Posted by qmau @ 10:59 CDT, 16 October 2017 - iMsg
two weeks ago i started some jiu jitsu classes. this area isn't much for combat sports. there are a few MMA-type gyms here and there, but the culture and population is such that these places are small and unstable. the owner of the only BJJ gym in the area recently died of an aneurysm (i'm told his facebook profile was full of such touching eulogies as "he sure was an asshole, but his heart was in the right place"), and so a local traditional martial arts master (a fifth degree black belt in an obscure branch of kuk sool won) is attempting to use this unfortunate death to his strategic monetary advantage.
the instructor is a white belt in brazillian jiu jitsu, and he seems to be carrying over some of his instruction techniques from the TMA classes, such as requiring students to respond to his directives and statements with "sir!" it's a bit awkward for me, but part of my inspiration for joining the BJJ "program" (it's more like a club, right now) was to challenge myself physically and mentally; to see how my behavior, mind, and body, how i, can change by putting myself into uncomfortable situations.
there may be 6-8 people attending any given class. typically there are 1-2 women over the age of 50, 1 girl around the age of 16, 1 guy around the age of 45, maybe a couple of teenage boys, and me, 33 (34 at the end of this month). the class demographics aren't ideal for my own advancement. occasionally (maybe 1-2 times per week) a purple belt shows up with his college-aged son, but he sits quietly through drills and doesn't offer much input, while the instructor loudly and constantly proclaims his deference to the purple belt in all expressions of technique. it does not instill confidence in the learning process.
some cursory research showed me that basic jiu jitsu tuition runs around $80-$90/m for unlimited access to what is typically an MMA/BJJ-focused gym, which often includes lockers, showers, and 6 days of classes and "open mats" (where members of the gym can come in to spar freely with one another), so i was very surprised when the lady who manages this school, a TMA-focused school without even a water fountain, informed me that tuition would be $95/m for myself, plus $25/m for my son. a couple days later i informed her that my son would continue to attend, but that the class in its current state isn't worth $95, because the instructor is a white belt, there aren't comparable services to other schools, etc.
she countered with "yeah, but in this area?", which, rather than inspiring me to see it her way, instead showed me that the school was really trying to gouge me for as much as possible. i responded that i have other options, without elaborating on what those options are. there is a school less than an hour's drive away, and i have access to things like gracie academy (a web service that provides videos, discussion, etc. for learning BJJ), which, combined with a sparring/drilling partner, can be an effective approach to learning BJJ.
the next day she offered $95 for both my son and me, which i accepted. that's essentially $50 apiece, which seems like a fair price for what i consider to be an opportunity to spar with people of different body types and to be put into uncomfortable social situations.
it's important, when dealing with martial arts schools (when dealing with anybody, really), to maintain awareness and skepticism. the guys who run these schools are often hucksters, and sometimes even complete frauds. this particular guy is knowledgeable and capable with the TMA he has mastered, but, as with many people who have mastered something (high-skilled quake players come to mind), he seems to believe that his mastery translates into other martial arts. certainly his awareness will be more refined than most lay people, and he will have learned many lessons that a BJJ student will learn as he masters his particular art, but he does not have the requisite experience to demand the respect due to a seasoned instructor, and definitely does not deserve a tuition that exceeds many facilities lead by veterans of decades of BJJ work.
so in terms of my BJJ journey, that's where i am with attending a facility. there aren't any convenient alternatives, but i've managed to get an adequate deal for price. the instructor has an egotistical chip on his shoulder due to being a master in one art, but will hopefully settle down as he sees that, even as a knowledgeable white belt, he is lacking years of experience and practice to justify arrogance.
i've also got access to the gracie combatives video series, which so far seems like a great resource for learning techniques and how to drill them. my strategy right now is to watch the gracie combatives videos, drill them with my oldest son (he's still a lot smaller than me, so it's not ideal, but it's better than nothing), and then take what i've drilled to class and practice on other bodies there.
the class instruction feels much too varied and disparate. each day, 4 days per week, we are working on different techniques, but with no review the next day. i guess this may be some confirmation of my belief that the instructor isn't quite experienced enough for jiu jitsu instruction, because his hectic pace through the techniques displays his insensitivity to his students' progression. many of the people attending the classes struggle to keep up with the most basic movements, and still we plow through them, night after night. my guess is that most of the people attending will quit before 6 months (maybe even 3) due to the high demand required to keep up with others.
