The QW community is deadly conservative and has been so ever since. Changes, if any, are accepted very slowly and progress is done in very small steps. IMO it's rather a good thing than the other way around, because loyal players should be "served" first - many QWers enjoy the game and whereas the introduction of changes might attract a few new players for a short amount of time, it certainly scares some of the regular players. As a QW player I want to be sure that the next season of XXX league still offers me an enjoyable game. Sure, changes in the map pool here and there are all fine, maybe some new options/features in the newest clients etc, but general changes of gameplay are a different matter.

In my opinion, increasing the players' base should be one of the main objectives in the next months/years. The scene in its current form (~30 teams, ~500 players) is very stagnating and slowly decreasing over the years. In the end, QW will end like Netquake with a bunch of players who meet on the forums and agree on a regular playing day. While this is nothing to be ashamed of or a bad scenario in case you still want to play QW this way (for fun purposes only), I don't think it appreciates its competetive side that the game still has to offer.

Well, I have no idea what you are trying to imply with your post and whom exactly you are blaming for the inaccessibility for the game. IMO we should rather be happy that the game still is alive and not moan about why it's so "idle" and lacks the influx of new players - after all it is 15 (!) years old, which in computer games' terms is probably 4 generations.
In the other thread I talked about getting "old players" back: "A rather realistic (still optimistic though!) approach would be to try and get old players back, even those who had quit gaming completely and not even follow gaming news. They still might enjoy Quake in its current form and come back. However, I have no clue how to achieve that "
Please rememer when you started to play Quake. The majority of us picked up the game in a time of one's life in which we had a lot of time to spare, either as pupils, students or single workers at a young age. 99% of the players stopped playing, either moving on to other games (Action games, Poker, role playing ones etc.), or quitting semi-serious gaming all together. The average player of the early days probably is in his/her late 20/30s now, a time in which one's life usually becomes more stable again. And in the search of new hobbies and gaps of spare time to fill, people may remember Quake which might be considered worth playing again.

To be honest, I can't think of a reason why a "computer player" would choose QW as his game of preference over all the other options. Yes, maybe QW is a great game, but how much is it worth without an active scene, leagues, news sites, LANs, prize money, in the focus of the sponsors?

Nostalgia and loyalty are the virtues I would think we could appeal to and get people to play Quake again.

Maybe having a noob 2on2 tournament where no one who has participated in recent leagues would be allowed to take part in and having 2000+ euros for prize and advertising it on esports forums around the net could create some new players for QW. They could prac vs us regulars and then see who is the best to learn the game.

In general computer games are not even supposed to be played forever and ever like this, at least almost no one thinks like that about them. Ihminen joined in some BFBC2 team and although they've been pretty successfull in it, they are already discussing moving on to other games. And the game is what, one year old? It's just the way it works usually, players don't get stuck in one game the way we have with QW. I guess when we picked up Quake the first time it was just another game to try and no one planned to be playing it for 20 years.

I'd say we need to make sure rookies play rookies basically. How to achieve this, however, is probably the million dollar question. As long as there is no ranking system in place, the best bet we have is probably arranging tournaments for rookies only. In the recent years the rookie tournaments that have happened are basically 1on1 tournaments (hosted by Sassa & Co?) and the rookie divisions of EQL and the likes. Out of those two types of tournaments i think the 1on1 kind is the one that makes the most sense to take up again and really run with as good regularity as the real 1on1 and 4on4 tournaments. Better yet would perhaps be to bring back Mad Max's "Ride My Rocket" FFA tournament and run that for rookies.

Another thing we should ask ourselves is if there are any _new_ places where we should look for players and advertise the game. From my perspective we usually spread the news about rookie tournaments on the same sites/IRC channels/whatever which is probably like beating a dead horse by now.

Another thing i'd like to see is Paradoks' suggestion about FFA servers partly populated by bots to make it possible for a new player to get a game even if the servers are "empty".

