Recently Fusion have started to improve our game and we are now struggling to find practice all of a sudden. It is getting quite boring and if it keeps up I will prob lose interest and quit qw. This is probably the same situation for previous players/teams who are no longer playing and it will continue to happen till there is not even enough to run a league.

I think the numbers of people playing now is at its all time worst and I would like to continue playing and to do this we need to attract new players!

The only way I can see this happening is if we have something to entice players/spectators,

The obvious way would be money, but how can we do this? I have a rough idea of players paying a small fee for each div with the total money going from each div going to the top team or something. That is just a rough idea and no doubt we a bit of thought it had serious flaws that would turn people off. I dont think there would be many sponsors interested unless we could help promote them in some way.

Wouldn't say we lost pracs, there's more active teams now that you can play against than a few seasons ago.

I don't think a hosted tournament with money would work very well in the current scene. Looking at this season there's maybe 2 additional teams that have a chance on winning it, other than that it's pretty much one sided. Adding money to 4on4 would just ruin the current setup of teams where the top players spread around different teams most likely would get together and play for the money resulting in fewer, but better teams.

Prize money in duel tournament is a different story, and one that I would like to see more of. After all, duel is a more recognized gametype as opposed to 4on4 in terms of quake.

Well I don’t just mean Fusion and current seasons but each year good players seem to go:/
Ok, so maybe making duel more attractive instead of 4v4? That could work.

sad how it's come to this, let's hope we don't lose serox aswell.

I agree with valla, money wouldn't do it for 4on4, if not in unrealistic amounts...

I really have no clue how to turn the tide of this, but I have a notion that quakelive is going DOWN due to poor updates (or whatever) from id software, which should result in a horde of "homeless" fps players that could be snatched to us

You mean clans have to pay to participate in a 4on4 league? LOL

This would decrease the number of clans/players.

And the money goes to the winner? Yeh, I'm sure you like this. Now that you are suddenly in a clan that is top contender and running really well But explain to me how it would be more intereseting for me or newcomers to play QW when we have to pay to play a league?

In my opinion we need to stop going for this bullshit 'pro' direction. We have to face it: we are becoming older and although we like to compete, fun should be #1 priority. What annoys me most is that when I want to play I have to wait on a server for the standard 40 minutes prewar before everyone is ready. I have had multiple times over the last few months after last EQL that I joined a server and I quit again after walking around in prewar for 15 or more minutes with 8/8 players. The second most annoying thing is mm3: imo it ruined 4v4 for me because lately the clans are so much better at taking advantage of it.

EDIT:
Also, what have you got to do with new players? You think a newly formed clan of players that are new to QW are willing to play fusion? Yeey, fun.

add a timeout feature np

Making duel more attractive alone won't increase numbers because the internet is saturated with popular (and prettier) deathmatch duel games. Also, most people from other games seem to look down on the 1on1 map pool, and there is no chance in hell of a significant change in that. 4on4 is qw's unique selling point, because the tdm in quake live, quake 3, etc. is a great steaming pile of shit. It also makes for a far more spectator-friendly experience with the constant, visceral action and transparent nature of the powerups and weapons.

Activity breeds activity, so the more mixes, the more pracs and the more leagues that are hosted, the more people will play. Leagues also increase visibility and give people something to watch and something to which to aspire.

The big break where swedes go and pretend that they have a summer (lol) is the number one thing that drags qw down each year, and it's always a nervous time watching activity claw its way back every autumn. I like the idea of running a ladder or something during the summer just to give everyone who hangs around something to do instead of having to drag everyone back by the hair in September.

Another thing is the ridiculous pussy attitude of some players who refuse to play anyone slightly better than them in prac because they might lose. Isn't that the whole point of prac? A division 1 side refusing to play tvs, etc. is the #1 sure fire way to ensure that they will never, ever be able to beat them in an official game and tvs will win every eql until Milton develops senility and blAze gets arthritis. Grow a pair of balls, for christ's sake. Eventually only I will be able to get games as everyone else refuses to play each other on the off change that they might get locked out on dm2.

tl;dr: Play more quake and more people will play quake.

