Let it die
\ : ) /

You can always play Reflex if you want :]

fu

Die, Die! ! !

"I creep across the sofa"?

da!

6k for a 15 year old game is not bad

There was a one-time peak of 6K.
Average is closer to 1.2K

The most expensive subscription is $35/y.
Even if every single Steam player purchased a Pro subscription, it would not cover the cost of 2 Devs + infrastructure.....and that bitch that moderates the forum on quakelive.com

I'm not sure if people just tried it out because it was free or it was actual nostalgia for arena shooters, in any case it didn't seem good enough but I'm sure there's market for these games. I asked all my steam friends why didn't they stick to it and they were like, well it's q3 with horribad ui.

who is that "bitch" btw?

sasparillo?

q3 ui was worse. holy shit

ye, so?

not to mention the retarded economic model in which you cant realy HOST servers, so idsoftware is also spending money renting useless trash potato servers with 40 tickrate in 2014.

i talked to Syncerror on Fazz's stream yesterday about it.

Sync answer : q3 was 20 tickrate out of the box in 1999. And more tickrate = more bandwidth.

Thing is in 2014 most people have at least ADSL, or optic fiber or cable or w/e hell even mobile phones have 4G+... in any way the bandwidth is tremandously biger than in 1999.

And the q3 LANs i made never used tickrate 20, even in the 2000s.

On the topic of not leting people host servers i had no answer.

What is the point of a QL sub today? I don't see any real benefits. It let you spawn a server exactly same as the ones already spawned (yes i am aware you can tweak some totaly useless ingame stuff like a wierdo). There is not even the minimum of admin options like persisant ban list, persistant map list persistant admin list etc.

All in all i finaly went for the same conclusion about the developers yesterday. I think all what they will achieve is make some dedicated players leave after all.

>> Thing is in 2014 most people have at least ADSL, or optic fiber or cable or w/e hell even mobile phones have 4G+... in any way the bandwidth is tremandously biger than in 1999.

The problem is not that users can't handle the extra bandwidth, the problem is that id has to pay for that extra bandwidth.

u think we don't know that? it will also need 10-15% more CPU power.

Thing is, all this is irrelevant if we can host it ourself. They won't have to pay anything. That's the idea.

>> u think we don't know that? it will also need 10-15% more CPU power.

The writer of the actual quote I replied to seemingly didn't.

>> Thing is, all this is irrelevant if we can host it ourself. They won't have to pay anything. That's the idea.

It was about the tickrate causing more bandwidth in the current system, not about letting users host servers.

Users hosting their own servers does not fit in their current business model, would be my guess.

lol I giggled @ "bitch on quakelive.com" forum - I assume you mean Yakumo or some other fangirl of this pile of shit called Quake

"bitch on quakelive.com" forum - I assume you mean Yakumo

No I mean the mod(s), presumably sasparillo; the Id QL forum is 80% critical of the recent game changes, yet sasparillo thinks she can make a difference by randomly banning and deleting.

Yakumo has been the voice of reason on both forums for a long time.
He is very diplomatic, a commendable attribute which I lack.
But he is not neutral. He has an 'in' with the QL developers, and if he came out strongly against SyncError, that tie would immediately be cut.

So Yakumo's criticism has been very restrained. This makes him a bit of an 'apologist' in my view, but that's his choice.

Me, I want to see SyncError and Sponge get fired. I want Zenimax to sell the Quake franchise to another outfit. Anything to break the current status quo.

Amen, I posted my opinion about the new announcer on the forum. It got deleted and I got banned from the forum for lifetime. The reason: "No reason was specified"

and its sad that its more of mismanagement issue than anything else, first of their website infrastructure took energy out of devteam, where they spent half the time just working on website and servers rather than developing the game, then they add bizzare subscription, which is a very expensive way to spend money on a pretty old game, could have been a simple rerelease with dlc option for maps, but maps dont belong to id, but they could have for example create a demo version with a couple maps and all gamemodes and sell all the other maps in dlc packs, or sell gamemodes as dlc, which would have made more sense to develope features as dlc and not as some kind of service for 100 top players, the focus group is way to elitist and they kept thinking that pro players demands actually make sense, which is completely untrue, devteam kept spending time on features that most people dont really care about like pro features and huge menu with hundreds of options instead of creating new gameplay, no one would ever care about esports more than the core game, esports in any game accounts to no more than 10 percent of total player population, most of what needed for esports is a couple recording features and match rulesets or whatever, and again website took way more energy to develop than the game itself

TL:DR ... missed grammar day in school.

TL:DR: American doesn't know that there are other languages in the world. Let's hear your Russian grammar?

^

If u use foreign language showing some respect in terms of grammar would be nice tbh

It's not a matter of respect. To learn a foreign language is always very difficult, especially if you never use it in real life.

That's why native speakers like british and americans should be more respectful toward people: they don't even know another language, and they would suck immensely at it.

This.

Step 1. Make a trash half-arsed update to keep new players playing.
Step 2. Release the game on steam
Step 3. Avoid any promotion or marketing since more players = more cost with servers etc.


Sponge logic

nope, their logic is to basically listen to this esr community and top 100 players thinking that thats what the entire quake player base wants.

id is perhaps way too careful with quake live, only going in directions that they think are safe

or they dont really want it to be popular again, as things like ut4 show that the re is still potential for growth,

Did you know that

you can

edit comments? ;)

They did the opposite of this. They ignored the hardcore community and top 100 players and went in a direction that was completely not safe. Adding loadouts to quake is a HUGE risk to take that could have backfired heavily.

srsly? the focus group i heared is madeup solely from hardcore players like cooller and rapha, i didnt see a single major nonhardcore change, even loadouts seem completely half-assed in the last minute. they do what they think people want and not actually what people want which is new gameplay.

I really dont understand what you mean. Loadouts are a non hardcore change. Item timers are a non hardcore change. Unified ammo is a non hardcore change. HMG is a non hardcore change.

these are all things you mention have no meaning to most people, you still try to look down upon gamers from your pro standpoint, people just want to have fun playing quake. think how much time was spend adding all the meaningless pro features like crosshairs and force models compared to loadouts which is really a lazy mod done in a couple of days just to tip off 99 percent of quakers who already left the game cause its so boring.

the meaningless pro features like crosshairs and force models"

lol'd


The user has to decide if he's a disabled monkey or not.

i know you think i am stupid but so much time was given to features already present in cpma, why not leave quake live alone and resume playing cpma and leave quake live to people who want to actually enjoy playing quake for fun,

Is it fun to walk around in hats like a disabled monkey?


Nah. Destroying pubs and playing TDM pickups just sounds fine for me.

I dont have a pro standpoint. I'm terrible at quake.

All I'm saying is, you said they listened to the hardcore community when thats the opposite of what happened

tell me a feature in cpma thats not in quake live, and please compare how many people play cpma, its around 20 people, so they spend most of their time for 20 people to enjoy,

I dont understand why that question is relevant.

because cpma is already a perfect version of q3 for pros ok, no one plays it but 20 people

Do you think I'm fighting to make Quake Live for pros only? I didnt even voice my opinion on that.

All I said was that they didnt listen to the hardcore community.

I didnt express any happiness or unhappiness about that.

i think they listened too much, people like adam sessler already spoke his concern in 2009 about the game taking direction away from average players

You are completely clueless.

Go through the "QL suggestions" topics made since early 2008 (or whenever it was when Sync announced the idea of Quake Zero) and you will see that the majority of quakers always wanted the game to be fun for hardcore players and casuals alike.
Countless requests for co-op mods, zombie mods, UT's assault...and others. Not to mention all the creative ideas on how to make tutorials both useful and fun.

You and some other people should realize this isnt some kind of Elitists vs Casuals war. Id, they never listened to either of these groups, nor to any other, they kept coming up with their own ideas, which usually turned out to be retarded.
Its been 6 years, which is a long enough time for other companies to launch two or three brand new titles, and ql is still sitting on its late-beta ass. All we've gotten was the option to spawn servers, remade hitboxes, a couple of cvars and several useless ctf maps.

they seemed to just copy over cpma features (pro features)

Countless requests for co-op mods, zombie mods, UT's assault...and others. Not to mention all the creative ideas on how to make tutorials both useful and fun.

none of that was added

so when people whine most things that are done are pro features from cpma

You and some other people should realize this isnt some kind of Elitists vs Casuals war. Id, they never listened to either of these groups, nor to any other, they kept coming up with their own ideas, which usually turned out to be retarded.

kill beeps and many other countless pro features vs adding clan arena all their casual efforts come down making a half-finished mode in a few days

The last thing quakelive needs is more mods no one plays.
They added several of the most requested mods and it gained them an insignificant number of new players let alone subscribers.

The only mod I'd actually like to see that I think would be worth their time would be finally adding RA3 style winner stays on rounds.

you are completely clueless, too bad you didnt get to erase your ESR account

lol

urine idiot
he wasn't talking about cpma


urine idiot for comparing a 15 year old mod to a game released in 2010



inb4 spelling nazis

the general direction of pleasing a small hardcore audience didnt really change, in that they still ask top 100 first and then do whatever they are asked, whereas they should have simply listened to average people on the forums and let the pro players keep playing their cpma or whatever, instead they spread their nerdyness to quake live thinking thats what all people want is fiddle with config files and kill beep sounds.

The design changes before steam were aimed at the average player, and were completely against the grain of any 'hardcore' player.

If you think they should do more in this direction, make some suggestions so we can evaluate them.

i appreciate loadouts, but its still feels like an afterthought, they dont care really, if they did they would make loadouts more balanced and part of the game. same with movement physics which almost stayed the same. game needs new casual modes that resemble most common fps today and it should be done right.

Vague complaints aren't useful.

How do you want the physics changed? How would loadouts be more "balanced", and more "part" of the game?

Are domination and CA not casual? How could they be made more casual?

i dont like how empty the maps now feel, and when i use loadouts i feel like there is too few weapon combos that make sense. i want new game modes like cs zombie infection type. and movement phsyics needs to be simpler like strafejumping is still very hard to understand, i think qw style aircontrol is much more intuitive or maybe replace it with higher run speed and doublejumps

strafejumping is part of the game and the special thing here is that it is meant to be difficult, which you wont find in other games today because today every unskilled human being should be allowed to be the greatest without being able to be it. thats different about quake and that is the way it is supposed to be because otherwise quake would be call of duty or whichever game you are coming from with different weapons. ;)P

i appreciate loadouts, but its still feels like an afterthought, they dont care really, if they did they would make loadouts more balanced and part of the game

Are you joking or? It feels that way because that's exactly what they did. They tried to shoehorn mechanics into a game that doesn't need it. It might be the bee's knees and work great in other games and that's because those devs have developed the entire game with loadouts in mind. Of course maps feel empty now that there's no need to move to different areas for weapons and ammo.

Clearly loadouts and HMG were extremely shallow and crude attempts to appeal directly to the current modern/shitty/warfare/realistic shooter crowd. Look where that got them.

so how did we end up with loadouts

Because pickups in ffa suck.

I dont mind loadouts in FFA. FFA is the thing casuals will jump into first and most of the long time quake community is in duel, ctf or tdm anyway.

It was a sketchy move to put them in tdm though. I'm glad it got more tdm games going when before there was only 1 at a time, but they arent really worth playing anymore.

but they arent really worth playing anymore.

Quite a lot of players disagree (more games).

No doubt. They just arent that fun for me anymore. Not that I played a whole lot before but that was due to the lack of games.

Its a choice between barely any games but they are really good, or loads of games that arent that great.

I think a better way to deal with TDM would have been to just reduce weapon spawn times to 5 seconds.

or permanent weapons but u cannot refill ammo once u have picked it up

It's time to face facts, loadouts is fine for pub FFA and TDM, it really makes it easier to get into and constitutes a faster way to warm up.

