We're pleased to announce the release of QUAKE LIVE Premium Pak 13. This release contains five new arenas from popular community authors, new player character skins, and a change to our Premium subscription model. Starting today, we will be regularly cycling the Standard arena pool. On the first Monday of each month, 21 arenas will be selected as playable for Standard-level matches. Newly released arenas will remain exclusive for at least three months, but every other arena is eligible to be included in the cycle.
In addition to this change, we are also introducing a new arena voting system to increase the variety of arenas played. Players playing on Standard-level matches will now have a choice between three arenas at the end of each match. The arena voted on will be the next match played. Premium matches will continue to have access to the entire arena pool, and matches created by our Pro players will continue to have the option to change arenas at any point.
Rounding out this update are new "Bright" and "Sport" skin variations for every model on the roster, to allow players to be any character in the game, but still remain highly visible. We also have a few updates to our new Start a Match to help manage matches. We've seen a tremendous increase in Start a Match activity in recent months, and we love seeing what modifications our players have come up with so far! Without further ado, here’s what’s new:
Infinity (CTF) by Ferdinand ‘cityy’ List - website, video
After the hazardous materials make their way through the facilities in Reflux, the water-based byproducts end up here in Infinity. This Capture the Flag arena was converted from its industrial uses after being abandoned years ago by the original owners. Long lines of sight down the center create opportunities to rail outgoing flag runners, who may choose to take a dip into the slower, but safer, water paths. A Quad Damage spawns in the middle every two minutes, so coordinate your attacks wisely!
Limbus (TDM) by Mike ‘Yellack’ Schreiber and Gary ‘akm’ turner - video
A Team Deathmatch arena made by the team of Yellack and akm, Limbus also plays great in our Domination mode. The Quad Damage room offers interesting possibilities for fights, offering a route that requires some dexterity while jumping across high, exposed platforms. Don’t forget about the underground areas; Limbus is larger than it appears on first inspection.
Silence (Duel) by Ferdinand ‘cityy’ List - website
A Duel arena that has you surrounded by—thankfully contained — corrosive material, the action in Silence is anything but. Silence is pretty tall as far as Duel arenas go, so you’ll have to be aware of your vertical surroundings. The Red Armor is placed for maximum grab-and-run potential, but you may want to keep an eye out for Railgun-toting opponents before you leap. Silence is a great addition to the Duel arena pool, and is also fun for small Free for All and Clan Arena matches.
Terminus (TDM) by FRS and Gary ‘akm’ turner - video
Taking place in a sprawling base, Terminus is a very large Team Deathmatch arena with lots of room for tricks and advanced movement. Teams will vie for control for the Battle Suit and Quad Damage rooms, taking care to not get knocked into the fog, or knocked off the Quad platform, making any player who drops down easy fragbait. Terminus is also available for Domination play.
Windsong Keep (Duel) by Tom ‘Phantazm11’ Perryman - website, Q3 version on LvL
The author of Black Cathedral is back with a third arena: a Duel arena taking place in a stunning castle. Windsong Keep is nothing short of an artistic masterpiece in the QUAKE LIVE engine. Expect heavy combat around the ruined tower which holds the Red Armor. A Mega Health is located in another central room, but with ample room for ambush. Try not to get distracted by the beautiful visuals while running through the hallways. Windsong Keep definitely plays as well as it looks.
Post-Match Arena Voting: Voting for the next arena is now done during the end game scoreboard. You are able to switch your votes as many times as you want, every 2.5 seconds. Selecting an arena will mark you as ready, and the time spent at the scoreboard is now a fixed time.
Start a Match Presets: A Preset Manager is now available under Advanced Settings: give your presets a name, and store your favorite Start a Match settings locally. Loading presets can be done in as little as two clicks. If you're not sure what preset to choose, preview the changes before loading them!
New Match Management Options: Three requested options have been added to Match Management: Inactivity Kick Length to enable the idle kick seen on public matches, Enable Automatic Shuffle which will automatically shuffle teams when enough players are in warmup, and Shuffle Behavior to allow changing shuffles from default Skill Based option to Random. Server owners are automatically excluded from being kicked due to inactivity.
Clan Search: Search through all current clans by clan tag, or by clan name. Click on search results to view the clan's profile page.
Arena Statistics Graph: A pie graph of the player's top 15 arenas, sorted by games played, is available for Premium users on the Arenas tab.
* Resolved several instances where certain characters in clan names would cause the names to not be rendered correctly.
* Resolved an issue where a user could have a Premium-level arena in a Standard-level match, resulting in an error when starting the match.
* Resolved an issue where player models were not rendering properly in the Friend Earned Award popup.
* Resolved an issue where certain characters in match names were not being decoded correctly.
* Scoreboard will no longer count players that haven't fired a weapon in the team accuracy totals.
* Resolved an issue that may cause accuracy values on the scoreboard to be incorrect if you rejoined a match in progress.
* Server owners can no longer be callvote kicked from their own matches.
* Resolved an issue where votes could be called after a previous vote has already passed, but before the vote action was taken.
* Domination point captured/loss VO will only be played if cg_playTeamVO is enabled.
* Resolved an issue where Railgun rails would predict firing while chatting.
* Callvote menu is updated properly when “callvote map” is disabled.
* Item heights are now taller in PQL. Like flags, items cannot be easily jumped over.
* Added the ability to hold crouch at the top of jumppads to catch the ledge, instead of either a normal drop or a rampjump.
* Increased vertical knockback for more vertical popup from splash damage, without breaking self-splash or rocket jumps.
* Increase Plasma Gun splash radius from 20 to 32
* Increase Plasma Gun knockback from 1.10 to 1.25
* Increase Rocket Launcher knockback from 1.00 to 1.10
* Increase maximum knockback from 120 to 160
* Swim speed increased from 160ups to 190ups.
Bloodlust: Fixed blue’s offset flagbase. Devilish: The Quad Damage no longer spawns in Duel. Hidden Fortress: Fixed clipping in curve near 50hp and teleporter. Reflux: The Red Armor respawn time has been increased from 25 to 60 seconds. Reflux: Optimizations for performance, including the portals in base have been changed to teleporters (cannot see through them). Stonekeep: The Red Armor respawn time has been increased from 25 to 60 seconds. Toxicity: Optimizations for performance.
EDIT: After playing a little bit -- wow, CA took a pretty hard blow. Servers are starting to pick up... we'll see how this update affects QL in the long run.
This is fantastic. Another step in the right direction.
EDIT: After playing for a bit there is one thing that needs to be changed ASAP... voting maps needs to be re-enabled. A lot of the times the options for duel maps are huge CA/TDM maps. Again, fix this ASAP.
Why is it premium only this month? How does that make any sense?
Also does the retarded idea of only being able to vote if you are premium lasts only for this month or is it forever ensuring the game dies?
I guess it's that standard (not paying) players get less content than they did in order to encourage them to buy premium/pro, but at the same time they don't get a game with just 21 fixed maps.
edit: Actually they are getting more right now, having access to premium maps like Overkill, Japanese Castles, Spider Crossings and Realm of Steel Rats.
Everyone on the official forums is happy with this new rotation thing except ztn-only duelers, but they'll have to consider getting a sub when dm6 is removed. It's a win-win scenario (id software - players).
disagree.
you can't vote maps in ffa now.
so many free players will just stop playing and go to a game made by people that are not fucking Nazi money grubbing idiots.
this update really does make me hope 2GD can pull off reborn and once and for all we can send the creepy trolls at ID packing with their subscription bullshit.
tell me one (1) other AA/AAA game in which you can play for 3 to 4 years absolutely free of charge while realistically (not playing 24/7 to earn it) receiving every single piece of content.
and as I wrote yesterday, 2gd's reborn is an awful lot more "evil" on the business side of things.
tell me one (1) other AA/AAA game in which you can play for 3 to 4 years absolutely free of charge while realistically (not playing 24/7 to earn it) receiving every single piece of content.
would you pay $24 a year for new models, animations, skins and sounds in quake live? Of course not.
Also most experienced players, which are the ones that spend money on f2p games, can't see those. No point in buying videogame clothing if the rest can't see it.
More like ruining the game only for frequent and hardcore standard users that were leeching out id software and that should have had a subscription already.
Casuals just don't care (actually map voting is prettier and more intuitive now)
Don't you get that there are users that either just don't have the possibility to buy a subscription or don't want to support a company that litterary doesn't give a shit about the game and it's community? Also some of the begining duel players might concider buying premium once they get better but why spending money at the beginning if you don't know how long you will stay in the game? Just because they don't spend money they shouldn't automatically lose the right to compete in a gametype that only lives trough competition.
Oh really, so it's ok that I spend my own money on organizing tournaments for the German Quake-Community and that I actually brought Quake 4 and Doom 3 on release?
Only because I don't want to throw money at id for doing nothing with Quake Live, and even fucking up the game for me by making my ping rise by 10ms on German servers (that are located 20km away from my house btw), I'm a cheap ass?
Funny thing I get 30-40 ms to Servers from any other game (CS, CS:S, Warsow, even to LoL servers and they are not locaded in Frankfurt I think) yet in QL I get 50-60... Must be my routing for sure!
QL could be so much more than it is at the moment with id actually investing into it. Yet we have a game that is only partly better than it's "mother-game" from 1999/2000 and much worse than other eSport-oriented games.
Also, funny how you instantly dropped you accusations of me being cheap ass :).
id software does not provide european servers, which means it isn't their fault. It's like blaming crisis because you have more ping in a certain warsow server.
crizis provides the servers :). Also, they could kindly ask their providers to fix it (by kindly I mean: "Either fix your shit or we are going to get a new hoster."). Concidering the ammount of servers and the traffic trough them I don't think that the company want's to loose id Soft as a customer, especially with the ammount of competitors in that sector and the not really stable economical situation here in Europe.
When did you actually check the Warsow server list again? In 0.6 he provided something like 20 servers for the game in almost any gametype. And they were the ones used for competitions and pickups, plus the people played pub-matches on them because they provided the best pings and most of the popular maps. He offers good servers that anyone can play on.
