Quake Live Opens Up!

Being railgunned from the other side of the map by some idiot who spent half of his life playing to get that level of skill is exactly what kept, and will keep me, away from Quake 3. You may call it pro-gaming all you like, but to me it's a bunch of twats trying to kill one another in mid-air with a rocket launcher while also trying to land on terra firma. Skill-based gaming is a thing of the past, and should be kept like that. We've evolved and now our pings are low enough to allow teamwork when we play multiplayer FPSs.

 

Very true but there is something to be said for the amount of skill required in these games. I grew up with "twitch" gaming and it's something i love to delve into once and while for a quick 15 minute game.
There is a powerful trade off between skill play, team play and user experience.

 

if you say that teamplay is not a part of a 4v4 q3 match you sir are an idiot

 

Firstly, allow me to express my I disapproval of your use of the word 'twat', Helion. It's very inappropriate.

I will contend that skill-based gaming is not a thing of the past. Why would it be? The continued popularity of Starcraft is simple proof that skill is still very much a popular aspect of online gaming.

There might not be an FPS out there now that reaches the heights of Quake 3 or Tribes-esque skill but that doesn't mean that the 'genre' (if you can call it that) is dead or dying. It is merely dormant. Cyberathletes are simply waiting for the next big game that'll blow crap like Halo 3 right out of the water.

 

I'm sorry if you found my language inappropriate, but I could find no words to better describe the characters I talked about. Also, gaming should become less skill and more teamwork based.
This would mean a huge blow to the pro community, who would have to start, you know, acting like people, but it would all be for the better.

 

I couldn't disagree more, Helion.

What examples would you give of games that require little to no skill, but a lot of teamwork?  And why would it be 'for the better' in the respect of 'acting like people'?

 

Team Fortress 2.
Also, I have had the dubious honor of knowing official international league players for my nation. Never met worse asshats than that. Also, think about the fame Fatal1ty and the like have.

 

TF2 requires skill to play competently, as well as teamwork.

I think what you're really getting at is the need to limit the effectiveness any single player can have upon a team match, which isn't the same as saying a game shouldn't require skill, which involves limiting the potential use certain weapons have.

 

I think we define the term "skill" too rigidly. Co-op shooters require really different skill-sets, as do RPGs, etc. Each genre asks us to re-tune and refine our awareness and focus, and I think that's great. Sure the Pro-Gamer mentality can be exhausting, but not all skilled gamers are jerk-wads.

 

Indeed. But twitch gaming only rewards unnaturally high levels of reflexes and a very high commitment of time. And that, to me, should be left behind.

Anyway, I think a forum would be a more appropriate place to discuss these things. Also, I should learn to keep my mouth shut if so much can come out of my criticisms. I apologise.

 

No, this is the right place to discuss it. What is a blog if not a forum for discussing these issues?

 

I don't quite understand the complaint hellion. Would the fact that a chess grandmaster would thrash you twenty ways to wednesday if you played him put you off chess?

 

I think the point he was trying to make that Q3A basically had one type of endgame; the railgun. Most Q3A servers that are up now are custom servers that start you off with a railgun with 999 ammo and it's the only weapon you can use on the map. And it's really not difficult at all. If you have the reflexes you can get used to jumping mid-air and fragging people with the railgun. Essentially it just renders all weapons useless; why even bother with power ups and other weapons if the railgun is the end-all weapon that everyone is going to be using?

Another case-and-point for this sort of mentality is Halo 1. As long as you had the pistol then you were good to go, hands down. It was a rocket launcher, a sniper rifle, and an automatic all in one. Whereas in a regular map of Q3A the railgun has one spawn and limited ammo, in Halo 1 you started off with the pistol, so there was really no need to get a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher if you were playing in a small map without vehicles. Again, what is the point of designing the rest of the game if there is one weapon that renders all others useless?

FEAR is perhaps the best FPS I have come across that has great weapon balance. All weapons in the game have different purposes they can be used for and work well for balance. Oh, and did I mention FEAR multiplayer is also free?

 

F.E.A.R. Multiplayer probably had great balance, but the gameplay in itself, the lack of people playing and the maps (oh, God, the maps) made sure few people found out. There was a good reason it was made free.

 

FEAR? Are you kidding? You know, you're a funny guy Ag. You rag on TF2 and other Valve games bad and then you hold FEAR up as a champion of game balance.

FEAR might be free, but nobody plays it. There's a reason for that and it isn't the server browser or anything like that.

The maps are too small, the weapons are all insta-kill and there's absolutely no depth to the gameplay. Bullet time grenade explosions get old after awhile.

