They're still doing quakecon?!

Sad that some players can't attend, for me especially Av3k.

Same. Av3k has improved so much in recent years. I was especially proud of his performance last year. When he was knocked out, I could see his disappointment but wanted to scream at him through the screen that he shouldn't be. Just goes to show that he's got his sights set for the top.

I'm also disappointed to see that Serious can't be there. He's one of the few players who can take rapha and IMO is one of the best.

Btw, I was confused about why there were so many Americans but realized it's because of course there are no Russians

"He's one of the few players who can take rapha"

cool story bro.

LMAO

Serious, taking on Rapha

Fucking lol

I tought i'd heard it all

Even if he set his lg aimbot to 90% he couldn't even dream of taking on Rapha or the other top players.

Serious sucks balls even with his aimbots in full spazz mode.

He simply does not have a working brain, they have yet to develop a cheat to compensate for that.

Maybe in a few years there'll be a ChatGPT plugin for quake, and then "the guitarist" will have a chance.

Until then, this just gave him the opportunity to avoid being humiliated again.

rapha himself has said that Serious is one of the best. I caught a bunch of rapha's matches while he was in Europe this past year, and Serious gave him a hard time pretty often and took many matches in a row. Some days Serious walked away with a high positive win rate. When rapha practices against lesser players like Chain, he rarely needs to do special moves, but Serious pushes rapha to his limits and makes him play nonstandard. I thought this was obvious and am surprised that anyone who has seen these matches would disagree. Everyone struggles against certain playstyles and players.

That said, I don't think Serious is yet championship material. rapha adapts and powers up like no one else. The Myztro boys are good, but K1llsen's too well rounded now. I haven't had the time to watch in the past few months, but from what I saw before, he and rapha are still at the top.

My eye is on Maxter, who's finally got a championship under his belt. He's been clawing and climbing for years now

Pretty clear nex1 has not watched enough games.

Serious is the new strenx, who was the new tox, mkay?

Sometimes no brain all aim players can deliver amazing results after rules change.

And QC is very aim heavy, with no way to get to 200/200, no way to deny yellows when you're in full control, weapons dealing way more damage compared to QL, against people with way less stack compared to QL...

A human aimbot like serious could definitely do damage on LAN in QC.

Of course Vengeur is like serious but with a brain, so we're still waiting for that show, and it's guaranteed to be entertaining, if not epic. Serious can't touch that and no one is saying he had a chance of getting THE BELT. Still, saying serious couldn't dream of taking someone, anyone, on a QC LAN is just wrong. Say what you want about him, but you would watch his games if he was allowed to come. I know I would!

Unless they clashed with Av3k's... :(

Serious can't get his aimbot past TSA?

Btw it's sad how little interest quakecon generates even here. QC completely killed the quake scene

They learned from QL what to do wrong and finally nailed it

it's not necessarily true that qc killed quake. they made a lot of mistakes and the game largely had no direction, but the simple truth is people do not like high ttk and fast movement. there's a reason why you see so many new players raging and typing the most hateful stuff in chat, even when they're only playing all weapons ffa in ql / unholy trinity in qc. there's a reason why the few new players who tried diabotical were denigrating it so extremely. they fundamentally do not like this combat system, and they never will. it takes longer to kill someone in a quake game than in apex legends, but in apex they can't fly around or move in adad and force you to track them.

Rofl a reply full of dogshit

you've cheated multiple times man, being smug doesn't suit you.

And ur mind is stuck in 1945

I'm not talking about the overall popularity of quake. I'm talking about a one-off russian friendly QL cup generating more interest than Quakecon on this website

a lot of people here aren't interested in watching qc duel because there's more sources of dmg. in ql for example, you only really have rl/lg/rail and everything else is a special use case. now in qc, machineguns, shotguns, tribolt, and nailgun are also relevant, and these sources of damage change the way people play the game. megahealth only goes up to 175, the armors are tiered like qw and cpm while also having decay like q3, and just in general the level of aim has increased. people in qc hit better than they ever have in any version of quake, which changes a lot of situations. they feel like the pace of the game is harder to control, that you have to be prepared for more things or die, but they overrate the effects of characters and abilities and underrate the weapon buffs and armor and megahealth changes. they also underrate hourglasses which are a fast way to reduce cooldowns and makes it impossible to do that "his ultimate is not up until x" and have some sense of when to take advantage of it.

funny thing is some of those people who aim really good, used aim as good back in QL, but somehow sucked and could never compete. Which would imply QC is a dumber game.

anyway what's so special about ng, mg, sg in QC? they are almost same as pg, mg and sg in QL

they just feel better to use in qc. the projectile netcode makes nailgun usable outside of lan and somehow it feels faster than before even if its not, mg and hmg are higher damage while also having the same low spread as previous titles, and shotguns don't feel as suicidal to be used close range. it was very common to see someone get aggressive with shotgun, or to finish off an opponent in ql, only to get bounced around by rl and die, whereas in qc shotgun just works so much better. whether it's just better hitreg or spread or dmg, people are using it to greater effect in qc than in previous titles.