Only people with good pings to them play there or no one plays there at all. If the second happens the servers will go offline eventually.
Point is, that in Warsow (just as an example not promoting it in this post or anything) I can chose between several servers (even some that are not provided by crizis) that offer me good pings/conditions. In Quake Live I can only play on DE since that's the only place where I get 45-50 ping (due to retarded QL netcode but that's another toppic) but now they (server-providers) have ruined it for me by making my ping rise by 10ms (on 60ms ping your LG becomes like uberbad, even if you've only hit only 30% on 45-50ms) and id Soft not being able to fix it. With that ping I can also play on Poland, UK or France, but it's just not fun anymore. I would even pay premium if my ping to DE would get better trough it but unfortunately Premium doesn't fix this problem (not that it should).
mega is a troll, clutching at straws.
we will never find out the reason for these weird people that back up ID all the time, when its blatant they are on a mission to destroy quake.
gogo reborn.
I find it quite amusing to discuss with him as long as he doesn't try to start his hate-crussade against Warsow, there he just loses all of his credibility in one post. But like this it's ok let him talk :).
why would id invest in the game when they arnt getting money off it currently, if people such as the players that u say are being hurt by this update (new guys playing in comps u settup) were to purchase subscriptions then ql might be better off!
they have made maps and dumb holiday modes instead of making a descent matching system. look at sc2, dota2, the amount of players and buzz around those games. it could have been the same with quakelive. but no.
fuck ID.
u have no idea, the reason those things will NEVER work with quake live is cause of ping... those games u can play on 400 ping and the game is still OK, on anything higher than 100 ping this game is UNPLAYABLE and not really enjoyable unless below 20..
its true, when the matchmaking thingo as in quake it didnt work cause ud be matched vs a random on a very high ping server, and the player base is not large enough for it to work properly anyway as u need to be matched vs people equal skill and similar ping, and it just isnt realistic
Ah now I get it. Simple, to get money from it. You can't except to get 100$ for your old bike if it has no tires, it's breaks are fucked and it has corrosion all over it. If you get new tires, fix the breaks and clean/paint it again 100$ could be realistical, but like this you only can expect 10-20$ for it. Get the idea?
simple choice for you then it seems, throw ya bike in the bin and get over it. (quit quake, if ur not willing to pay the 25 bucks then just quit and be done with it so the rest of us can play)
I did quit quake as a player, however I like organizing cups for the game. But with the new map-rotation I can forget organizing beginners and open cups since only Premium and Pro users can play the actuall game and most of the beginners don't buy Premium or Pro subscriptions.
not true, if u purchase pro account then u can invite 5 players, im sure many players will donate a lil time to invite players onto games, hell add me to friends if u like and ill fkn do it..
u really want ql to die, because u paid a subscription and others didn’t??? u can’t understand that this is probably bad for u and most of the other paying users? It is certainly bad for me (premium user, subscribed twice). At least half the ppl I play with, they can’t play now. I wanted to play ql tonight, but I can’t. I only found a game in dm6.
I am a realist and don’t care if others don’t pay. I don’t feel that because I paid, they must pay too. Everybody has different opinions and some ppl really don’t want to buy a subscription. They have their own reasons. It doesn’t mean they are necessary wrong. U don’t have to call them cheap man, seriously…
Like I said, I don’t disagree with the map rotation, but not so radical. Fix the map voting, make the maps at least 30 and add a couple more from the playable ones. Don’t put the gun in their heads and ask money. Do it more nicely. That is my opinion.
Of course, they could have done many other things before we reached this point, in order to make money. They didn’t, but that is another subject and it is in the past.
It seems too extreme to me, to the point that it is probably damaging to the game.
l0l think about sc2 etc, u dont even get to test the game b4 u buy it unlike with this... this just weedles out the leeches who have been playing a free game for 3 years now..
Wouldn't mind to pay 50$ if I get a full-size game with simillar features like SCII has them. But comparing QL to SCII is like comparing a regional u18 soccer team with the national team.
what about diablo 3 then, the game was kinda shit tbh and was full price etc and who do u know that still plays it and its what a few months later, 3 years (hell 10 with q3) and guys still playing this game
ermm.
WTF is right.
sc2 is far superior in terms of matching and community features.
and a leap from sc1.
quakelive basically is q3
minus the ability to create servers and play the maps you want. plus you have to repay for it yearly, you don't just buy it.
its 25 bucks a year, games like sc2 diablo are 100 minimum, and thats not paying for the next expansion pack etc, AND its only been 2 years so 50 bucks for 4 years aint half bad... and what do u mean leap from sc1? sc1 is better in gameplay BY FAR, it has similar features just not as ez to use
Where did you find Diablo III for 100$. It costs around 50€ here in Germany and SCII was 60$ on release. Quake Will cost you around 100$ if it runs for 5 years with subscription model and a new Quake gets published afterwards.
SC has more complicated gameplay. But complicated doesn't mean better ;).
here it was 100, fairly sure, and i purchased sc for 85 or something? and idk what kinda dweeb hardcore mates you have that play a game that was fkn shit, rkn u should get em onto quakelive, cause according to u, they are the sorta guys we need :>
Actually all of my friends who did buy it still play it. Diablo 3 was shit at release but got fixed quite fast. Quake Live still is shit after being released for 2 years allready. What was your point again?
Funny how, given the fact that you're going to qcon, you now start tasting and sucking on sync's balls. Where is that supaindiankillah talk you've gotten us all used to big boy? Why don't you delete that smiley face and just keep trashing him like you've always done? What a ridiculous hypocrite.
wait so being a cpm fanboi is considered sucking up to syncerror now????? unless play more promode means something else in your version of english im seriously confused.
ps: the power of a single smiley. jeez.
pps: if what u expected was me to take a dump on this update because of the map pool rotation idea, im sorry i have little sympathy for people who dont want to pay for the game. most of the whiners are hardcore quake players and shouldnt mind paying for premium considering how cheap it is. and casual players seriously wont give a fuck about the duel maps available.
i do wish however that they released this update a month ago so we couldve had infinity in the qcon ctf map pool instead of reflux, which is god awful (there you should be happy with that since sync made reflux).
somebody should make a movie about this! I can imagine: "syncerror in joker makeup yells - attention this is a robbery! put your hands up and give us all your twenty five dollars if you want to play our game for a year! nobody move..er..hack!"
on a standard server at end of the match, the 3 options to choose from...does this mean you can't vote a specific map anymore on standard level matches? just choose between the suggestions?
Pretty sure this is what it means, yeah. At the end of a match, for the next match, you only get to choose among the 3 maps given to you to choose from.
and apparently you can't vote any map when you go to a empty server. what you see is what you get in terms of empty servers (only tried one match though and i may be wrong about that)
Rounding out this update are new "Bright" and "Sport" skin variations for every model on the roster, to allow players to be any character in the game, but still remain highly visible.
First time in months I wish I could play :c Nice one.
they should test it... i reckon the visibility and identification could be made alot simpl... like not forcing same models, ... would love to see how it works.
Radeon HD 6950 - occasionally drops FPS near MH/YA, otherwise constant 125.
It's funny how this occurs completely random.
Sometimes I'm playing 3 tox games in a row without any FPS drops, then I play the 4th with terrible drops, then the 5th game works ok again.
It's strange and an absolute mystery to the humankind.
The idea of standard maps cycling isn’t bad, but it is implemented the lamest way possible. I mean u take bloodrun, dm13, t4, t9 and other maps out, but at least give something back (aero, toxic, hektik). The way it is done is cheap and lame. I am a premium user, but the truth has to be said… it’s lame, maybe even lamer than the free users (free users are kind of lame, but id outlamed them)
exactly, give something back! now they took out almost every current mappol duel maps from standard players and that's it - cool update for standard players. :D
get a credit card? these days it's absurdly easy, and no need to worry about getting it stolen on the interwebz (plenty of methods to have 100% safe online CC payments)
it's up to you to use it or not. Maintenance fees are marginal (at least in my case with mastercard black).
Actually if you have a bank account, which if you don't you simply shouldn't be talking about spending money on videogames, you can still buy the game without a real credit card. You create a virtual credit card just for the transaction, with the exact amount you need and it's erased the moment it is used.
If it doesn't have it you could also get someone to pay for you. Friend, clanmate, one of hundreds of services that do to that for a very small fee (google before obviously), etc.
sadly, as long as im not a CEO of some big company i will have to take credits, but i see a differance between online game and a house, or even a flat...
Also, ur either fanatic of ID, or ur being paid for promoting how awesome QL and ID are....
IM NOT THE ONE WHO SHOULD SWEAT MY ASS TO PAY FOR PRODUCT... its company problem... and they lost a user and potential customer
prepaid mastercard
virtual credit card
actual credit card from visa for 20$ per year (also useful for flights, internet shopping, etc..)
asking a friend to buy you smth for 24 $
None of my friends is stupid enough to posses a credit card...
Also, as i said: its ID that should provide me with easy and comfortable way of payment... easy and comfortable for me... not for ID... end of topic, they screwed...
Hes partly right, debt is bad, usury is very bad, and they can track your buyings, etc. BUT he has other options like a pre paid card (which is the only type of "credit card" i ever had). In the end hes a cheap ass, the conspiracy isnt the issue. Cheap ass is cheap.
im tellin ya, who can read, has an advantage, you clearly can't ^^
and sasparillo from the support team himself said they cannot confirm that it works, so you are spreading fail information or at least answer if it worked for you? ^^
and I posted that link so you'll have one page of results on quakelive.com that feature discussions about virtual cc / prepaid cc and similar payment methods
taking a credit is precisely spending money you don't have.
losing a potential customer that's been like that for 3 years is losing nothing.
and we told you several options in which you don't have to get a CC to do online transactions and that aren't paypal (and there's plenty more). Can do all those in 2 minutes without moving an inch.
You could always do that but chose not to. Now that you think you are forced to get one you started crying about the game not being extremely f2p like it used to be (QL was by far the "most free" of all "freemium" games I know of)
But it clashes with your "not taking loans" principle anyway. Be consistent (my dad is for example. All houses and cars bought with cash lol, and he is just a regular worker).
