I had an idea similar to this but it was a little harder to start a match.

I was thinking of a bot on IRC in a a channel. Like #qw1v1ladder and have a bot that controls player logins and you also message the bot to start a match. You would also be able to msg the bot commands like /msg botname stats playername /msg botname startmatch playername. Then you come back to IRC and message the results of the match to the bot. The bot would also include a demo uploading feature (/msg botname report match# demo <---- that command would start a DCC session where the bot only accepts .MVDs). The bots stats/demos that it recieves would be uploaded to a website every hour to a website where players could check their rankings and view demos of recently played RANKED matches.

This would be similar to WGTour for starcraft when it was around back in around 2004-2005. This would also be cool because everyone would meet in a centralized channel and place to chat and start ranked games. Also most players meet on IRC anyway so you wouldn't be reinventing the wheel as far as finding a game goes. It would be better to have match reporting done in IRC rather than on the website because this makes the players have to come to the channel and be exposed to everyone.

I don't really agree with some stuff that has been said. I mean, i'm 15, and I started playing quakeworld not because my friends played it, nor because someone told me to; it was just the fastest game around! Also, I think QW being at DreamHack is already a big step ahead, it might make it more popular.

I don't think it's dying YET. Also, about the 1v1 or 4v4 arguing, both are good. 1v1 is really good. As I'm a new player, I can tell which one is more attractive. When you watch a 4v4 match, it sure goes fast, but a newbie doesn't get shit what's going on. He (or she) is watching and sees a whole bunch of messages at the top, and he's like WTF.

I think the whole problem about organizing stuff is pretty "simple", you need to make a client even better than ezQuake, and even more accessible.

I agree with this statement, and it is also what I've told people who wanted 2on2/4on4 at DreamHack... 4on4 might be the most fun and exciting gamemode for an experienced player, but for anyone else it just looks like FFA, same goes for 2on2.

While the 1on1 aspect is very interesting even for unexperienced players, both to play and watch. If we want more players this should be our focus, at least in a competitive aspect. If anyone have the time for it, running more Ignition like tournaments would be a good idea.

If new players get into QW, they will find their way into 4on4 eventually.

qw 1on1 is boring, both play and watch. If that had been all there is, I would have never started to play qw at all. For me the gateway to quake was ffa.

Agree with Blaze. QW FFA and TDM is the best, but 1on1 will never compete with Q3/QL.
Regular FFA tournaments would be best for new players. The UK FFA leagues were always full, and full of players who weren't in clans and never duelled.
As well they are really, really easy to organise.

I just want to shout my opinion that i totally disagree with you about duels. I started both q3 and qw a year and few months ago, after some q3 games i watched a qw 1on1 and i just unistalled q3 until today I would like to know if most people think duels are either the funniest thing in qw or the most boring mode as blAze said.

I can't remember the last time I have seen blAze play a duel, if ever? I'm guessing that the stats site probably havn't seen it either, maybe a pov or two?

So I'm not surprised to hear his opinion about qw 1on1, however I for one disagree. Best gamemode discussion aside, 1on1 is still the best way to get new players into the game. There is only 1 other player to focus on, and apart from that, it is also a lot easier to get 2 players together compared to 8 or 12.

FFA quickly gets dull when you get killed all the time which you probably will be, with all the players jumping around, while 1on1 vs an even opponent is quite fun, even if you don't know all aspects of the game.

Regarding QW 1on1 vs Q3/QL 1on1... The only thing that I find better about QL 1on1's is that there is more time involved with building up a frag, but you can get the same gameplay by playing a qw 1on1 on dm2.

Well pov is entirely different matter altogether. It's the king of gamemodes. But yeah I don't play dmm3 because I don't like it, it's a matter of taste. I was just pointing out that not everyone likes duels, but could still enjoy qw.

Whoa, I feel just the opposite.. pov is cheating, all weapons at start man :E as you said, a matter of taste
and I've never seen zalon play 1on1 either.. or anyone in FA besides wimp(?) who played me once..

Yet, we've played vs eachother at every qhlan I've attended

But no, I don't play much... played 248 duels last year, and 59 this year so far. That is just not my point, my point is that duel is the easiest gamemode for a newcomer, next after CA/RA.

well im no competitor no do i practice alot, My 2 cents prob wont go far but I think as far as getting games going and fair games would be the ideal for newcommers..

I think there should be a new mod that when players ready it auto rpickes and readys them no matter what team they are on.

Nothing is more discouraging then a newb who whats to play and plays with good guys on their maps and then wont play the newbs map or switch with teammate to make it fair..

countless games played and trying to learn with weak teammate.. and the teams never change. soo mod that auto rpicks and readys would be pretty interesting..

but need servers for that.. been playing qw for a long time.. still not good lol

OrEx

Well, auto ready doesn't work very well if you are in the bathroom or on the phone etc.

Well, I think something like auto-ready when there are 7 people ready and only one guy is holding things up could work. Sometimes getting 5 people to /yes an election takes longer than getting 8 players on the server in the first place.

I think auto force spec or something would be better, starting the game with 7 is just pointless.

One thing I would personally like is FFA servers with regular maps, those actually played in 1on1/2on2/4on4. This way you could easily grab the maps when you practise actually playing the game. Right now, practising against bots is boring and last thing I would do is to go play real 2on2/4on4 because you have absolutely no chances. In fact, you can't even get to know the map because you constantly die and just spawn around.

Rocket arena, duels/2on2 against other newbs or quality FFA like (edome large, edome small, mbnet, clan z) are best for newbies imo.