by working the gracie combatives fundamentals, i'm attempting to render myself capable at defensive positioning and escapes, rather than learning submissions, etc. one year i was in the blessed position to be able to quit my job and have no financial hardship whatsoever, but without my job i didn't have much direction or responsibility, and so i chose to dedicate myself to improving at quake live as much as possible. i was a 1400 elo dueler when i started, and ended my 2-3 month stint at somewhere between 1800-1900 elo. there are many reasons for this improvement, a big one being spending 1-4 hours per day practicing (often against many nightmare bots at high timescales in order to improve my timing, aim, reactions, angles, etc.), and another being my semi-structured focus on development. when i started this effort, my focus against higher elo players was simple:
stay alive
as i became better and better at staying alive, i began to focus on timing discipline, showing up for items, and the restraint necessary to refrain from grabbing an item just because i was there and it was time to do so. once my timing improved (though it was in no way adequate, and nowhere near good) i let myself open up a bit with spam. i became more familiar with the maps i was playing due to the amount of time i was spending in them, and i became more comfortable with the rhythm of duel and the quake live netcode, so that spamming grenades and rail became a habit that often resulted in a lot of free damage that was very frustrating for my opponents.
i believe this same path of development can be applied to jiu jitsu. i've read that the tendencies for white belts is to be spastic, and i can see how that's true. viewed from the perspective of people new to quake, it can be imagined as the new guy who doesn't know how to strafe jump just bouncing around without gaining speed, or maybe the guy who learned how to strafe jump but rushes mindlessly, without concern for items or keeping his visibility low to prevent giving away free damage.
by drilling the fundamentals offered by gracie combatives and then trying to work them in to sparring sessions with people close to my size i can learn to relax and focus on the task of staying alive in BJJ. against the other white belts it's pretty simple to stay alive, since they're mostly kids and older women, but against the purple belt, the instructor, and the purple belt's son, it's a lot more work, and i've found myself giving up too much ground through sloppiness and inattentiveness.
i'll see how it goes in class tonight.
one other thing i'll mention is that BJJ is a really great workout, especially for the "core" muscles and hips. some of the warm-ups we do really kicked my ass for the first couple of days, especially considering i have a pretty sedentary office job. i do a little bit of lifting and jogging, and i'm a very healthy weight for my height, but i didn't realize just how weak my hips were before BJJ sparring. it's also great cardio to be constantly fighting against somebody who is trying to control your movements.
so far i see that BJJ is a decent analog for quake. the "metagame" is constantly evolving, as the old becomes new, the new becomes old, and so on in perpetuity. i'm not concerned with what the BJJ guys call the "chess" aspect of it, though. my main concern right now is to work the fundamentals in order to build a habit of staying alive, so that, in the future, i can work myself into positions from where i can begin to exercise effective offense.
i highly recommend looking into BJJ for anybody who is interested in physical fitness and quake. there's a lot of similarity to love, and the same concept of mastery to become enamored with.
Edited by qmau at 11:06 CDT, 16 October 2017 - 11392 Hits
Posted by qmau @ 08:36 CDT, 27 September 2017 - iMsg
its just a shit game with a very small player base. Just the same guys asking for more quake in all caps so devs think their is a playerbase for it. - anon
But it's the best multiplayer shooter on the market right now - anon
if ID software had a allowence form bethesda for crossover char's (i don't want to violate my NDA by saing they do), who do u want to see?
the guy from skyrim would be cool. he could shot arrows at people's knees to make them slow down lol and then you could hear slasher or anarchy say smth like "i used to be a champion liek u until i got a arrow on my knee"
or maybe u could have fall out boy, and he shots a nuke or an get into the fall out boy armor to fight??
Edited by qmau at 11:31 CDT, 15 September 2017 - 21342 Hits
Opinions in comments vary wildly about the quality of the Quakecon experience for internet spectators. With the tournaments completed, and the results stirring up an enjoyable level of commentary, do you feel that you got what you wanted from the tournament and coverage?
View Coverage:ESL UT DSL 2017 Organiser: ESL Duration: 4 May 2017 to 4 May 2017
ESL is running Unreal Tournament Pre-Alpha Duel League! It started with open qualification cups, where top players qualified to the groupstage. The league is based in Europe, where best 8 players are playing in order to qualify to playoffs. Two groups are made of 4 players, where top 2 players from each group will qualify for finals.