Money tournaments for rookies doesn't make much sense imo. Instead, I'd like to see an attempt to arrange something really big in our current tournaments that would automatically give echoes on the esport sites out there. I mean, we have so much talented and dedicated people in this community that it would probably be impossible not to succeed if we really tried to get sponsors etc for things like this.

In my opinion 1on1 might not be the best mode because IMO it's not the mode where QW shines. One could argue that something like QLive makes more sense for dueling. On the other hand for rookies it would be hard to find enough players for 4on4 (which again IMO is THE mode for QW) so that's why something like 2on2 which is perhaps in some way the easiest to get into also might make sense...

"Money tournaments for rookies doesn't make much sense imo."

Money would for sure make people try and play the game. For example if there was one million euro tournament for rookies in QLive, I'd probably try it even though nothing else in this world will make me play it.

#5: The qw facebook community don't share your view:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=question&id=197882390249046&qa_ref=qd

The same with challenge-tv community. Duel demos are downloaded way more often than 4on4 demos, and are uploaded way more.

I also think 1on1 (rookie vs rookie) is a much better introduction to QW than 4on4. You always have a chance to get a weapon, and its less factors to take into account. (no powerups, no need to keep track of weapon timing, only need to focus on one opponent, and don't need to think about teammates). You also neglect the need of having 8+ rookies available at a given time to get a game on.

I also agree with alot of what Ake mentions. Proclaiming upcoming leagues on quakenet / qw.nu will only ensure players who already know their way around the scene finds out whats going on. To get new players you have to go through other channels. That would be LANs / general online gaming sites (esreality f.ex), or bring money to the table for online tournaments of some significant amount to "force" interest from other.

And also dedicated people to put up VODs for almost EVERY official high skilled (like div1, the end of duels tournaments, etc) game, or even some already played game of interest. Even though QTV is a great feature, it does require you to actually have the game installed and know about the QTV site.

My way in QW has been as follows: FFA, 1on1, 2on2 and finally 4on4. It's pretty natural for a noob.
And don't you think that playing QW in a browser (QL style) would bring some new waves into the game? Is it doable/allowed to do?

a very short opinion of mine concerning this:
* we already have the perfect noob mod, which is clan arena. Dunno why noone hasn't mencioned it before
* we need more tournaments. "serious" ones, with coverage, videos, etc. new game "modes" would be nice, something like 1on1 with fraglimit 10,
* quicktorunaments like KTK would be nice
* <create new maps and put all weapons in it> DISAGREED. we need quality, not quantity

An interesting thing to try would be to take the browser version of the FTE client, spam that url and make it automatically point to some "hidden" (perhaps password protected?) FFA server that it would automatically join when you launch the client.

Wonder how many players would bother to keep coming back to that website and have a game during the lunch breaks etc.

Just a game in the browser does not solve anything. It doesn't look like Quake Live made a gigantic break-through with this. Also, besides launching the game itself there's much, much more work on other things on the web - statistics, match making and what not. And that is somewhat being worked on in QW.

The whole statistic surrounding is what I've been talking about dor some time - that's what we lack and what would make the game more attractive and addcitive to some players at least.
And playing in a browser really does make some stuff simplier - it's just a "ready-made" application which fits great into today's world of user-friendly environment of FPS games. So quick, so simple.

Well, compared to QL there wouldn't be a signup process, just enter the url, download, (auto)join server, play. Guess o should try it on my pc this week tho, might be more hassle than I remember.
Compared to the current situation where new players are directed to xs4all we would also have less risk of uber skilled players joining if it was done on a pw protected server included in the default "webquake" config.

I'm not sure that even this would have such an enormous effect on the quantity of new players. New games gain a lot of attention and tryers because they're the talk of the town for a while. They appear in computer game magazines, on news channels, your friends in school/college/work talk about it - then you give it a try or at least have a look. Also, look in other forums. Don't care what sort of, but I bet most of you read other forums of what you're interested in (jobs, hobbys, lifestyle, sports, whatever) and regularly a game gets a thread in the "offtopic"-area. That's what new games that turn famous receive...not Quake.
It's just my opinion but I don't think it matters at all how advanced the game becomes (no matter by which additional features and/or improved existing ones), it will remain the same 15-old game that lacks public attention from the masses.

