what's so hypocritical about all this is that most players opposing overlay due to it "simplifying" the game, use weapon scripts and fullbright skins. i wonder which of these simplify the game the most? so you're not entitled to using that argument.

of course it simplifies the game, but will it kill the game? is this where we draw the line? is overlay more simplifying than fullbright skins? do you think any "simplification" should ever be allowed again? should we simply stop working on ezquake, or at least stop adding new features? the game is good "as is" right? no point in fixing what's not broken. is nquake bad because it simplifies the installation of quakeworld? that's a skill too right? does simplifying the game bring more players to the scene, keeping the game alive? people do like things being simple right? i think we're past the point of getting new players who will dedicate their lives to becoming the best quakeworld player, so i think simplifying the game only has positive effects.

summary:

good: simplifies the game, allowing people to focus more on the actual game rather than pressing a button to display your status.
bad: simplifies the game, making all the people who spent years developing the skill to press a button no better than your average joe.

this is just like a political discussion where both parties have a different view on EVERYTHING, it all depends on how you look at it. it's positive in one way, and negative in another. the only thing to settle this is to have a vote. and after having the vote, everybody should just shut the fuck up already. this is not the end of the world nor the end of quakeworld.

I don't like the word 'simplifying'. It's just one way of showing some of the important stuff and leave space for other teamplay msgs. Was it made to make things simple? I think it was made to help new players to start easier and to get even more aspects to teamplay.


There's still receiver in teamoverlay. One must read mm2, fight at the same time(move, aim & think about it), listen mm3, send mm3, send mm2 and even check teamoverlay. How is it easier than leaving one out? Or more simple?

A bit longer reply.

Empezar: You might aswell turn the tables and it's the other way around. Why allow ANYTHING new? We have to draw the line somewhere, and if you ask me, TO has crossed that line by far. The new features are nice, but not always to allow them in game. I love all the new things (including team overlay) when spectating. That doesn't mean i have them in game.

I wish you would all think twice about this, as it might really make a huge difference. Maybe not for YOU in particular, but maybe for others (playing on a higher/lower level).

There's still receiver action and that's the whole thing: you move everything over to the receiver part and totally remove the sender part.

The original purpose of this thread was to get "real response". That is play some matches with teamoverlay, then come here and tell us how it was. I'm not sure if everyone who is sharing his theories here based it on this practical experience or is "just thinking".

You didn't read #27, did you? There are many worse things than TO already allowed.


While using TO sender will not have to send only 'report'. That's one bind out of 20. And you call it removing sender part?

not in His opinion:

Don't pick three words out of a sentence to give it another meaning.

I agree and sometimes I feel that this is exactly what a lot of top QW players like about the community these days. No new challenges, no changes to the status quo and no threat to their (relative) supremacy.

To some extent I can understand people's hesitation to simplify the game. Nobody likes to see something that they have worked hard to earn, given away to others for free, so it's understandable that many skilled players will see this as an undermining of all the hours they've invested (wasted?) on the 'finer' points of quake. But come on people, that shouldn't be your biggest claim to fame anyway.

I predict that TO will become a standard for pickup games and other casual team games. It will allow mixed teams (of more and less skilled players) to cooperate more effectively. I will be enabling it on my servers this evening.

the football analogy Ake Vader used on JohnNy's blog is really bad..
all rules have been subject to change in football (ball type, posts type, variable pitch size allowed, passing to goalkeeper rules, offside rules, overtime rules etc. etc.) without changing the core gameplay.

so.. the core gameplay of QW in teamplay is to control items and run around fragging the opponents.
is Team Overlay affecting this?

as far as i know Team Overlay doesn't transform QW into a racing game or into World of QuakeCraft..

FIFA had the courage to change the world's most popular sport throughout its history.. why shouldn't the QW community follow that example?

i would understand such a heated debate if somone proposed changing respawn time for a powerup or changing the default weapon..

