I've been playing quake 3 and now quake live for some time and honestly I don't really want to stop playing. However the amount of cheaters and assholes that I've been encountering lately in QL over here in NA (see the state of QL in NA thread) has just been getting to me lately. I need to take a bit of a break from it anyway and there are some casual games that I've been wanting to play in the meantime, but do I really want to come back to QL when I'm ready to get back in to quake again?

I'm thinking about jumping ship to a different flavor of quake to see if maybe I can get the competitive play I crave while not running into the debacle QL has become. However I have no clue as to the state of any of the other flavors out there right now. I wouldn't mind jumping into Q2, QW or even CPM. I'm pretty sure there's nothing going on in Q4, but whatever. So my question is, what quake alternatives in NA are there and where is a good starting point into getting in to those?

tl;dr: QL pissing me off, looking for new quake, wat do?