I agree that 1on1 is the mode to lure potential players, though (and also an enjoyable ffa mode). It's the easiest mode to get into because you only need yourself, a server and an opponent. Also, you can't blame anyone else for not succeeding but yourself, the trick is to get people motivated into getting better. 4on4 TDM is probably the king-mode of QW, but it requires a lot of understanding to enjoy watching a demo, let alone playing the game.

As for FFA it is another example of where the community went "hardcore" instead of supporting new players. I can't believe so incredibly unfriendly map as dm3 is still played on xs4all ffa servers. Again, I understand it's fun for the "pro" players to try to takeover whole map, but for a rookie player it is must be absolutely frustrating - access to weapons is extremely difficult, and also the endless discharging is silly and annoying.

If you take into account how much work fixing this would require - just removing the map form the map pool *click&done* - one has to think whether this community is actually interested in attracting new players. I know most of them won't stay with the game anyway, but why to deter all of them in first 30 seconds?

If we can't offer even one well balanced FFA server, then all the debates about some hypothetical password protected web-client-only FFA server always will be purely academical.

That would be the effect I'm after. Spread such a solution on non-quake sites and we will see

Advertising it on esr and the likes is pointless as they already have the game anyway.

we already have the ultimate mod for rookies, which is Clan Arena.
oh, wait, am i repeating myself?

one of the characteristic of this community, as andy said earlier, is "conservative". if i may, i'de like to add another: selfish.
Im sorry, its the only reason i can find for the fact that this mod (CA) is ignored, even if its perfect for a rookie. think about it for a minute.
Most of the qw players don't like it, i get that. and that's ok. what isn't ok, from my pov, is the fact of this mod is being ignored in a discussion where it should be one of the main topics. IMO.

another mod that could be fun for rookies is instagib. once again, totally ignored. reason? current qw players dont like it. and i ask: is that a good enough reason for preventing other players to play it? im sure your answer is no, and everyone plays what the hell they want!
then, what are we doing wrong?

in my pov, and don't get shocked about what im about to say, but i think the way KTX is configured in servers has it share of guilt. once again, think about it: 99% of the servers are configured to play every mod available. this MAY BE bad. wouldn't be better if we had servers with CA only, or instagib only, or duel only, etc? wouldn't it work better? i think it would! back in the 20th century, this was the reality. if i wanted to play ctf, i'de connect to creepy's TW CTF, if i wanted to play CA i would connect to a uk server which i cant remember the name, if i wanted to play ffa, i would connect to Xs4all (which is still on, which great success. guess why plz), and so on. there were hostnames involved in the choice. i think this is good, i think this is friendly! its more friendly than an ip anyway.

i hope i've made my point.
stop looking the same way, as always. think different, do different. only one thing will be the same, forever.
hugs



Edited by mushi on 17 May 11 @ 11:55CET

Edited by mushi on 17 May 11 @ 11:57CET

Some things change, some things never change.
Conservatism is usually bad, changes usually are good (but often controversial) for progress. As for some obstacles in popularizing new maps: You don't even know how hard it is to get some div/div0 palyers to play it. The attitude is probably this: I don't want to learn new maps because I may lose my div0 status and get owned by some noob clan which happen to know the map better than me. Even before playing a new map they already know that a map sux. How biased and shortsighted is that?
TB3 has been played for ages and there are some sophisticated strategies about the maps. I'm 100% positive if, say, dakyne/ctl5/cmt5 or any other potential tdm map had been played back in the days (and survided) noone would even now care about e1m2 for example.
The community doesn't want to learn (in general), they'd rather stick to the old shit and not break a sweat for new challenges. That's one of the reasons the game is dying.

One thing we should add on this site is maybe a rookies corner, where u dl the clients and give all the information needed to get started. List alot of servers. Ex. Ffa, ctf, ca, pa etc. wich console commands that is essential. List bots, mods, you name it. Extremely user friendly. Screenshots of every game mode/mod. A link to the maps archive.. How irc works and where to ask for players. Thats a start, then u can start advertising on sites or forums.