This business model was implemented because advertising was not enough to even keep it running, let alone make money with it like all companies want. Last year (or was it 2 years ago?) the very devs said it.
It's your problem you are one of very few people in the world that don' t want to get a credit card. But even then we told you you can still buy the game very easily and in a 100% safe ways (and support the company behind it) but chose not to and flame instead.
So youre so important that id should give you the exact form of payment you want, otherwise they dont deserve a penny from you while you consume bandwith, database space, servers, etc.
Ill say it once more, cause as always ESR if full of fanatics who dont have an idea of real world and its rules...
Producent wants to sell his product... There are many producents who make similar products... Thus marketing and availability is key factor to sell the product... Now, ID fail at easy acces to their product: Quake Live... So i rather chose another similar product...
what? our country is in much better shape than at least half of those shithole economies in europe. i think there are retards in every country who are incapable of properly handling their funds, not just america. I'm financially sound myself, as well as most people i know
getting into debt isn't financially sound, period. there are all kinds of tempting justifications for it, but in the end it's all debt-slavery. the guy is right--if you are smart, you don't have a credit card. what you're referring to is a debit card.
credit is exactly the opposite thing of available funds. and you're right about America--they are smarter and better off than Europeans on average, but that's not saying much. both economies are debt-based and are going to collapse very soon. just because American consumers and consumers everywhere else are equally as misinformed about the principles of basic economics doesn't mean that it's desirable to be similarly misinformed.
I agree I with it being stupid to spend money you don't have...like you said that is why most economies in the world are shit now. I personally never spend money I don't have, but I still use a credit card.
Just get a pre paid card, you deposit what you want to use and then you do the transaction. You cant spend what you dont have, but you can support quake. Best of both worlds :D
it doesn't put you in debt if you pay it off right away. Just because you have a card doesn't mean you have to buy shitloads of expensive things with it. I mainly use mine to build credit and never buy anything with it that I don't have the money for.
You should be able to pay off your premium account in less than a month, assuming you have a job or some sort of income.
um, of course it puts you in debt right away. credit is debt by definition. and if you're paying it off right away, then why do you need credit? plus, you're forgetting interest, which is necessarily debt, regardless of how much you've paid someone for a product or service.
i have a 'credit card' that i can use for online transactions etc etc, but i cant spend any money that i dont have, not sure what the actual name of the card is though..
dont do it. debit card is the gateway drug for credit cards. u will soon be tricked into getting credit and be broke in 6 months. its all the americans fault mate. time to nuke the damn country.
i owe a debit card, just so i can pay for products with it, or withdraw money from cash maschine... but unlike you americans i spend money i didnt earn... i dont live on credit my house so i can live etc etc...
I think you are confused? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are a serf. you produce labor without getting a full and fair return upon it. you are a debt slave, so of course you're in debt.
it isn't the "Americans' fault." it's the fault of the colluding international bankers who, because they control America's monetary supply, control the rest of the world simultaneously.
a debit card isn't a "gateway drug." it is still a bad idea--because if you want to apply for one, you have to provide a Social Security Number, which means you have to buy into US debt, and then if the US Government isn't okay with you not disclosing where, when, and how you buy things, they will shut you down and put you in jail. oh yeah, you have to use US Dollars, too. super convenient.
think its gonna change every week?? im sure that means aero tox etc etc will be back next week or soon... and then it gives everyone a test of the premium maps (in the hope that they will pay for prem, which could work tbh this time!)
in the hope that they will pay for prem, which could work tbh this time
lets hope, but I am not very optimistic about this. I think most ppl don’t pay, because of ideological reasons and not so because they are cheap. This will probably piss them off and make them even more stubborn. I like ur positive view though. I will probably upgrade to pro now, in order to be able to play with friends. Therefore, id might generate more income, but it will come from the already paying customers (prem users) and not the free ones. It actually decreases prem sub’s value and it’s funny that some prem users are so exited.
have also in mind that many quakers are old. They have money to pay, but they just don’t want to. Also, they can quit ql much more easily, since they are more mature, unlike lets say addicted kids. They might just looking for a reason to do it.
then again, I might be wrong (I hope so) and they pay, who knows…
no, the problem is that the Quakelive team doesn't understand the basics of supply and demand. create whatever payment system you like, and I will continue to sit by and laugh as your business venture falls flat on its face. if you want to earn money, you must first create a valuable product (unless you're the US government.)
I have my own debit card from 16 year, already 10 years... it's like 5$ / year to "keep it alive". You don't use ebay? or online shopping? You are from 80`s? If no, go to bank, transfer to friend 24$ and he will pay you, is it hard? You play quake 1000000000 hours and you lazy to do this? You need new brains then..
i'm not talking about me here. i have a premium account since 2 years. i mentioned payment options as a problem because i've heared countless of people who haven't got premium because there is no paypal/ideal support.
also the dutch ebay has paypal/ideal support, so do all dutch online shopping sites
- ebay is the mother of paypal
- it's more like that PayPal doesn't want id software as a customer instead of id not wanting to add PayPal as payment option afaik
@SyncError|home • Yes, we worked hard to pursue PayPal as an option, but currently it is not.
@SyncError|home • We're a private company and do not release our financial information, and PayPal will not give accounts to companies that do not share their financials.
@SyncError|home • Its not like _I_ have any decision in whether we're public or not.
Also, restricting standart players from map voting is ridiculous. Now only two maps are left for duel - dm6 and t7, and sometimes you won't even be able to play them :X
If you leave only two decent duel maps from six (ztn, dm6, t7, dm13, t4, t9) - at least don't force people to play some shit FFA-like maps without a chance to not play them. 'Cause this is really desperate attempt to get some customers. I think many people who considered paying now just won't do this after such a cheap move.
What I mean is without the new voting system they'd callvote ztn/dm6 all day just like they did but the company wants (probably needs) more subscribers. What do you propose.
ya, thats gonna be what they aiming for. just scare away majority of the community with this junk, then shut down quakelive.com when they got 100 left playing
That makes 17 maps possible for more or less good duels. If you divide them to packs of four you would be able to make a nice rotation out of them but like it is now players are forced to play some crap FFA or CA maps in duel. That's plain retarded.
man :( that move is so drastic, is like a step away from closing the servers. It might be purposely made before quakecon to minimize community reaction. If it wasn’t for quakecon, I was willing to boycott ql, if others were too.
and last months had started having faith in them again, with their new anticheat and they great work they did with it :(
This map cycle for duel is absolute shit. Especially for a spawned server. Please add the Ready button again or I will commit suicide after each time a map I WAS ALREADY ON LOADS AGAIN. Fucking pointless...
syncerror, I am seriously saying that this needs to be changed cause it makes no sense.
Here is the situation.
I spawn a duel map (aero)
at the end I get 3 maps to pick (all aero)
after that I vote ztn and play on zth
at the end of ztn I am given 3 maps (aero)
if I don't vote it goes to aero
this is retarded.
You could have at least given these map options when there is bo3 so that players pick a map and that is how the list goes. That would be useful. The current situation is just ... hopeless.
I only have 3 options and all of them are the map I spawned. The fact the it reloads the map after the end of the mach is a whole new level of pointless and tardness.
This still does not solve the problem when I choose the same map and it reloads...
I cannot repeat this enough. This way of playing is extremely annoying and having to load a map each time a round ends (same map or different - it does not matter) is simply going back to the stone age.
Again - this feature is usefeull for bo3 map picking for example and if there is a way to customize this menu in a way where the players pick the map order prior to starting the matches and it automatically switches to the map pool it will be perfect. If you are not doing this then a button to turn this feature off and boom - the balance to the universe is restored. Instead we get no choice and it's only made worse. I don't give a damn about the map rotations, the premium maps and that they got rid of ztn as standard. I just want to see that someone is thinking when they add this shit and decide to change it. I'm not even going to talk about the amount of bugs that are actually generated after each patch. The fact that there are comments such as "fixed" accross this thread is more than enough. Why did I pay for this?! Seriously...
Disabling "callvote map map_name" is SO BAD. The new cycling system SUCKS. You don't know what maps you're going to get. It's just limiting the players. Forcing itself on the players. It doesn't enhance the experience. I hate it, hate it, hate it... I'm expecting to see CA servers sitting empty with big tdm maps.
This is shit, at least now, when QL is dying. People who say stuff like "dont be cheap and buy Pro" are just extremly bad marketologs. I will buy cause I can buy, but youngsters won't cause they can't. Soon I'll be playing alone.
Russian people know the story of two big russian social networks.
Network A was dominating and had 15kk people.
Network B had 3 times less people registrated.
Network A made a registration fee of one(!) dollar. This was soon cancelled, but the mistake was fatal.
Now network A is forgotten, while netwrok B has 150kk people. It's creator is a millionere. How many dollars network A made by this one dollar fee? This is an example of inferior marketing.
Guys... I don't even have words on that how bad ID is at promoting the game nowadays. If they want to kill quakelive, then ok, that update is perfect. But what the fuck, really? If you require from ppl to buy a premium/pro so much, why is this game still called f2p? If you require this, then ppl want a normal payment options too, why can't you do even this for the community?
I'm not raging but it's just so fucking sad. And btw. I have a premium, ending in 2 months and if it go this way, won't buy a next one. I'll quit this game. Not even that I don't like it, but they JUST do deserve anyone to spend their time playing their shit product, really. :(
ID please, think 100x more times on ur moves about ql. :/
been said a million times paypal will never be implemented in id software games. And again, there are lots of options that are better and more secure than paypal (they are evil)
The only person who might read this is SyncError who I'm pretty sure does as much as he can with the resources he has available.
If they want to kill quakelive, then ok, that update is perfect.
They have added some nice new maps for you and made you feel more superior for having a premium account. What do you WANT?
SyncError explained a while ago why paypal will never be added to QuakeLive.
I think the guys at the top of id software already know that QL is never really going to go anywhere, they knew that a couple years ago. So they're not gonna throw money at promoting it. They just leave the QL team to keep it running probably for the people that already play it and especially those that pay for subs.
the question it ultimately comes down to is:
why do starcraft ii and diablo iii not require any monthly fees, but quake live does?