Still, the update could have been really good if they put any more effort into it than I put into washing my dishes

Worst part IMO is the fact that they don't allow Quake to grow, it's so counter-productive for them to change anything in the game if the infrastructure can't handle a few new players and they aren't going to do anything to improve that aspect

I think its fine for FFA, but I dont like it in TDM. It took a good gametype that nobody played, and made a bad one that lots of people played.

I'd rather the main 3 (ctf, tdm, duel) just be untouched. I dont really mind how much every other gametype is messed with, especially if it brings in new players.

On the plus side, ctf doesnt have loadouts and I'm very pleased by that

No, it's not time to face it, since it ruined the whole game mode (we are talking about FFA - for TDM, there's pickup, thank God). Anybody who thinks otherwise is clueless.

Just you suck. : D

How could you wish someone to fail its product? I mean sure you are entitlted to your opinion, i.e. you do not like the game. But to say that you wish that a Business Fails because you do not agree with it is imho not fair.

It's not like id is producing cigarettes or alcoholic beverages which might harm people. Rest assured, Quake Live does not harm people. Never has.

If the Business is not a success, it will fail irregardless. No need to do anything else.

So nice.

irregardless

*nevertheless

nevertheanti-disirregardless

literally

look on zhu's behaviour and say once more quake live does not harm people :-)

that is a fair case indeed.

that is a fair case indeed.

people who made real quake are long gone, those who run it now are just impostors

Except when people depend on quake live as a source of dopamine

lol.

I still miss a proper matchmaking and ranking system. How can it be, that almost 90% im the players who join my server are totally beginners and most of them connected with the auto find duel shit.

It sounds like sponge/syncerror/zenimax/whoever destroyd your beloved game. let me tell you; its not the truth.

The game is from 1999. How many other games from that era is REMOTELY pop today?

You guys dont see it, becouse you have your head so far up your own ass.

I also notice how the sponge/syncerror/zenimax/ guys failed, but no need to be rude :) Yes, it's weird that they didn't understand they had a real gem, the only game that old that worked with subscription model.

Star Craft Brood War is popular still.

it's uncomparable. brood war is like a religion in korea while quake is just another game. fuck man, even now with sc2 released and most, if not all pro tournaments in korea are hosted for sc2, a brood war tournament appears with over $80000 prize pool.

also SSL10 $$$

yeah, but even ssl10 is a minor tournament compared to this $80k+ one. hell, a lot of sc2 tournaments are minor compared to it :D go brood war!!!

One has to wonder how she got the money instead of Sonic.

pu$$y

It's apparent.

>The game is from 1999. How many other games from that era is REMOTELY pop today?


Zelda, final fantasy, cs, mario (normal, kart, party and smash), starcraft, resident evil, street fighter, megaman, unreal tournament, etc... They are essentially the same games.

the difference is that these games were being updated to keep and increase playerbase (they changed gfx, models, features, social factors, etc... ). Quake didn't really do anything, qw - q2 - q3 - q4 - q3. ID made engines with games in it. Q3 was highly moddable and you could see that the best ideas, innovations, maps and so on came from the community. ID never cared about a mp game despite creating by accident the best game for this matter.

I disagree. The fact that the game was so highly and easily moddable is proof that they actually cared, and if you believe posts here in ESR lately, were actually ahead of their time. Reflex team is doing now what you are accusing of id doing (relying on community of experts to shape their game, including maps etc.) in the 90's, and they are hailed as amazing new generation developers. Majority of the best maps in Q3 came from id or their contractors, namely Threewave. What innovations do you think the mods brought to Q3?

Anyway, the id I'm talking about about does not exist anymore.

jesus christ

Fo real. Not fo pretend. Fo real

fosh

QW greets you from '97.

SC: BW greets you from '98-'99.

CS 1.6 greets you from '99-'00.

ZDoom is still alive.


WC 3: TFT greets you from '03-'04.


ouch gg

QW is not alive and kicking, please.
SC:BW yeah sure. The exception of the rule.
CS 1.6 was replaced by CS:GO. How many 1.6 tourneys do you see around? The game is declining. There are around 7 times more CS:GO players. And CS:GO is still getting new players.
Zdoom, again, comeon.
WC3 TFT, I didnt know that this was still played among many. Ill give you points for that.

So there are two games left with a nice playerbase. And none of them is FPS.

Ouch GG.

1) You surely don't hang around IRC much. QW is alive, please. Always can find games, there are even small tourneys sometimes.
2) As I said.
3) Shitton of CS 1.6 servers. It will be like that for years to come. Pros playing only for the money anyways. And CoD kids gonna be CoD kids.
4) Must be nice to be ignorant.
5) It was obvious tho.


gg no re

Alright, ill think we have to agree to disagree.

I just checked QW http://www.quakeservers.net/quakeworld/servers/so=8/ and this is maybe not an accurate way to look up players. But currently there are 32 players playing comparing to QL that has 605 players. (CS:GO = 63K and CS 1.6 = 7K)

Altough I didnt have a clue about zdoom when I looked for servers I couldnt find a SINGLE ONE with players on it.


So I just think we have to agree that both our standards for ALIVE AND KICKING is wastly different.

My definition is that I can find games (almost) whenever I want.

alive = 5 players

nice

Hello murica. Is TDM still going strong there?

don't know, the only time i play is when i 1v1 ca my buddy. this game's community is too shit to be enjoyable anymore.

: D

rofl

Personally I welcome the trend as I have lost all faith in the current custodians of QuakeLive.

You sir are retarded.

I cannot understand how quake "fans" wish for this game to die. There will simply be no proper replacement for what QL duel is. Makes me wonder if certain people actually dislike quake or are simply too stupid to anticipate the consequences of what they wish for.

The reasoning behind that have already been explained, if quake live dies hopefully it will be sold to another company that actually cares of the product and mostly the consumers or other better games will be developed to take its place.

And you think that is realistic?

Well, Zenimax is loosing money running QL
But QL is worth 'something', so it would make more sense to sell it than to shutter it.

Sell it to whom? I don't see many companies that could actually improve Quake Live to what people here want it to be, could as well end up with some Chinese investor who buys the name and turns it into a flappy bird clone for mobile phones.

I never implied that, i just reported what someone else said.

Fair enough.

"There will simply be no proper replacement for what QL duel is"

What is Q3A?

A game with an inconvenient interface which also lacks matchmaking features, anticheat and other stuff for which QL is being criticized. Moreover, it requires people to set up servers, organize the community and so on. Good luck finding people willing to invest their time and money over a long period of time into Q3A to keep it running.

but it is still running...

I believe this is what asyy meant by "simply too stupid to anticipate the consequences of what they wish for.", you really think the community would go back to Q3 if QL would go away?

An ounce of the community sure, but it'd be as dead as promode on thanksgiving.

"more of a last ditch panic initiative to magically boost revenue."
They could try last money grab, milk the cash from steamies... but they failed even that. New players were unable to login, forums were offline lol. Really makes no sense. It's like the devs wanted to fail their own product.

I'm sure the QL-forums was sorely missed.

standard (c) rapher

And suddenly this makes sense: http://www.esreality.com/post/2661258/pro-sub...-id-forum/

If I buy a sandwich in a sandwich shop, does it give me licence to kill them if I don't like the sandwich?

Yes, but you have to use a sandwich.

It's more like the sandwich shop I went to for the last 10+ years got taken over by new owners. They kept the name, but started to fuck with the formula. Now the sandwiches are pretty shit, they're loosing money, and I'm annoyed because I liked things the way they were.

So yeah, in those circumstances I'm going to root for the new owners to go bust and hope that the third owner is half-way competent.


Zenimax did not develop Quake-live. They ended up owning it as part of their portfolio when they purchased Id Software in 2009.

We had a 5 year run were things ran well from the players perspective; but now Zenimax is getting tiered of loosing money on the QuakeLive project. They fucked with the formula and it didn't work out. So I'm hoping that they'll give up and sell it. Maybe the next owner will give us another 5 years.

What exactly changed for you as subscriber due to the steam release (beside of the awful announcer)? If you say you have played for 5 years then I assume that you are not really interested in playing with steam noobs anyway, unless you enjoy tierslumming.

Good.

I'd like to run quakelive for a single month. Starting whenever, just give me control for a fucking month so I can try shit out and see how the community responds.

What would I do first?

FUCK dropping people into tier 3, all new accounts start in tier 1.
If the account shoots more than 25% accuracy, they move up to tier 2. If they win any game out of the first 5 they play, they move up to tier 2.

Would also have a tier 2 accuracy and win ratio, so niggas be in tier 3.

Do you know how HARD IT IS to slum and have to aim bad? It's not fun for slummers. Newb bots would automatically get moved to tier 4(from accuracy) and get raped by professional cheaters (sup stressrap)


Next, get rid of this loadout garbage, return FFA to normal, have the servers on 32 players for super awesome craziness. Less severs on the whole, but more players. So the servers will NOT be empty at anytime during the day.

I would separate the modes into 'Casual' and 'PRO'

Casual TDM, same as whatever shit they have. Casual duel would have timers on for scrubs.

I would make DOMINATION/ Freeze Tag free. Completely Free. I would have domination on 16 players. Freeze tag would be 32/32 because its fucking hilarious.

I would get rid of this heavy mg garbage. Put back chaingun and nailgun. FUCK THE PROXIMITY MINES, that ruined ctf and runes.


I'd put runes back in for domination, make shit more interesting.

but stupid people run the world. FUCK.

That would actually work I think... Can't believe they can't come up with such simple ideas.

Making newbs play against newbs, how hard can it be...

i don't think the game itself is the problem. The game itself it's the only thing ql does to suck you in. Everything else is obnoxious, absent or badly designed

Promote this man......

25% acc is t3
t1 are people who can't even move and shoot at the same time.
t2's are the 13-20% acc



use the traditional id naming convention:

don't hurt me
hardcore
nightmare
etc

Fix the play now button lol

ping cap
packet loss cap
faggotry cap

your list of bugfixes is paltry and unoriginal. but ping caps and packet loss caps, fuck yeah. I'm not sure how to quantify faggotry, though. maybe BFG use percentage?

(of course, the reason that id would never implement such caps is because, well, their entire model is based upon making the game easy for bad players.. hence the "unlagged" netcode which allows tier 2s who stand still and randomly fire rockets at the floor and ceiling to hit you with mid-airs like they're cypher.)

I hit like cypher.. or maybe he hits like me.

this actually would improve things.
However it is not quite as simple: slummers would just quit before the match ends and/or spam like crazy to get their accuracy down. But these things could be checked as well.

I have no idea what the hell half of what you said even means.. stop talking like trayvon. and I don't know who all these shitty cheater/CA nobodies are. it's so funny how tryhard CA players live in their own little world where they think they're accomplished players because they can vaguely aim a lightning gun, or something.

and invariably when you call out the horde of french canadians like "extremerz" (some nobody who used to hit 20% lg all day and get raped in FFAs), they tell you "man u dont even dodge lol !." or some other nonsensical french stuff I can't understand.

I was just wondering, though, since you are a CA newbie and you're into all this worthless drama: I've heard the name stressrap before, I think, and I'm unsure, but I believe someone said it was that really bad player who blatantly bots and goes by the name "purplera1n." can you confirm this, CEleeStiALs or whoever you are?

(by the way, I do agree with you that stupid people run the world and you'd probably do a significantly better job than id Software--oh well.)

Such a surprise...

I think no matter what they did to QL it would not become much bigger. Any CPR attempt would not resurrect QL today.

People want to play NEW games. Sure some of us enjoy old classics, but the majority of the players look a graphics (and gameplay, obviously it need to be fun).