Also how the bunnyhopping works and how to master it. List all items with information. I for one can do some easy bunnyhopping/trickjump maps.

I must say I'm pretty much with andy on this. Unfortunately nothing will make a 15 year old game appealing to general public. When no one new ever even tries the game at all, mods, maps, features dont make much of a difference. I don't blame them. I never try old games either, there are so many new ones to play. Quake is just one that stuck.

#19: wiki seems like an appropriate place for that

I'm not sure we/you are on the right track when trying to make it simpler for newbies. IMO the problem of the game being too difficult no longer exists. In the early '00s we had the problem: Q2/Q3/UT were poor games but user friendly (in comparison to QW) and new and consequently received a lot of attention. A lot of effort was made to turn QW into a friendlier game. It's impossible to list all the changes here but for example please remember when you wanted to play a simple game with frogbots you had to:
- run a local qw server with +gamedir fbot
- run priority.exe (otherwise you would get 99 pl)
- run a local qizmo for additional features
- run qw client
- connect to qizmo / exec cfg
- .connect to server and get playing

Just an example. THAT wasn't newbie friendly, so many steps and different processes and of course the read mes spread everywhere. What we have nowadays is a completely different story with excellent clients including in-game browsers and most important options easily configureable from there, QTV, mvd demos, super smooth gaming, great servers all over Europe - and probably more servers than players!!! The infrastructure is excellent. The remaining players are friendly and helpful (mostly ). But still, the market has changed - if you wanted to talk in economics terms you could probably say, from a sellers' market once, when Quake was one of the few online games available (and not talking action games only here), it had changed to a buyers' market with hundreds of decent games available and widely played. We - the "sellers of the QW scene" - have to invest lots of time and effort to get new players into the game and keep them playing. And for what? To keep something alive oneself enjoys playing, in other words: to raise children you can play with.
By the way, I think it's unfair to speak lowly of players who refuse to try something new and/or blame it for their elite status they wish not to lose. I can perfectly understand people who do not want to spend a lot of time on a game mode they do not enjoy - if one wanted to do that, you could as well be playing something else

Why won't a 15 year old maintained game be appealing to the general public? That old game will actually be new to a lot of the younger players and it will appeal if packaged right and if its accessible and fun enough.

If a game like minecraft can hit it big, then I refuse to believe QW can't make it (again)

It's just dated. Minecraft isn't old. Unfortunately in this business it's just so important to be new to attract _new_ audience. Also it's a bit of a vicious cycle, the scene has shrunk to so small that new players don't see much glory or motivation in winning this, compared to something older, but still massively popular like cs, wow or sc.

@Kloze:

"I'm 100% positive if, say, dakyne/ctl5/cmt5 or any other potential tdm map had been played back in the days (and survided) noone would even now care about e1m2 for example."

Of course. This is true. But I don't know what you're implying with this argument? TB3 are what they are, nothing can change that.

"The community doesn't want to learn (in general), they'd rather stick to the old shit and not break a sweat for new challenges. That's one of the reasons the game is dying."

This is simply wrong. Even though the community in general is very conservative (e.g regarding maps) many want to learn new QW-related stuff and most people want to improve their skill. The challenge that keeps somewhat dedicated players keep playing is the strive to to climb in divisions and rank within divisions, whether it's duel/4v4 whatever. I just don't see how the general div1 player not playing new maps causes the game to die specifically.

""I'm 100% positive if, say, dakyne/ctl5/cmt5 or any other potential tdm map had been played back in the days (and survided) noone would even now care about e1m2 for example."

Of course. This is true. But I don't know what you're implying with this argument? TB3 are what they are, nothing can change that."

What I'm trying to suggest it to give new, rising maps a real chance to root in. Isn't it also a way to learn smth new?
The argument that ppl want to improve is also debatable: every EQL season we can see some drama with some ppl trying to stay in lower divs for some reasons.