Im not sure there is a way to attract new players, why would 14-20 year olds start playing qw when there are so many new and flashy games around? And the ones above 20 are probably too busy to put in a lot of time anyway.

The thing with computer games is that there are new ones each month attracting the players. The world has yet to see where the whole gaming movement will go from here and it is not so easy to compare to sports like football and tennis where new players start all the time as the older ones quit. Sure there are other sports, new action sports, that attract players as well but an old computer game is no way near as attractive when you have the latest OMG WTF games to choose from.

I mean even Pelé and Maradona had to quit at some point just as Gretzky and Lemieux and players like Borg and Sampras.
You think Milton, Valla, Paradoks and Hagge will play when they are 35? 40? 55?

Blixem, I said it was an idea that would have flaws. I know people would not want to pay if they thought they would lose, whats the point?

The point is 'how can we keep it alive' if you are interested in that at all then please do so

There would need to be some kind of incentive that would make people want to do it even if they thought they would not be taking top spot.

I guess you need prize money in each division but less in the lower ones, also prize money for 1st 2nd 3rd. That way all clans should feel they are able to get some of it even if they cant ever beat tvs and such clans.

Division whine will be of epic proportions tho as some clans will want the easy money in the lower division

Stev, good points with 4v4 looking better for spectators!

Having loads of spectators = more numbers and numbers is what sponsors are interested in.

Maybe not bring in the players but spectators Hooraytio. This could then bring in other players? But still there needs to be some incentive for people to want to play qw instead of some new flashy game that lacks fun.

I don’t think they will play when they are 40+ but when they are gone the numbers will be down and it will keep happening.

To make it attractive to spectators, top teams have to start scheduling their games far in advance, so coverage can be advertised. We have every possibility to advertise our big matches, but most of them just happen at random times without any heads up.

True. Prize money for 1st 2nd and 3rd.

But how about all players vote which div they think everyone should be in or something?

another good point. We need to make it a little bit more pro.

Have a build up, qtvs ready, commentators ready etc.

Advertise this info on websites to build up the tension or whatever,

From lower div POV, it's hard to get pracs since everyone is speccing div1 games. Seems unusually active up there.


QWDM doesn't have a culture of scheduling. I remember Term trying to push for this in EQL to no avail.

Money won't fix anything. Where's the money going to come from? You need a lot of money to pay anyone but the top clan anything resembling a worthwhile amount, and no one will care about that but the top clan. Lots of money requires lots of players. Money comes after you get 10,000 people competing, not before.

all good things come to an end.

please don't be so ignorant and assume that money will somehow save the game, it's had a great run as it is. look at the hollowness of q4 and painkiller, that shows you where serious money in a duel game with a tiny community will go.

the only shot is drawing in fps players from other games who have experience in the genre. to make sure you don't scare them off and to allow them to actually have a shot at competing on as level playing field there can be, new maps need to be implemented.. but we all know how the map discussion goes.

I got an idea, let's make a 1on1 tourney, let's say the winner get's 1 000 000 € and let's hope no one out of the qw community wins, so we can pact to not give any money to the winner. And then let's spam everywhere: 1M€ qw tourney! Yeah, a huge lie. A fake tourney posted everywhere.
/joke


Now out of jokes, i think 1st: Zalon is 100% right. Schedule your games with enought time so people is able to spec and commentate. 2nd: To be honest, when i found quake, netquake (quakeone.com) was really really really easy to find, while quakeworld (I never heard of quakeworld before but everyone knows quake 1) was like a secret community i never heard about. That's something to consider.

that new qhlan was a great idea, that can help

Keeping QW alive: appropriate amount of leagues in various modes (duel, 4on4, dmm4, ...) should be running all the time

Increasing numbers: bot leagues perhaps .. may sound ridiculous, but that's how i started with Q2, Q3 and with QW, I played with bots a lot (maybe that's why I improve very very slowly nowadays :E);
e.g. run a league "who can score the highest amount of frags against ztndm3 bot skill 200" and after that event is done, immediately run rookies ztndm3 tournament for rookies. Same can be done for 4on4, simply "score the highest amount of frags in 4on5 game in dm3 (your teams score doesn't matter)".