Give us a proper tf game mode. Not this esports crap like sacrifice.

>they made a lot of mistakes

Everything they've done was a mistake, every single decision.
PC gaming is bigger than ever and so is the fps market - and quake is the perfect platform to handle both something as skill intensive as duel or low ttk modes for casuals. Id/Bethesda/Microsoft are losing huge money by not having a good Quake game up and running.
Then again, making a decent title would require self-aware people, which excludes the current Quake team.

its crazy growing up playing Quake and Counter-Strike way back ages ago and seeing how insanely massive CS is now and how Arena FPS overall is in such a pitiful state. You'd think it'd have a seat at the table in eSports but no, they have been so mishandled because they must think they are too "old" and "out of date" but the gameplay is solid and there is so much untapped potential. it seems they don't want to take that risk/long term investment. Valve knows they struck gold with CS:GO (I'm not saying add slot machines (cases)/market system to Quake to be clear lol) and they are keeping basically the same game for CS2 with a new engine and some small tweaks, nothing too massive. basically just future-proofing it for years to come. Adding Champions/Abilities was a horrible decision. It should be about what natural skills players themselves bring into the games not these artificial advantages/disadvantages.

I'm not saying add slot machines (cases)/market system to Quake to be clear lol

But they HAVE added slot machines! And 3 separate, non-convertible, in-game currencies used for different stuff. It's toned down now, but I still have thousands of loot boxes, not to mention all the items (skins, attachments, shaders, icons, podiums etc.)

I have been approached by someone willing to buy my account just for some cosmetic crap that I have. He even said a similar (slightly better) account has been sold for hundreds of euros on some shady forum.

Since there's so much stuff you can get (a lot of it you can get once every 2 years, plus some items that won't be available ever again (Ruby Nyx, Oni Scalebearer, CBT plaques etc.)), the only logical step forward is to allow trading that crap.

Or do what Valve does with CS and allow "gifting" your stuff to other people, then pretend you have no idea people bet with them on external sites.

Kids betting their shiny knives is part of popularity of CS, let's face it :( They went 75% there, why not go the full way ;)

BTW, having purchasable models/skins/whatnot is fine. Loot boxes aren't. Maybe some people like the MOBA aspect of adapting to new "meta" each quarter because a new champion is released, I don't and I especially don't appreciate having fucking speed limits on my strafe jumping! But even those who love a game with champions, haven't gotten a new champion for what, 3 years? This was an unsustainable model from the very beginning.

Take any previous Quake, you can fire up a server of any of those today and play it just like you have 20 years ago. That's a game.

QC is a "live service", which now became a charity drive every few months (Sync releasing a fugly shader pack for $80 which people buy "to support the game").

This still shows Quake's power as a beloved brand which still has superfans, guess that's why they're keeping QC alive and that's why I'm convinced they're planning another Quake eventually (that, and also Doom 2016's success showing you can in fact make money by making a good old school FPS). So I'm ending this on a positive note ;)

>Take any previous Quake, you can fire up a server of any of those today and play it just like you have 20 years ago. That's a game.

True, but I'm just saying it would be nice if we could have a few thousand active players over just a couple hundred. They're really fun games casual or competitive just sucks how they have been mishandled.

But it could be worse, we could have been Unreal Tournament die-hards. People say often games are "dead" but that is actually basically what happened. Murdered by Epic themselves. RIP.

It's pretty shocking that UT4 was just ditched like that. All that money and success on the part of Epic Games, and not even a few thousand dollars to give to the UT project, or any mind paid to the heritage of the company. It makes me feel like there is a conspiracy against cool, masculine FPS titles like UT. I mean, that is definitely there to some extent as across all industries these days.

1 more day \o/

K1llsen has arrived
Maxter is there also
Vengeur checking his room
Spart1e doing what he knows best
Bukster traveling
Nosfa has been there a week, staying at Jehar's
Dramis arriving, bootcamping, cooling off
Garpy, Raisy, Vengeur enjoying some food

Av3k interviews K1llsen ahead of QuakeCon
Av3k interviews Keltz ahead of QuakeCon
Av3k interviews Garpy ahead of QuakeCon
Av3k interviews Rapha ahead of QuakeCon

Can't wait.

