It's a nicely done comic strip and it made me chuckle, which I'd like to see more of. Now we all know how frustrating egoism and "bad teamplay" can be in a mixed game (or serious clan game for that matter), but I hope it was agreed with Flesh nonetheless as I don't think it's really fair otherwise.

can someone enlighten me on why its better for ya-spawn to take pent?

theoretically it's not really, if you are playing against quality opponents the likelihood you keep that YA as the pent guy is very low. it's the mega that's actually important, but the YA guy is the fastest to the pent spawn so it's correct that he tries to go for it every time. sometimes though, if there are telefrags at YA, the guy at lifts will get it, compelling him to back-left to the pent spawn as well.

I think it's better because he goes to 2nd RL which he picks up and then has better equipment than the lift-guy who takes RL with only whatever is left of 200 health points after swimming/walking to RL box.

It's not really better for ya guy to take it, but it's stupid for lift guy to jump down, instead of going back up through lifts and sweeping sng/mega.

I'm sure there are tons of even more funny mix situations awaiting a creative interpretation using the photoshop canvas.

WHATS PHRENIC DOING UP THERE SO FAST??

Scenic even!

This only made me feel stupid as i thought the whole deal was about delaying it If you got to choose then why would ever the YA guy be the one to take it when it would only wear out his armor?

Lol, dont delay first pent. I did that with first pent in a mix and all the div0s started epic flaming!

I guess its just best to take pent as fast as possible, go get mega & gl so you can defend 2nd rl from quadnmy and other nmys.

As ddk said: Without telefrags etc the YA guy _always_ gets to pent first (under the circumstances that you know how to move). Either bps fucked up his moves or he got telefragged and then second spawn at ya making him a bit late, and thats why lift guy got first to pent.

The way I see it, it really doesn't matter if the lift dude or the YA dude takes pent. Grab mega, get next YA @ 00:20, then rl. If two teammates spawn YA and lift, its probably better the YA guy goes lift -> sng (since he most likely will have jumped out from window anyway), then he is pretty stacked with 150/200 sng and should be able to take out any nmy rl/lg before he gets RA.

Aww.. Yesterday some poor QLive players said that QW scene should be much nicer towards rookies entering mixed games. How on earth you should know you're not suppose to take pent if you're the first one there.

Hooraytio: Yeah, you're not playing by the rules! You're not suppose take RL's either or div0s will ragequit

Bps faking btw?

I dotn think it really matter who takes it. It would be a disadvantage for all div0 tams to try the same tactics all the time.

I think it can be cool to do slightly different things to throw off the team. If they dont know who has the YA or RL for example it can give you a little extra time to possibly escape with it for example.

So this is it now? Front page news insulting other players from some mix game? I'm sure it's "fun" and everything to laugh behind people's back about their QW-performance, but making something like this a public news on the front page of this site is a bit too much.

It is not so much an insult against Flash as a comic relief about something that happens all the time in 4on4.

However, bps could just as well have left out who it was. It wouldnt ruin the fun. I hope Flash doesnt feel offended but rather can see the fun in the situation.

Oh but it is, what else could "wp flash" mean at the end of the strip?

The strip is what it is, but this (insulting other players) is not "quality news" that should be posted on the front page of the qw.nu.

This shouldnt be here I guess. You can put it in some thread on forum for humouristic reasons (no offence included).
As for the dm3 start: if you spawn YA and see a teammate on the lift (only then) its not wise to drop for penta: your armor will surely wear out and won't bring much since you would have penta. So go for Q instead and try to ambush the first RL at YA or first Lg (it should be easy with YA and Q)

I don´t know, I see it more as a humoristic contribution that I hope could inspire him to create more of the same stuff or even other people. why-so-serious?

The community is largely based on user-created content, and something like this is missing in the scene imo.

I agree the ACTUAL situation wasn't the best one to choose, there are loads of other more funny situations you could pick, but maybe in the future we could see some of that?

And I think it's just nice that it created little debate, ppl defending flash's play with sound arguments should only make him feel good and embaress bps slightly, in any case it was a funny strip and we would like to see more, right?

We can all, and do all make mistakes in mix games from time to time, it's nothing personal

I like the comic but couldn't it be somehow in the sidebar or somewhere similar and not in the news? This could be a weekly comic imo aswell if the creator just has intrest to keep it coming

BPS can do some about me if he likes, its funny!

Yeah me too, take my quad-bore in the start of dm2, Slackers vs tVS for instance. Feel free, it's definitly enjoyable

Maybe I should've went for quad instead yes. That is, turning around exactly when I see teammate in lift. But the window of time to react is quite small, so I chose pent. Not a bad call anyhow.