Even when I was younger I thought HL had amazing graphics and it made it cool to play and it introduced me to tons of different mods. But I doubt someone born the same year it was released would think the same with all the other games available today.

Release quake 5 and you might have something, because its new.

This.

Shitting on someone's face isn't even CPR ~~:)

Hehe true. Still, trying to preform CPR on a skeleton wont bring it back to life. Young blood want new games, that's it. Of course I could be very wrong, but lets face it, the game is really old.

Even if they introduced in-game matchmaking and trade able items to CS 1.6 it wouldn't suddenly make the game more popular than CSGO even if most old players agree 1.6 is much superior.
Same shit with Starcraft, most people agree broodwar is a lot better, yet people play SC2. I almost never heard about starcraft and only played it abit on LAN with friends, then SC2 was released and everyone who had ever played an RTS bought the game.
Dota was some mod some dudes played casually between games before not much fuzz about it, SUDDENLY dota2 and basically my complete friendlist on steam is playing it, most who had never touched a moba game before.

I'd say just enjoy your game whatever it is for as long as you have fun and look forward to whatever new game that might suit your interests =)

Ye feed the majority with new shitty games with only one thing going for them ,graphics. Its like saying "people like justin bieber,lets do more music like that"......fucking stupid that is.

But ye QL could never be much bigger so the steam release etc was pointless.

People nowdays dont know what quality means,not the players,not the manufacturers.

well, I think art can be objective to some degree and in some particular senses, but music, for example, doesn't have to be artistically motivated in those senses. justin bieber, or whatever, is popular because that's what people want to consume; it's easy to listen to and dance to, and common people can relate to it. there's nothing wrong with that. and while the content may be artistically unmotivated, those big singles are generally extremely well-produced by some of the best pop composers to have ever existed.

it may be a guilty pleasure because I don't want to be associated on some level with "simple folk" who only indulge in "simple things," but there's really nothing wrong with appreciating the music and production behind this stuff. it's quite good for what it is, and does exactly what it's supposed to do--be catchy and memorable.

how does this apply to quakelive? I don't know. it's a business which wants to succeed. they can't afford to take a loss for the sake of "purity." maybe someone else can.

Wish i could be more like you man,wish i could accept alot of things for what they are (would make me feel better thats for sure) ;)

i just cant enjoy a world that gets worse the more knowledge we get.
Why settle for a bieber if there is still Lennon's out there.

Money,envy and religion kills the world and people should follow my every word :)

Currently the biggest PC game has pathetic graphics, is terribly engineered and is as idiot friendly as you can get.

Yes, games can be fuggly and do good, hence why I also added gameplay, but I guess that was invisible. But there is no denying that graphics can help sell a game, but it just adds value, the core still has to be good.

My main point was that I think the game needs to be ___***NEW***___. I hate the word hype, but that's how shit work these days. Get hyped, get 24/7 exposure on twitch and such, tournaments/sponsors wanna capitalize on the hype train -> game becomes relevant if the game is actually good it will also stay relevant, until something new catches peoples interests, like LoL.

I doubt matchmaking and hats would make QL grow with the steam release, people just played some for nostalgia "lol look quake 3" then they go back to dota2 lel

The game is old -> enjoy it as it is -> look forward to the next game that could be fun if you dont like QL anymore -> be happy -> 420blazeit -> +)

FPS games are graphics galore. Just like with racing games, people expect FPS games to ever improve on graphics, which is not the case with mobas. Back when it was released HoN looked amazing - still has nothing on dota and LoL (well except the announcers).

Also LoL is quite artsy and next year it's going to vastly improve graphics wise.

what in the fuck is a moba.. if it's not this?

my god I'm old.

id could have manage the steam release a lot better , but what is done is done .... And we can't forget that the game itself is not noob friendly ... but that of course is part of the fun , get better day by day =]

It's because they don't fucking implement ELO in game!! Those idiots. Seriously, duel is such a shit show right now. It's either new players that get destroyed because they don't know what the hell they are doing or just insanely good players.

Every time a new player has been in a duel match with me I strongly encourage them to go to zcasts.com and check out all the guides because new players just don't know what's going on.

This seriously has so much potential but they are marketing it all wrong. They just need to fuck off with all the other modes and put all their marbles into making QL a duel game and advertise it as that.

If they made a strong matchmaking system AKA ELO in game then new players would at least understand why they are getting wrecked. A dumb ass 4 tier system has always been such bullshit.

Also starting ELO as a new player should be way lower... Like 900 maybe? LOL I feel like my ELO and others have inflated a lot due to new players starting at 1200 then quitting after they get railed around a corner 3 times.

This is such an easy fix. ID Zenimax or whoever the hell owns this now. Hire me as your marketing guy and I'll show you what's up ;)

naw dog, they should make it an FFA game. make fun of me all you want.. but FFA can be as challenging as high level duel. I'm both a high level dueler who was one of the best in NA when I regularly played and easily one of the best FFA players in NA.. not to toot my own horn, I don't care, but I'm just trying to establish my perspective as being not entirely unfounded. if you're just mindlessly shooting around in FFA to warm-up, I guess that's one thing, but I have hundreds of 50-0 games and my main, old account had like 91% wins with 5,000 games. doing that is really hard. but I guess it's a little strange to make a multi-player-fragfest like that organized for competition.

(I am only half-serious, and am still primarily a dueler even though I haven't dueled in ages.)

Why would any of these "hyped" noobs eager for toughest FPS game, want to come over and play, just so they can find out everything they were told to, was BS and not even close to the REAL GAME!?!??

Only cause I don't like new people infiltrating our small local community. Its like socialising with friends and these random drunks come sit at your table at the pub.

this is why you'll be a forever alone...

:`(

don't worry i'll still hang out with you ;)

Get rid of fucking loadouts. Where is idiot dkt now, who thought these changes were a good idea. lol yawn.

at work

The 6 dmg LG really turns me off from dueling now :(

It is a little pathetic on my part, I think, that I would rather invest my time elsewhere than to rework my playstyle. LG rushing was already a risky (but insanely fun) strategy, now its just suicide.

the LG DPS is good i think, we could make a thread to suggest a small knockback increase for the LG

that's close to rediculous.

lg knockback has already been restored to the old knockback (same knockback as if it was 7dmg per hit)

broken server -> best server

theres a server running domination without actual flag-points. so its basically TDM with regenerating health and endless game (score is still 0-0 after 1h or so...)

this is a great mode, very meditational, much wow. perfect for noobs too. how come only quake-bugs are making this game fine?!

When QL first came out the owner of the current Q3 servers (Noetix) offered to run QL servers for free because Australia didn't have any at the time. They must have accepted because we had some QL servers pop up soon after, which is a good solution.

I think that the community taking over server hosting is a good idea that can reduce the cost of running QL for iD. They can still have total access to the rented server box if they want so we can't see their QL server build.

You need some good luck in most countries for that to happen. In turkey there are no such servers available from q3 and nobody in the community had any connection to an organization of any kind, so I set up servers on my own for a year. I waited to see how the community would react to the years closing time and despite some talk, nothing happened and I could maintain the servers for another year, so they closed :(

so basic tl;dr: If you have a hosting company available in the community then it can happen, otherwise sooner or later the cost will be too much for regular players.

edit: part of the reason it is costly is because id software requires a true dedicated machine, virtual servers were afaik not wanted.

Noetix's Q3 servers have been down for months now:( I believe the story is that he no longer works for the ISP that hosted the pg servers. If it was indeed Noetix hosting some of those QL servers, they're gone now (which might be valid, because server quality is seemingly dropping)

Does anyone know an accurate, linkable statistic of where it was at before steam? And I don't mean 'i heard from ddk that koziol told him the cooller said sponge said in irc that it was 220 before steam.' Reliable stats!

Also, OP's link shows daily peaks. Is there a place to see daily totals?

Is there a place to see daily totals?

Model as a statistical distribution, Integrate the curve and work out the answer in units of people-hours.

That was what you wanted, right?

I just thought that since there's a place that shows most players, each day, like: 'Daily Peak: 2,438' There might be something like 'Daily Total: 3,832' for example. That's all. I just wondered how much steam has helped. Would also be nice to see total subscribed before/after steam. I know that part won't happen, though. =(

I agree, the peak is one metric but total unique logins in a 24h period would be just as useful, and no harder to produce. Can't help though I'm afraid :(

And you will definitely never access that data, unless someone infiltrates sponge's apartment and steals his pc...

Yeah, we'll probably never see those. =( If the numbers were good, they'd brag about them. Example: WoW.

If the numbers were good

Yeah, we'll probably certainly never see those

http://ql.leeto.fi/#/activity

If you can't find a way, to go back that far, maybe the site's owner could help you. Or maybe not, idk.
If I recall correctly it peaked at around 2k unique players every day before Steam.

Thats totally normal, in every game. mobas usually end up with 1% or less of the population which they had on the first day - first week. Ever played one of the recent advertised mobas in beta or at release day? and then compared the activity level 1 month later? people just try the game, and a very low amount stays.

Im actually more surprised on how many people seem to actually stay after the steam release...seeing what rude fuckwits are around and behaving badly against those peeps day in day out.

I remember when i started out with QL...took it off a week after starting cause i cudnt take the shit mannered community anymore..but theres no other proper fps game to play...and besides its community, i really think its a great game, espicially duel mode.

Imo the thing that made most newcomers stop playing is the lack of consistent separation between newbs and veterans. Second to the login problems, downtimes, server overload, etc.

And i dont mean that the 6k peak would have been consistent otherwise, but that the declining trend would have been less marked.

I didnt switched to steam, so i dont figure on that statistic, as well as the rest of the players that didnt. So the real numbers should be a little better.

The thing that is bothering me a lot is that at least in the location i play, its like 95% CA games. Im so bored of CA, it wasnt that bad some time ago when i did some CA and quickly a duel or tdm match was arranged.

Anyway playing quakelive duel vs opponents of similar or higher skill still is so awesome that while quakelive lasts, ill keep subing and playing.

the player count will quadruple if a famous person mentions the game

Do you actually believe that?

This just needs a proper re-release, advertising as big as Reflex's and changing the business model.

And for us the 1%, getting back the game to ESL and stuff. For us the game is dead in all but one week a year.

maybe its because 1) the noobs dont like getting raped (and insulted) and 2) the pros dont like T2 players stumbling (read: thinking they are so fucking cool) into T4 games all the time.


QL just could realize that steam players are shit and lock them out of T4 - but their corporate mentality forces them to not think so, gg.


or maybe you thought the steam launch would go well ?

T2 players don't think they are cool coming into T4 servers. They have no fucking idea.
They are clueless or after spending whole life in Metin2 and spraying 1 headshot per hour in CS they think they are good at games.
Clueless or clueless.

Did anyone actually think the player counts wouldn't be higher on release and then decrease without anything new?

Probably... when I pointed that on ql forum, before steam launch:
"Good luck with steam-kids that will just laugh at the 1999 graphics and move on."
I had this sentence edited out and infraction given :)

Honestly, they just need to make a new Quake 5 or whatever.

It's hopeless to keep doctoring around little things with Quake Live - it's just too damn old.

Let me explain/give you an example: around 15 years ago I played a lot of CS. I started in the early betas and stopped somewhere in 1.6. Don't laugh, but I was a 'pro' CS player. ( I use the term 'pro' lightely, becuase while even though I went to CPL Dallas and finished Top 8 with my team and won/placed high at the occasional local LANs, small sponsorships, etc. I obviously wouldn't consider this a 'pro' income).

Then I didnt play ANY games for around a decade. Somehow I got to quake a few years ago, and I liked it and didnt care about graphics because I'm more of a gameplay type of person.