I'm actually "testing the water" for changing those rules as well, but they're hardly the same. In the past, we were unable to stop things like fullbright skins and weapon scripts. Since QWCL source was released, and new clients started popping up, we've been able to enforce far more extensive rules. However, just take a look at my poll in General - people are too used to the idea of playing with these things to give them up. Many would like to, I think, but equally many are too stuck in the past to accept changes to how "it's always been" - even if that "past" could be considered rife with cheats.

So, I wouldn't say I'm being hypocritical. There's a difference between banning something that's been widely accepted for over 8 years, or by allowing something new.


No, I don't think this alone would ruin the game. I think continuous changes like this would, though. If you keep filling a tub with one glass of water, eventually that tub is gonna overflow. It might take you a while, but it's inevitable. The capacity of the tub is limited, while our endless supply of water is not. Like I said earlier though, not all changes are bad. Take a look at 24bit textures, new huds, new particle effects, r_tracker filtering, colored teamsays, nquake, etc. There are many ways to change this game to the better without affecting gameplay as harshly as this does.

I think it's awesome that it's so easy to just DL nquake and start fragging - you guys have done a terrific job in attracting new players to QW. Noone is trying to step on that.


Yes, some simplifications are simply awesome, but some are not. That is why a discussion should always take place. Having a vote for every single little thing might be too much though, but it should be quite obvious which major changes might dignify a poll. In other cases, I think we have to trust in those in charge of our leagues to make the best choices for the game. I don't think anyone is imposing their will on anyone else in this thread; merely expressing their opinions as requested.

I disagree. The most important part of teamplay-QW is being at the right place at the right time. TO affects this greatly.

So do other things you mentioned as good: "new huds, r_tracker filtering, colored teamsays". You could easily add ten more here. TO is just another kind of r_tracker filtering and colored teamsays and new huds. It gives an alternative to standard hud, standard teamsays. It makes your final qw screen to look more clear, easier to read, easier to filter out important messages. If I were you I'd have to oppose r_tracker messages because it's so much easier when you can read information who killed who with what weapon in filtered way rather than among all other spam. TO is just another way of displaying informations you already have. I use neither r_tracker messsages nor TO but I don't care if anyone does since it won't change anything badly like other things could (radar, rj scripts, etc., these things are bad, not TO).


So does r_tracker and so does team overlay. It may help but you have learn to use it and perhaps give up something else. Some people can't even get use to colored teamsays.

I would partly agree that r_tracker makes it easier. I would also partly disagree. Reading kill messages in 4on4 is almost redundant, as long as players use the proper teamsays (lost, etc). I cannot say the same for TO - the amount of spam required to keep you as updated as TO does would practically flood you so much you wouldn't be able to read any other teamsays.

I would disagree that colored teamsays lend much of a help, but even if it does, I reckon it falls under the same category as using messages color-coded with dots. Still, it only clarifies what's already there, which is the significant difference between r_tracker/colored teamsays and TO. TO adds something new, while the others simply modify what's already there.

Argh, what Dakoth wrote. (edited)

Using such kind of argumentation you can 'prove' anything . For me it's too hard if death messages are seperated from other spam. I just need to have it together, synchronization is the key, I can't move eyes from one text to another so quickly . I also prefer 'x rides the y rocket' than 'y rl x' style. I intentionally choose to have 6-8 lines of text than 2x4 or any other combination. I tried TO tonight and as I expected it was hard to keep tracking. I gained something but I lost something else. Dunno if I could continue to use if it was allowed in EQL. But I still don't see the reason for banning it.


But only with an assumpiton the team don't use tp_report wisely and can use TO wisely. I can't imagine such team. Perhpas only in mixes where div1 player plays with div4 players and they don't report as he would want them to, so he can instead use TO. If someone can't use tp_report properly why do you assume he can use TO properly? That's wrong assumpion IMHO .

With TO I don't need to report anything else then where NME might be with RL or that NME has quad/pent/ring and died.

I disagree. Even in GTG, and we're a pretty mm2-heavy clan, I would gain alot from using TO. I figure that with the amount of updates TO gets, to gain the same amount of information, it would require at least one status from every player every 5 seconds. Do you realize how much that becomes? That's virtually a report a second. One line per second. That's alot of reports. Around 1200 per game. That's not even counting the "safe", "lost", "help", "waiting" and "took" messages that become little more than attention-bringers, once you activate TO.

