As people are the illogical fools that they are I thought it would be best to have a poll.

Just use particle shaft if you want something different looking?

Please read my article before making a hasty vote here.
It might make you think things over and change your mind...

Nice way of attacking people who actually think over changes and see the fundamental elements and what is being changed, why it changes things, why not everyone can benefit from it, what is considered skill and why does it take so long for certain people to reach some "inhuman" level.

The thing is, people really need to understand what the changes are making and why does it affect certain people. Someone with very little experience or someone who hasn't thought things over will want to have any change that can benefit themselves without thinking how it will/won't affect other players.

Vloody, with all due respect to you, that article is bs. No one has come up with a reason why full brights are allowed (which give a far greater advantage in this noobs opinion) or why its OK to change RL Trail so that it doesn't get in the way.

Just because something is historic, doesn't make it correct.

OK, I apologise for the attack. I'm just a grumpy old man that is in a bad mood because not one person has put forward a reasonable argument (see post above).

With regard to why it came about... a few people asked me, I asked admins for objections and it has been in the rules for ages.

As I stated @ irc just a while ago, the rl trail gets out of the way if you strafe while the bolt will follow you. So there is a difference and I must admit that I have nothing against orginal rockettrail to be the only one. Fbskin doesn't really make too much difference as long as you can change the textures on the walls, and you can always change gamma into lots lighter anyways which it easier to spot the enemy in the dark corners.
*notice* Just trying to put out info about what I've noticed. (yes, and I have played on lans several times without fbs and tweaked rls and lgs etc...)

You are missing the point. It is exactly like in that original article. This thing does not have anything to do with fullbrights, instead it has everything to do with learning curve.

There are few points I want to put emphasis here, so let's get it on:

1) There is an absolute limit on what human can do in the terms of tracking (or in this case "lg skill". No human can exceed this limit because of the physiological restrictions: people can only react so fast, their motoric skills are only that good and so on.

2) Once you reach that maximum level you can have, if it's the level that is commonly known as "one of the best", and you realize that no setting or whatever you do/change, can make you any better.

3) People that could reach this same level or very near it, can't realize it because there is something that bothers them. Regarding LG'ing the most probable reason is the LG bolt's graphical presentation that distracts enough them not to be more than average or so.


And now follows the reasoning:

1) People who have gotten such a great skill they have, have used lots of time to see how the gameplay mechanics work, and in the end they HAVE LEARNED THE CORRECT approach on doing something, this is what makes them SKILLED.

2) People who haven't got that far are doing something wrong, but they just can't realize it. Now they get the ability to run/change something on that makes the distraction that causes this disappear and suddenly their skill improves WITHOUT THE LEARNING THE RIGHT WAY. So in short, they could be as good or almost as good as the better one, but because or a thing or two, they haven't learned the proper way of doing it, instead they are still distracted over something.


QW is all about skill and skill differences make better or worse players. The players who have gotten their skill by playing a lot and learning the gameplay mechanics are the ones who should be better. There should be no shortcuts on improving your skill immediately by a degree or two, especially when it comes to something that really requires skill, like hitscan weaponry. LG in QW is in very special place, since it's powerful weapon and can do massive damage when being handled properly. The use of it shouldn't be easy and only those who have the required skill should be the ones making the real damage, weaker players should learn how to use their LGs better.


Guess why we banned movement scripts? Because they take away the skill to do certain rocket jumps. Guess why we have banned other custom models? Eyes.mdl is meant to be almost invisible, not some spike model. Guess why physfps is restricted to 77fps? Because higher fps would make jumps last longer and make them higher, making certain jumps easier and achieving speed easier. Guess why we have banned autotook scripts? Because it's up to player to report their status, not some automatic script.

And finally, guess why modified bolt model is and will be banned? (Answer: it automatically removes distractions that can cause your max level not to be realized. This doesn't mean everyone can be the best shafters out there, but it means that best shafters will not benefit it, but worse shafters can and will benefit from it in certain situations (there is a word for it, handicap). QW is all about skill and players just don't like it when the skill requirements suddenly drops after 10 years because of some model that makes things easier.)

Renzo, you seem to be taking this as a personal attack (which it is not). Yes I am a n00b but my point is that fullbrights make it easier to see players (thus making awareness skill lower). Simple RL trails do not obstruct a players FOV (if both players strafe left, the standard trail will still be in the way).

If I use fullbrights and the other player does not, I have an advantage but it is still fair because if he wants, he can use fullbrights.
If I hide my weapon model, I have an advantage.

So what I still don't understand is why do some players think that it is OK to make some aspects of the game easier, or better, or worse depending on your opinion (fullbrights, viewmodel, rltrail) and yet not other aspects (shaft beam).

O and based on the poll results so far, yes it does look like we will have to change the rules but I would like to understand the logic behind people's votes.

No, I don't

I just want to make everyone understands what's this all about, and I want to defend people who have learned their rights as recognised good lg'ers and I'll just make my point as a 1) developer and 2) player who has spent time to think about game mechanics and logic behind it (technical stuff).