"does spartie still ragequit games after 2min ?!?"
from av3k interview with k1llsen :P

whahahaha

group C ftw

Telefrag comeback? Zis is cha1n... That was champion material shit, impressive. Poor dandaking, he played it so well.

dandaking losing by a telefrag. (Fuck cha1n, he considers himself a Russian; but the bullrush finish was epic, I cheered for him for a second ;))

dramiS eliminated by a ringout. (Congrats Keltz, no one thought you could make it, fuck the haters!)

This is why the groups were supposed to have 4 players (or matches for each one). Blame America...

Dandaking was unlucky, but then again, he was really asking for it, he didnt need to take that gamble with the teleport shenanigans...

Idk dramis and Keltz tbh, I havent followed QC in a while, but they both seem pretty good.

Lion and ZSX are pretty good together, their casting is hella likable.

If the groups had 4 players each, wouldnt it be kinda difficult to decide whos getting to the playoffs considering it would equal 3 groups overall? Altho, I guess one would just need to pick the best two third-placed players. Idk, I dont see that much of a difference, but Im probably missing something?

Yeah, first the telefrag (he must have forgottten how fast SB can turn 180 at full speed), then the Peeker in overtime, surely a mistake.

It was supposed to be 4 player groups, top 2 go out to DE finals.

With 4 players, each playing 3 games, some would end up 0-3 (hi sib), but we'd see more 2-1/1-2s. If both Keltz and dramiS finished on 1-2 (let's say they got Av3k in the group, let's say he went 3-0), they would both be out regardless of direct match between them. Wait, that would mean less drama! Maybe it's good then :)

Wasnt it also dandaking who used his visor (wallhack ability) during a LG fight?

But yea, the drama was nice. I was really impressed by dandaking and cha1n in general, especially cha1n made some "5 steps ahead" reads (ok maybe 3 steps in reality) on dm6 that the casters failed to point out. And dandaking with his perfect rocket shithousing.

For those that missed it, Quake II has received a big patch

dramis out so early :(

Players practicing one day before tournament start
Vengeur satisfied with his practice
K1llsen chilling after a day of practice
Garpy in the morning before day 1


Bukster interview after day 1
Av3k interviews Maxter ahead of QuakeCon
Av3k interviews Vengeur ahead of QuakeCon
Av3k on why he couldn't attend
Strongsage, Effortless and Psygib interview ahead of QuakeCon

so everyone has started using wireless except killsen?

I don't know, I'm kind of glad that this is happening and hope that there continues to be this kind of activity for QC. If anything, QC is just funny. I tune in for half an hour to see my favorite players jumping around using the retarded special abilities (I crack up whenever I hear 'I will lead the way!' and 'the shadows hide me!') and hitting sick combos. I mean, whatevz - it's good content for what it's worth. I also think it's good that Carmack is attending.

It's honestly really disappointing that av3k and serious could not make it to Quakecon as both players had been showing great form throughout the regular season and you could tell both were locked in.

rapha, raisy, vengeur, k1llsen, maxter seem to be in a class of their own but strongsage, nosfa might be able to cause an upset.

I have a thin expectation that Spart1e will all of a sudden beat everyone.

Unless Spart1e partied too much after the group stage ;)

He definitely wasn't in his full form yesterday, I don't think we'll see the old amazing Spart1e suddenly wake up today, but it's still great seeing him!

sucks that bela/russians can't attend

Dis

GL, HF NA_hillbilly_Con 2023 Twerk Champions

garpy :<

what did u expect?

nothing tbh

The contrast between the gothic-themed branding of QC and the couple soyboy casters is kinda funny

OK, now I'm a fan of strongsage.

S

Great match.

Legendary!

Very stronk perfomance. That bullrush...
Very positive player make me smile.

Small update, he lost in lower brackets to Chain, Chain lost to Zenaku.
Where is justice?

cha1n is great, he does some really clever shit sometimes

good to see some of the old guard still posting

Sib impressions after day 1
Nosfa impressions after day 2
Effortless impressions after day 2
Maxter impressions after day 2
K1llsen after his match against Maxter

Spart1e interview after day 1
Spart1e shirt story
K1llsen interview after day 2

great to see some quake again. It was always my favorite thing to watch.

today's schedule?

All you need to know is the start time (14:00 UTC).