I bought both of these games and enjoy having the opportunity to have a complete multiplayer experience whenever I want to.
id should fucking realize that a service based on monthly fees doesn't work for quake ...
you can have fees for mmorpgs where new quests/dungeons are added in a constant pace, but not for a fps that ultimately stays the same ...
why do starcraft ii and diablo iii not require any monthly fees, but quake live does?
You have to keep in mind that those games have so many more players than quakelive... many times the amount of players.
QuakeLive is a business failure (c) J.Carmack
It has to make some revenue to cover the costs of running it, so what would you suggest? I don't think QL is a project that id software as a whole care about anymore, it was considered a failure over a year ago. The small QL team care about it and do what they can to keep it going and recieive alot of shit for it. Do you honestly think people at the top of id software really think QL could become a big success now? of course they don't, it's a failure. People who really love QuakeLive should just be happy that it's still here at all.
Nobody forces you to pay anything, No matter which way you look at it. you can play quakelive for free all day, everyday........
hmm I like the idea of mixing the map pool so people play different maps
not sure about leaving out the most popular duel/ctf/ca maps but if they were in, people would just keep playing only those maps
disabling voting is ftl though
edit: also lol, Quake Live has been dying for the last 3 years according to people on this forum.
Guess what, Quake 3 was dead before QL came out, and there just aren't that many people interested in a hardcore game like this. A lot of the people have been playing Quake in some form for 5+ years by now, so they might get bored and quit too. That's just what happens.
finally here, the 2 tdm maps (sorry I keep on forgetting those random map names) are definitely made for competitive play and look solid, nice movement, interesting item layout - goodbye osp5
I think a big problem in ql was that the biggest part of the subscribers had to play on standard servers and were heavily limited in map choice that way, I hope with this update we will see a change there
1) read the changelog, answer is = yes
2) some have been designed for Q3, but most of them were made rather recently (last 2 years), cityy's ctf map being the winner of last years maverick mapping contest - check out lvlworld
1. Terminus have at least two design fails: 1 and 2 P.S. Also, it is freaking huge and reminds some Doom 3 levels :P
2. Disabling a callvote for Standart Users is weird. As kK_Storm noticed, with new Standart Map Pool you cant even choose what to play - dm6 or t7 in duel mode (only in Post-Match Arena Voting, but what probability, that they will include those two maps?)
3. I don't get, why spectators allowed for Post-Match Arena Voting. Imagine final of ZOTAC - players voting for the actual next map, since spectators are free to trolling and vote the fuck they want. Also, two same maps in list - it is not good.
And i clearly dont see the point of this New Standart Map Pool right before QCon. But since i have a subscription, i don't care.
This new map voting... it's just awful. These kinds of restrictions may force some free users to go at least premium, but they certailny won't bring any new players to ql. And nice money from new prems is cool i know, but expanding your playerbase is kinda... vital i guess? ME NO BUSSINESSGUY and stuff, but this is a no brainer (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm a sucker for Quake though so I'm getting my sub in two months as planned...
i love the fact ztn sort of got removed for a while, ive never seen quakelive identical to q3 but due to community pressure all the old overplayed maps got added :F
the new map voting thing is RETARDED, i mean jesus, how dumb do u have to be to think this would work and keep public servers full? as i see it now ill be connecting to a server with a map i like, play it, leave and find another server with the map i like and so on. insocial much?
I'd like address (no doubt for the billionth time) the advertising of monthly rates with only block-month payment options. I feel as though being able to pay like WoW, where you can buy a month at a time, would be insanely more appealing to just about everyone.
imo, for all gametypes.
it's obvious that pro/prem subscriber rely on standard severs since they're much more crowded.
le'ts see how many standards buy pro/prem...
btw, yesterday evening it seemed that ita servers population was drastically reduced (I remember CA: TWO players @21.30CET, before the update there were 4+ full servers running).
I've not been a paying customer. Why? Because prem/pro just didn't offer anything of value to me. I didn't see a point in buying it when I was getting everything I pretty much wanted without paying.
So as far as making money is concerned, the system before the update was REALLY BAD.
However, this new system is... TERRIBLE! I mean the map rotation and especially voting system is just beyond horriffic. Shit maps after shit maps.
But it's so bad that I do not want to buy prem/pro.
My opinion? They should stop making this game free2play. I would pay if they MADE ME PAY!
Make it so that new accounts get maybe 10 free hours of playing time... or some other restriction. Maybe only 1 map per gamemode that they can play, etc...
So people could TRY IT OUT for free... but if they really want to play it they have to pay.
But in this scenario I would make 2 different levels to pay for (Premium/Pro), but only ONE "pay account" - lets call it Premium. And the price shouldnt be too high, something like 1 or 2 $ a month.
Like I said, I havent been a paying customer. And I still wont be one with this stupid update, because I will just find a way to live with it. But if they made it so you have to pay 1/2 bucks a month, then I would pay. And I'm sure most of the quake players would do the same. I doubt many people will drop a game they play countless of hours on because of 1/2 bucks a month.
(And for the sake of the argument I'm not talking about people who are having trouble paying because they have no credit cards and paypal isnt accepted, etc... )
I've been playing the quake series since 1997, many many hours, if it had cost me $35 a year then it would still have been well worth it and amazing value for money.
If people don't feel that way then they really are more suited to the free game which still has alot of content for unlimited use. The way I see it is if you have a great love for quake the price compared to what you get out of it is small. Otherwise you fit into the casual Quaker which would be happy with just playing FFA on whatever maps.
Congrats cityy on the releases - hopefully I can try them out sometime online.
Also nice to see bright / sportskins for all models, something I've been wanting for a while that would increase the variety in the game without losing visibility.
Everything looked good until I saw the rotation. I thought there was going to be the standard maps, but in addition there would be free premium maps that rotate. Nope.
So now I can only duel DM6 and T7 until Sept 2nd? Can't complain too much since I've barely played QL recently, but that's just flat out stupid.
This is getting ridiculous. It seems like intentional steps in the wrong direction, what the hell is going on with this game.
Right, but it seems like their trying to force people to get Premium, instead of doing the right thing and offering a proper free service. I'm not saying the game should be free, but they keep making the free experience worse and worse, no doubt as an "incentive" to push people to premium. Sorry but that's just bad business, and people see through that kind of stuff pretty quickly. Everyone whoring ztn before was bad, but at least I could duel dm13, t7, t4, etc. Now I can't do shit, especially with this rotation (t7 the only playable duel map).
Giving us a progressively shitty free service won't entice us to buy their paid service, no matter who does it.
how is it "the right thing" to offer a "free service? how is "proper free service" that doesn't generate money "good business"? you're sorry it's "bad business" to generate profit? do you know what "business" is?
Can't generate money when you're just pissing off the free players. That's not "forcing" them to pay, that's just driving them away. QuakeLive isn't in any position to force anyone to do anything.
Can't generate money when you're pissing off the free players by not giving content for free? Really?
They're not "forcing" non-paying customers to buy content by only making it available by buying? Really? Oh, the horror, driving away players using up the resources while not paying for them!
QuakeLive isn't in a position to charge for a product? They must only be in the position to offer charity! You're totally right, it is almost every day I hear of a business failing and CEO apologetically exclaims "dur, should have just gave the product away for free! that would have kept us in business!!!'
Sure you are talking right Demiurge, but let's take a look in a more pratical way:
I play ~5 matches a day in pub servers and less than one a day in premium servers.
It's hard to populate a premium server, pickups are slow, so I mainly jump in pubs.
Now, with this map-voting system, I expect a drastical standard players reduction (CA ita servers yesterday 21:30CET: only two people, two days ago 4+ full servers running and a couple in warmup) and, thus, it will be much harder to find/start a match.
Basically, this update fits quite well to me, except the map voting system which reminds me of Mussolini :P
too much time wasted be4 starting a game both in #tdmpickup and #playquake (i play more ctf than other gametypes)
also, my skill level is lower than most of #playquake games, so neither I nor my teammates can fully enjoy the game.
how is anybody "generating profit" by arbitrarily restricting a service? it isn't the "right thing" to offer a free service, but it is certainly not the "right thing" to restrict paying players in a theoretically bankrupt attempt to strong-arm free players into paying for a subscription.
i have come to appreciate playing against standard players on standard servers. the quality of my experience playing quake live has significantly degraded within 24 hours. whether or not this gamble will pay off and i will find myself with tons of premium duel partners filling premium servers is a question that can only be answered in time.
for now, i am left unsatisfied with my subscription, feeling as though id has now cancelled my service mid-way through the subscription period. i will not, however, assume that it is an inherently bad decision due to the fact that i am not instantly gratified.
i hope that they will allow premium users the ability to vote for any map, regardless of what sort of server they are playing on. otherwise it is a waste for players such as myself, who enjoy dueling on specific maps with like-minded others.
is a golf club arbitrary restricting service by asking for money of their memebers, therefore restricting the number of good golfers you can play with? this notion to suggest it is the service that is "strong-arming free players" by not giving them free stuff is utterly ridiculous. if you are not satisfied with the your subscription, you can blame the quality of the content, or the cheapskates not paying $24 for a years worth of entertainment, but not the fact that they charge for content.
is there a golf club with a tiny member-base that allows free entry from non-members, which the members have come to rely upon to find regular games? has that golf club suddenly radically switched its system so that members with a desire to play when other members aren't around can only play with non-members on specific holes that the member has no desire to play on?
it isn't ridiculous at all. your premise is flawed. nobody is being denied free anything. i am not concerned with or bringing up whether or not free players should or should not be given something. i am concerned with the fact that as a premium player my subscription has become inherently less valuable, as my capacity to play the game as freely as i once did has been restricted in some attempt to coerce free players into subscribing.
the maps available and the players available to play with on those maps are quality of content, and i am pointing out that the quality of content has degraded. whether or not this holds true for the future, we will see. once again, my issue is not that anybody is charging for content, but that i have paid for content and my content has been restricted.
the premise that id Software are responsible for the actions of other people is flawed. if the quality of your experience with QuakeLive depended on them providing free access to content with a net loss, you have been effectively given a gift, and you are not entitled that quality of experience.
you speak in vague generalities and give no specific information with which to make any sort of intelligent judgment. nowhere have i put forward that id software is responsible for the actions of other people.
i think i understand your last point, though. you seem to be stating that i believe that id software should run a lossy business so that i can enjoy the game the way i'd like to. you're indirectly bifurcating the argument. but first:
i don't know anything about how quakelive is doing as a business. i am willing to guess that the only person who does is syncerror, and all he is willing to share is that subscriptions jumped after this change. that means nothing, unless you are one of the many people assuming that quakelive as a business is somehow struggling or losing money. i can't even state that quakelive is operating without profit. if they are, they have been doing it for a long time, and that defies reason.
so, back to the point, i am not stating that id software shouldn't address their service model, but that this approach punishes existing subscribers. just because somebody's motivations for taking action can be described as good does not mean that their actions are good. we can say that this is a good step for id software, because we can make a big assumption that they are operating with losses or minimal profit, and we can factor in the concept of freeloaders taking advantage of the ability to play regular maps all the time with no incentive to upgrade, but even if those big assumptions are true, it doesn't mean that some particular changes are good just because they are being changed with good motive.
the motivation is good, the need for some change may or may not be real, but the change is inadequate and punishes current subscribers. there are lots of things that can be changed about the game that would take away benefits from the free users while leaving the current subscribers unhurt. this particular change is bad for subscribers.