XS4ALL ffa isn't really that welcoming for newbie when there are like 20 players in dm4 or aerowalk. They will just quit instantly and never come back again.
Map rotation should change there with playerlimits. Like =<8 players allows dm4 + removes some bigger map and >8 players allows some other maps. Also powerups should enable only when there are minimum ~4(or more) players aswell (it's too easy for quader to control everyone not even getting weapons and preventing them getting next quad either because he is stacked full time).
Another thing to add: Clan Z ffa disabled discharges on dm3 which wasn't that bad (considering how it's on xs4all dm3 now heh)

I'm following up on my social sites trail by starting the official QuakeWorld page on Facebook, feel free to join and I'll do my best to keep it up to date and so on. (the current Quakeworld _group_ that is available seems slightly outdated etc, not sure if the maintainer of that ones is a regular QW player)

Look at that: http://googlewebtoolkit.blogspot.com/2010/04/look-ma-no-plugin.html

kinda missin what i was saying, a mod that its like map vote, majority wins when players ready soo majority that ready will auto launch the game then their should be a kick to spec if inactivity occurs which would make uneven teams but then again the person should know what mod hes playing to avoid being kicked but..

ok this wont work i see douchebags screwing this up just joining the server to f with peeps..

dunno unless id makes a new game with qw physics new players will be hard to come by

Played around with it a few days ago... It's a nice prototype of what will be possible in the future, but the QuakeLive way of using a plugin is still the way to go. However the plugin and running a game in a browser is a non-issue, it's the backend to handle the match making, statistics etc that is the big issue.

Something that even QuakeLive havn't handled properly yet.

Can't see how that should attract new players, young people don't want hard games, they want pussy arcade action like MW2 or TF2, check the stats.

Out audience and potential players is the QuakeLive, CPM, Warsow kinda people - Players who want a hard and fast game. A game like warsow created a gaming scene from scratch, how did that even happen? If we figure that out, we could get the same amount of new players.

Coming back after a while away, it seems people alias a lot more than they used to.
Especially on FFA, but duels and mixes too.
I think it puts off new players especially. The best way of retaining newbies is involving them in the community, but they won't feel involved if they never play the same person twice (as far as they know).

The American QW scene was killed this way. Three guys fakenicking on a server, each accusing the other of being Def.

Well from an ex-player's point of view, I can tell you guys the reason I left years ago and refuse to come back:

TB3.

These three maps are more or less what QuakeWorld now consists of, in both 1v1 and 4v4 contexts. You will not retain new players by revealing to them that, for the rest of their QuakeWorld 'career', the skills they develop are only really relevant on DM2, DM3 and E1M2 (or for duels: DM2, DM4, DM6). It doesn't matter how skilled you think you are, being good on only three maps means almost nothing compared to what is achieved in every other game. The community needs to leave their comfort zone and start using newer, better designed maps for all types of games. You won't keep new players by destroying them on maps that you all have virtual muscle memory for.

Oh and, QuakeWorld isn't in the news whatsoever, which doesn't help. All your 'micro' issues are irrelevant to someone who doesn't know about QuakeWorld, so address this issue first. Spread awareness that QuakeWorld is still alive, give prospective players a reason to (re)investigate the game. Don't try and solve this by fixing league trouble, aliasing, coaches, or whatever as these issues are invisible to everyone but yourselves. A fully functioning league is useless if people don't know the game even exists anymore.

So in summary: do everything you can to spread the word about QuakeWorld. Inform people that the game is still played (albeit in Europe for the most part) so you get renewed interest. Do everything possible with the distributions so it's a few clicks and you're away. Then, when players are in, address your internal problems.

ppl play a lot of ztndm3 and aerowalk in duels tho

ffa is where new maps can be introduced, new maps arent really needed in 4on4

eql11 has been very succesful with tb3 only

People who need new maps to get interested, will soon get bored with these new maps and leave. It's impossible to keep these type of players. They are the type of players who buy a game, play it for a while and when a new game is released they buy that one and play it for a while. QW is for people who are interested in stable, mature platform for competitive FPS gaming. If you need a new game every 6 months, you are better suited with COD or BF series anyway.

They do, and this is a good thing, but you can't settle in with just 5 maps. You need to expand each season of [duel tournament] so old and new players alike are given a fresh challenge. Good point though, I had more or less forgotten about those two maps!


I have nothing to add. This sentence says it all.


How do you define 'successful'? Did fewer players quit? Did fewer matches go to a walkover? As a warning, if you're measuring season success by how many fewer players did negative actions relative to the previous season, you have a problem. In my opinion, a tournament should blossom interest from not just the existing community, but fresh faces as well. But this is somewhat unimportant unless you plan to make tournaments a major part of QuakeWorld promotion.

I hate to be cynical, but that attitude hasn't achieved anything in terms of community growth at all. If blAze's opinion is shared amongst the majority of the people reading this thread...I wish you all good luck.

It's certainly a mature platform though, I'll give you that.

Well we cant force new players into qw.
Seriously, wouldnt everyone that was even a tad interested have tried qw by now?
Also: Why should Adam, age 14, try qw when there are so many new games to try? Yeah you cant really compete with new games.
And even if a bunch of kids tried qw and thought it was fun they wouldnt stay if we had 15 maps, they would stay for other reasons like the physics, the speed, the community and the weapons.

Ppl who start mainly play ffa or duels, so why should we poke around with the 4on4 maps to try to attract new players? They must start playing and be retained in some other way than introducing new 4on4 maps

Btw dont we need new weapons if we need new maps? Other games introduce new weapons just as much as new maps

4on4 maps were discussed quite thoroughly before EQL10. Look it up so we don't need to repeat it all.

Scene has been split on this issue more or less always. EQL is sometimes TB5 and sometimes TB3.

On topic: spread our urls everywhere possible where it is gaming related, that would be a first good step