Nothing will be like in the schedule anyways and you know it :)

But here goes:

thanks

Nothing will be like in the schedule anyways and you know it :)

some things never change

k1llsen not even close to his top form, shame

I feel like the general level is lower than in previous years, hardly any close matches and few highlight plays.

Vengeur vs Zenaku say hi

What a joke lost all my channel points on Killsen

One, two, Rapha's coming for you. Three four, rapha's at your door. Five, Six, you can't hide with Nyx. Seven, eight, I wish you good luck mate. Nine, Ten, you're coming second again.

Forty, forty, forty... Lions!

Speak for yourself noobs...

Can someone explain what the croud is cheering for during the LB final?

Is BAWLS CHUGGING happening in the same room?

Shout-outs to the PGL production team, making sure I can't hear the commentary, only some random, unrelated, audience excitement track.

Umm... I guess it was Forty changing attire while casting, making the crowd go wild? :D

we're back! :)

I am starting to like raisy's slow pace style but I am concerned for him because rapha is a timing machine.

R A P H A
A
P
H
A

Damn, great last map!, rapha is such a boss

Winner bracket matches were a bit one-sided today, but it definitely picked up in the lower bracket and grand final. Some really close maps, comebacks, sick plays... all that we love to see.

GGs

Was fun to watch the finals. Still hoping for a new real Quake game

Real Quake like what?

still the king!

Still the king - and greatly deserved too. Watching him get up out of the gamer chair at the end of the set, I did feel an enormous air of accomplishment and, frankly. majesty. It was a majestic and truly professional performance. In his years of maturity he has only continued to refine his abilities and methodologies, maintaining his status as an elite competitor and defeating new contenders as they have appeared over the years. He is an inspirational figure and I don't see anyone else of his calibre in any other esport titles, StarCraft aside. Why is it that Quake, even in its degraded, mismanaged and uncertain state, able to produce an athlete like this? He's up there with Schumacher and Federer, to be sure, and I hope he goes on to greater heights.

Long live rapha, and long live Quake.

God bless, Shane!

Picture of Rapha, K1llsen and Vengeur
Picture of the champion

K1llsen end impressions
Zenaku end impressions

Vea's rapid fire questions
- K1llsen
- Spart1e
- Dramis
- Bukster

Rapha and Effortless chilling outside the venue in the middle of day 3
Makaveli interview in the middle of day 3

Raisy is an online scrub confirmed.

He's not champion material, never been, never will be.

Funny how he didn't showcase his pummel skills once in the entire tournament... it's not so funny when the opponents actually shoot back, uh?

Pummel boy only looks strong while playing from his little room and against nobodies, when it's time to slug it out with the veterans on lan, he always implodes.

^ got pummeled one too many times

"Implodes" - after placing second in the whole world.

It's the usual Quake rock-paper-scissors, we all wish vengeur or k1llsen would get to the WB final and grand final, but when the odds are rapha > Raisy > vengeur > rapha, it all comes down to the bracket, which was decided by placement in the season.

This is how it always was, with Cypher, evil, you name it. Last year, rapha was eliminated by none other than maxter, who then got eliminated by Raisy, who then lost to k1llsen. Quake RPS.

Anyway the entire pack looked shockingly bad. Everyone except Rapha, that didn't do anything special just sucked a little less than the rest.

Shockingly bad and basic levels of quake. As the community shrinks, so does the pros skillset.

It really and simply boiled down to champ selection, hitting harder, and rushing the spawns.

More braindead than counter shit.

What was it before?

Timing yellows and defending choke points for 20 minutes to eventually get some lucky spam rockets after 10 minutes of overtime. Pinnacle of Quake duel, we all miss that, don't we? ;)

(I mean, I miss Furious Heights or Sinister, where they were delaying not just red but also yellows to prevent from clashing with mega, but watching Agent/Pavel living on yellows on Blood Run was just as exciting as "counter shit"...)

Maybe he can't express what he actually means, the +75 mega/heavy combined with inability to deny the light armors along with -90 rails make the major items practically irrelevant, as full control differs from out of control by a single rail/rocket/tribolt spam. Two rocket jumps and you have less stack than the player you're chasing, so everyone just chases with railgun and the whole game becomes sniping and hiding, from both sides.

Of course changing that would require breaking the rule of all items respawning after 30 seconds, which would be pretty backwards (I mean, we do those +25/+35 additions without ever thinking, but it doesn't make it any less stupid). Otherwise you'd never be able to break control and we'd end up with QW level of domination, which, again, is not interesting to watch. Yes, in theory, QW allows for comebacks from 20-0, but not only is that rare, but on maps like dm6 it's unwatchable, with two players turtling on their sides of the map and never engaging. We don't want that in Quake, we want people shooting each other.

