So, I just came to know that:

since october last year it is not disallowed in ruleset Thunderdome (existing only in ezQuake 3.0 as far as I understand) to play with 'custom' shaft (read: without a shaft beam at all).

same ruleset also allows cl_rollalpha changes.

Meaning if you play in Thunderdome and have ezQ 3.0 - you can disable the shaft beam without any penalty.
You can also use cl_rollangle x, cl_rollalpha 0 - with your opponents model tilting, but not your screen.


Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I imagine this will come as a surprise to many people, it certainly was for me .

Things worth discussing:

1) Is it cheating? (my voice: definite cheating. Either something should be done with the whole viewheight -6/shafting in the face thing, or nothing at all, because having no shaftbeam is, IMO, a bit illogical)
2) Should we have rulesets with such drastic differences between each other (smackdown which is used for EQL doesn't allow either cl_rollalpha or gl_lightning)

by disable the shaft beam you mean swap it to that "new" one?

oh, color 0 0 0 removes it

Yep, you can play without any beam at all. And there are actually 4 values, not just rgb, it's rgb + alpha. "255 255 255 0" will also remove it (doesn't work for me any other way then just completely remove it).

never liked that new shaft but low alpha shaft feels like cheatin.

maybe remove the option for alpha on the shaft? not just by ruleset but in ezq.

i can have shaft like this with smackdown ruleset:

http://i.imgur.com/z4S8UFX.jpg

Personally I'm all for it and I find the suggestion that it is cheating incomprehensible. If in competition someone decides not to modify their shaft, or rollalpha, that is up to them and shouldn't mean that everyone else has to play with the same settings. The same goes for the custom model that some of us like to use.

If you did that then people would just use custom clients.

Well, previously, you had to aim for the head with shaft to blind people with your beam. Now that simply doesn't work anymore. You get 0 negative visual effects when being shafted in the face (which was especially bad with v_viewheight -6). So that's a whole element of the game thrown away. That's why it feels like cheating to me - the mechanic of not having the beam as an aiming obstacle. Obviously if both people use it - no one "cheats" each other per se. But it's a pretty significant gameplay change, which is done without people agreeing on whether it's necessary or not.

to 1) you must be kidding. CHEATING? Cause your not getting blinded? Trolololo sorry. Cant hold it anymore. For that argument, please go back to pre-independent-physics code, and check how the shaft looked, felt, blinded, and hit there! And i really don´t understand how you can argue with logic considering a virtual shaftbeam in a game, where you stack 100 cells in your trouserpocket, get faster when jumping, get fastest when leaning on a slopy thing whilst looking down... following my favourite games logic, when i go from bed to bathroom in the morning, i use a double-rj trick to be there faster, much like dm4:low->ra-entrance....! Whatever - but for me , having no shaft is as logic, as to have 100% visible shaft. Its what ppl like best, they will chose. Theres your logic... and i couldn´t care less what my oppenent uses settingwise. If he wins i know he deserves it, its not been any commands - and if i wanted, i´d use the same commands.

Please wake up QW. Please go and support the devs & clients, go ahead and allow more variables for tournaments (why you think those got implemented?).

to 2) Concerning those rulesets. Yeah use default rulset, allow all commands. Done.

I know i know, im a racer. Ye why do i write about that topic then... well cause maybe i got the neccessary distance to observe without being qw-biased or scene imprinted enough PLSSSSS stop the 1997ism in qw. Mooooove ahead pls.

nice never knew about these commands. turning them on now

shaftalpha .01

Contrary to some people in this thread, to me it sounds so much like unintended behavior compared to what many (including myself) probably thought is (an should be) possible that I'd file a major bug report.

(given that there is not a forum thread or similar where it was previously discussed)

well, it's definitely buggy for now, since alpha value doesn't work for me at all, shaft beam just disappears with gl_lightning 1 and that's it ). It was probably intended to allow actual custom shaft models.

hmm i can use the "new" shaft with like 10% opacity in prewar but as soon as the game starts it jumps back to original shaft

i can also set gl_particle_trail_width to like 100 and get megathin shaft. wonder if it's something with my client, i shouldnt be able to set it to cheaty amounts like this plus it jumps back to gl_lightning 0 even if i use 1 unmodified

force everyone to use the lavaball rocket graphics imo
otherwise it's cheating and all the 150 ping tournament results will be tainted

Sounds like you haven't changed the ruleset.

oh you cant use particle shaft at all with smackdown? my bad

+1

Sigh.