I'm going to venture a guess that the developers want people to play more than 2 maps 80% of the time. It's a question of whether you want to argue for more variety in maps played or to let people have freedom to play the same maps over and over again.
doesnt make sense when standard players will only play t7 and dm6 for the next two months. that just made it worst, now only peopel will play 2 maps 100% of the time for two months. what if next months rotation only has 1 playable duel map?
this rotation thing has so much potential, but they (id) fucked up with choosing what is available.
like what someone posted before, there are atleast 17 playable duel maps.
rotate in 4-5 of those playable duel maps a month......
It should of been both, there should of been the standard maps, and rotation of premium maps made free. It gives people a taste of premium content, while still having the same access to free maps.
Instead they decided to do this, which I'm sure doesn't need explaining as to why it's bad.
Ever thought about how drug dealers get a lot of their customers (I know it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges but it fits pretty well)?
They go to you and say something like: "Hey want to try something new and totally cool? Here you go take these, they are for free! I promise the experience will be great. And if you want more come back to me any time."
Then you take the stuff, find it cool and come back to him. He probably will give you another portion for free. Now you are starting to get a bit hooked. The next time you go to him he tells you that those two were just try-offers and now you have to pay a bit for your shit. No problem you pay him the small ammount of money. However at some point he will actually ask for the whole price of the drug which may be way higher than what you paid before, problem is untill now you are allready hooked and want that shit so you pay.
Now if you think about how you can promote Premium or Pro to the standard-players an approach, simillar to the one described above would be way more effective than forcing them to pay by crippling the game to such an extend that it's not playable for free anymore. Give the masses some small taste of premium and they will be way more open to buying a subscription than if you just show them the bird.
with a a drug, you have a guarantee of a returning customer. and most importantly, the dose runs out. all for-profit businesses either must generate money from "free" service, or must limit the freebie such that you know what you're going to get with the full service, but as free, it is not perpetually usable. this is quite simple.
The customers will come back if the service is good (QL lacks this a lot but that's something id could change).
By doing a map-rotation and limiting maps the "drug" runs out cuz the maps either get boring or dissapear from the free-rotation.
I'm not against the rotation system, just against forcing the players to play only 2 maps or play crap maps that are not designed for the gametype (talking about Duel only since cba to care for TDM/CTF/CA).
few days is not enough time to see if anything works, and ultimately the number of players is not what determines what works, it's whether QuakeLive can make money to pay to for itself.
imo, if the number of players keeps dropping, it will impact for seure the number of paying players as a direct consequence.
anyway, I meant having a glance to server population trend, but you're right, a couple of days is not enough :)
[id] have the stats in regards to the subscriber numbers. if they see the numbers drop after enough time, they would be crazy to continue with this model. but if they don't, it means it's working.
The forced map rotation thing is the most horrible iD could possibly come up with.
Why brand a game "free to play", when you're forcing people to pay in order to play maps they used to play till yesterday and loved?
Sure, they added ex-premium maps ( removing ex-normal maps meanwhile), but this simply screams retarded: people can't vote (democratically) their favourite maps simply because they aren't paying (which isn't my cause, being a pro user, yet the free-to-play population is the vast majority of the player pool).
Have fun getting people joining you in a server which currently runs a shitty map (example: Solid in Clan Arena).
Also, the icing on the cake is the falsely pleasant, charming yet hypocritical way to justify these changes:
"we are also introducing a new arena voting system to increase the variety of arenas played"
Oh, thank you for removing our freedom to play the maps we like, to simply fit your criteria of "increased variety".
This is basically terrorism, forcing people to play in order to play the way the used to be allowed to.
I've always paid for my pro subscription , being an old-time lover of this game and wanting to support them, but this is just a slap in the face of both free and paying customers thanks to whom Quake Live manages to stay alive.
You'll easily notice in a few days from now on how the number of free players will dramatically drop, thus making us, paying customers, struggle to find a standard crowded server, which will suck anyways, being forced to play horrible maps.
What's there to elaborate on? You're a nutter. I voiced my opinions on QL and id many times in the past, and they were largely negative.
For fuck's sake dude, you're talking about democracy and terrorism within the context of a private gaming project that is NOT mandatory to play and enjoy. You're not entitled to SHIT. Get over it.
although you might not be able to get parallelisms, and rather focus on the straight meaning of a word, i'd like to say you are wrong: these changes affect paying customers like me, therefore i have the right to be entitled
having to wait up to half a hour on a premium server instead of simply joining a free one and play instantly, having to be forced to play maps I don't like and such are negative things, therefore, in my opinion, i have the right of saying so
instead of insulting me, please elaborate on your opinion
having to wait up to half a hour on a premium server instead of simply joining a free one and play instantly, having to be forced to play maps I don't like and such are negative things, therefore, in my opinion, i have the right of saying so
And those are problems that are topical only now? Premium didn't work basically from the beginning, yet when they try to shake things up, you get outraged.
At the very least, i find it peculiar.
And by the way, you did get everything you paid for, it's not id's fault more people didn't pay for prem to provide you with the full prem experience (maps/modes).
I want to set one thing straight: i still think the prem setup is shit and needs an overhaul. The rotation is VERY close to what i have in my mind as making this whole thing turn around, but not quite there yet. If you want elaboration my own stance on the subject, look here: link
Sorry if i come off offensive, i'm a bit on edge today. :)
it's funny that everyone makes fun of you by quoting 'terrorism', instead of evaluating the way this update is going to affect one's ql experience.
I usually play lots of pubs like you. so, that's why I am concerned with it and I try to point this out:
yesterday ca ita seervers population was dramatically reduced and all of it ended in waiting 30+ mins to play 5-10 mins ca rape.
imo, this forced map rotation will oblige most of standard players to quit, so that it will be even more difficult to start a match. for US (paying players) as well.
madbringer: you said there was the need to 'shake up things'. why do you think this is the right way of doing it? are you just trolling us? anyway, let's see in the next few days.
i don't know what ID software is thinking about now (I hope it's a big joke before quakecon) but... will it be wrong if i open bank account and start to charge ppl for some coin to play premium maps which I host? :D:D:D
it wasnt announced officialy so it doesnt work properly anyways if there will be anti-cheat they will announce it as main title - like after few years we finally got working anti-cheat for community
Please more Warsow, and less SM. If the players switch to SM it's not only a fail for id Soft it's a fail for the whole fast-phaced FPS community. Even if you don't like Warsow it is still way better than ShootMania.
doing fine? after the last big update, when they implemented all the new game types (domination etc.), fewer people are on servers. and do you see domination and harvester and whatnot played? empty useless pay2play shit. not to mention they screwed most people's ping with that update. and now they eliminate the most played map in the game, leave even fewer, worse maps f2p (beyond reality duel, srsly?), take away map voting, making you not only choose from the 3 maps they give you at the end of the game, but actually forcing you to start the game and finish that map, unless you want to go on a server that has the map you want
this game/community/company deserves what it got, gets and will get
PS - I personally don't care, ima still rape whoever's left, on whatever maps are left
No I really think that if they "remove" two standard maps, they should promote premium ones.
This week ztn out, aero in. (duel MASTER RACE)
Next week dm6 out, overkill in. (CA)
Next week <popular tdm out>, Limbus in (TDM)
Next week CTF4/troubled waters out, Infinity in (CTF)
This would both promote the premium content, make it more available to public (who could potentially fall in love with some of the maps they've never played) AND encourage people to stop playing same shit everyday.
i would go premium but there are no premium servers?!
so why should i pay for this?
maybe the update will change this and people will pay...but i highly doubt this.
yeahhh...CA players are now forced to play tdm maps. (or leave the server and search for other)
what a GREAT idea.
TDM players have to play CA maps now or what?!
welcome to quake live - we tell you which maps you have to play!
you have to pay for all the quakes as you have to pay for all the cods and what not, and you have to pay 20$ a year to get servers, brandnew maps and other content, whats so hard to understand in this?
It's still a mystery to me how some1 that loves this game can not pay 2$ a month, I have no words for this..
20$ a year, now let's assume you paid from the beginning and the game still runs in three years (5 years is a good circle to develop a new good part of the series). That makes 100$ that you've paid for the game, while for Quake3/Quake 4 you had to pay what, 45$ or maybe 50$?
So you pay double the price you paid for one of the earlier versions. With Quake 3 it's even almost 8 years of competition wich makes it only 6.25$ per year if it costed 50$ at release.
I'm not even talking about what you get for the money, only comparing the prices of the previous titles to this one.