And for nostalgia reasons I tried 1.6 again. And it was just like I remembered... I liked it, didnt care about graphics - they didn't even strike me as bad. But this is coming from a person who didnt play ANY games for a decade.

So recently I decided to test CS:GO becuase I wanted to see what my 'childhood hobby' turned into. And yeah... guess what? While I despise some of the gameplay changes, I can completely understand why people think old games are crap. I mean, CS:GO apparently doesnt even have top graphics compared to other current games, but compared to 1.6 and the older CS's, it's amazing. And because of this, I now can no longer even try to play a game of 1.6. It just hurts my brain, it's so ugly and outdated. And it wouldn't matter how much you doctor around on 1.6 to change the 'social experience', or the 'matchmaking' or this or that - I just wouldn't play it anymore.

And this is what people think of Quake. Yeah, if you grew up with quake and have an attachment to it or are a rare case like me and didnt play computer games for 10 years, then it's probably fine and only 'smaller' problems are wrong with it (matchmaking, loadout details, this, that, who cares...).

But for the new generation, if you want a 'new boom' that lasts, you will need to start from scratch - with new graphics, etc...

That's just my opinion from my personal experience. I just can't hold anyone against not wanting to play the current Quake due to it's graphics/oldness. I've gotten CS:GO players (that are good gamers) to try Quake, and while they were 'decent' for noobs in their first games, they absolutely hated how the game looks. They thought it was fun and liked the speed/weapons/etc, but they just couldnt stand the oldness. They didn't even complain about any 'social features' or matchmaking, etc. - they just flat out thought it was ugly and didnt wanna play it for more than a few games.

I think you have a point. Medium ages at different speed, and videogames age very quickly.

A good test to see this is to try and play a very popular old game you haven't played and loved as kid.

I've done it a countless of times with graphics adventures (which in terms of gameplay are all very similar), picking two games of comparable epicness but ending up being perceived completely differently, just because I played one as a kid and I have good memories, and I haven't played the other and I just saw everything I did not like about it.

Similarly, I tried playing Quake 1 and 2 at a certain point, and I felt the same barrier. Little things that don't look good or are too clunky, which you are not really willing to pass over, because in the end you can play Quake3/Live, which improved on those (while maybe taking step backward on other regards, which you don't really know). I can only imagine what it is for a COD/BF kid to try Quake.

The only part I disagree is about pulling the plug. Keep Quake Live alive, while developing Quake 5, please.

Oh, of course, I wouldn't pull the plug on QL either. Just keep it as is while working on Quake 5.

I just don't see the point in trying to 'doctoring around' on a dead horse, trying to revive it. Leave it as is, it's perfectly playable for the old/current playerbase (of course +/- small changes that someone like sponge/syncerror can adress and won't take away from development time of a Quake 5).

How do you feel about the changes made for the steam release. Are you for or against them?

I think the story with QL development has been pretty much the same for the past years, dictated by too many limitations in man power and expertise, which resulted in heavy compromises and limited change.

With this update it's the same: without a large resource investment, they have done a number of ok changes to address some issues newbies had, with a certain degree of success:

"Team Combat" is more fun than TDM was for a newbie, and combining different Team modes allowing to switch after one map is a good idea. FFA is broken with loadouts, but a newbie would not really notice it, and creating a barrier to Duel is probably good. The movement changes are more a gimmick than anything else, as they don't really help. The item timers are welcome to make the modes more casual/fun.

Is the game now more newbie friendly than before? Yes.
Is this still enough to retain newbies? I don't think so.

I think what the next quake needs is the following:

- Fantastic graphics. It has to look stunningly beautiful. There is no way around this.

- Proper separation of players. Matchmaking is one aspect of it, but I would go as far as create separate players pools and give the players the ability (with limitations of course) to choose where they want to be, and possibly flag players they believe do not belong in it. Players can easily say if they feel they were matched correctly, and not collecting and using their feedback is a big waste.

- Make sure the newbie modes are fun. To be honest, game modes in FPS games are not very innovative, and I'd like to see more creativity and thinking out of the box. Since it's not about competition, you can really push in many directions.

Finally, I should mention that I strongly believe the core mechanics of Quake are perfect as they are. Newbies can have fun against newbies, as thousands did in 1999, but the game is super deep. The only problem of is when you match newbies with veterans, but there the fault is on the matchmaking, not on the core mechanics.

Why people have an obsession with graphics is beyond me.

Some of the worlds best selling games are The Sims, Castle Run, MineCraft and Angry Birds which all look like complete shit.
So why should a competitive fps be extremely high quality graphics?

You just need it to ooze out professionalism. Which can be done with very basic graphics. But with a shitload of competitive features surrounding the game.

Heck look at LoL, SC2 or Dota2, ok they are not ugly.... but they definitely don't have a stunning 3D graphics set.

I'm sorry but no.

Sims, Minecraft, etc have different demographic targets, while a new Quake would hit the Battlefield/COD base, and there top notch graphics is taken for granted. See how many kids complain about QL graphics on steam forums.

Also, do you think Q3 would have had a remotely comparable success without having one of the best looking and most advanced graphics of its time?

1) I'm not on steam and probably never will be.

2) No I do not think that if Q3 had worse graphics it would've sold as much, because at that time games were all about graphics. (but the times they are a changin)

3) people don't have a clue what they want. These kids you're talking about just can't handle any game that is difficult and therefor excuse themselves to their friends by saying "I don't like games with crappy graphics".

4) Quake is not competing with BF / CoD, which base their gameplay fully around operating as a team and taking cover at a fairly slow pace. Quake should focus a lot more around fairly open fights at a fast pace.
As there are no such games (other than Quake and UT). Although perhaps some of the more "fun" duelling games (fighting games for instance) could also be viewed in a similar way.

The problem quake has is a lot more about how it's viewed by the "new online scene" (lol dota cs) than that it actually has problems.
People just don't know they like this kind of game, because the people that used to like it are so good that they do not have a chance in hell to get a single frag onto anyone who's even remotely skilled.

"These kids you're talking about just can't handle any game that is difficult"

I see this statement thrown around alot and its not true.

If you get two newbies playing against each other its NOT a difficult game.

some good logic here, two ca scrubs shitting on each other on thunderstruck is fun for them. But put heartless vs them and they will both rage.

Gotta have proper matchmaking

haha, you think CA is a real game.

I can win rounds in CS/BF/CoD while being afk...
I can't win quake matches like that.

Also the reason why 2 noobs can have fun in quake is not so much because the game isn't difficult it's because it's fair and balanced.
However because it's more difficult than most other games the inequality between players shows earlier and more heavily. Which is why we've all been saying there should be good matchmaking.

Alright, fair points. But could you please elaborate on what is so difficult about Quake?

That is a very good question.
The answer to it is "somewhat" complicated (although it boils down to 3 core concepts).
The first concept is "lack of randomness" the second one is "ability to force your strength" and the last is "blaming your team".

As for "lack of randomness" it should be fairly easy to see relative to games like CoD / BF / CS where characters often die before they really have any chance to react (for instance headshots = instant kill, and a lot of times you die without having the time to turn around etc.). So if you happen to see the other person first and get a clean shot off, you'll be pretty likely to get the kill somewhat regardless of skill. Ofcourse the skill in this game is to catch the other guy out more often than he does to you. And that part is as hard as beating another person at chess. However this would allow the possibility that in CS you win one in X matches, while in quake you'll never be able to beat someone.

The "force your strength" means that within quake it is much more possible to continuously get into a certain situation than it is in other games.
In CS / BF / CoD you continuously get into a situation that the game forces you. (There are only so many places to start / place the bomb / capture an objective / bla bla).
Because the only objective in (most modes) of quake is to frag the other person, you have a large part of control of how the fight will look like. Therefor you can very often get into a situation that favors your skillset most (for example if you're strong with RL you get into different fights than when you're strong with rail).

The "blaming your team" is also a very well known idea, which you can see most accurately in LoL type games. Because while "you do everything right" you lost a game because "the rest of the team is shit". And you can continue thinking like this even though you are by far the worst player on the team, because whatever you did do had an (in your eyes) positive effect on the outcome of the game.
While in quake you can simply see: I died X times, did Y dmg, other people did a much better job at that -> "I must suck". (also real quake is duel so you don't really have the option to blame anyone anyway)
Whereas in LoL you can get "I was a tank and my team didn't follow correct (they are shit) I took a lot more dmg than them, did a lot less and died a lot more. But that's because I played tank."
Similarly "I kept guarding the ADC but he's just shit while I'm a pwning support" or as adc "the sup sucked". etc. etc. etc.
You can always attribute blame onto others.

I don't see how the trend is changing. We are not talking about underground communities who value quality etc. We are talking about the mainstream. And mainstream will always be attracted by what shines the most.

I don't understand who you are referring to as potential audience, if you exclude BF/COD.

if people are attracted to what shines the most then people will most certainly never ever touch a game like minecraft.
Heck probably more people should've bought Far Cry than did WoW.

The quality of the graphics matters less now than ever.
The reason for this is because in the early stages of gaming you could really easily distinguish between "old" and "new". As each cycle of games (/consoles) produced much better graphics.
Nowadays however the distinction is between 2 or 16 times antialiazing. And resolutions don't suddenly quadruple but get 1/10th higher.
Heck at some points we're reaching the human ability to distinguish between possible ways of drawing.

The thing that makes quake quake is that it's duel, fast paced, well balanced etc.
If you wanna know who's the better FPS player you should simply be forced to check it in the quake series. Now ID fails to see this and pisses away the skill factor as if they want to gain marketshare from games that have a much more casual approach.
If however quake would profile itself as the most masterfull fps of all fps's in duel, then it suddenly gets a right to exist as a platform.
And that distinguishing platform is what creates demand for the game.

And ofcourse people will play cs / bf / cod more. But the thing that ID should do is that whenever they wanna really see who's best at FPS that they enter a quake arena.
Which is why I say that the problem with QL is not the game itself (as imo it is much harder to play than any other FPS as I used to win games in all other FPS easily while I had a hard time in quake). But it is how it is percieved by the other gamers.

BF, CS, CoD players all think that the highest skill is within their own game. (Which they are entitled to, but it will cause the death of quake if they remain to do so)

In FPS games graphics are of the essence. In shooters people expect progress in graphics, just like it happens with racing games. If a new FPS game looks like balls, people don't care about it.

You could have the best racing game in terms of gameplay and realism, which is iRacing, but people get excited about Project CARS just because of the graphics, no matter gameplay-wise it's 10 years behind.

But more than the theoretical preaching, in practice people do drop QL immediately because of the shitty graphics. QL-only people don't realize how bad QL looks like.

The other thing QL-only people don't realize is that "gamers" just drop games in one second if they don't like their initial impression, especially free to play games like QL, for which graphics are of the essence, among other factors.


About minecraft, firstly it's not a shooter. It created a subgenre of its own, with a massive gameplay change as important as doom's was. People don't care much about graphics in minecraft because they only look for gameplay.

That's actually another thing quake only people don't realize: You don't play CS:GO and whatnot because of the graphics and theme, but because of the gameplay. In QL you cannot go into a server with 4 of your pals, get into an airplane, fly vertically, leave the plane mid-air and hit a rocket to another plane, re-enter the very plane, then crash it into the objective you are trying to capture for the lulz. Also in QL you aren't rewarded for playing, no sense of progression whatsoever, and in the end it's only replaying the same thing for 15 years, whereas in other franchises gameplay changes quite a lot from time to time.
WoW is an absolutely different game than FarCry, as a genre and of what they both offer in terms of gameplay and enjoyment with friends. In WoW people don't care about graphics but about gameplay only, just like it happens in mobas too (LoL > HoN, no matter the former looks way worse than the latter).

Secondly, not everything graphics-wise comes down to technology. The current trend is artsy games, so games with artistic style, and Minecraft has lots of that. Way more than QL does these days.

