So I saw over last few months almost everything I had complaints about in the initial beta has improved significantly, however sound design remains exactly same. I am wondering if 1 Million dollar tourney is having a reality distortion effect as no one seems to talk about this basic issue.

in quake games thus far sound was top notch (even in quake4 when q4max fixed the openAL related bugs). This one has 4 major problems.

1. There are no separate controls for turning on/off map hum sounds (lava, distant shit exploding, NOT the map music) and footstep/ weapon blasts happening nearby which makes you die even before you realize theres some one behind you hitting you often times.

2. Some characters have ridiculously loud self hums like anarki hoverboard. Its okay to present the anarki hum to nearby players but not the player himself.

3. Positional sounds are a step downgrade from quakelive...while in quakelive it was not perfect, but was pretty good.

4. The weapon sounds are downright unsatisfying compared to any previous quake.

The combined effect of all these is a drowned out in sounds experience without any sense of precision. I hope anyone who has played quake for sometime can understand what I am talking about.

While I have complaints about some other things, nothing else compromises my quake playing experience in QC more than sounds.