 

Yeah, it is a four-year-old game, Sol. There was plenty of people playing it back when it came out and I got my fair share of a year of experience playing with it and I'm satisfied with that; sorry you aren't. And yeah, everything is, ah, how did you put it? "Instant kill"? Yeah, apparently a couple of bullets would kill you in real life, where team work and cover are things that should factor into an FPS (as they do in FEAR), as opposed to rag-tag FPS games where you can walk over mines and grenades and brush your shoulders off in stride. Sorry you can't find any depth to a game that asks you to think; apparently that's a little too complicated for people nowadays.

 

There were not that many people playing the multiplayer game that was included with the original release of FEAR, so they released the multiplayer version for free on FilePlanet and even then, not that many people played it. I counted less than 10 Australian/Singaporean servers at the time it was released and most of us who bothered to try it went back to playing Battlefield 2 and Day of Defeat.

Now those were real teamwork and cover-intensive games.

The problem with FEAR was the fact that the maps were too small, too poorly designed and the pace was too hectic for any semblance of teamwork to actually happen. Unlike Day of Defeat, which had large maps, objective/control points and spawning areas, FEAR's team mode was little more than a Deathmatch map with 2 teams on it.

I don't think I have to tell you that you died in 1-2 shots in Day of Defeat, too. The German Kar98k rifle was an instant kill and players used sandbags, trenches and walls for cover. The same can also be said of Battlefield 2.

Honestly, I can't think of many multiplayer FPS with mines or grenades in it that didn't make them instant kills.

Have you played Call of Duty 4? Now there's a good game that requires teamwork, especially in "Hardcore" mode. It's what FEAR's multiplayer should have been like. Instead, what we got were these poorly designed, dull monochrome office maps with very few identifying features and gameplay that appealed to 12 year olds hopped up on sugar and coffee.

I really don't see how FEAR is a game that asks me to think. If anything, it felt like a jump-less Quake with bullet time and better graphics.

 

That's how you measure its success? Because there was ten or so OVERSEAS servers? Sorry, over here in America I can clearly remember over 100 servers with 16 players in them. I'm really sick and tired of people that live in places that don't even have T1 connections complain about how their market to video games isn't as wide spread as America's or Europe's because they don't have the population to make that difference yet. Again, sorry you had such a ****ty experience.

And tell me, what would be the point of having big and large open maps? The game wasn't designed for that sort of combat in an environment like that; that's why the maps are "small" (I guess any FPS that doesn't have 50 vehicles and a 15 sq mi radius on a map is just too damn small to play on). And why were they "poorly designed"? Because you say so? You're reaching, Sol. The spawn locations were set for good locations; no opposing team would be able to get the "big" weapons without both of them reaching two different ones at the same time.

And apparently you seemed to miss the CTF game play mode as well. Short of "this game is too fast for me," you're really losing credibility here. Apparently you like Q3A and TF2 but, oh no, FEAR is too fast for you. *rolls eyes*

 

Allow me to respond.

It's no secret that the popularity of an online FPS can be directly proportional to the number of servers dedicated to it. For the 10 servers of FEAR in Australasia, there were at least 100 for Day of Defeat, and 3 times more for CounterStrike. Likewise, for the 100 servers of FEAR in the United States, there were at least a thousand for DOD and more for CounterStrike.

It wasn't a popular online game by any means.

There was no shortage of players in the few servers I participated in, because there were too few servers for there to dilute the game's population in the region. Not having people to play with was not a problem I had with the game.

The point isn't to have "large and open maps" but to have decently sized maps proportional to the scope of the game and the number of participants within it. Call of Duty 4, CounterStrike and Day of Defeat are all fantastic examples of proportionately-sized maps that comfortably accommodate the server's population.

The maps in FEAR were poorly designed because they were simply too generic; bereft of identifying markers that would help a player navigate.

Monochrome and boring, the game felt completely bereft of life. At least Quake 2 and Quake 3 had colored powerups. Playing a game that's gray and black all over can become dull after 15 minutes.

 

FEAR is such a bland game. It's brown brown and more brown. The same corridors and rooms over and over. The same battles over and over. And the same map fillers over
and over (hammer, buckets, blood).

It was bad, and really hard to push yourself to finish. I was bored by the the halfway mark! Like "God, I've seen this all before, when is it going to end?"

The only thing that saved it was the reasonable AI. I never even used the bullet time. Way to easy otherwise.