"What I'm trying to suggest it to give new, rising maps a real chance to root in. Isn't it also a way to learn smth new?"

Give new maps a real chance to what...? 'Root in' in order to accomplish...what? I'm just trying to say is that div1 players - in general - are quite happy with the TB3 maps as they are. This has nothing to do with how 'bad' or 'good' they think these maps are, nor has it little to do with how good or bad they think the new maps are. They are playing TB3 simply because its enjoyable and challenging at the same time. If the general div1 player _purely_ wants to have 'fun' they also happen to play new maps, different game modes or a different game altogether. Of course there are exceptions to this, just as there is exceptions regarding players NOT trying to improve staying in the same division forever.

"They are playing TB3 simply because its enjoyable and challenging at the same time." - that's a far-fetched statement. The undisputed king of mixes is dm3, the runner up is dm2 (but really lagging behind) and e1m2 is almost never played in mixes. That should give you a clue on what is really enjoyable and what is not. EQLs dont count because ex. e1m2 is picked by some teams due to the strategical reasons (spamming, good sg aim with antilag etc).
And then again, since we've been still looking dor the 2 remaining maps to complete the every second EQL, why not give new maps a chance? (if the previous maps are not supported that much by the community)

Btw - I wonder when (approx. date) ztndm3 and aerwalk were accepted by the community as the two remaining maps of the tb5 pooll? How was it introduced and what were the reactions?

I always thought 5 maps like in Smackdown were a good way, also in serious leagues. TB3 + 2 maps voted-in, the majority wanted to have. This also made it possible to rotate the maps from season to season, depending on the majority's mood.

Too bad the +2 seems to also have defaulted to cmt 3/4.

Not in my days

true, true
in Smackdown, 4v4 was in its late infancy, as i recall today, 2011. apart from tb3, there were no "accepted" maps, and as andy said, there were 2 maps voted in, maps like e1m3, dm6... cmt maps were made in 2002

to answer captainKLOSE, i don't remeber WHEN they were accepted, my memories don't go that far, but since i remember, aero and ztn were popular maps. in 1997 everything was new to me, and i don't know when these maps were made, but it was around this time.

They were voted in the same year as qhlan 6 was. Whenever that was

Yea! And for sure Reload and other Aussies played aerowalk before Euro guys

To see what the problem is, I think you should really go and ask the opinions of the newcomers that have quit playing QW. Just dig up some older tournaments that had rookie divisions and check for a few names and see if they still are in IRC or where-ever.

It's very hard to come to a scene of 15 years of experience due to the skill requirement. Also QW is boring when there are only so many maps that people are willing to play. If you think about the new games and compare them to QW, what do you notice? (other than graphics)

"If you think about the new games and compare them to QW, what do you notice? (other than graphics)"

That they suck ass? At least in bf2142 there weren't that many maps and out of those in the end 1 or 2 were most popular and people often dropped when the map changed.

I think there were 10 maps tota, which even today's QW can easliy match if you count in all the modes, dmm4 etc.

You can't blindly compare mixeds and tdm. dm3 is partly played in a mix, because it works better in a _mix_. Mix games have no teamplay and dm3 leaves more space for indivudal play.

Clan pracs are much better comparison tha mixeds, and in pracs dm2 and e1m2 is played regularily, even if dm3 is typically the starting map.

"QW has strong community of people who do not like variety. They actually think variety should be intentionally limited. For example: ever noticed those comments that request "if you create a new map, then please do not put all powerups / weapons in it"?"

You have misunderstood. New maps have been criticized for having same item set as DM3, which just happens to be "all items". So this cry is for more variety in fact.

well test the new ctl5, its FINAL now and should be on all major servers soon.

#41: Dm3 isn't any sort of "maximum". There could be maps that include even more weapons than dm3 (multiple RLs or even LGs, probably with less cells around), much more armors and even powerups (why shouldn't there be two pentagrams for instance?)
If you intend to present that dm3 is the "top" when it comes to variety in items, then you only confirm what I said.