Winner of playoffs wins Unreal Tournament Swag Package from Epic Games, ESL prizes like ESL premium and ESL profile awarard and 100€ worth of gaming equipement of choice
I think SyncError is afraid that giving ESR original content will just be another opportunity for a festival of negativity. Are ESR users interested in a non-critical interview at id Software? Can ESR users enjoy some fan-service in anticipation of a new game, regardless of expectations, past experiences, or current opinions?
I would absolutely love to sit down with SyncError, without any cloud of criticality or expository/investigative intent, to discuss his experiences over the years leading to this moment in id Software history, and to discover his approach to work, where his motivation to stick to development comes from, and what he hopes to achieve.
I would adore the opportunity to sit down with Zero4 to ask him how his experiences with XBand shaped the course of his life, how he feels about netcode, what it's like to be him. I'd like to pick Tim Willits's brain, and to interrogate him about his long history of involvement in game development, and how his experiences have shaped his approaches to and philosophies about productivity, game development, and life in general.
This won't be possible without some convincing. I spoke to SyncError for a few minutes today, and I get the impression that he feels as though offering any exclusive original content to ESR would be like Donald Trump accepting an invitation to a Bush family runion.
Can ESR show SyncError and id Software some love? Can ESR hold it together so that SyncError can remember that this community isn't composed 100% of relentless negativity? I feel as though there is a huge nonvocal majority visiting ESR that loves the community, id Software, and Quake, but that this nonvocal majority doesn't feel that it's worth the effort to participate in what are often combative, tiring, and, ultimately, useless exchanges between people whose idea of effective persuasion is hitting somebody until they turn around, even if the act of turning around is the result of the bludgeoned lifeless body spinning as it falls to the ground.
Can ESR dig down deep into the bubbling pus-filled blackened pits of its charred and brittle heart to dig out some small bit of love clinging to the wall of some jagged arterial stem harboring one final small bubble of nutritious blood that can be used to temporarily stave off the rampant infection of unabated hyper-criticality supported by years of dehumanization and depersonalization afforded to ESR users by the anonymity of the internet and the bitterness instigated by unmet expectations based on unchecked delusions and infantile egotism that create an unhealthy sense of self-importance that drives away anything good and friendly, like a bent old man howling at children to stay off his lawn, because he long ago forgot what it means to feel anything other than resentment toward anything that doesn't meet the unrealistic expectations inspired by his outrageously fragile safe-space of an ego?
Is ESR still capable of even remembering what love might have once felt like, before life beat it out of us? Is ESR going to sit around and give life the satisfaction of having taken our refuge in emotion without even trying to fight back against the apathy and bitterness that some maliciously hidden forces derive happiness from having us subjected to?
Edited by qmau at 21:36 CDT, 26 April 2017 - 64201 Hits
if ID software had a allowence form bethesda for crossover char's (i don't want to violate my NDA by saing they do), who do u want to see?
the guy from skyrim would be cool. he could shot arrows at people's knees to make them slow down lol and then you could hear slasher or anarchy say smth like "i used to be a champion liek u until i got a arrow on my knee"
or maybe u could have fall out boy, and he shots a nuke or an get into the fall out boy armor to fight??
also in quake 3 areans u can play at james carmike and tom willit...maybe in quake chamipons u can play as stinkhair or johnathon "zero4" window.
Edited by qmau at 14:20 CDT, 24 April 2017 - 16487 Hits
i originally posted in the admin forums that i'd like to buy a full copy of quake champions for a user who submits the highest ranked (by popularity) QC related original content (ie news, column, article, journal, or qualifying parent forum post [such as creative image, song, etc.]). admins are sadly unresponsive, and so i take this question to you, the peons. the people.
i don't know if it will be possible to preorder or gift QC yet, and i don't know what the full price of the game will be, but i would love to give some productive esr user a copy (or cash to match the cost of the game [up to $75 or so, i'm incredibly poor and this will affect my family budget]). from what i can tell, it will be possible to order a copy of the game with all heroes available.
anybody interested? anybody have some other idea that would be more fun for esr?
some other ideas that might be fun for this competition:
1. original qc hero designs
2. insult thread (most +'d insult wins)
3. candidate thread (users suggest who to win, and other users vote. candidate with most +'s wins)
Edited by qmau at 13:14 CDT, 24 April 2017 - 8404 Hits
an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc.
There have been times that I have been a fan. I was in it to win it with the Angels for the 2002 MLB World Series. At that point, I'd been a fan of the team since my baseball card collecting days, right around the age of 8, when Jim Abbott, the one-handed pitcher for the then-California Angels, was an even bigger inspiration to me than other then-current sports stars such as Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, and others. His style was 100% unique, he was legitimately skilled, and he represented a great capacity for success, even when given unfavorable circumstances. Here's a video of a no-hitter he pitched while playing for the New York yankees.
