i grew up playing quake 3 OPS since i was a kid, i played QW later, i was always confused, why stairs stop you? why not have a jump in stair like CPM at least?

QW has a ultra smooth but weird feel, like too "boxy", i like q3 better because the edges are like less forgiving, it feels less boxy, more dynamic. I prefer VQ3 movement but you can still feel this in CPM clearer for a more direct comparation with qw. the boxy feel has its own charm and style but i wonder why this is prefered by some people, it stops the flow of movement imo but maybe im too noob to navigate in maps and avoid stairs or something.

Q4 in edges also had this boxy feeling but worse

The scene is boxy
I actually think there is some serverside command that allows stair jumping, maybe I'm wrong.

pm_airstep 1

Ezquake manual

Unlike cpm stairs actually mean something for positioning. You can't fly up them like Jeff Gordon so bad rushing up the stairs plays are punished.

I think having both stairs and ramps (with different behaviours) is a good thing as it allows you to include them as design elements, and in some circumstances disrupting player movement can be a good thing. Yes it can be a bit annoying at times but you then have to take a decision as a player whether you go for a more tricky manoeuvre or not. An example might be e.g. attacking quad on dm2 from nailgun, technically you can do an RJ over the steps onto quad but it carries quite a bit of risk unless you are very proficient. Or bunnyhopping from ring to sng on dm3, you can maintain speed through sng if you execute it correctly rather than it being presumably incredibly easy if you could jump directly up the stairs (in other words it becomes a skill element).

Speed jumping was an accidental discovery after the game was created. No one was speedjumping when the game was made so no one thought to allow speedjumping up stairs.

QW is fast enough without this feature and stairs serve as a nice hand brake to keep it from being a zero-tactic +forward aim game (you can probable guess what q3 mod i am referring to)

I enabled stair jumping on the South American Server
argentina.quakelatino.com:28503

its nice

I enabled stair jumping on the South American Server
argentina.quakelatino.com:28503

its nice

And deny to change map to test it…