#43 I'm saying that those people are saying: "we don't want another dm3 (item set)". Variety between maps is less if they have same item set.

But to comment on what you are talking about... Adding greater items makes lesser items less useful, which means less variety in that sense. Two rls and lg with crap load of cells on cmt4 make lesser weapons almost obsolete.

Of course map architecture makes a difference also. Cmt1b/3/4 are more spacey than TB3, making ssg/sng/gl less useful.

Making maps without certain items adds more variety than making new dm3s all the time. Adding more items than on dm3 like the cmt maps just makes less good weapons useless.

But as usual: the ppl who make new maps tend to think too much. Remember that TB3 were made without those mappers knowing anything about 4on4 and how we play quake today.

Imo if you are going to have a penta you need a big map, otherwise its too damn easy to take out every enemy in a pentrun. Even DM3 feels to small when the most skilled players get pent.

On a sidenote: Johnny must be the one who talks the most about this without actually playing reguraly in the 4on4 leagues? Why dont you play some of the new maps instead of just chatting here all the time?

"But as usual: the ppl who make new maps tend to think too much. Remember that TB3 were made without those mappers knowing anything about 4on4 and how we play quake today." - and all those maps have flaws but we don't care because we've got used to them and don't pay attention to drawbacks anymore. The precepion on the maps and TP played there have changed over time because the tactics have also evolved: some things which may have looked sucky back in the days are ok now and vice versa. It's just a matter of playing a map or not: it's impossible to judge whether most of the things on a map are good/bad without thourough testing it ingame.

QW numbers have always been in a slow decline but the numbers have been dropping faster now since the start of last year. QW oviously wont ever see large numbers coming back to the game. We don't even need or want that. However we can, with some thought and a little effort attract in enough new players to slow the decline and perhaps grow it back up slightly. So that we can still run decent 4on4 and 1on1 tournaments for years to come. If somthing isn't attempted soon then qw will end up like netquake.

What Quakeworld really needs is for a small enthusiastic group to get together and devise a simple marketing strategy and then take the Game and promote the hell out of it. We all talk about how great the game is. Then why not promote it properly. It wouldnt need much effort from participants, just some fresh ideas

Advertising and Marketing is key to any busines or any product being sucessful.
So often we see crap artists and crap products gaining massive popularity. Its all down to the promotion and exposure they get and not always necessarily how good they actually are.

I would love to get a Marketing Student in a University to do this as a Project. It is a clear challenge. Take a 15 year old game and brand it and promote it and get the numbers up.

Even if the team just brainstormed and subsequently devised a marketing strategy and then broke it down into small manageable tasks that can be delegated to others afterwards. That would be invaluable.

Obviously it will be argued that Marketing wont work and that we should develop more leagues and write more news articles and increase map pools. All valid and important things but we have enough to go and start attracting in new people. As it is there is a limit on resources who are willing to go and start implemetning the many things that have been suggested over the years. The one thing that has never fully been done is to Market the game properly.

One possible idea for the marketing strategy is to contact University Game societies scross Europe and give them a promotional pack (Link to nquake package, link to Rookie Web site, promotional PDF) and invite them to put forward 1 person to compete in a European University Tournament. Most will try out the game out of curiosity and perhpas only a few will stay on after. But the few will increase the more you try. Little by little. It's just one idea and I'm sure others have loads of better ideas. But you'd be surprised where new players can be found. We gotta try things other than the usual and as Mushi says to think outside the box.

Just on a few of the other things mentioned above:

The Ignition Tournaments that Sassa and Co used run did bring in new players to both 1on1 and then 4on4. Ignition was promoted a good bit on the usual games sites.

As was mentioned above with regards to Ranking for Rookies. There is a Ranking system being worked on at the moment. And it is highly hoped to give a very good rank for players. So new players should be able to find opponents of the same standard. This would tie in with a ladder system which will be able to give authentication to players and allow easy creation of ladders and tourneys. This should launch in September when people are back from holidays.