Also it doesn't look that bad on consoles. Certainly better than QL :P


And about gameplay, I think people hype QL to absurd extents. Gameplay-wise the game is at least 10 years behind the rest, sorry but it is, and if you want to play the truly hardcore stuff there's QW and Painkiller. QL is very much dumbed down, so I never got this message that some people say about it being the ultimate test of skill and whatnot, because it is not. Q3 was way more hardcore, for that matter.


In the end just read this review about QL's sibling to see my point. Just have in mind that when it comes to reviewing games, any aspect or overall score less than a 8 = don't play it.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/12/21/quake-arena-arcade-review

Question... have you ever seen and or played Minecraft?
Graphics wise it's of a lesser quality than doom2 was. It's actually fairly close to wolfenstein if you ask me.

But I do agree with that the style matters a lot and I said that in the above posts.

In FPS people think that it matters a lot because the "new CoD" must be more pretty than the "previous CoD" as they simply do not alter their gameplay at all.
Just like in Fifa the only "real" change since 98 is that the players look more realistic and that they now have all name patents etc.

However if you want to distinguish yourself with gameplay (as I suggest quake does) it simply doesn't matter how much prettier it is than CoD.
If people like the gameplay they will stay and play.

It's also nuts that ID first fucks up the gameplay and then re-releases the game.

Artistic style makes up for it. When minecraft was released its graphics were unique, to the point they were appealing. More importantly, it's a whole different genre. Everyone got into it because it was not a shooter.

People don't perceive small gameplay tweaks when they try a new game. What they see is improved video quality, hear better audio and have fun with new elements, such as weapons, new maps (now maps are huge when compared to QL's), new story, new gametypes, new interface, additional gameplay elements, rewards and others. You know, a new game as a whole instead of having always the same content in the exact same way it was in 1999.

Practically everyone that tried QL in the steam release thought it was Quake 3, which doesn't cut it anymore, gameplay and graphics wise. QL is way behind the times, not only in graphics but also in gameplay. There isn't a single element that players haven't tried before. No novelties and no innovations, just the bare bones.

If you want to distinguish yourself with gameplay you have to do more things than just tweaking some values and have to stop practically copypasting games released 15 years ago. Quake does not stand out anymore, in any way whatsoever. What the franchise, or id software, requires is releasing a new game that seems like a whole evolution of the concept, to the point it doesn't look like quake 3 or like previous dooms. The way id software is doing that is by releasing doom4 inspired in brutal doom, which is very much gory and with additions to the gameplay than just shooting in first person, all with the latest graphics.

you should take a minute or 10....
Sit back, take deep breaths.
And think about what it is you're actually saying.

"artistic style makes up for everything -> except in this case because megaman3 said that for FPS all that matters is graphics"
"Actually for all genre's which are not FPS/racers megaman3 has a different view."

"People don't notice small gameplay tweaks AND quake does not stand out from games like CoD, CS and BF".

Basically the only thing you said that is not completely random is that people that tried QL thought it was Q3. Which I can agree that it is.

Now do plz post a much more sane reply in your next post where you actually think about "if minecraft has shit graphics, perhaps graphics do not actually mean that much".

You are still not getting that minecraft is not shooter, do you.

It's a game isn't it?

Come one, Weird, focus!

I'm always focussed ;)

I agree with megaman on this one - he has a far better view on the 'gaming industry' than you do, Weird. Sorry, but it's the truth.

It just seems like you arent the target group Weird. I mean, you even said you don't have steam and would never get it. This alone shows that you have little to no knowledge about the current situation of 'casual gamers', their wants/needs, etc...

I used to be like this when I played quake only - and didn't have steam and didn't care about it. A year ago or so I got steam, bought several games and started playing aroudn in them and getting to know many different types of gamers. And well, to put it short: it's a completely different world than what I was used to with 'quake only'. I no longer have problems understanding why the 'random casual gamer in his teens' doesnt like Quake Live at all.

You're confusing things here.

I "am" a target group, I'm just not "the general steam target group".
And ofcourse I do know a few things about what the 'casual gamers' want.

The fast paced FPS will probably never be as mainstream as the slower ones. I've explained why CS/CoD/BF are (imo) as 'easier', especially on a low level, above.
Most people nowadays want instant gratification from games, which is something that quake does not really give. You don't level up, you can't win games vs people better than you etc..

But that doesn't mean that when quake would look awesome that more people would play it.

The logic you guys have is completely rediculous.

The idea that you need great graphics for an FPS game while not for a Building game is making an illogical link between genre of games.

What you want is a distinction in gameplay. Which we have.

You say QL has a distinction in gameplay. Well, why did it fail then?

All I'm saying is that QL gives a bad first impression, for which graphics and other aspects matter. In videogames what you see first is ... video, which you know is even more of the essence in fps games than in other genres. Then, QL lacks things like getting rewarded for playing (like every game these days. Doesn't necessarily disturb gameplay), that none of their steam friend is playing, that matchmaking is awful and so on.

As for gameplay and as I replied here to someone else, to outsiders QL is simpler and duller than call of duty and battlefield, because there's less things to interact with and less possibilities at hand. In this day and age people don't play a game for years until they understand the complex gameplay you are talking about, so they just see yet another generic shooter without any extra gameplay elements, no innovation. To give you an example, we are the ones that understand how sexy quake movement is once you master strafe jumping, but noobs don't even jump.

Related to that there's the fact that the vast majority of noobs don't play duel or gametypes without starting weapons. They play CA And current FFA, which don't have the depth of duel, tdm or ctf. Actually that very depth is somewhat understood only after hundreds of games on those mods, which is something very few do.

More so, the game is free. What you are not getting here is that the "general steam target group" leaves f2p games in a second if they don't like what they see, the first impression. Back in the day we finished games and squeezed the last drop of multiplayer, but now gamers aren't like that because games are either free or much cheaper than they used to. If people leave fast, even faster than from other f2p games, then they won't recommend the game to their friends, so activity will drop immediately and it will never reach the first peak less so go past it.

Think of QL like a flash game, which we drop all the time for good (no second tries) if it the intro screen itself doesn't look good, or if I can't play it for some network issue, or if in the first match you see the game has nothing new than what you have played before, plus getting insulted by players due to high ping and lack of skill, both which because of faulty matchmaking that sends you to play against veterans and in an overseas server (the "play now" button), etc.. etc.

Other issue is that the game itself doesn't have something to get you hooked up to it, so you go past the first and second tries and keep on playing for weeks, maybe months, maybe years. Leveling up is one way but there's others. Keeping players playing is the best thing LoL does, by far.

So, the next quake, doom or whatever should have completely new graphics and new gameplay too. Quake doesn't cut it.

Well reasons why QL "failed" (not as succesful as we would hope) is a combination of many things.
For a main part it's trying to fit an "extremely familliar player base" with a "relative new player base", which shouldn't have been done. This is amplified by the matchmaking system.
Another thing is that loadouts suck.
Also lack of progression through the game as well as lack of easily accessible tutorials.
Next to that theres an abundance of crap modes available for everyone. Which makes it possible to enter a game without any knowledge of what the objective is. (This is better in the new browser than it was in the old...)
Also I think that people shouldn't be able to join in games while they are running. There should be a clear start and ending. (Like in CA but in all modes)
The console should really not be available to people. It seems unfair to people when they realize that they can use picmip etc and they didn't know about this before.
No real links to community pages / videos about QL.

I'm not sure about this point btw but "did ID promote QL as if it's a new game"? Because I assume that they did and people were therefor dissapointed about the graphics and also baffled at the skill of the other people already in the game.
As I agree that at least for current day the QL graphics are behind. (This does NOT mean that Q5 needs a great new graphical overhaul and be more pretty than for instance the latest CoD. It should however have graphics that are much more stylish for a "competitive arena" and be much less customizable. This can be done even with the old engine (although I'd want to put in some more flashy effects myself which are not really doable in the old engine))


As for the "rewarding" of new players the QL system actually has a lot of medals which you can unlock. Which is a pretty good idea, and also fairly well implemented but poorly communicated to the players. (Theres no progression bars etc towards general achievements (which would give progression), you just suddenly get a medal for some random thing. (which is not bad but it could be done better imo))

As for the gameplay, noobs don't have to be skilled to see the difference in gameplay. You don't die from 2 shots you can't continuously hide / play sneaky. You're surrounded by action all the time etc.
Now perhaps the person you spoke to thinks that this is more simple than CoD. But even if he thinks it's more simple he'll definitely agree with you that it is very different. And some people like different while others don't (I don't really like CoD :p).

I don't share the opinion that people will leave on the loading screen. I'm pretty sure that most players will have actually joined a server and had a go at a game. (not too many games though as they got slaughtered by the old community)

>> In FPS games graphics are of the essence.

Not all fps games are born equal. The term is too general.

>> People don't care much about graphics in minecraft because they only look for gameplay.

That's actually another thing quake only people don't realize: You don't play CS:GO and whatnot because of the graphics and theme, but because of the gameplay.

But then why do they care so much about graphics in QL according to you? It seems to me you are being inconsistent.

Ok, in any new fps graphics matter. Take a look at any chart and you'll see it by yourself.

Secondly, graphics in QL matter even more than in other games because QL is as basic as a FPS gets. Only a veteran knows about all the shit we do that makes the game be complex, but for everyone else quake is simpler than cs, battlefield, even call of duty..

btw to slightly add on the previous post.
It doesn't mean that the next quake should have minecraft graphics.
It just means that they really don't have to put in a lot of effort to make it outshine it's competitors.

Ofcourse the current QL graphics are somewhat outdated... and if they wanna market a 'new quake' then they should rework the graphics.
Tbh they should make it a lot more stylish and clean (have an environment where a nice looking green tankjr makes sense to have as well as the idea of an "arena").

Eventually I'm fairly sure that we will get a Q5. Just because the series is still a very well known one.

But there are a lot of problems with making that.
For instance most of the QW, Q3, QL players expect a game that ownz for competitive gaming.
This would need it to have "ok and customizable graphics", an awesome input system, at least 120fps and have a very difficult gameplay (or well not difficult but fast and hard to master).
Meanwhile most players who like Q1, Q2 and Q4 want to have an exciting storyline in a gothic yet spacelike and futuristic environment which has some horror elements and a lot of action.
Now to obtain horror like elements and lots of action you want to create a certain setting with lots of artwork. This doesn't go well with "custom graphics" and it certainly doesn't work well aiming for 120fps (at least during the next 3 years or so).