They do?! Now you've really changed my view on the world! What exactly do they do every day for 6-8 hours a day so that they should get a full wage out of it? I at least can't see much coming out of their work. They even have to get maps form 3rd party mappers like you (don't know if you got money for it but really hope you did) because they don't have mappers available over at their studios.
Also agreed about servecosts, still it wouldn't add up to 100$.
Even right now the rent for one 12 slot q3 server is a good 10€/month. Deduct some 80% for bulk discount that iD gets and you have your 2€ / month.
Only a fair deal if you have good routing to at least one location ofc.
edit: afaik community mappers get paid (way below minimum wage) if their maps make it into the game.
I really hope they get paid, they do an awesome work.
Also the 10€ per month would normally get divided trough the players in your team/clan (if you are fair) so the prize would be way lower. And the part aoubt routing, right now my minimal ping in QL is allways 55-60. Thats on the DE servers that are located in Frankfurt, near my place. If I'll rent a server from let's say gamed.de and install Q3A+CPMA on it I would get at least a stable 40 ping, probably even 30. So no fair deal here.
Maybe you could slice that payment down to per-hour basis so it'd look even cheaper?
It's 24 and 48 bucks up-front, period.
I love the game, i've shown my support and paid 48$ for it.
It IS too much to ask for this game, but i thought it'll pay off in the long run.
Boy i was wrong.
I've been fed a turd sandwich and i'm not staying for seconds.
I like Silence, the MH position is quite clever - two ways out, either RJ or walking straight out, hoping you don't get cut of and blown away with rockets - kinda like dm13 MH position. Haven't tested others yet.
Windsong Keep looks great on picmip 0, only jumped around it for a brief time.
unrelated to maps:
Current map voting at the end of the match is flawed.
I'm not saying it's wrong - the idea may be good, but the execution is, pardon my french, FUCKSHITBAD.
gonna autoquote myself from the official forums. Jamerioing and al.
The way I see it with standard accounts you get you try the game, play some great maps and have fun (trial). If you want to become a frequent or competitive player then you are forced to pay a full copy (subscription in this case), now that you can't leech out for years.
I think that's what people should realise, it's basically a trial and infact one that offers much more than regular trials (alot of content and unlimited use)
And stop being so fucking tight! Oh no I can't play ztn, well if the game means that much to you that you need to play these kinds of maps then pay the low sum of money needed.
I am paying since day 0, but as a CA player 95% of my games are standard pubs which are actually ruined because those ARE NOT CA MAPS.
Worst move ever from my pov.
EDIT: well... I changed my mind as we can vote maps like we used to do, it just slows down the game as we must revote after joining the voted crap map :)
well, what a stupid update. I recently purchased a mechanical keyboard for Starcraft which i'm receiving soon. This makes me not even want to play QL. Syncerror go play with your peepee you good-for-nothing.
So baring in mind that id software is first and foremost a business and usually the aim of any business is to make money, what exactly is it that you people want? My guess is you want everything, and you want it for free. I just checked a minute ago and quakelive is still free to play... So what's your problem?
Is there something I'm doing wrong with the brightskins? I made my bitterman brightskin multiple colors, but when I went into Third Person he was still just basic green.
Also, do your custom colors show up on your profile? That would be sick.
I was actually excited to see map rotations, even though dumping premium maps in the standard pool every 3 months would have been better, but map rotations will suffice as long as we can play different maps all the time as standard users and have a taste for things.
And on another note they should rotate premium and pro game types on a weekly or biweekly basis.
Added the ability to hold crouch at the top of jumppads to catch the ledge
Okay so you know how if you take a jumppad and then at the top of the jumppad you hold down jump how it behaves differently in QL vs PQL? In QL you have can 'grab the ledge' and quickly land onto the surface. In PQL if you hold jump, it instead does a rampjump off of the lip sending you high into the air.
You now have the ability to choose what behavior you'd like to have happen in PQL. If you want to ledge grab, hold down crouch. If you want to rampjump, hold down jump. If you want neither, then just take the pad without holding down a key as you pass the lip.
Resolved an issue where Railgun rails would predict firing while spectating.
This is actually stated incorrectly, I'll have to go update the changelogs. This was just related to the cg_predictLocalRailshots, and firing while talking... not spectating. If you held down the fire key/button while using the railgun, and then hit your chat bind, it would spew non-stop railtrails. This was just a clientside effect, no one else could see it, and the shots weren't actually fired.
Just tried some Limbus in InstaFreeze. Very fun, love the vertical layout and the complexity. I want to try Terminus next, it's easy to get lost in. :P
Windsong Keep is a great map in most aspects, but as far as 1-on-1 goes, I am unsure about it's potential in tournaments. It's a bit too rail-heavy due to the long lines of sight, resulting in some campfests next to the door ways and resulting in peek-and-shoot gameplay. It might work really well for 2v2 though - I put it in the same category as maps like Devilish and Gothic Rage.
I haven't played Windsong Keep yet, but I have spent somewhere around 2-3 hours on Silence. I think it's a really fun map, it seems rather large at first but it can be played quite fast once you learn the routes and teles. There are tons of rail angles and places to catch people after they grab items, along with some very interesting vertical combat. I really hope this map catches on soon as I feel that it's a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.
yeah perhaps im gonna change something i used to since the begining of my quake playing for the sake of one single map that yet proven to be good... very lifelike.
Set lighting model to "Light Data" or "Vertex Data". This will cause all maps to not only be picmipped, but lose color from the textures as well, (the only color being from the lights) so everything appears white and dull enough to let bright green characters (won't use Keel anymore, since using brightskins for all models seems to be catching on) stand out on any map regardless of primary color.
+ finally after the match i can choose the next map from 3 variants: same map, same map, random-nobody-play-this-crap map
+ finally bright skins (2 years..pretty enought time to implement this 100.000 lines of code-feature HUH?)
+ nobody can call for their favourite map! who cares about your opinion? id know better what to play u dumbhead f*cker
+ dramatically increasing the player-base in 1 month
+ new maps. Closer to community? Oh wait they are not in the "standart map pool"
+ No ladder, no duel detective, no something-like-battlenet. it Doesn't seem worth the time of programmers instead of new shiny skins
- where is new cvars? update without cvars :facepalm:
Also to increase premium users amount u must remove the railgun and lightninggun for god-damned-free-players. They will loose - they will pay.
yea, true that, but do premium acc-people on free/prem servers really can do something about situation with forced maps? they are still need some pro acc-friend or something to spawn desirable map, innit? :l feels kinda weird
"Premium matches will continue to have access to the entire arena pool, and matches created by our Pro players will continue to have the option to change arenas at any point."
It wont help attracting new players that is true. I was raging at the long time players who are whinig now instead of going premium for the price of 1 sandwich / month.
I am an old fart i dont play much but i follow the scene since the Thresh/QW days. I just love to watch the epic tournaments/dramas. Its more entretaining and more exciting for me than watching sports which i also love.
We're pleased to announce the release of QUAKE LIVE Premium Pak 14. This release contains nintyfive new arenas from popular community authors, more than one hundred of new sexy player character skins, and a change to our Premium subscription model. Starting today, we will be regularly cycling the Standard arena pool. On the first Monday of each month, 2 arenas will be selected as playable for Standard-level matches. Newly released arenas will remain exclusive for at least three years, but every other arena is eligible to be included in the cycle.
In addition to this change, we are also introducing a new arenaweapon voting system to increase the variety of weapons used. Players playing on Standard-level matches will now have a choice between three random arenasweapons at the end of each match. The weapon voted on will be the only able in the next match played. Premium matches will continue to have access to the entire weapon pool, and matches created by our Pro players will continue to have the option to change arenasweapons at any point.
Here's a thought.
If id is really that desperate for subscribtions, why not let people pay on a monthly basis!
So depending on the content of a given cycle one can choose to subscribe or not.
Every cycle where ztn is not free to play would increase income, the only thing which is important obviously, tenfold.
guys, playing for free a game that is supported by any serious company is impossible. it's just stupid situation and cant exist.
24$ a year is so small payment for such a great thing that Quake is.
And if more people will get Pro or Premium account, everybody will get more fun playing more maps, more modes and more features.
whines about money -> im sorry if you dont have free 24$ a year
whines about ping -> ask 102.Pavel how to do with it
whines about ID -> check how much they get from QL, there are about 20 000 tdmers on qlranks, and let's say half of them Premium (i think less), it is about 240 000 us dollars they pay a year. be honest, that is almost nothing for a company.
Finally id shows balls and goes for a more aggressive model to make people pay for the game (if you play the game more than casually, pay for it ffs). I also like that people gonna give different maps a try now, instead of ztn+dm6 24/7. Maybe there is hope for QL after all.
Don't really like this end of the match [map] voting system. And I really have no idea why id decided to enable it on premium servers. If you guys insist on keeping it enabled on prem servers; AT LEAST TAKE THE TIME TO GO OVER THE MAPS WITH SOMEONE AND CATEGORIZE THEM AND INCLUDE THE MAPS FOR THAT GAMEMODE ONLY. I have no interest playing say Grim Dungeons in CA or Asylum in DUEL or TDM.
Personally, I'd rather see the price(s) for sub(s) drop and make qlive pay to play. And then hook up with some peripheral companies for some advertising. I see [new] ventrilo ads around the maps, so obviously the ingame advertising isn't completely dead. Quake players might not care about having the latest and greatest cpu or video cards. But good mice, mouse pads, headsets, keyboards, 120hz displays I imagine are high priority items for many players. And those are still things casual players can be sold on (razer has made a career out of selling bling to the gaming masses).
I don't play more than 1-2 times per week nowadays because i don't have time and when I play I just wanna jump in and have a few duels on ztn and the other maps that are in tournament mappools.
If this is not possible anymore then im not gonna play at all.
Quake is(was?) the perfect game for me to just jump in and have one or a few 10min matches(on the maps i want to play), but it seems like its just getting more and more complicated.
Seconded. Old, now casual quakers who've grown into job and family are pretty much falling off the boat, except they consider paying for a service they rarely use.
Also, I'm kind of amused how ppl are concerning themselves with id's revenues. It's been id's choice to make this game subscription type and carry all provision aspects themselves.