It is quite easy to run such leagues, people just submit demos, everything is automated. You can split it into div pro and div basic so that you can move oldtards who don't understand the "rookies only sign" where they belong.

Then you can derive some sort of "award" system and what not so that new players are attracted by how they advance literally each day (first submission award! over 10 frags award! etc). It's quite different from "yesterday I lost 90:-6, today ony 80:-1, yeey!

As every rookie mentions that getting a rookie match going is extremely hard, I think it's time to try leagues with the bots.

Edit: Also I'm missing some site "About QuakeWorld", like there is e.g. http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/
Current qw.nu only delivers news, then there are some sites about current events, there's also wiki but the Guides part of it is too advanced, I can't find anything good for newcomers, some sort of nice up to date manual you get when you buy a new game.

the scene as a whole need to change their attitude when it comes to alot of things..

Why does it take 30 minutes or more to start a mix 4on4 game? Typing ready in the console isn't that hard to do and everyone has their settings fixed allready. Any other excuse is retarded.. If you don't have the time, dont be there or simply observe!

People don't wanna lose and that is natural but why not play even though you know you might not win? Since our scene is so small you basicly know the ending, but not playing makes that difference between your skill and your opponents skill even far greater then it allready is.. keep on keeping on ffs! (yeah i know im not one to talk =))

Mappool is fucking retarded! Why does people only play dm3 and sometimes dm2? Sooo fucking boring with games now because of that! There are more maps to play. Back in the day we all played ANY idmap in the game. People even shouted "KENYA!" to me when i suggested e1m5 for the hell of it.. Fucking 12yearolds playing now?
I would like to see more games played with other maps. A demo with for example the top 2 div1 clans on e1m3.. how amazing would not that be?

Money would not solve anything imo because even if it could make people more competitive it would not attract anything to the scene. Perhaps with a laaaarge amount of cash or a blowjob from a local hooker could bring in some star from quake4 or other games but it would only give us a few days in the spotlights and thats it..

As someone said before: "play more and people will play more"
When the servers are filled with players it makes you wanna take part more in the actual gaming..

I think I like Rille.

Here's an idea, since serox asks for more teams to prac against in the high end (div1), we need more high end players. Those are not just gonna come out of nothing, it is however a good thing that it's a div1 player mentioning this, as he (and his fellow div1 mates) can actually do something about it.

If you look at Slackers, they have 3 players who just 2 years ago played in the lower end of the division system, how did they then get into div1? A lot of dedication and hard work of course, but also because someone took them in and gave them a chance.

My idea for you serox, is to gather some top teams and some dedicated div3 players, get each team to take in a low div player and teach him how to play the game, if you find the ones dedicated enough, we should see a bunch of new div1 players in 1-2 seasons.

I'm not saying that all teams should field 3 players + 1 rookie, but use your rookie in all the pracs you can. Then let each player learn him what they know, if you have 6 players in your team, it should not be an impossible task. I mean, if you know the basics, then playing with good players will make you play good as well. If you are willing to learn at the same time, you can get very far, you don't have to be Milton or LocKtar skill wise to do good in 4on4.

It should be easy enough digging out the dedicated players, just look at the mixes and the stats site to see who already puts a lot of time in qw, and I'm sure there are a lot who would love to join a div1 team and learn how to really play.

It's a good thought Zalon, although the idea with 1 rookie in the team will not work. He will be ran over really damn hard and feel its more secure to camp at RA room at dm3 for whole game == not exactly improving there..

I guess you kind of refer to me as one of the guys from Slackers, and yeah it's true, was a total rookie beginning of 2008, but played really really much that year and also focused on improving my game.
Watching demos from better players POV, what do they do in certain situations, and most important trying to get my own picture of what is important on the map and what my strenght is.
I know i have good aim, so my tactics are therefor to be the attacker, try to take out nmy with weapons before they get stacked and then retreat. Just find your strong sides and play the game from there.