So QC could allow a bit more overstack to allow for some aggresion in control. But that's it.

A Quake game where good aim and spawn-control is beneficial? Sacrebleu!

Protip: QC isnt QL

Great Quakecon tbh. Sorry for calling the casters soyboys. You guys did really well tbh. The level of competition seemed really high too. From mechanics to map control and reading the opponent, everything was there.

WP everyone (except ESR, including myself)

Who needs to get retired

Great tournament! I enjoyed watching it.

Really impressed with Strongsage.

Sad for Raisy, in the pre recorded interview his eyes watered when he said it would be good for a change to be champ.

Thought there could have been an announcement about a new Quake this year. Its been a long time since QC came out.

Grats to Rapha, theres no point discussing it anymore, hes the GOAT of Quake.

Why would they announce a new quake when the one that was supposed to bring it to the masses did not work out?

They'll probably scratch that itch and put elements of it in the Doom IP and use the QC framework to produce other IPs.

That is the only way they turn a profit.

Why they still throw money at the QPG?

Quake isnt dead, you will see when the time comes.

QPG?

Did you mean QPL?

Quake Champs has has been commercially dead for a number for years, a handful of lifers playing it because they can earn from it isn't going to change that.

They've already lost tens of millions off QC.

Staff salaries, engine costs, server costs, prize money, production costs x 5-6-7 years and god knows what happened when the Russian sanctions came into force.

I just don't see it. But on this occasion I am happy to be proven wrong..

Companies can't simply just save money all the time and need to show they are actively working on things by doing things like spending money.

I agree that it's most likely the case that the game has not turned a profit and might be cash-flow negative, but it might be a relatively small budget to keep one of the few IPs alive in some capacity.

Was entertaining. Really appreciate that so many players invested their time to keep raising the skill lvl. (As time invested to overall yearly earnings ratio is not motivating).

Thanks id/bethesda for hosting this.

And Rapha is still so damn consistent and mentally strong on these lans. The positioning and decision making, wow.
Other players need to do something extraordinary to be able to get him, and then statistics is just on hes side. They cant keep puling out special above and beyond things often/consistently enough.

Any VOD? I missed it :(

Main Stream
Twitch : Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 part 1, Day 3 part 2
Youtube : Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

B Stream (only Twitch) : Day 1, Day 2


If the chat replay is important to you, be sure to use Twitch as this is where most people were, otherwise you may use Youtube.

Great games, haven' watched Quake in a while and I really enjoyed. Only wished that Raisy would have more games vs Rapha in the Grand Final. Also somehow surprised by the number of view, didn't expect that Quake still is somehow popular (even though much smaller than other games).

On another note: Does anyone know if these players work with a sports psychologist? As was mentioned also by the comentators it felt like "having the momentum" makes a huge difference, and it felt like some players - after losing a close map - weren't really able to focus on the next map.

How many views did it have? I only saw the VOD.

Dramis end impressions
Sib end impressions
Bukster end impressions
K1llsen is back home
Ddk's congratulations to the champion

Picture of the Myztro players
Picture of BouvToTheMax and Maxter
Picture of Rapha and Sally

John Carmack interview near the end of QuakeCon
Cha1n (+Unleashed!) interview at the end of QuakeCon
Dandaking interview at the end of QuakeCon
Sib interview at the end of QuakeCon
Rapha interview at the end of QuakeCon (starts at 01:18)
Vengeur reflections post QuakeCon

Mention of a possibility of another Keencon in October this year (exact dates might change)

Plused for John Carmack interview.

He looks so humble for all that he has achieved.

What a once in a generation person <3

Nice, wonder if more pros would show up for KeenCon this year, and would that be a good thing, even ;)

Last year the stream was way better than anything PGL could ever pump out, no "back in 30:00" screens, instead playing interviews with EVERYONE on site, bunch of old dudes like us, expressing their decades-long undying love for Quake, it was so wholesome!

based.

and try to relax a bit more when u talk to people, let them finish their sentences. But based content, like I said.

I wish it had been me in Dallas making these interviews, but I'm only sharing links :p

If you want to thank The Quake Pub for providing the nice content, don't hesitate to drop him a message on twitter or youtube.

You know the quality level of the competitive Quake scene is total garbage when players like nosfa are participating. How far has the scene reached, this rock bottom...