With q3, the game was bought and the provision of servers and game content left to the community. That worked great, and id only had to worry about the development costs.
With ql, they're now shouldering everything themselves and, if it ultimately doesn't work out, being forced to pull the plug. Something which wouldn't have been possible with q3, where id stopping to do something for the game simply meant stopping the development of patches.
Sorry, but I'm having little sympathy there. With q4, they failed to bring the highly popular multiplayer part of quake gaming to the next level. Rage was nowhere close to be seen. So they just had to do something to "stay in the press", or rather not be forgotten.
I'm telling you guys: you did them a big favor by continuing to play this game, and being loyal to an extent I believe only quake players are capable of. So don't get depressed about id maybe not squeezing enough cash out of it, if anybody fucked it up it's them not you.
I did have a pro account for a year, but since ID did not really do anything of what the community was begging for during that time I decided not to prolong my subscription.
It has nothing to do with me being cheap or poor, more about being disappointed.
IMO
The time of getting loads of new players into Quake is far gone, ID should focus on listening to the players they have and try to make them happy so they keep playing.
I've played a few pickups during the years....and its not just to write !add and the match starts.
First u gotta teach 7 monkeys how to join red or blue team.
Too lazy to write more.
Point is, pickup is not something u do if u have 30min of spare time.
I'd like to see ztn banned from quakelive for 6 months. Was tired that 70 percent of duel servers were basically ztn. It's maddening overplayed at this point.
if they want more money just make the entire game premium and pro, cause anyway they rarely make an update that concern free users or something we all can use like anti-fucking-cheat.
Everything is fine for me. I had two subscriptions already, first premium and now pro, and I'm going to pay once again, just because i want to plau my favourite game, which is already almost 10 years, with all features, and to support id that made this great game. All this whine comes only from unthanksful cheap losers, and I'm glad to see that this cunts can be filtered now without ztn or other stuff. You are using only resources, not making any support. Whine should be if you payed for something. So stfu, buy or gtfo!
Or it's my fate or dunno what else, but in 99% of my games, im not playing standart public at all, only pcw's, pickups, cups. So yeah, for me it will be the same game i believe!
What about cunts in this topic case and similar - this is those people, who never bought any subscription for whole/long time, but rage and whine in any occasion on ID software and what they are doing. Never satisfied. So it's wrong question that you made. Right one is - "and you think the game that you loved for 10 yeard will feel bad after half of their players (aka cunts) are gone?" My answer - No :)
No whine, no rage, no wasted money/resources.
IMO
P.S. I know alot of people, that cant pay for subscription. Atleast they are not whining everytime. I'd with love invite them to premium server, because they can ask for invite, not shitting and still playing.
at this point I'd restrict standard servers more by having only 5 rotating maps for each mod (all can be voted at the end of the map not just 3 like it is right now), restricted play time (e-mail confirmation when creating new accounts) and "buy the game" adverts in scores menu (both in-game every time you press tab and at the end of every map).
also they can't post on the official forums (esr signups get closed for about a month after that change so it doesn't fill with retards) and hopefully tournament organizers only accept paying players, as a crusade to keep the game alive.
or just one payment upfront (no free/standard players, no subscriptions). Very few or no cheaters because no one likes losing a paid account, major tournaments only use ql and accept players that have an account there, gg.
well it seems like they're trying to squeeze last drop of money
for sure it wont bring any new players to the game rather the other way around so I kind of don't understand why people are happy - it will be just like in q3 where we had really closed community
It was always hard to bring new players, except maybe when Q3 was released. And it's not suprise that nobody's going to invest millions to make Quake Live the most popular FPS ever.
You must agree that one case is to bring people to the game and another is to keep them. I dont like forcing players to buy a premium/pro account when they should promote them to buy it and yes they are forcing them by taking from them 10 years old maps or to making them waiting 10s for ads before the game.
People should be paying for addons not for basic stuff. It should be like "Hey here you have some basic stuff you can play the game without any problems just like players with premium or pro but look if you buy a premium you will be able to view people profiles, talking to them online or watching demos and it can really make the game more pleasant for you or help you improve"
And about bringing people to the game - Shootmania prolly showed us that is not so hard like we think so. Yes the game is itself is shitty and really simplified and doesnt even have half of it what quake does - yet almost everyone of us tried it. The problem was to keep us.
I think it's great marketing move to make the most popular content premium! As i seen, in 98% cases cheap(standart) account users never say thank you, only rage and whine. If I was ID boss, i'd say gtfo, long time ago. You got almost everything for free, and now ofcourse you whine about losing it (like young childs). Time to pay. There's no such thing as a free lunch!
EDIT: More about it, as i said before, free users take only resources, and it cost money anyway. I think if you was ready to pay, just didnt feel that you should pay for something, because you had it all, now people who can pay, will pay. Other money-eaters can chill, anyway they are only wasting, not making any result. Better for me, kill this cheapers and invest this money to another few, maybe very useful premium packs releases.
i think the new map cycle and voting system is good, just poorly executed. it should be set clear which are the duel tdm ctf etc maps and only those available for voting, with most being in the prem pool.
for example for duel theres:
ztn, dm13, aero, t7, toxi, dm6, t4, t9, hektik, (and can even add battleforged, dismemberment, t2) - 3 being free one from the standard 5 map pool always, rest is premium.
same could be done for other gametypes. no need for solid, quarantine, beyond reality etc on a duel server. this system isnt so bad just doenst makes much sense in its current form. mapvoting should be allowed obviously, if u want to encourage players to learn maps, dont allow us to vote the same map twice in a row.
I am usally happy with the updates, and I have been paying for PRO since day1. Will keep doing so.
The update looks fine, and I like the idea of prem and non prem maps swapping around with a few weeks between swaps.
But jesus, disabling vote system, wth :/?
Dont fucking mess with the vote system.
Looks like a interesting update, can't wait to try when I get the chance!
As a pro subscriber since day 1, I'm all in for trying to populate the premium servers. Still not sure if this will work or not, time will tell?
The few dollars/month that it costs me for the pleasure to play this game is really not much when I look at my other hobbies I have, or when I go out 1 night with friends. Not even comparable :)
To be honest, I think Quake (as I really don't play other games often) saves me a lot of money as I would most likely be spending more money on other things if I did not have my games / week :)
I'm not saying all changes are great as I have not tried them, but finally we got some maps that our community made for free!
I pay for the service of QL (not for a map) which includes updates, content, server uptime, the few people working on it, also for the delusional dream that Q5 or other cool games would come out eventually if enough people support the game = a true optimist perhaps and most likely a bit stupid from my part, but thats me :)
I was disappointed that it took such a long time to add these maps and other maps as well. I'm also not fully content with the changes id software make all the times and also the lack of some things that we all know should be in the game already, but for some reason has not. There are most likely good reasons for this but we simply don't know as id software don't have any communication to the public about the plans or developers blogs etc. At least not that I'm aware of :)
- 5 brand new maps
- not everything is listed on patch notes, but was there a serious bug that needed to be fixed? not that I know of.
- implemented last patch (not this one), just not on patch notes for obvious reasons
- to finance the game
- quake3 is not f2p. But feel free to go back, with 1/100 QL's playerbase
Guys, I don't understand, why so many people are OK to pay for other games, even shitty, but think, that ql must be free. If they asked to pay for it from the very beginning, you wouldn't be angry, but once they gave you free limited ability to play, you're blaming ID for the efforts to earn some money for their work. And many of you not just upset, bad mad about it.
Just think a little bit, what are you doing, and then go ahead and pay for the game you love.
whoever complains about its all free in q3 (supposedly everyone owns a paid serial, which about im highly doubtful) look at it this way: for 2$/mo you get a lot of comfort as far as finding games, parenting servers, etc go. some of the cheaters at least being banned here (opposed to q3 where there is no anticheat/game accounts), as most server hopefully will be premium it means way less cheaters by default. all that off from our shoulders for a cost of a beer every month, not a big sacrifce... if you think its doesnt worth it gl with 1.32/cpma/all seeing eye, with absolutely free cheating, getting new players into that etc... if you cant afford it than put all your effort into improving your financial situation instead of playing computer games.
yes this comfort was free the last couple of years, but it was not your right to claim, rather a kind gift from the developers. 2$/month, dont cry...
on the sidenote this is the time to run some promotion. send out press releases everywhere 1 month free pro for a prem sub, or smth. make daily ffa tournaments with pro/prem prizes etc for a month, anything really. this is an opportunity to get out from the ditch, but people have to take notice outside of esr.
This new map voting is pretty retarded. What if I want to join a pub tdm server and play dreadful place? Oh maybe theres one server running that map which is located in Iceland. Great...
Cycling the map pool I understand but the voting system is totally fucked.
Please integrate a pickup system into the website, put it on one of the sides. You select the gamemode, the servers you are willing to play on and then you add to the queue. When enough are in the queue you are sent the link to join. They should make a system like this the priority to get premium servers populated.
Dont forget pro players can invite 5? free ones since previous update, so even if youre a cheap ass, you can play everything by just having 1 pro friend. If youre cheap and dont have pro friends then you probably suck at life and should be grateful to play whatever map id puts in the rotation for free.
I see this move on id's part not only to have more paying accounts, which is a good thing for a project i want to succeed, but also to encourage playing on premium servers, and one of the ways to do it is by pro invitations.
id software had just created a tremendous opportunity for success of Reborn project, led by 2GD.
Guys at id software, I'm laughing at you and your miserable business strategy skills. I think the whole situation can be added into business administration handbooks as a case of killing a successful brand with inadequate management decisions caused by poor business strategy.
And at the same time I'm sad - looks like QuakeLive lives it's last months, if not days.
R.I.P. Quake Live, R.I.P. Quake. You will be missed.
Oh look, another drama queen with a degree in business studies. So come on, let's hear your epic business strategy for QuakeLive... LOL
Why are you laughing at id software? they admitted a long time ago that QuakeLive was a failure, they keep it going because it's QuakeLive and it still has some hardcore fans that play it.
looks like QuakeLive lives it's last months, if not days.