Back to the 3+1: I started Quakeklan with some other "noobs" at the time. We started play in div3 in NQR11, and had recruited mogge for the season. Mogge was better than any other player in our team and the rest of us were more or less equal in skill. So we were like 3 semi rookies and 1 experienced. We all kind of learned quickly since we played much and wanted to improve. Next I think we played in div3 (of 6) in EQL7-8 or something, recruiting TheEvilDog from who we learned a lot too... And so on... Letting the game play and style evolve.

The 3 rookies/players + 1 more experienced/skilled is what I think works best if you want your team to improve (Hello Fusion lately, exactly the same after valla joined...) . Not someone a lot better (like murdoc was playing in div3) but still a bit better. When the rest of the team has improved, recruit another dude that is a bit better than your best current guy..

The thing is tho, it's a lot harder to find 3 dedicated players who are playing together, than finding 1 dedicated player and add him to your team. I'm pretty sure my idea would work in the long run, I'm not saying let fusion add 1 rookie and then just prac vs tVS. What I'm saying is let fusion add 1 rookie and then prac against teams they will play equal with. That way the rookie will learn something as it won't be total rape going either way. If more top teams do it, there will be more equal teams to play against.

The problem is though that new players who have real talent and potential are few and far between these days. There's plenty of players who play tons and still suck. Usually for me the guy has to be good at _something_, be it pov, duel, 2on2, whatever. But if you just suck in every gamemode it's really hard to believe that there is any potential. If you are good in something it's easier to belive that with practice you can get good in something else too.

Pick up some good warsow players then

More seriously, don't tell me that there are no div2/3 players who shows potential.

an easy question to answer, get another dedicated sassa

Have a good organisation behind it all with good homepages for tourneys and so such!

1, create tourneys for new players and old players
This will make new ppl get in + get the old players boosted to play
Have a variety of different tourneys for the new/old

I did this with KTK and FTK or whatever they were called
The aim is to get them going on with QW by playing 1on1 or FFA (fun type of games) and then get them into serious shit like 4on4

2, this is the essential thing of getting this whole shit together by broadcasting it outside the world of QW and on the same note; bring forward drama (just simply create it)

put two players against each other and flame it all up, make them play more, make the audience become involved "Reppie will surely beat Milton" or "Milton is the new king" etc.. build up fire and bring forward flame

This basic thing is the answer BUT there is one major thing here, dont do a "mushi" or "purity" by simply talking about it, instead act and do it now
Lets rewind to summer 2007 (was it so far back?) I brought forward several tourneys and pushed a whole new life into QW (damn I love braggin about my accomplishments haha) and some people actually got new waves of doing more cool stuff from the new breathing qw player like itsinens 4on4 team build up came by and several other stuff, but the essential shit was already made by me with my #1 done and #2! the #2 hasto be done outside QW community with almost a propaganda machine on esreality, sk-gaming, gotfrag etc etc.. just push the word out and dont stop believing in it because if I can do it then surely you can aswell!

and if you want to go more dramatic go to my favo number of them all #3

3, talk shit about the community and its players so they flame you instead of thinking about the dying game

enjoy . you all may be ASHOLS but the biggest is in the new QW movie

That's not gonna solve the problem. Even if 100 new players started tomorrow, none of those would be good enough to play vs Fusion until years from now. If at all. Second of all, how do you want new players to even learn 4on4? Whenever someone sucky/new joins a mix game, they're usually told to spec, everyone whines at them, people tell them to go play FFA, etc... Everyone always talks about wanting new players to start QW, but when someone new arrives nobody wants him to actually participate in any of the mixes.


Yeah that's gonna work really well. Div-whine has already reached an unbearable point as it is. It doesn't really matter how much effort admins put into trying to create fair divs, you always get the same unthankful load of www.bullshit.se. That's only gonna get worse when people/clans end up in a div they're not gonna win (-> no chance whatsoever of winning any cash).

What the scene really needs is to get all those players proclaiming that "QW is dead!" to simply grow some balls and start playing again. There's shitloads of players just sitting on IRC every day pretending they have something better to do than play QW when actually they don't. Poker, Quakelive, BF, blah blah.

*edit*: And I just read all other posts and I came to the conclusion that everyone should just listen to Stev.