You have to realize that fullbright skins ALWAYS benefit everyone using it, and everyone can use them regardless of their client. At some time this was considered a cheat but after some time everyone started using them (well, not everyone). Also talking about skill when considering skins... I really don't think seeing models on screen has anything to do with skill. It is more of a thing of good vision, proper gamma/contrast and big/small screen (in case no FB skins are used). Even with the biggest screens it can be hard to see properly colored skin on matching map, and no skill can change this.


Yes, you see more from your screen area. Everyone can change this and have the same effect. You can also change positioning of weapon model, or even it's alpha visibility. This again has very little impact on skill about anything, it just reveals more visible screen area.


About rl trails. RL is a ballistic weapon that fires "slowly" moving projectiles. A trail is like a history item on where your rocket (or your enemy's rocket) went. It can also make incoming rockets more visible than they would be otherwise. So it's a double edged sword. On the other hands it makes easier to see incoming rockets, but on the other hand it can block your view somewhat (same goes for explosions). Also worth mentioning is the fact that rocket trails do not specifically affect aim, since RL is not a hitscan weapon and has very limited rate of fire. If it fired more rapidly, you could really use trails to correct your aim.

Grump, I would say this is an ongoing discussion. Where to draw the line of modification.

I know you dont want the history reason. But let me explain.

Back in 96-97 there where hardly any rules about this and people would use spiked models, blood trails after players and modified maps that let you see thru water surface. Obviously this is no way to play a competitive game. To combat this people were forced to connect to the servers using a qizmo/proxy.

The proxies existed before this and was mainly used to allow people to use %L %h etc... in teamsays. But would now also introduce f_modified checks that would do checksums on some models. For whatever reasons not all models/sounds/skins was not included in these early checks. This was not the days of open source and qw.nu forum discussions.

So players kept modifying anything not included in these early rule sets. Why can only the goalie use his hands in football. Why is auto-sg-scripts allowed but not auto-took.

So after another 10 years the community has adapted a new ruleset. Some of the rules makes no sense, while some does.


I said it before. The best way to go forward is that the clients would add support for faithfull high-res models in the f_modified checks.

OK, just to make my postion clear, I would prefer to have bolt2 allowed but the poll says I am in the minority and after playing with standard shaft, I don't really care as it makes little or no difference to my already poor aim ;-). People have raised good points on either side of the debate and the main reason I even started the whole thing was because the rules seemed illogical to me and they still do ;-)

Renzo, I understand your points but disagree with you point about fullbrights - different people have different eyesight - not only clarity but also peripheral awareness (the cones and rods of the human eye). Humans are generally more likely to notice an object in their peripheral vision if it constrasts with the environment or if it is moving (from hunter/gatherer through backs afaik)

I would like apologise to the other QWDL admins - rather than just asking for any objections I should have asked each of them what they thought and waited for a response.

I do think that, looking to the future, the rules need investigating with a view to what can make the game better, fairer and more popular and with a complete disregard to history. Yes, we can learn from history but IMO, it should not be used to determine the future. That can wait for another day and topic tho ;-)

To cut it REAL short, and i should probably add this line to my article:

Straight and thinner bolt = Smaller learning curve = Bad idea

That's what you'd assume, but, since the bolt itself isn't wide enough to obscure a person, using thinshaft doesn't seem to affect aim (well, my aim at least).

What's the point in allowing fakeshaft which obviously gives a far greater advantage, but disallowing a custom shaft model that's not even a straight shaft?

In my opinion both fakeshaft and bolt2.mdl are matters of preference and give no advantage whatsoever. I guess I'm gonna have to start using the normal shaftmodel, which is a shame since I've been using the custom one for since i started QW. I'd still like some real examples on how this model gives anyone an advantage.

Just to clarify, i mean this model.

I don't see how anyone but the "CHANGING ANYTHING IS A CHEAT AND NOT QW" brigade could object to that model. The only argument is that the thinshaft seen here increases visibility, and, as a result, makes aiming easier.


It occurs to me that the main graphical hurdles that new players and spectators have to overcome are the incredibly ugly shaft and player models.

I'm sure it will be a long, long time before anyone will agree on a replacement player model, but I think inducting a new, equally visually impairing (yet prettier) shaft model into the ezquake f_modified checks would make the game more appealing without compromising the hardcore aspect that we're all so proud of. I don't see how anyone could reasonably object to that.

W00t?

Comparing Fakeshaft with bolt2.mdl might not be the most fair comparision? As people have explained (twentyninehundred times) before, fakeshaft doesnt necessarily have to help, since you don't know the shafts real position. All you see is an illusion! My own experience from using fakeshaft 1.0 at first, then 0.5 and now off, is that it can help improve your aim in the beginning, meaning help you to improve your tracking skills. But it will limit your ability to hit when you get better.

I tried bolt2.mdl some months ago, and I switched back pretty fast since it felt like i lost accuracy with it. Still though only tested in on povdmm4, and I wasn't used to it, in other words, not a good test. You'll probably get an advantage with it when playing like dm3, dm4, shafting from bottom up to higher levels, you get a lot more visible area, and makes it easer to hit the nmy.

Conclusion: I'm on Renzo's side in this one. Don't make it easier to master the shaft.

The only good reason I can see to change bolt's moldel, is to make it prettier. And since this bolt2 is not prettier or faithful, it doesn't look like a good replacement!