I distinctly remembering an Angels playoff game, right around the age of 8 years old, where it seemed to me that everything was on the line; not just for the Angels, but also for me. I was bundled under the gaudy comforter of my mom's humongous bed, eyes firmly affixed to the 12 mile thick glass of the blindingly bright high definition visual broadcast of my mother's thirty-something inches Zenith television. I was watching the game in style. The Angels lost, which was something they did a lot of in the 90s, and I can recall, vividly (and fictitiously melodramatically), a single warm tear descending the uncragged surface of my baby-face. The breeze from the fan overhead chilled its trail to a freezing temperature that surely matched that of my heart.
I look back on that moment as the epitome of the absurdity of fanhood. A child, alone, driven to forced tears by the loss of a sports team, as if, somehow, such an expression of sadness could legitimize the outward projection of belonging to the concept of some arbitrarily defined social entity, fans of the California Angels. I was proving to some unseen observer that I was invested, that I cared, and that I was capable of tears and sadness if I didn't get what I wanted.
Since that moment, the most intense moment of fanatical expression I can recall in my life, I have experienced different elevations of my fanhood. I have subscribed to information, created links to products on web sites I maintain, searched for and downloaded the entire careers of MMA fighters (and then encouraged others to pay attention to my opinion about them), posted forum threads on ESR about input device manufacturers that please and displease me, and so on.
With fanhood in general, I found that some internal emotional attachment to a perceived external entity lead to the experience of undesirable feelings that weren't worth the experience of desired feelings. I am not quite spiritually prepared for a life of delusionally convincing myself that the undesirable experiences weren't legitimate, or of forcing myself to cover those undesirable experiences by focusing my attention as a fan on more positive experiences, the schadenfreudian satisfaction of other fans' suffering due to their objects of affection being the source of their negative experiences, some invented alternate reality that I refuse to allow others to contest with reason or rationality, or some other form of masking. I make a conscious effort to check my fanhood regularly, and to develop methods by which I can terminate such fanhood when the risk of disappointment begins to arise.
I have a casual experience of id Software games, starting with Wolfenstein 3D, which a friend showed me on his dad's computer around 20 years ago. It was fun in the same way as playing tag with other kids is fun, but I didn't find myself hooked or trapped. I had many other hobbies at the time, and at that point had neither a computer nor console gaming system at home to play. My next experience with an id Software game, at least that I can remember, came a year or two later, when I played Doom on the SNES. I was staying the night at a friend's house, and we had a good time, but the game was kind of boring and ugly. I wasn't a fan of Wolfenstein. I wasn't a fan of Doom. I still am not.
Three years later I moved to Lake Tahoe, California, and had the privilege of having access to what was then a decently modern computer lab. This was the height of Super Nintendo emulator development, and a very liberal network administrator (a guy named Chris, who was a great guy in general, and probably helped fuel many grades of cyber-curiosity), so at lunch you could find a group of kids playing various unreleased Japanese RPGs and MegaMan iterations, as well as around 5-10 playing Quake.
Quake was like Wolfenstein and Doom in the sense that you control a perspective that runs around some geometric configurations of simulated space to zap objects with his rocket gun and gather resources. Unlike Wolfenstein and Doom for the SNES, Quake had finer and more intuitive controls (+mlook), and other people to play against, which made the game competitively attractive. We had a T1 connection at the school, and so pinged decently to various Californian servers. The guy who taught me the basics of Quake suggested we play online, and asked me to join a server, kitty1.stanford.edu. At the time I had no clue what I was being granted access to, and unfortunately don't remember much of the experience, but this was a server that saw Deathrow players dueling in their primes.
I still wasn't a fan. I played casually at lunch at school, but didn't bother installing the game at home, where I preferred, for some reason, to play Quake 2, which had dial-up servers widely and easily available via Microsoft Zone. At this point, I still couldn't consider myself a gamer. I spent more time walking to the ski resort my mom worked at so I could hike up the mountain just to snowboard back down again. It wasn't until months later that I became a fan of my first gaming company and game, Blizzard and Starcraft.
I played a lot. I researched build orders for each race. I looked up news about the game. The only other games that I've done as much research and practice for are Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Global offensive, and that amount can be said to have been maybe slightly above average among other players in the times I was doing it.