Conclusion:

1). There has been a rule for many years that prohibited using the particle shaft beam or reducing the non-particle shaft alpha. Who or why has made that rule - I have no idea, but everyone played like that - I'll reiterate - for a very long time. This has aided in development of certain gameplay techniques. I imagine there have been some discussion, drama and reasoning behind that original decision, but who cares about that, right? Ok, whatever.

2). This has changed now. 95% of people didn't even know that it changed (the majority probably still doesn't know). I created this topic specifically to let people know since it wasn't documented anywhere, so that the situation when someone is at a disadvantage because he simply doesn't know about the change and follows the old rules while the opponent is enjoying the new ones is not an issue. EQL is no more, so the problem of conflicting rulesets may not really be a problem anymore, as the EQL's successor, if it ever comes, is not obligated to use smackdown if the community wants otherwise.

3). What is, however, clear from this thread: the community seems to not give a shit either way. Different rulesets? Huh? Shaft on/off advantages/disadvantages? Huh?

That is not a result or discussion I've expected (there hasn't been any), but fine.

(Edited 2016-04-14, 21:26)

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1) Cheating is doing something that is prohibited or not allowed.
2) 99% of the community sees ruleset smackdown as the one to define what is allowed or not.
3) That ruleset doesn't allow any changes to the shaft beam, rather than changing it's color by modifying the file bolt2_0.png or using cl_fakeshaft.
4) What other rulesets may allow or disallow is quite open. But, as I said, 99% of the community looks at ruleset smackdown as the one to tell us what is allowed (not cheating) and what is prohibited (cheating).
5) Same goes to cl_rollalpha and other options whatsoever.
6) Having players on a tournament with a ruleset different from the expected "smackdown base" without clear warnings, is a mistake to say the least.

I agree with you completely. However, thunderdome duel tourney uses it's own ruleset, not smackdown, which has been incorporated into the latest ezQuake 3.0 fairly recently (and, indeed, without any warning). I'm not sure if TD ever used smackdown, tbh, I guess rules section of the previous seasons can give answer to that (too lazy to check right now).
Also, as we see, a lot of people (at least among the ones that have written something here) seem to be of the opinion that changing shaft is OK and welcome. They have their reasons, which are at the very least worth considering.
It was interesting to learn the community's opinion on the matter, but so far it seems that people are... disinterested .

is there a link to the smackdown ruleset somewhere?

curious to see if it also allows idrive or similar scripts

http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/topic/4016/49119/disallow-idrive-in-smackdown-rulese

sorry, i meant thunderdome ruleset :E i know idrive is not allowed with smackdown

afaik the only change is in the two things I've mentioned. But I may be wrong, who knows

I still don't get how reducing shaft alpha is a more serious crime than players adjusting their ping in almost every tournament game.
Can somebody help me understand?

Wrong.

hehe the answer to that is interesting i believe. I´d say its the (insert*2*digit*number) people that have mastered the shaft as it is currently. Of course it would be not beneficial to them, if by any config tweak - a noob can learn faster or raise faster in skill. Why should somebody be able to learn that in less time than the masters? From their perspective it looks "unfair" (keeping in mind they had several years for training^^).


Same counts for Idrive stuff. You can actually train and grind trying bunnyjumping. You can ask the recordholders for advise. The answer you´ll quite often get is "just jump" "dunno" "i just do it" "get up to 500". By any chance youll meet a guy, who will explain what keys to press, and takes 15mins of his valuable time and corrects every aspect you misunderstood so far. Who maybe explains: move angle like this, adjust here and your fine..... (I´m talking about leveling up from Kovaaks Bunnyjump vid to finishing Ztricks1&2 for example, this is NOT intuitive, this is NOT possible without weeks of training, with or without any help) This is what grinds my gears guys. Actually as a noob your trying and asking the people - your doing it with hard work putting hours into it.... Only finding out that nobody was able to tell you stuff correctly. Hmpf, so you wonder why noobs grasp for Idrive and shaftcommands etc etc pp?. It has a reason those are there. Those masters just cannot see it anymore. It helps me to have a bug fixed, that otherwise makes me hit my keyboard in an unnatural and idiotic way, that only one single game on earth got ever misimplemented, cause it was the first time somebody had to code 3d movement and an axis to left + rightstrafe.

See, if you guys decide: "oh cool i want to do this jump in 12 controlled keypresses, and 12 additionally timed controlled key-releases" fine. I think you have weasley fingers But pls let me play with my 12 normal presses, and just learn it reasonably ^^

You seem to forget that having no lg beam means that you can't see the direction from which your opponent is shafting you when he is surprising you. That's a big drawback, isn't it?