If they would want to do both however, I would suggest to them that they need to make it for the oculus, and then port that to a 2d screen (for extra sales and multiplayer).
That could work pretty good, as you have an excuse of limited power in order to reduce the quality of the graphics, but the "3d effect" will make it seem like the graphics are awesome and much more realistic (and therefor you can get more ambiance). And since you need to be able to render 2 screens at 60hz, you can easily port that to 1 screen on 120 hz ;)

it seems as if the new players either dont know that there are tier 1/2/3/4 or they just dont care about it.
tier 4 games are full of newcommers.
they get raped, insulted and kicked in the end.
id should do something about that to make these players stay.

they should finally make use of their beloved tier-system.
QL should only display servers of your current skill level (tier) by default.
still you have the chance to set your filter to "show all tiers" or something like that.
i guess this would be very easy to implement and could have a positive effect.

just to mark the server in a "traffic light way" (grenn, yellow, red) doesnt prevent people from chosing the "wrong" server.
people walk across the street no matter what fucking colour the traffic light has.

ql needs more cowbell

"it seems as if the new players either dont know that there are tier 1/2/3/4 or they just dont care about it."

instead they have that ludicrous imagination that quakelive has a matchmaking mechanic like every single other modern esport title that will prevent them from joining highskill servers when clicking "play".

wether thats naiv on their side or simply ignorant on id's - decide yourself.

you're right, totally forgot about the "play" button.
but it is even worse when this button directs you to matches not your skill.
did they even think about how to make people stick to the game? (apart from load-outs and these totally retarded ammo-packs)

well they did, but sponges way of thinking doesnt really match our way of thinking apperently. his response to matchmaking was pretty much "bloodline champion had matchmaking and still noone played it"

all i can say is that i created a new account for steam (incase i regret linking my old account later) and played with 3 friends of mine that started playing the steamrelease all of the sudden even tho they never played quakelive before. after just 4 public CA and Freezetag with random shuffled teams all but 1 of us went tier4 mode and we got matched with players only i could compete with. two games later even tho stomped like no tomorrow they were still rated tier4. after that all 3 of them stopped playing because of, i quote:
"this is no fun, the other players are just too good :("
"i can never reach that level, i will just keep on playing games where i have a chance"

but whats the point even, we are debating about these topics since years without having id listening. matchmaking was never about getting new players, it was about not loosing new players instantly once they arrive. everyone was pretty much sure that it is a MUST in the steamrelease because that release is pretty much the last shot quakelive will ever have. chance wasted, just like predicted.

so people that should be tier 2/3 are now (since the steam release) rated as tier 4?
did they announce that they lowered the bar somewhere?
that would explain a lot since the amount of obviously less skilled players is unusual high.

chance wasted yes.
but its hard for me to blame the two or three guys working on that.
maybe if they would have given more to work with (manpower, money or whatever gamedevelopers need) from their grandmother zenixmax/bethesda the result would look better.

Maybe if they wouldn't be retarded.

Maybe.

Not a chance.

If experienced players played more classic, that would be a segregation in itself, but the old garde doesn't dislike the changes that much.

YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD.

I already wrote about that in several threads. Other players also wrote about that. And lo and behold, no more fapping to high numbers @ id HQ. Now it's pay time, Sync & Sponge.

You shat on long-time players and Quake veterans and you had your hooray weekend of OVER 6000!.
that is OVER 9000 with 9 reversed. How cool. Vegeta would be proud.

Now you have 2k+ of players, some complete noobs and like a lot of vets quit from this crap. An ancillary crap fallout from this is fucked-up servers, problems with starting the match, etc. No anticheat to be found, however.
Good job.

Guess the supposed pay bonus won't be coming in, after all. At least Sasparillo can nazify the forums removing all non-politically correct posts.


Holy shit, this is sad.

To make Quake popular it needs a new ground breaking engine and game just like Quake 2 was to Quake and Quake 3 to 2. Huge popularity, lots of new talent, lots of tourneys with massive purses :) It ain't gunna happen. I've played Quake since Doom/Quake and I play Quake live a few times a week and enjoy it and love keeping up with the scene and the tournaments. It's popularity on steam won't effect me either way :)
Best game ever made.

is this a trend of # of people signing up, or # of people playing? if it's just # signing up, it's not really unexpected to see it declining after the initial release on Steam.

Chart shows number of simultaneously active players (Playing QL from Steam)
- Does not count the ‘original’ QL community that plays using the standalone client.
- Does not show # of unique players per day
- Does not show how many people downloaded QL from Steam.

about as predictable as it gets.

but im sure idsoftware still believes in their ways.

Can't polish a turd!
You can spruce it up with some corn though.

http://youtu.be/jXGV-MT-TmU

polishing a turd is the complete opposite of this situation though.

id has a diamond in the rough but they seem to think its gonna cut itself by dipping it into shit

This is good, because they clearly can't invest in new servers and game was barely working (which is stupid because there was no such problem with q3).

Reality: id incompetent -> No players/subs -> no revenue/money -> no new devs -> no new content -> no better infrastructure -> both legs in grave, only one hand finger holding body from not falling completely inside the grave

How it should have been: Community driven content and ideas -> id listens to the community and agrees -> new engine -> proper marketing -> lots of players/subs -> lots of money/high revenue -> new content -> better infrastructure -> everyone happy

Quake is currently running only because id knows people will rage like nuts if they shut it down. Its ultra classic game and they cant shut it that easily...but, I wonder how long will id and Bethesda let QL live while generating no revenue and while it only gains loss and eats "healthy" money which could be invested in smarter things and new projects...?

thread saved to bookmarks much lols were given

that SuKaKa dude's frag are so good he's from china.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I actually believed they *might* do something good with their insane update and Steam release. Oh how wrong I was...again.

Seriously, QL's history is the best way to cause extreme depression and think about suicide. It's almost pathologically wrong, fucked up, sick, messy, distorted and totally wasted opportunity.

Now bear with me:

1) A monkey handler from Zenimax comes into id software's building if they still have one and says to his monkeys: MAKE.PROFIT.YOU.FUCKS.

2) A head monkey pisses on the floor while running around the room. That piss creates a pattern.

3) Other monkeys look at that pattern and prophesize from it: Oh, this splatter looks like a gun...I know...a HMG! Oh oh...here we have a radial pattern...a counter for pickups!

4) Another monkey finds out that there's something called STEAM. Like, say, 10 years after its arrival.

5) The same monkey realizes that maybe, just maybe, the game they try to work with may be used on Steam. Hey, Steam = network, multiplayer. Quakelive = Network, multiplayer! Eureka!

6) Monkey see, monkey do! The team of monkeys begin to stuff their feces into the DVD-ROMs in their computers. The cacophony of short-circuits coming from these devices is translated into game code.

7) The monkeys vigorously rub their genitalia against keyboards of their PCs. This is the correspondence with Valve. Finally a deal is made. Signed with crap.

8) Great day has come! A head monkey pushes the button and QL is back again! A great celebration is made: Rivers of shit float down the stairs straight into the server room; this causes system malfunctions with game servers. Hence lag and ping issues.

9) A head monkey watches the game forums and finds out REBELLION! He asks the monkey handler what to do. Monkey handler pets the monkey and removes all keys from its keyboard - apart from the DEL and BACKSPACE keys and tells the monkey to get right to responding to gamer's concerns.

10) A PEAK happens and goes away. Now all monkeys face reality. Poop-flinging has stopped, no more hanging from chandeliers. The DEL key is permanently stuck on keybaord connected to the server that handles forums.

All is well in the jungle.

I pissed myself reading this :D

I had to bu a diaper because I get pissed every time I see what they did to QL...

steam players play steam games. you know.. easy games.

where if you have someone in your crosshair, and you press fire, you hit him. (i know right, what a concept!)

did you ever think your horde of casuals would ever enjoy a game as counterintuitive and difficult as quake?

people who are natural quake players have already found quake without needing steam to get there; as for those 5 people from thsi steam launch that will stay, they probably lost 5 that got nauseated at the noobness.

or maybe not. i must have imagined all the T4 players who lately get 2 kills and 29 deaths in TDM. or the T4 CA players who average 17% accuracy and 100 damage per round.

last part about the tiers is so true. I don't know what the tiers are for if 90% of the players are in tier4 and with a huge skill gap between them...

The problem ql has are its completely retarded players. Basically Every ca match i play there are idiots who vote kick noobs even if teams were shuffled and the score is 4-4. I remember being kicked once as a noob and it was really offputting, however it also motivated me to prove these guys etc. And it was one time in over a year of playing.

I imagine nowadays as a noob being kicked multiple times on one day there really is nothing motivating in it.

yea certainly the problem is the players getting annoyed by noobs coming into their tier4 games instead of the system that puts them there in the first place. fuck off

You must be trolling or are utterly retarded cuz You just proved my point in an incredible ironic way. Its dumb idiots like you in the ca servers who dont even bother to check the circumstances before telling people to fuck off. I clearly described a balanced match so learn to read. And yes noobs and veterans can play together if the teams are balanced. That you dont seem to understand that is not my problem.

i said fuck off

Haha oh man you are truly retarded. Cheers

am I the only one still enjoying quakelive ?

I'm not surprised by the steam player count decreasing. It's the same for basically every game. The first week is full of hype and players but in the long term it's not the same, and that applies not only to quakelive.

but still from my own experience i see more "not-so-skilled" players on the public servers, it's nice.

lolol DM been dead, stop clinging :D

fuck off then

lol

Headless noobs run around

HELLO IM FROM STEAM KILL ME

were you trying for a hayku, Lolzy?

This person has a troublingly familiar name....

Steam players are odd they cant move worth shit worse than me and im disabled but have omgwtfbbq aim

and what you just said wasn't odd...

In other news - the sky is blue. The graph that you show is exactly how steam graphs for pretty much all games look like. Players check out a new game, most of them play a few days and go on to another games, some stick around longer, that's how gaming works.

To put this in perspective, Quakelive since its launch always has been the most successfull and profitable arena shooter in existence. All other games like Reflex, Warsow, etc, have completely failed to attract any interest at all. Why you make this post about QL? Why don't you draw the same graph for Warsow and then interpret it and make analysis about what went wrong?

It's true that id software made some extremely dumb decisions that ruined possible much greater success. However, the developers of other games who followed the ESR and hardcore players advice have failed much, much more.

It would (it wouldn't but let's assume it would) be fine if the lower numbers wouldn't be so low.
At the end of the day we're stuck with this abomination of kwek without any hope of better geme or proper replacement.

How are you stuck with it? No one prevents people from spawning a classic server with any settings. I don't even remember when I played that loadout crap last time.

Classic ffa is dead and i don't like it. Even if you spawn servers.

I'd rather play some qw \o/

Let's see some players stats from QW.

I am somewhere in that list and there is like 5 other people so that's good enough : )
And what's more important - menus in qw looks better.

apples and oranges, dude

Hi sponge

Hi, I'm glad that you agree with all I said.

haha no but i do think you sound like this person
http://www.quakelive.com/forum/showthread.php...ost306780~

you are funny guy though. 500 PEOPLE DROPPED SINCE LAST TUESDAY. Only 1500 left. ~~

not many games on steamcharts have taken a severe drop like this. i have not seen other game that is worse even~

ql is big failure you cannot deny at this point. maybe you see in 2 weeks then when ont 750 left.

QL is not a success. However, to attribute its failure to last update that introduced loadouts is the dumbest thing imaginable. You seriously believe that if QL remained classic, the Steam stats would be any better?

Stats wouldn't be any better.
So what's up with all these loadouts 'n shit?
Whole pub level got derailed into this joke of a game.

just stick to classic servs, that usually filters the noobs out too

no but you said ql is most successful shooter since launch. That is just lol haha. if you go through steamcharts pages you see that ql has biggest drop of any game over same period of time. it is not the most successfull. more like exact opposite

very not successful and very much a big fail. and very big fail of you to try to say that i am blaming the update on failure on steam. is more like failure is because of bad skilmatch system no?

you agree that new player get smashed because veterans play in same tiers yes? it is big problem, but it can not be fixed so ql is fail . cannot say no at this point.

by default quake games are more challenging than most other FPS, so of course the drop out rate would be great in any case. You can't compare that rate with those of other games.
Out of 100 players who try quake for the first time, how many do you think actually stick to it after getting smashed repeatedly several times in a row while there are tons of easier (and better looking) games out there for them to go to?

ID tried to make it slightly easier with the loadouts etc. while still leaving the option to progress onto the classic games for those new players. I know 2 players who are new to QL (only few months) and were only playing CA, now with the loadout system they play also TDM in public and as they get used to it they started watching and playing classic TDM games. so it does seem to work.

how many do you think actually stick to it after getting smashed repeatedly several times in a row while there are tons of easier (and better looking) games out there for them to go to?


SEE I AGREE YOU.