Oh come on stop being such a drama queen. Yeah they just put in a load of new maps the community spent months making just to shut it down in a few days...lol are you serious?
R.I.P. Quake Live, R.I.P. Quake.
Yawn. People were saying that 2 years ago, I still have no problem finding any games to play.
Ironic how your laughing at id software, yet it's posts like yours that probably have the QL devs having a good old laugh in the id office.
best update i ever seen in my life, some amazing stuff, i just cant want something more, its so good, and so modern, and.... its just best really! ty guys gj all!
What quake live is missing more than anything else is something to bridge casual players into "community players".
When you come to quakelive.com and log in, unless you are an experienced player, you have no idea that there are tournaments and leagues going on.
You log in, play some CA/TDM/CTF public and that is it. Unless you have friends playing in comps/watching comps or you are already aware of it there is nothing telling you "there is more to quake live than just casual playing".
For most casual players this update probably will not change much, most people tier 1-3 do not really vote maps anyway, they just play.
If quake live wants to survive I think there needs to be better bridging into "competitive" play even if its just 2v2 CA with your friend.
imho they could make QL totally free except for spawning servers ...
doesn't cost that much to keep those servers running imho ...
League of Legends is also free as far as I know ... then they should offer some visuals that can be paid for ... colored railstreams/explosions, skins, etc. ...
pay one guy or something for updating the game ...
and have map contests for community .... game will have new content this way ... and advertising should generate enough money ... these guys are so dumb, right now there is no fps game dominating the scene, in rpg you have WoW/Diablo 3, in RTS Starcraft 2, in DOTA stuff LoL, in fighting Street Fighter, but in fps there is nothing, and Quake Live could be the game to play ... and they are just throwing everything away ...
also not everything has to capitalize directly ... maybe it can be seen as a nice gesture for the brand of id ... and people are more likely to check out their games ... make it indirectly generate capital for id
get rid of premium, but make pro the price of prem ($25y/o or so)
the thing is, ive paid for a year of pro and even a year of prem, but i dont think it was worth it. i only really care to play duel, there was never a large community to begin with and most people havent bought the prem/pro so they were just playin ztn for the most part.
when it comes to playing duel you basically only have a few maps choices. imo ztn tends to be the most popular because its just the best map there is for beginners and pros. its kindof like python in sc1. the other maps are ok at best, people perfer ztn because they know that its the best QL has to offer.
i really only want to play ztn because i find that map fun and challenging enough for me, the other maps are boring and bland. ztn is the only map that interests me, im not about to pay 25 to play ztn without having the pro features.
nah man, its best update ever ;)). now IEM will want ql! btw this will impact on the number of viewers too (inversely proportional ;))))))), will be best year for ql!
they kill quake and many ppl like u get exited... sad creatures
I am subscriber. The non subscribers might be cheap (by ur logic, not mine), but u r sad, u and all others that get joy out of the fact that some ppl can’t now play their favourite game. I mean wtf really… We are in the 21st century. The drawing joy from other ppls pain is so not civilized.
i wish people would stop referring to standard users playing a 'free' game. sitting through an advertisment before your game means that you are paying id through ad revenue. it just so happens that this doesn't generate enough to cover the costs and so more restrictions are being placed on standard users to hopefully entice them to pay directly from their wallet.
Free broadcasted TV is not free because you have to work thru watching to commercials?
absolutely. the time spent watching commercials could have been spent doing something else. the very existence of 'adblockers' show that people don't want to view ads out of choice.
Free food and drinks are not free because you have to start appreciating organizer's brand?
one that you did not go out of your way for to be associated with. they want to entice people to their services so said organisers arrange events with 'free food and drink' to draw people that would otherwise not have thought to go to.
Free game is not free because you need to watch all of them banners?
indeed. no one wants to see banners in the game. they would rather see 100% in game textiles. however, people are willing to pay the price of sacrificing for this tiny inconvenience because they don't value it as much as getting the game without paying money directly out of their wallets (which could be used for something else that they value more)
Free food to poor is not free because they a re forced to think good of rich people?
yes (although this has nothing to do with what i said).
Edited by dorftrottelled at 09:04 CDT, 26 July 2012
marketing costs are added to the price of the product, so not free. And rich are buying safety and stability with "free" food, and unless they get that service no "free" food will be distributed to the poor.
And wasnt QL/QZ suppose to be one of these "free" marketing tools with a sole purpose of creating a bigger customer base for the quake brand? Thats what I remember it being advertised when they tried to get Q3 communitys support for it.
The thing that baffles me is how did the people who failed to capitalize on the open beta buzz got to keep their jobs? That was maybe the best chance for quake to get big. And by people I probably mean some "suit" who managed the resources and did not have a faith in their own product. They could have WoW of fps games right now with competent management.
Companies close their doors every day and this one is not immune. All they need to do is get people to keep playing. If the number of free servers is finite then people will buy premium. They must enjoy themselves when they log on. They don't need to go to another site to find a pickup game. They don't need to vote to shuffle because it auto shuffles at countdown and it works with an auto balance. They are not started in T3 where they have the crap blown out of them, but instead started in T1. The player base is small so why add more mods? More mods means more people playing different games. If I walk in a restaurant on a Saturday night and its empty I'm going to feel a little bit nervous about the food.
edit: zotac dead
nice update, hope all you fuckers with subscriptions, that praised this update and made fun of the standard users you hate so much, choke:D
this update almost(i mean ALMOST) killed Korean QL scene. or should I say all the others except Europe, NA and Australia?
let me tell ya what's happening here. most people play as standard, so even though a few people purchased, most of people dont know/want to play premium maps. even those premium/pro players use it to play ztn/dm13. they can't even callvote now(seriously? this is even more commercial failure). and they have to play ridiculous maps(like 'somewhat damaged'. wtf) which they dont wanna play.
we've had some oldskool players who have been playing over a decade(+ few newcomers like me). Korean community collected their own money to make Korean QL server. since id didnt make one for us, and it's the only asian server right now. and we were quite active. until now.
what you've done is simply making korean server even emptier. They won't quit unless id shuts down QL, because they still love quake. but I think, from now on, Koreans will be even less active than ever before.
I thought I'll never say this but your best choice would be q3 or any other similar game. The ql product is just not suited for competative play and I have the feeling id uses ql merely as testing platform for future games/investements. The sad part is that coms like yours are fucked. Don't get me wront I love the game but I just find it sad to see that some people can't even play the game due to no own dedicated servers and ping issues.
They are still missing the concept of player retention. How do any of these updates get brand new players to keep coming back. If you can't give it away you can't sell it. You restrict access and show them premium maps are being played so it makes sense to pay. You cannot make them wait only to join a match and not have fun like lowing 10-0 time and time again. Fix the shuffle "all the way" not this Micky Mouse thing that people cheat the system. These are basic concepts of business and games people play. But id does not get it.
In Pub CA this patch has had the opposite effect, user spawned servers with just campgrounds and overkill have become the most used so we play just two maps now instead of 5 or 6. If you want other maps to be used you need to stop people making their own map lists in standard matches and only allow rotation/vote instead. This will have the desired effect of sending ppl to premium and making the freeloaders quit or whine.
Be careful. If all the freeloaders quit the whole game will be over. Not enough people to play. It's a race against time with Syncerror or whomever as programmers trying to learn business. It's been done before by people like Bill Gates but these guys? They are not very bright. Just look at what they've done so far. Started strong and have slowly eroded the player base to life support.
you know there's something wrong when the project manager is a mapper. Not a programmer, not a player, not someone who has worked in at least one game before; a mapper.
imho. the last thing ql needs is mappers ...
they can let the community create maps in mapping contests ...
they need programmer and some sort of creative director deciding on the needed features ...
they should hire 2GD and give him full access to the quake libraries/assets to build his RB concept and features into a proven /engine and franchise. Quake Reborn or something.
I just recently decided to upgrade from premium to pro, a bit before this update, due to that free-whateverweek where there was a demo of the server spawning system.
I fell a bit buttraped now though, as I can't play the good CA maps on my own spawned server. Feels mostly like I get punished for subscribing.
Think about it, why can't I start a standard CA server with e.g. trinity, and have a great match with a mixed bag of non subscribers and subscribers? It's now almost sickeningly hard to get a CA match going during night hours, really seems activity has dropped alot.
Sadly I think there's little reason to keep paying now, when you have taken away the greater maps for CA.
Create a premium CA server with Trinity and invite some players. Remember that anyone like yourself - a subscriber - will be able to join. Any standard user simply needs an invite.
Problem is, at night hours thats not really an option.
How am I supposed to meet new players to invite, if I can't create a proper standard server.
Just seems alot of "meh" this update.
I wouldn't mind this update, if had not taken away so many of the good CA maps from the standard pool, I guess pros could spawn standard servers all they like. But it goes like dm6->overkill->dm6 24/7 atm.
Before there was like a shitload of playable maps. So the bottom line for me, is I still feel butt raped of ID's subscriber hunt.
In what way? I have millions of thoughts on this but was wondering yours. I don't know what the recent changes will do to the player base but most on the forums think its negative. I believe it will not be anything liked they had hoped but we shall see. What scares me is they may have megalomania and it may be too late once they admit their folly.
In what way? I have millions of thoughts on this but was wondering yours. I don't know what the recent changes will do to the player base but most on the forums think its negative. I believe it will not be anything liked they had hoped but we shall see. What scares me is they may have megalomania and it may be too late once they admit their folly.
In a way they do what they want, not what they should not what people suggest. Maps going premium and shit is okay, I understand they gotta profit or atleast cover their losses, even if that means killing the game. Activity has dropped 75% in a week. But mostly what caught me was the mapvoting...... it's dumb as fuck and from what I've talked to sponge and sync they won't change it back or want to fix the existing flaws and bugs. They'll just update more and create more and more bugs and features that'll kill the game even more. And isn't ID a big company and all, isn't it supposed to be even halfsmart on what they do? These updates make the game worse and worse.
![shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann](/files/avatars/2007/51852-shaftwhore.gif "shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann"){kind=small}
frs
Yeah.. ZTN premium..