Now, to the point of the strip. Why did Flash actually follow through towards pent? His time window for correcting his course is way larger. He could correct it towards water to do some good there. Or turn around while in lifts, as Para mentioned in his first comment. I would have turned lifts. All options are fine, except the one to actively compete with a teammate. Nice team spirit.

PEKTOPAHKY: "How on earth you should know you're not suppose to take pent if you're the first one there." - Having played a few mixes in your life (read, 1.000.000 as Flash prolly has) you should know there's no rush for pent when it's only you and a mate at the spot. And yes, I'm faking, hence the "bps" in the fakenick

I'm gladly surprised people like the strip so much, thanks. It was intended and made for Flash to print and hang over his monitor, not to become news stuff on qwnu. Over and out.

bps, du luktar fis.

The lift guy should of course leave the pent to the mate and go to sng for example. _Since_ he was already down though, it's actually better that he takes the pent, ya and rl, and the ya guy grabs lg ending up with ya+rl and ya+lg in own team.

The ya guy can even grab the mega before the lg which would set him up with 150/200/lg for the next quad.

blaze: it takes ~12 seconds for ya-guy to pick up mega and the get lg. Most likely some other spawn will snatch lg before him.

I'm talking about the 2nd lg, 2nd ya, and 2nd rl.

mix is mix, eql is eql two different worlds

eql = 4on4... mix = 4on4... therefore eql = mix!

Edited by ParadokS on 17 Aug 11 @ 00:30CET

Q.E.D.

I'm a complete newb in 4on4. But I got that right: if I spawn lift, I don't take penta! Can't really figure it out why although reading all comments. But I won't take it!

You always go back+left and if you see an enemy coming from window you damn right try to take penta! Shooting him with sg midair might put him off a bit so you can take it. Managed to do that several times.

yeah, if it's an ENEMY

#31 was directed at #30, not at the comic.

I always try to steal penta from teammate when spawning lifts.

comment.30 is probably the main reason why this is not news item worthy. notice how majority offering an opinion are div1 players, and not necessarily a consensus on the matter is present. i think this may discourage players who are below the div2 standard, and the goal should never be to alienate anyone from mixes.

so for any of the newer players seeing this post, if you spawn lifts and are doing back and left as you should be, take the pent if you can. if your teammate is late then that is his own fault or the fault of a telefrag.

to any div1 players that disagree, i'm going to remind you that the difference in the edge you gain for letting a teammate with YA take it is small enough (and still debatable) that it doesn't matter, especially in mix.

one of the most fucked up things in this community is the rampant elitism, the people who don't share items with netspider or any of the other perceived lower level players in mix should fuck off. i'm looking at you kingpin - not to single you out but i've been present when you've done it more than others. there is absolutely no justification at all for making someone elses playing experience worse because you are being selfish. but if you are happy with being a cunt to others then I guess noone can stop that.

normally i'm not outspoken about this sort of stuff as I tend to not get involved. but the community seems to want new players, and this goes against that.

sure this is funny, and i whine to my friends momentarily when i'm mixing on mumble and whatnot, but if i truly have a problem with what someone did, i approach them and talk to them about it. noone deserves to be publically called out for something and put in a bad light just because bps deemed it. there are things i see in mixes everytime i mix which are like 10x worse.

if you have a problem with my serious face, then fine, but this is not front page -news- material.

Hmm, personally I think the standard in mix'es have dropped DRAMATICALLY. It's completely flooded with div4+ players and first timers - in relation to the old days where it was mostly good players.

So I think there is no danger that new/bad players will stop playing mix cause of that strip, quite the contrary.. might scare even more div1 players away in fear of the low quality games in mix today.

Also I think the whine is actually not very high in those games. It's kept to a minimum. People are more aware of trying to make decent teams during prewar to avoid rape games, and before the game starts people accept that this is a div4+ - div0 spread of players and should expect a game accordingly.

But my main goal with the strip was to make people laugh, and hopefully get more content made of this character. With the feedback in this comment thread there should be plenty of guidelines to make a strip like this even better

Edited by ParadokS on 19 Aug 11 @ 05:09CET

How about the other scenario, Flash decides not to drop down and take the pent, his YA teammate fucks it up, and the enemy spawner waddles across over to pick it up instead. It happens in a mix so you can't apply normal div1 4v4 logic. Maybe bps did not even spam his status, so it could be a rookie teammate at the window who doesn't know what to do when he gets pent. Mixes often require that you do not taking the risk of assuming your teammates know exactly what to do, and sometimes in a split second decision you must trust in the person you know you can rely on and snatch the most important item in the game in order to avoid a huge fuck up that gives enemy the lock.

