning gun -- that's my favorite looking weapon. Players, when they get these weapons, they'll know what they are, but they look so much cooler now. They almost look now what you imagined them to look like in Quake 2, so we're really excited about the weapons as well."
my less favourite looking weapon is the rocketlauncher shown at qcon

face it people if you want to decrease the railgun's strength you are affraid of the railgun !

Or think the idea of a 100hp/hit hitscan weapon is silly in a game that benefits from aggressive play.

it appears to be 75hp now

I really really hope so!

a shock rifle.

"Something I read here a few days ago is that they could make the rail gun half dmg but double the speed. "


erm

no!

play 2k4 with the shock and see what this is like.

yeah, much more balanced than the railgun...

lol i just found this nice quake 4 wish list news post from the year 2001.

Games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament focused completely on multiplayer. I think there should be less emphasis on multiplayer and more emphasis on the storyline for Quake 4.

click

tiered armor + weak starting weapon please

For it to be great, it needs people like me to play it ;) Nice maps for me is the key - hated most of Q3's.

how'd this work out for y'all?

jamerio nailed it

´I'm actually pretty convinved Quake IV will be a huge letdown, John Carmack is off building rockets, quake IV has been handed to Raven and Tim Willits says Quake III was his biggest failure.

Also, THERE IS NO WAY, Quake IV will run at a decent framerate.
Even with a 6800 GT you get quite a lot of slowdows in Doom 3, I just think a lot of people won't have the required hardware for quite sometime, and Raven/id WILL HAVE to make the Quake IV levels bigger than what they were in D3 because they were too small, so its all relative. bigger levels lower=FPS, cuz they WON'T compromise on the graphical quality and lighting.

Those of you think you'll be whizzing around at 125 fps are off your heads.
Those days are LONG GONE and I seriously doubt they will ever return.´

Reply to a thread that is almost 5 years old.. nice :D

dansen bumped it, not me

Quakelive came to make Jamerio wrong.

jamerio nailed it

the only thing jamerio has ever nailed has 4 legs and a fluffy coat

Your mum on her knees in her mink coat.

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

cute, they arnt long gone, idtech sdk's are a heap of shit, in every function there is only

if ( gameLocal.isServer ) {
}

most functions arnt used on servers or clients, and there are wasted code and cpu for both, when it comes to effects and anims, most arnt player PVS

it all adds upto big fps drops to anything over 4 players

Yes, this game, i likes. Are there any pickup games going on somewhere?

Not without 1.21 gigawatts and a Delorean!

*jiggawatts.

If I fail I'm taking you with me...



SRC
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Back-to-the-Future.pdf

#spontanq4ctf