The experience for me with previous Quake games is similar for Quake 3, and Quake 4 I didn't even play until 2015, and then on Xbox 360 (for less than two hours). I played a good summer of RA3, and didn't have a conception of item timing. I hadn't heard of the term, and didn't know about it until I began playing QuakeLive and was informed by the nefarious tyryl AKA kdawg AKA Randy Brown AKA Daryl. At that point, I was around 27-30 years old, and the concept of duel suddenly clicked. I started paying attention to duel tournaments. I learned half-beat strafe jumping. I practiced offline at high timescale against nightmare Tank Jr.s. I went to Quakecon 2010 with an ESR press pass. I talked to everybody who would listen. Prozac tried to troll me in his underwear. Some guy brought a 40" TV to the BYOC. I interviewed Syncerror and Steve Nix. I listened to the Brink developers describe how groundbreaking their game would be, and why it would be a huge success. I felt like a combination of both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton during a balloon drop.
Then I started to notice funny little quirks about QuakeLive that I didn't remember from my Quake, Quake 2, and Quake 3 experiences. Huge bursts of sudden LG damage killing me in less than a second, being hit by rails while behind walls, etc. I started to research netcode, and found a really great introductory primer. It may have been a mistake to read this. Before understanding netcode this way, I had the spiritual inclination that I could overcome these problems if I just tried harder, if I just fixed my mind, my approach, my abilities, whatever. My frustration grew as I improved at the game, but my experience of these sudden bursts of damage, etc., didn't diminish. With a new understanding of netcode these issues and many others became more and more apparent as I played, and many critical problems were moved beyond the reach of my control to solve. I would have to fundamentally change my approach to thinking about and playing the game online to achieve greater success. I didn't want to do that, and so I gave up QuakeLive...10 times. At least.
So, I'm not really a fan, but I could see myself being a fan if I didn't feel the way I do about fanhood in general. I understand the hate, the trepidation, the disappointment. I understand being a kid, coercing my genetically inferior brown eyes to shit out a lonely, sad, single tear in response to a baseball game lost by a favored team. I have felt emotions before. I am just like you. I am a human being, too.
I have one real question to the people who consider themselves fans, and for the people who consider themselves to have been fans, and even the people who feel like antagonists attacking id Software for some perceived violations of some a particular moral or ethical imperative you hold dear.
Why?
Why are you what you are regarding id Software?
Why do you spew hate, or mock employees? Why do you recall successes of the distant past and pine for their revival in each potential release? Why are you blissfully unaware of the issues others suggest? Why do you believe that it's important for people to be nice to id Software? Are you afraid that id Software might intentionally passive-aggressively release a spitefully poor game? Why do you tell yourself that id Software developers are either good or bad, and then use that opinion to argue that it's wrong or right to criticize id Software?
Why do you feel the way you do about id Software and the upcoming release of Quake Champions?
Edited by qmau at 15:24 CDT, 22 April 2017 - 11561 Hits
Posts by Quake Champions beta users are being censored due to the claim by some administrators that the posts violate the Quake Champions beta non-disclosure agreement.
Is it the responsibility of ESReality administrators to perform this action? Please share your rationale after voting.
slasher is regularly deleting posts that do not violate user guidelines. here is an example of the quality of posts slasher is deleting. regular users may not be aware that deleting posts with replies is an admin behavior that is actively discouraged. site guideline violating posts with replies are to be nuked. slasher is not even notifying users about their posts being deleted. why is slasher deleting posts? does he have a particular agenda or motivation for removing posts that are critical of id software, or that inform users about id software's history in this community?
imagine that you expend your most valuable asset, your time, to craft and submit some content to esreality, and some administrator covertly removes your content without even the respect of notifying you as to why, or giving you an opportunity to defend yourself or appeal the decision. many of these users may not even realize that their content is being permanently removed and hidden from the history of this site.
esreality thrives on content, whether that content is controversial, celebratory, funny, embarrassing, critical, or whatever. by removing this content, users like slasher are artificially cultivating a particular experience for esreality users. are esreality users the sort of users who want people like slasher, teen queen, zaggs, etc., dictating what their experience will be? do esreality users need to be protected from other users sharing information about the quake champions beta?
teen queen and zaggs are censoring posts that they claim "break" the quake champions NDA. here is the admin conversation in which teen queen and zaggs "justify" their decision to withhold legitimate news and opinion from esr users. at least nukm has the integrity to bother to ask why this administrative behavior is occurring.
is esreality becoming fake news for quake champions?
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