Hehe James. In this scenario flash is the newbie. He knows he is probably worst player on server so that logic does not apply. Secondly, sure you can drop down to top lifts and see whats going on at pent, but when you see the teammate at window you can safely turn around and sweep sng area instead. It's much better use of team resources.

Otherwise your arguments are sound - especially in a 4on4 scenario. But I must commend a lot of the players during mix games, who actually step back from certain items if a known "good" player is near him. They know it's probably better if div0 player takes the rl if they wanna regain some map control. But that can sometimes backfire as well.

It's often I see players afraid to do the right thing, just because a teammate is close by. Example, stacked newbie mate at quad area moves AWAY from the quad just because said div0 boomstick mates enters the area.

Or another typical scenario, waiting at rl box with 0/40 sg and teammate spawns rl and immediately jumps to water just because he see's a mate already waiting.

And just because it's mix doesn't mean it's no longer 4on4.. Put them in an actual clan game with steady mates and I think they would mostly be doing the same mistakes.
So that excuse that "it's just a mix game" doesn't really apply anymore in my book, especially since mix is ALL that people are playing. It's not like they are playing any clan games outside - which is a huge shame btw!

You can also let the less skilled player take the quad even if you have about the same status just to let him try it and see how it goes. You wouldnt be div0 players if you never practiced running the quad. Sure he can go bore or run to the wrong place but who cares, its not like all you elite players didnt bore or went hunting the wrong enenmy from time to time. If you have some armor and rl you can always secure the ra side in the meantime (assuming its dm3, which it always is). You will still get the majority of powerups and weapons because you are more experienced and know what to do and then. I remember myself getting a temporary ban from telenordia (back around 2000 or so i think) since i took high rl on dm2 when oddjob wanted it way to go!

yeah I do that if we got the lead and in control, then i let them take quad/pent whatever

But that's what I'm saying.. they often don't do the right thing.. like taking the weapon when they are stacked, or focus on the powerups when stacked, just because a better mate is around, and then it ends up with enemy getting it. But it's a shame no more teams are playing.. There are easily enough mix players around to make the first 5 active teams. Why are no clans playing anymore? Where are all the div2-3 pracs?

I think summer idling hit the scene extremely hard this year for some reason. And even if you have a somewhat active mix scene it is hard to actually form teams out of those players and get pracs on a regular basis. Then you need 4 guys from the same team to find 4 other guys from another team online at the same time and willing to play and that is much harder than getting 8-12 ppl to show up for a mix. Yeah the specs + some on qtv are often waiting to get in.

Last season we (csn) had like 8 active players and it was still hard to get pracs since either we didnt have 4 online at the same time or, more commonly, no other team had 4 players.

According to stats.quakeworld.nu, most of the weeks this summer has been more active than summer 2010. And the last three weeks (30-32) has been even more active than summer 2009.

http://stats.quakeworld.nu/index.php?a=generalstats&sort=year&sortOrder=desc&order=&page=1&sort=week&sortOrder=desc

Do you guys like to speculate about degrading activity? Reminds me abit like doomsday prophets. Summer isn't even over yet. No teams has been active the last summers, this one isn't bader as any earlier latter summer.

Although I agree with DDK about elitism, I often take myself in doing the exact same thing. Thinking "Ok I got 10 health left, but I still bet my chances to survive with this RL is much higher than that noob with 100 health. Lets take it". It's a shitty attitude, but after some years of mixing and improving, that kinda what most people turn into. Mix games seems to have developed an unique atmosphere, where being lame, whining, yelling at others, ragequiting is more accepted and almost expected from many players. Heck, I even gotta admit I find some entertainment in it . But sure, maybe it would scare away sensitive new comers, which would be a bad thing.

I'll try to become a better person when mixing :-o

Well, the death of the game is very slow, but unavoidable. If you look at the number of teams in EQL, the trend is clear. I bet the next season will be new record low.

EQL-Teams
S03-67
S04-64
S05-52
S06-50
S08-43
S09-38
S10-39
S11-36
S12-39
S13-36

Well there just don't seem to be a culture of clans/teams anymore like there used to be. People clanhop like crazy and teams have no identity and just fall apart so fast.

No teams have homepages anymore it's just "lets make random irc channel with some random dudes we found on forum". Of course people don't feel any loyalty to that. Maybe it has always been like that? Half the fun of QW is the history and interaction players/teams between in my oppinion. And the fun of that has diminished with the mix.team creation attitude, quick dissolve and lack of identity.

Hmm not really that big changes between S09-S13, not too bad

And why would you need a homepage? Or well.. I have to admit that Chosen's homepage is pretty awesome. I probably wouldn't have joined the clan otherwise

Oh come on Hagge! You just threw yourself at us!

maybe my graduation was the lowest but not my quakelevel