That is the biggest problem. If they start play with other player at same level as they are then they would not be getting smash. yes quake is hard but to say that quake is harder than any others game on steam is no true. is hard but is hard only if you play other player who play every day already for 4 years.

not speaking of any of the above, even if we say only that quake is hardest game, then that alone is also a good reason why quake can never be popular since as you say people look for easier games.

both ways quake is fail to attract and keep new player but if they play against other player at same level than not so many would drop out as fast. is true no?

a game like quake will never have the popularity of a game where 1 shot = 1 kill, that's a fact.
Now to be honest I don't care about ql having thousands and thousands of players, I don't mind if its only a couple thousands of active ones and at least we get decent games rather than dozens of servers all filled with noobs. Players on ql are thrown in deep water, and if they can't handle it then they won't stay.
I'm a relatively recent ql player compared to most and even though I was getting smashed repetitively in the beginning, I stuck to it.

Of course a small community is not necessarily a good business model for ID, hence why the steam release and the update.

I do agree though that the tiers are fucked as probably over 90% of the players end up in tier4 and there are big skill gaps. That tier gold that is displayed on profiles should actually exist to separate the tier4 in two, still leaving the opportunity for players of tier4 and tier gold to play against each other, but also giving the possibility for tier4 players to play vs. tier4 players, and tier gold players to play vs other tier golds.

IMO quake is supposed to be a hardcore game and is difficult in the fact that there are so many things going on to think about, not only the movements are fast and you gotta master strafe jumping, but then you include other things like timing items, being aware of opponents' stack etc. If you take a game like counter-strike or call of duty for example you attack or defend specific bomb sites so you know roughly where your enemies are going to be, your enemies can't stack up, you have nothing that respawns that you need to time, etc.
my point is, if noobs don't understand that quake is much more complex than other casual shooters, they shouldn't be playing it and won't stay on the long run.

now the steam update is in my eyes an attempt to make more players discover the game, in the hope of keeping some of them who are attracted by that kind of hardcore game. you can't compare the number of players who stay on it against other steam games, apples and oranges.

i agree you but at the same time you must see that a small hard core playersbase is not good model. you agree, but steam release is not going change this situation because failure of id to implement block to keep older players from play against new steam players.

also, i do not understand you say tier 4 and tier gold. you think these are only player in ql? why you no mention tier 2 and tier 3. i think you must understand that casuals like play too, just against other player at same levels.

problems is with tier 4 player play against tier 3 player, not tier 3 player going into tier 4 server. yes is annoying, but is not cause tier 3 player to quit. because tier 3 player want learn that is why he join tier 4 server.

tier 3 player quit when tier 4 player join tier 3 server. tier 3 player is not ready to play tier 4 player..... understand no? yes? is simple no? i feel perhaps you understand but do not want to see it from new player point of view. is correct no?

How do Tier 4 players join Tier 3 servers?

new accounts. easy to make yes? some player have many accounts.~

then they start level 3 tier against steam noob

A segregation of the players between 'previous quake players' and 'new steam players' isn't the way either.

You misunderstood my point...
I talk about tier 4 and tier gold because this is something that could be done and would help spread the players a bit instead of having the vast majority into one single tier which is tier4. I don't think they are the only players in ql and I didn't mention tier 2 and tier 3 because why mention them if there's nothing wrong with them?
Even though I'd be actually curious to know how many players there are in tier 1 and 2...

tier 4 players can't join tier 3 servers so your point is invalid.
Usually tier 3 players who join tier 4 servers isn't because they want to learn but because either the didn't notice the 'more challenging' status on the server before joining or because they can't find a good tier 3 server to join.

By the way I don't mean to be rude but your English is very difficult to follow, I suggest some more lessons and I say that in a nice kind of way.

segregation is needed if you want the quake to grow. is true yes? new player right now have no chance to learn if they get smash in first 10 game. solution was, new player should only be able to play other new player for certain time you agree? is much better. then they have chance to learn at normal level.

tier 4 and tier gold is good idea, i agree. this is tier 5 you say yes? more tier is needed this i agree.

tier 3 do have problems when tier 4 player make new account and play there against them or when tier 4 player who plays for frags but lose games to keep low tier ranking has same rating as tier 3 player. not hard to do i tell you this truthfully, i see this a lot in CTF.

You must play CTF to see this for yourself and you see that point is very valid. Point system is no good in this mode of play. points come from capturing flag. some new player only try to capture flag and can make more point, {i think 250}, than player who frag others which is only 1 point. very easy you see to be in top of points on leaderboard and move to tier 4 rating. the player who just play for frag will be at bottom of scoreboard, maybe with 50 to 5 kill to death but still keep tier 3 rating. this is true. is loophole you see. big problem in CTF.

also many tier 3 player start in tier 3 server but server becomes tier 4 server when sv rating go up and more good player join. so they are on tier 4 server without knowing this and then get kick. is not their fault you see. this happen a lot too.

sure some player join up without knowing or for fun to see how they do but to say that every tier 3 player do this is no true. please see above and you understand ok?

ca is best because it force player to play. cannot hide and pretend level of ability. this is why is most popular.

I think everyone should download www.nquake.com and play some awesome quakeworld!

Most of the time there is some populated FFA people can join and *pew* *pew* motherfuckers until their eyes are starting to melt \m/

Ive played a little qw on and off for the last 15 or so years and followed it however never been as good or as experienced as the regulars yet playing a few mix's recently it was still a lot of few as a newb and I don't think I let the team down too much. What I'm trying to say is people should give it a go and not worry about getting wrecked, theres a lot of helpful players and shouldn't be too bad if you have some FPS experience.
Obviously I didn't have a clue what I was doing when I didn't have a gun and my team mates were carrying me but like I say people were quite helpful and tolerant of a rookie.

Is there deticated qw tdm pickup IRC channel, or something more general?

I don't think so.
Basically you join #quakeworld or pretty much any other qw irc chan and people will announce they are starting a mix and the server and you join first come first served, then you play for hours!

From in the game you can do '.qw blahblahblah' and it will announce whatever the message is to all quakeworld irc chans running the bot, so people use this for finding duels, 4on4 mix/clan pracs and general qw news such as tournament games about to start.

It's funny to see comments like this in the context of this thread. "QL is a failure in terms of players stats, so let's move on to a game that's even more a failure by same standards".

As you can clearly see it's not about player base.

Why are you telling this to me and not to the OP?

OP isn't butthurt purely about low player count but about updates :c

Yet he named this thread "STEAM PLAYER COUNT DECLINING STEADILY", not "NEW QL UPDATE IS CRAP"

lol

Well there is only so much you can pack into a headline.

My extended Point is....

In order to raise revenues:

- SyncError came up with an "idea" for making QL more appealing to Steam players.
- He hoped it would be popular with the Steam players, but he knew this "idea" was not going to be popular with the veteran user base.
- He inexplicably decided to go all-in: Removing the default QL and replacing it with his "idea"
- Now the numbers are in and it looks like SyncError's "idea" isn't particularly popular with the Steam players either.

This makes SyncError an narcissistic idiot: There was no reason to go all-in on a hunch. He could have maintained classic QL as well as launch his experimental "idea". There was no reason to gamble away existing subscribers.

I sincerely hope he gets fired

- He inexplicably decided to go all-in: Removing the default QL and replacing it with his "idea"

There was no reason to go all-in on a hunch. He could have maintained classic QL as well as launch his experimental "idea". There was no reason to gamble away existing subscribers.

I just don't know wtf is wrong with you. No one removed anything. No one went all-in or gambled away anyone. Nothing changed for classic players at all. Just don't touch the loadouts crap if you don't like it and play normal classic servers. I played 2-3 games to see what those loadouts are about and then returned back to classic only and never touched loadouts again. If you don't like shit, just don't eat shit.

Now the numbers are in and it looks like SyncError's "idea" isn't particularly popular with the Steam players either.

First of all, no sane person expected QL popularity to explode. Quake in any form "isn't particularly popular with the Steam players". Current number of players is about 2-2.5x than was before Steam and decline is slowing down. It's hard to say about the extent of success or failure until we see player numbers stabilize.
Second, I'd like to see you explanation how a hypothetical scenario of just releasing QL on Steam and not doing any gameplay updates would be better than current situation.

No one removed anything. No one went all-in or gambled away anyone. Nothing changed for classic players at all.

Not sure if I should feed you.
Have you seen a single populated FFA classic server since the last 2 updates? The original FFA community just stopped playing for the larger part. I can host a FFA classic server, but since it shows as 'modified' and unranked, nobody shows up.

I'd like to see you explanation how a hypothetical scenario of just releasing QL on Steam and not doing any gameplay updates would be better than current situation.

Well, at the very least, the veterans would have remained .
I have canceled my pro subscription, I know of several others who played for years, but won't be renewing now that the game has lost it's soul. 80% QL's own forum is verterans complaining about the recent changes.

There are 12 different game-modes currently supported, if 'Classic FFA' was on the list I wouldn't be having this rant. And it wouldn't have cost Id anything extra, it just came down to poor decision making.

I don't play FFA much.
But let me get this straight: there are 2x more players now in QL than before, everyone plays loadouts to the extend that classic servers are impossible to find, and yet you claim that loadouts are unpopular for both veterans and new Steam players and thus are unsuccessful?

You really try hard, aren't ya? :D
Everyone plays the standard (loadouts) - yes
There is 2x more players because of steam - yes
Is this "2x" because of loadouts? - I would say nope

I guess an extra filter with 'classic' or 'loadout' in the 'browse server' page wouldn't hurt :)

It's funny to see comments like this in the context of this thread. "QL is a big success so lets stay and sink in ships together lolol".

Quoting myself from #253:

QL is not a success.

Hello, master of comprehenstion.

i think you are confused

you say this

Quakelive since its launch always has been the most successfull and profitable arena shooter in existence

then you say ql is not success

why so angry? is failure the game but why does it hurt you? are you investor in quake live stock? haha

That's exactly what I say:

1) QL is not a success
2) Quakelive since its launch always has been the most successfull and profitable arena shooter in existence

I think it's you who are confused because you seem to detect a contradiction here when there isn't any.

ANY game would have a decline after a release. There is ALWAYS an adoption drop-off. You can't just show it and make any point about it. If you could replicate the release of the game without the changes you think are problematic and take a screenshot then, that would be a valid comparison, but this is nonsense.

Yes. LoL started with 100 million players and never grew.

Very few games go viral like that and I don't think anyone in their right mind expected QL to somehow become something most people like to play. It might be a good idea to compare to the norm rather than the exception.

Not ALWAYS there's an adoption drop-off. That might be true in one payment games, but in f2p, subscription, microtransaction or constant updates based games it is not.

Actually the whole android and ios businesses work in the exact opposite way he described.

True.

who cares about league of losers

I guess I do, since I'm making a general statement. If there is a game on Steam that was released and had 0 users for a day and then someone played it, never to play it again, I am totally wrong and have no point.

Do you have a screenshot of the first month after its release?

Nope, but:

1) It's obvious. F2P games aren't massively advertised at the beginning; marketed with word of mouth.

Maybe even more importantly, obviously not all sales of a game happen at the first second but take some weeks to months.


2) I play since open beta and "were there" in the whole process.

LoL went through closed beta (didn't try it out before due to childish graphics and that I played dota), then open beta (playing with friends), then release and then continuous support for a number of a years, to this day. Beta lasted for more than a year, similar to QL actually.

At open beta it was almost a obscure game. I'm talking QL's current NA activity of obscurity here, in the whole planet (or uranus). At release date, so after one year of the project's beginning, LoL had easily way less players than QL had at the time, which is way more than what it has now. It had only one server (NA) and the forum had less activity than ESR. Since then that the player count has been steadily increasing, for like 5, 6 years and counting, but at the beginning it was a mere footnote in the genre (like cpm is to quake3) let alone in gaming itself.