How anyone can even compare it to Valve titles I don't know. It's not even in the same league. A "play once and forget" game. It's certainly no where near as colourful, fun and social compared to Quake 3 either (watch the Mercurial video, people!). Personally I didn't evne know people bothered playing FEAR online :/

 

FEAR is brown, brown and more brown? So it's like Far Cry 2 after all :P. And that comparison certainly doesn't make it better.

 

Yeah, apparently dark horror-themed games try to set a setting, rather than make the colors to it rival that of Mario Sunshine. How wrong of them to do such a thing and have shadows and darkness play a role in a game. If you don't like horror shooters then why were you even playing one, Project?

Ah, wait, never mind. L4D gets to pass off as having more colors than brown and gray as well because you like that game instead. How convenient for you.

 

I LOVE horror theme games. Don't even ******* go there, that's MY genre. Just cause I don't like the same one you like, doesn't mean I "don't like horror shooters". **** I want to say some to **** you right now... you have no idea how much that pisses me off.

But anyway, lets look at other horrors (all of which i own).

*The Resident Evils; they're great, and have colour in the varying degrees. The fifth one even takes place during daylight for parts! If they pull off pants-crappyingly scary stuff in that, it'll be fantastic.

*Dead Space was awesome; gerat mood AND had some beautiful scenery, like the Bio-dome areas, blue airless areas, sterile white labs etc.

*Doom was awful, but everyone knows that. I still like it cause it scared the living **** out of me in parts. Memories... aaahhh.... but at least I concede that it's a bad game.

*Left 4 Dead actually does have colour, and some very nice scenes of varying tones, despite what you think. You're probably just saying it doesn't in an attempt to piss people off again. As usual. That gets old you know.

*Bioshock is VERY colourful in parts, and very varied. I'll never forget fighting those splicers to classic music.

*Condemned is the same engine as FEAR, so that goes without saying. It was a cleverer game then FEAR though, and 100x more scary/memorable. That stopped it from being bland. The crime scenes alone were freaky, and nothing even happened around them!

*The Silent Hills, though dark, still have a lot of colour in places, and it's used cleverly to enhance the mood. it's a slower paced game though, so they can use ambient sounds and detailed environments to much better effect.

And Fear....? It was dark and bland for the entire game. I admit for the first few levels it's great and the mood is awesome. But that very quickly gets tiring. Even Alma stops being surprising when you figure out she never attacks you. It's a battle to finish it. I'm all for setting the mood, but games need VARIATION. Not the same thing over and over, and certainly not for as long as FEAR goes for.

Worse though, it spawned 2 crappy expansions that were even more bland then the original. I don't know about the sequel yet, but it looks more of the same. That said, I'll still give it a go, cause I'm hoping it'll be good. Hoping.

Now stop taking everything so personal. Did you see anything in my previous post attacking you? Any reference to you at all? No. Yet you go and get unnessacarily personal in your response.

You ***** and complain about all the games we love, call us stupid for not "seeing" them in the same light as you, then chuck the worlds biggest hissy fits when we pick on yours! Grow up man. If you stopped venting your opinion on things (like Portal) every single time they come up, this type of stuff wouldn't happen. We all know you don't like it. And most of us don't care.

Would it kill you just to admit that your point of view isn't the end-all every once in awhile?

 

You talk about color in games where the color palette is gray and variation in games where the variety in most of them is where the enemies will pop out at you this time around and then pan down FEAR because it's on par with other horror shooters in the genre; that is why I'm, ah, how did you put it? "Hissy fitting"? Because the only one actually arguing for the sake of argument is you here. FEAR is a gem in the horror shooter genre and here you are having the balls to say garbage like Dead Space, Condemned, and Doom 3 is better. Then again, coming from someone who enjoyed Max Payne 2, then it's not so surprising.

And while you are up on your high horse you may try taking a dose of your own medicine. I'm not the one who keeps bringing up your name in every blog post where I post my opinion, saying, "Oh don't mind him, he just doesn't like the game." Frankly it's a total dick move. If you can't handle my opinion then try saying nothing at all. I said exactly why I stopped liking Yahtzee; apparently a lot of you couldn't handle that. For ****'s sake, give it up. Yes, I know. A lot of you like mediocore games. You feel the need to defend them even when the argument isn't even presented against the game, and yet if I bring up the discussion point in a blog post about the game, I'm apparently totally wrong for expressing my opinion on the matter.

It's **** like this that has kept me away from Hellforge for awhile. Get the **** over it and stop following my coat tails into every blog post I post on.