I'm not saying that someone who can't use tp_report properly would gain more from TO than someone who can. I think I'm actually saying the opposite. If you can't see the potential of knowing exactly what all your teammates do, all the time, then I don't think you understand just how powerful this tool can be in the right hands.

Once again, it's a sweet addition to mixes and 2on2's, but I wouldn't wanna see it popping up in competitive gameplay.

Dakoth, imagine r_tracker could filter out all tp_reports (just like it's able to filter out all death messages atm) from main spam and use it for updating team overlay. Automatic TO updates would be gone. Would you still claim it's too easy?

I tried to use this feature, but the problem was the frame.. You sure can change the colour of the frame, but how about REMOVING the frame? It's very annoying to have such a block in your screen..

You sure can change the colour of the frame + the alpha of the frame with 4th parameter... (R G B A)

Partly - the whole idea of keeping a table updated differs completely from r_trigger. However, if the reports were filtered to a new window much like r_trigger is, and given a new look (can even be modifyable), I wouldn't have a problem with it (that is to say, your own reports would go there too, and would spam out other reports - assuming it was limited to X amount of lines). It's keeping an overlay there all the time - which can be updated by players, automatically or manually - that summarizes the entire team's status, that makes a big difference between the two.

I think you're still missing the point. The r_trigger commands just moves spam from one place to another (and changes how it looks). Any kind of table that summarizes your team's status does not exist currently, and so you're creating something new - not changing what is already there. That's the big difference between r_trigger and TO. The automatic updates is just the extra thorn in the side. Even if you remove that thorn, there's still a freaking bush in the way.

Heh, so now you claim r_trigger messages ain't creating anything new. OK, show me how can I get 'player1 weapon player2' death messages style instead of the classics ('player2 rides player1 rockets' etc.). Can I?

If this can't be called 'kind of automatically updated table which summarizes who killed who using which weapon' then I don't really understand your logic anymore .

It's simply the same. The only difference is that TO is updated automatically. So I made proposal to allow TO updated manually (by binding and using some internal tp_report command). You could press/update it whenever you would want to, if it takes skill to press the button.

More! Death messages are actually HARDER to follow than simple report cause report can be repeated by player many times and death message is gone when it's gone. So r_trigger messages actually are helping more than manual TO would ever do.

Death messages still scroll by, row by row, the only difference is their appearance/location.

If report messages scrolled by in the same way, row by row that they were reported, and you only changed their appearance/location, then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Can't put it any plainer than that.

scroll by yes, but if you show maybe 20-30 lines, that stay for a long time, the informations is almost always there.

IMO, this feature is good because:
* Less spam in console
* It makes QW more of an FPS and less of an FPR (First Person Reader)

Dakoth, plz .

Fact no 1: By using r_trigger you're able to make your own nice 'death messages table'.
Fact no 2: Number of the rows, time the messages stay up - it's all possible to set individually. Yes, you can make it 1 fast row if you wish, no scrolling (but that would be 2hard2read I guess).
Fact no 3: By using r_tigger you're able to filter important messages out of spam making the spam easier to read.
Fact no 4: By using r_trigger you're able to reformat messages to make them easier to read.
Fact no 5: The table is updated automatically since you don't have to report your own death.

If that's not exactly the same what manually updated TO would do then I dunno. Can't put it any plainer than that.

What is r_trigger?

I agree with 2, 3 and 4, but I'm curious about 1 and 5. Is there a way to ge ta table out of r_trigger? If so, please provide info, because I must admit myself clueless to that/those setting(s).


Yup, but there's a helluva difference of digging out info from 20-30 lines manually than there is in the computer doing it for you, and presenting the result in 3 simple lines that are updated.


Down this road lies auto-took and powerup/item timers. I think we've wandered that way before.

Too fast conclusions imo.

As someone said here on forums.. We should think new features as they are, not by worst case scenario which isn't fault of one feature. Do you really think if teamoverlay will be globally in use people start to like the idea of auto-took or powerup/item timers?