I also think what Muffin was saying above about a Rookie Web page is vital.
A rookie should be able to go to one page where everything they could possibly need is served up in a clear and concise way.
Pointing them to a forum or the wiki where there is loads of other info mixed in, is compeletely offputting.
This goes back to Marketing. If you went to buy a product and were directed to a forum or wiki you would move on to a competitor immediately. Its about image and giving off a professional image. All the info is already there, we just need to make it more presentable

Another thing that is a killer, is the Steam version of Quakeworld. A friend (QW Noob) bought quakeworld on Steam last year. It killed of his insterest in QW immediately as 3 of the links didnt work and the one that did work, loaded up the old QW Client in a poor resolution. It looked dreadful compared to newer games. He felt QW was just an old game and hadn't changed. Its a pity as getting a nquake version up there would get extra traffic trying out the game.

So anyway anyone up for this Marketing Strategy Think Tank

I can make an nquake topic on the steam forums tonight

Where's the drama?

I lost all interest in playing QW ever since QuakeLive gives me many games with skill-matched opponents in a noob friendly gamemode (CA) at any time of the day. QW FFA was always on over-filled (language?) servers with high skilled people dominating or jerks spamming like crazy. Newbie 1on1 on fresh maps was great fun though.

I wonder if someone will do anything to prevent situations mentioned above in the future. I bet nothing will be done as usual, it's always like that: many talkers, few doers.
And you wonder why this game is on the brink of extinction?

no one is getting money for the things they do, they do it on their own spare time.
hard to compete with quake live matched ladder.

Noone can force people to put any time into this game, but depending on the situation one has regarding job/being a student etc it might be a wise move to develop websites/clients/maps/whatever to have as a kind of merit in the future. Quite nice thought that you're partly adding value to your CV when also contributing (massively) to the game of your choice.

Hopefully if one could find even a small influx of players to the scene then there would also be contributors among them, which would lead to somewhat of a positive spiral. Currently there are just too few people who are creative (while the ones who actually are creative are real aces though, like Johnny_cz for example ).

Well, the talk is also important. Had QW been run by a real commercial company, they would surely spend lots of time talking about different aspect of the game, and what is the most important thing to be done in next week, month, and so on, to improve the game. I can't talk with too many people about QW "in real life", I have to use internet forums and blogs for that

It helps you realize what is important and what is not. When you really truly realize what is important, you get better motivation to do it. And eventually you will maybe really do it, get the work done. Because, as has been pointed out there's no other motivation than this - "OK, I think I am now doing something that actually matters".

While Quakeworld still looks worse than Quake2, most newbies aren't gonna take a second glance. Why does it look worse than Q2? Imo the most important reason is because the limit on brushes by the engine doesn't allow for extremely detailed maps. But I guess changing this is impossible or too much work.

No amount of marketing, changes in map pools... is going to change the fact that qw still looks like this http://qtv.quakeworld.nu/levelshots/dm3.jpg

Have u seen Muffin's latest map ctl6? That one includes some newer solutions like curved edged which remind Q3 a bit. Also with a nice lit pack and some graphics replacements (textures, eye-candy replacements) even dm3 may look hot.

Wild question: what about redesigning the dm maps: ofc no changes in gameplay just adding some nice curves and stuff? I'm sure that would work!

Remember you'd have to remake these maps completely and with a big map like dm3 I doubt you could add much to it at all anyway, with the engine how it is.

If this change to the engine were possible we have mappers capable of doing it though. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/6/rampagetid.jpg/

Imagine if dm3 had architecture of a similar complexity to that, or more. It would look amazing

I would like top mappers to express their opinions on that. I'm sure there's a way to improve the looks of it. That would surely bring some newbies in.
btw - what kind of effects are used in the screen above?

Edited by Kapitan Kloze on 01 Jun 11 @ 17:37CET

Nothing really. r_bloom is on, but it made barely any difference to the screenshot. It really needs the 24 bit tex and lit file though.