Every time Riot or anyone else has released charts or info on player counts and activity that all numbers have increased. I could have searched for those instead of writing this, lol. Or of minecraft, since that started as a very obscure game, or of TF2 (that exploded went it went F2p, not before), or of Hearthstone (right now it's bigger than ever), etc. etc. etc.

I think it's clear that LoL is destined to be a much more popular game than QL, as was CounterStrike, Minecraft, and many other games. I think the changes that were made to QL were designed to attract this broader spectrum. Now, they might or might not work, but it's still too early to judge that.

I think the changes failed in the very moment of popping up in sync's head :)

look at me, I am rebellious.

do you really want me to look at you?

Ban threat?!

no, Demiurge. it's... you.. oh, man. maybe I should try communicating in Russian. beep beep, boop boop, Vladimir Putin.

I'm no steam expert, but i highly doubt it is the standard for new games to peak 3 days after their release and from then on to steadily decline in number of players.

Heck, in a week the peak of players halved, this can't be the standard for all the new steam games.

You can always take a look at recently released games within the top played to compare and see the general tendencies :
http://steamcharts.com/top

http://steamcharts.com/app/261640#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/65980#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/241930#1m
http://steamcharts.com/app/282350#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/273110#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/223650#1m

(and those in a few days)
http://steamcharts.com/app/265300#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/313160

But you are listing single player games. It's obvious those don't have a positive tendence; like Shadow of Mordor: it's just a single player game, you try the multiplayer 4 or 5 times and then you quit and keep playing single, or rent the game back to gamestop, and keep playing lol or dota.

Multiplayer-only games tend to grow after their release, not like ql that immediately shrinked.

Example:

http://steamcharts.com/app/730#All

I'm sorry, but they don't tend to grow. You hand picked your example. Only a few grow, the others shrink. This is why I listed many newly released games; to have a larger sample.
As for your example, this growth didn't happen by magic and it took a very long time to get people to adopt it. Also, this isn't the best comparison ever since CS just happened to have this MASSIVE playerbase just waiting to tilt to GO once it becomes decent. There is no such thing with Quake.

But I will go through the effort of finding multiplayer games only. The big problem with that is that, unlike when I was picking recently released games, I can't just pick them completely objectively in the list of recently released games. Well maybe I can pick from a list. Steam games happen to have tags, one of which is "multiplayer". But you gotta be wary not to sort by anything affected by popularity or you're gonna have a biased view. So this :

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=38...amp;page=1

Here is the first page :
http://steamcharts.com/app/282800#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/259620#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/251570#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/209330#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/228320#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/102700#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/228400#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/224540#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/109700#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/247830#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/221380#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/105450#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/266840#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/226840#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/61520#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/265650#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/40400#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/223630#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/206500#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/217920#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/630#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/3730#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/10680#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/49540#All
http://steamcharts.com/app/275060#All

The tendency is : peak during events followed by decline until the next event (or nothing). Events can be the game's launch, a big sale, a major update, etc.

I didn't pick anything, i just tought of the first multiplayer game that came to mind, and searched it in the steam charts.

" Also, this isn't the best comparison ever since CS just happened to have this MASSIVE playerbase just waiting to tilt to GO once it becomes decent. There is no such thing with Quake."

This effect applies even more to quake. When quake live was released, the almost entirety of the player base were salivating q3 veterans. And still nowadays, quake live is referred as a revamped q3 and people knows it for that.

Anyway it's undeniable that quake live steam release charts shows a depressing trend, wich isn't common in intensity in the standard games. For example, you mention that other games experiences peaks after competitions; ql had nothing like that.
And wheter it is natural for a game to experience overall loss of players in the long terms, it isn't usually as swift as a decline as ql lived.

The main problem with picking the first game that comes to mind is that this game is probably gonna be a very successful one instead instead of the norm.

As for the "massive old playerbase" effect, there was certainly a bit of that in 2008. The big differences would be the scale (Quake is a tiny franchise compared to CS) and the fact that Quake, while it had a decent playerbase in the past, didn't manage to keep it interested. Result : when QL came out, people didn't migrate to the new Quake from an older one because QL was better. Nobody was playing Quake by that time so there was no migration possible. This is really major because if they had been playing something, they might have kept playing it until they thought QL was decent enough to migrate. This would have made the curve decrease less with time or perhaps even increase past the update peaks. This is exactly what happened to CS:GO and this is why I was saying that this was a particularly bad example. When the game came out, there were still tens of thousands people playing CS 1.6 (and source) and it took a long while for them to migrate. I wish I still had that graph comparing the playerbases with time; it was clear cannibalization (but CS:GO did bring new players too). But yeah I'm not denying QL was in a favorable position compared to an all new franchise.

For your last point, I mentioned peaks after events. I wasn't thinking of competitions in there, to be honest. I always considered QL's competitive scene as a niche within a niche within a niche and I never had hopes it could have much effects since there's so little interest in it even within QL's own playerbase. I've seen graphs of CS:GO showing a correlation between major tournaments (with actual exposure) and playerbase peaks but I don't know if that happened in another game (or if it was actually a relation of causality, I don't know CS enough for that). I can't comment on the swiftness of the decline in QL's case compared to the general trend, honestly. I would need to analyze things further. There are many things to factor in and I don't feel like doing that right now!

have you analyze further? what love to see comment on swiftness of ql decline!!

No, I haven't. But I can. First, let's establish a methodology. If you disagree with any part of it, please let me know.

I will look for games which can be compared to QL.We will try to pick criteria which can affect the factor we want to analyze. We would need to pick Free-To-Play games only. Multiplayer is also necessary. I think shooters would be better. Arena shooters would be even better but then the sample (or rather population I guess) would be too small. It would be great if we could pick games which existed outside of Steam with a decent playerbase before their Steam release but it would not be too annoying to sort out.

After that we look on Steam Charts to compare the different games. We could choose different ways to go. I would recommend a "Change rate per day" = (populationToday / populationOnRelease - 1) / nbDaysSinceRelease.

Are you ok with that?

LOL

have no time to play quake live but have 24 hours a day to defend ql in esr office lol
http://quakelive.com/#!profile/matches/FlashSoul/2015-04-13

when ql go steam only you will see real numbers for first time in years yes? then i will laugh at you and yakumo who claim thousands for years now. no more hide stats and leaderboard

LOL, except in the very early days when one of the devs dropped some numbers, any time I've talked numbers it was in reference to stats from the game awards, or since they've been accessible I've only ever gotten my numbers from ql.leeto.fi and http://steamcharts.com/app/282440 just as this thread is discussing.

It's been other people pulling figures out of thin air trying to claim other games have a stronger userbase.

And yes,even at as low as 667 people playing in a 24 hour peak, that still equates to thousands of total players even at this low point on that graph. By far the majority of people don't play every day.
And at it's high 6,154 (24 hours.) at the steam launch, I don't see how anyone could claim this does anything other than continue to demonstrate whatever I'd said at the time.

I'll take that as a 'no'. So what do you suggest?

Hopefully it means more players for Reflex, prefer the more mechanical skill based combat of CPM over tactinoob campfest of QL.

reflex coming to steam?

1 Week update:

The Steam Player count has declined further.
We now see peaks around the 1.5K mark.
This means that QuakeLive is no-longer in the top 100 Steam games at any time of the week. (click Here for a list of games that beats the current QL with Load-outs.)

Eventually we will reach the point where #Steam-players < #Veteran-players(before load-outs).

So what’s my point?
SyncError’s business strategy, where the (assumed) needs of the new Steam players took priority over the established needs of the Veteran players; was a complete and utter failure.
It would have been cheaper to burn the money than do the work

SyncError’s hubris has damaged the value of the Quake brand.
Granted we live in a crazy world where the ‘value’ assigned to brands and software products is anything but objective……but here is why I think net Damage was done to the Quake franchise:

+ New Steam Players (technically only the ones for whom load-outs and ‘George Takei’ made the difference)
- Veteran Players who left or play significantly less
- Good will and support of the Veteran Community

It’s the last one that is the cinchier. Before the last 2 updates the veteran community was solid as bedrock. If Id had asked them for donations to prevent a shutdown, money would have been given. If Id wanted to switch to privately donated servers, we would have set aside boxes and bandwidth for the cause.

But not now.
Even if they rolled back Load-outs and the effeminate announcer, I couldn’t give two fucks if they all loose their jobs.

is very true

http://steamcharts.com/app/241930#1y

is good game but is not very liked by mainstream peoples

syncerror been manager for long time or no?

I really have hard time believing how id and its employees are shortsighted.... :/ Their business moves and decisions make me wonder whats happening in their heads. Too sum this up: they are incompetent to lead a proper business...and I really hope this will change.

In that regard the problem comes down to who is in charge of the decisions. They are making game design decisions when no one there is a game designer, selecting a business model when no one there remotely knows about that either, taking community feedback when no one there is a community manager and technical choices with syncerror being a mapper (just like the head of id software is, Willits).

In short, QL's problems were:
1) Lack of funding. This is a side project, after all. Not only that has a direct effect, but also means the QL team always thought inside a small box, thinking they were more limited than what they really were.
2) Choosing the incorrect employees for the job, in the said terms. In this point it's also clear that the QL team had a lack of supervision.

I wouldn't go as far as you point out, but the money indeed could have been spent better.

For example in a perfect world they could have fired sponge and use that money to hire better connection (network), so the new steam players wouldn't have experienced issues in the first weeks. Also could have fired that QL forums mod, using the funds to get some advertising.

I think you are exaggerating.

is very true. they have mapper as manager of the game haha.

Riperino cappucino confirmed

http://steamcharts.com/search?q=quake+live

is bad. perhaps it no reach 1300 today. 1800 last monday.

Interresting read i do not know if this is a normal trend when a game come out on Steam but i think there is a few thing they should have done with the Steam release :

lock r_picmip to 0
lock gibs to 1

And the FFA mode is totaly ruined, there is absolutly no depth and fun playing it for me. No more fun going for the ammo packs, no more fun going to the guns... the pace is a lot less fun. Theire might be new players playing it but i think they don't stick to QL after 1 or 2 games, so yes their is influx of players and it has nothing to do with universal ammo pack and loadouts. Also some cool maps have been removed such a EVISCERATED, TERMINAL HEIGHTS, DEMON'S KEEP, etc...

On the other positive side of things, releasing the game to Steam was an excellent idea i feel, but there is no ingame microphone and no achievements. I might post a detailed review of QuakeLive as well soonish.

lock r_picmip to 0
lock gibs to 1

So everyone should be forced to have useless details and ugly visual hindrances flying around the screen? Why do you even want us to suffer?

Because QL isn't shit enough

I do not think details are useless, and i think QuakeLive is actualy eye candy. This game is colorfull and beautiful in many regards. And this is what makes people stay in a game for a good portion of them, even if they get destroyed. I think everyone should be forced to use max textures details. This would not hurt good players by any means. Good players are still going to be better no mater what. And this would not get people into giving tips to new players on how to turn a beautiful game into a washed out flat textures game.

I think a big part of the fun is to enjoy the details and the graphics of each and every maps. Gibs, corps flying in realistic motions, interacting with surfaces they colide to etc. But also shadows and all the nice little touches of details, interactive environement, footprints, sounds, vegetation, feeling of immersion into something special... And since this game already lakes a lot in this department it would only make sens to force at least the textures to be maxed out and to force the gibs to be set to on.

So basically you like one thing and you judge it would be better if everyone was forced to play the way you like.

That's not what i said :) by the way it's not about me it's about the trend of this Quake game telling people to get a cfg and play with ugly graphics.

http://www.esreality.com/post/2695791/ql-down/#pid2695833

happen a lot.
http://steamcharts.com/app/282440