The map, lit and textures can be found from either of these links:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18160906/Sort/rampage-tid.zip
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9YLUH7HN

Here's a better pic actually, added -gamma 0.5 to cmdline (NOT console)
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/854/rampagetid2.jpg/

I dont know what causes it but r_bloom 1 kills my fps drastically. It features 10 fps with this variable on!

angryfish: from the look of that screenshot alone, the brushes doesn't look "impressive" or "outstanding", from what i see it looks like an regular qw map with regular brush work, only thing is that it uses replacement textures from Q3. But thats how it works, put better textures with alpha blending on them or what it's called and u got a better looking map without outstanding brushwork, look at q3's maps 90% is regular square blocks, the rest is curves, and very very smal brushes. So this can be achived, only thing is that qw has a problem with too many brushes in the viewing sight (what you see) then u get fps drops. If you for example take unreal tournament 3, it uses 100% square brushes, all that eye candy, goergous looking stuff is just props, 3d models on brush work.If we can fix qw so you can see more brushes in your view then we can make maps nicer.

With all those new top-notch computers we now have, the substantial fps drops shouldn't occur on regular basis I reckon. I'd say it would be a rare thing, wouldn't it. It's still a 15-years-old game.
So isn't it worth trying?

Lots of current single player maps are highly detailed. All QW mappers should go and play like 30 or 50 latest single player maps (quite easy to do with Quakeinjector app) to realize what all is possible.

IMO no graphic improvements done by "amateurs", no matter how good, will catch enough attention to have any real impact, be it by redoing the maps in a better way, nor improving the game's graphics (which already had been done by darkplaces and many other clients to some extent!).

Imagine, what would happen if id redid the original quake - being in a crisis themselves, without any successful idea for ages, this isn't too unrealistic. QW/Quake needs to be redone officially, like Monkey Island or Sid Meier's Railroads, which were 1:1 remakes of the original games, with the same feeling, atmosphere, controls (basically), only graphics were updated and some features added which are standard nowadays.

That would be the shit

John Romero quit ID a long time ago and he had been responsible for some maps (dm3), the feeling, the design etc. I'm sure Carmack, being a genius ofc, would fuck the new Quake up changing some of the physics, weapons and the like to suit his taste. Which already happened to the Quake franchise and the results are obvious.
One huge step would also be the ability to play QW in a browser like QL.

The same happened to Railroad Tycoon 2 and 3 (for example). Fans wanted the "original"...and it was delivered over a decade later That's what I mean, just an official remake with the same physics, maps, feeling, atmosphere - with improved graphics, sounds etc...

Obviously, it never can be the same game as what ezquake is NOW, but seriously, it would be close enough to get me into playing it (unless you are right of course, in which case the feeling etc is totally b0rked)

And I don't believe that some of the "amateurs" are less gifted and talented than ex. American McGee or Tim Willits. Therefore, given the right tools ofc, they would do their work just fine.

Edited by Kapitan Kloze on 01 Jun 11 @ 21:23CET

I never said that. But Britney Spears sells more albums than Jewel Kilchner. It's not a question of a quality, PleuraXeraphim was right in this regard, it's a marketing question.

I liked the idea of a QW marketing project which would be run by someone skilled. Can we take it seriously?

well, i have to check into that johnny_cz, all i mean is that all the new games just got fancy tricks to make the maps look nicer. transparent textures, moving textures, colored lighting editing inside the editor, pulsating brushes (q3 organic tubes). take doom3 as an example, i love making maps to it (never finished one though, cuz gameplay sucks) but there you have realtime editing of light entities so u don't have to compile the map everytime u make a change with the lighting and wanna see how it looks ingame. maybe it is called bump mapping textures? too tired to remember now =) *tenebrae got all those stuff tho if i remember correctly.

"Remember you'd have to remake these maps completely and with a big map like dm3 I doubt you could add much to it at all anyway, with the engine how it is."

i will try and do a remake of dm3 with curves and some other things. just to test and see.

I can't wait!! Go Muffin

what we should is increase the number of animation frames for the player model and just use the same model(its retro and cool ) but with updated nicer, smoother animations same goes for weapons

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/06/01/how-half-life-looked-in-our-dreams.aspx