 

Yes, you're obviously much too great for this community. Look at your post:

"FEAR is a gem in the horror shooter genre and here you are having the balls to say garbage like Dead Space, Condemned, and Doom 3 is better. Then again, coming from someone who enjoyed Max Payne 2, then it's not so surprising."
"Yes, I know. A lot of you like mediocre games"

Full of attacks on our personal favorites yet again! For not just mine and Sols now, but all the other members of the community who shared our sentiments towards the games you've been putting downs since you got here. Why? There's no good reason at all for you to do that, other then your annoyed at us for not liking your games. Is it impossible for you to say something like "Yes, I know. A lot of you like games I don't?" Minus the "self-elevating sense of grandeur by belittling others" stuff?

We're not saying you're wrong for disliking the games, but you definitely go all out to say you're right about it. And in a community where we DO try to like most games, it's nice to have some opened mindedness and middle ground. This isn't Flagshipped.com anymore.

Stop talking to us like we're know-nothing idiots who wouldn't see a good game if it bit us, and maybe we'll treat YOU with a bit more respect when it comes to our comments. It's a two way street you know. Elitism in a community doesn't always go down well.
Besides, the Francis string of comments was pretty affectionate. Everyone loves Francis!

 

Yep, not popular enough to even produce a sequel. Oh wait...I forget as well though. Success is definitely measured by how well a game sells (or, in your case, if it gets your final seal of approval). And I also can't help you if you couldn't find markers for the map or distinguish one room from the other. That was cute though. "Monochrome and boring"; right after you said it was too fast-paced and lively for you. Is there a rolling eyes smiley?

 

Sol did say it wasn't a popular online game... he even separated that line from the rest of his writing...

Sure, it was a popular single player game, but as Sol said, the server amounts for Multiplayer were much smaller than other comparable games as well as games that were much older than Fear...

So yes, the sequel came out because of the great story and gameplay aspect of the game, not it's multiplayer, and if you think otherwise, you really do seem to be just arguing for the sake of arguing this point... 

 

Titantic is the world's most engrossing movie of all time. Is Titantic the best movie in the world? Clearly not. RuneScape boasts a million subscribers; have you played RuneScape lately? It's total garbage. So obviously the success of something doesn't measure the quality of it. Yeah, FEAR multiplayer didn't catch on. That's not surprising considering there's not much room for multiplayer FPS games, and with a company like Monolith that no one is teeming behind in wet anticipation for their next title, as people are for Valve or Bungie, it's also no surprise why it didn't catch on. That certainly didn't mean the multiplayer aspect of the game wasn't good. I played online for a couple of years and I can honestly say I haven't had that much fun in an FPS shooter online since then.

 

Jesus. Was Quake 3 really released 10 years ago? I feel as old as the hills now.

Damn it.

 

Oh yes, tell me about it...i remember my first Duke Nukem LAN....

 

Damn, I remember playing Duke Nukem 3D on Kali with a horrible ping of 500.

And Diablo. My word, that was an awesome game.

 

That's probably why there's 2 instalments of it and one more is being made.

 

I can't help myself: "**** it, we're doing it live!"

 

Lol, yeah i preferred the name Quake Zero, but then that conjours up images of a prequal that i wouldn't like to see...Quake Live sounds more like championship tournement kind of event.

Oh and I just read up the thread here, Fear was brilliant single player, but multiplayer, meh. Might as well compare it to Far Cry 2's multiplayer as the devs really didn't emphasise the multiplayer element. There is better things available to play online such as COD4, COD2, Quake Live, TF2, CS, UT2004, UT3, Tribes Next, GTAIV (if you can get it working), Rainbow 6 Vegas 2...and so on

There is plenty of games out there where multiplayer has been thrown in. Such as Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Crysis Wars, Doom 3, Quake 4...sometimes they just shouldnt bother but every game seems to need to have some multiplayer element. Imagine if they had put it into Bioshock (hang on, why the hell didn't they!)

 

Man, I wanna play it so bad now. I pumped myself up too much on the video lol
It'd be sweet if we could get a Hellforge group together. I just hope the lag wouldn't be too bad.... i spose in something as fast and twitchy as Quake 3, even minimal lag will make a difference though

 

Hell i'm still waiting on a L4D Hellforge session now i know theres more than just me and Sol playing lol :P

 

HF L4D game this week? I think so!

 

Sounds like a plan!

 

Shazam, i am the master of groups, the command of communion, the zoey to your francis....wait....

 

The counter counted down.... and nothing happened! OMG WTF HAX?!
id Software are the phale! I want my money back!

Seriously though, you'd expect someone at id to actually be sitting there watching the counter, ready to switch things over the second it finishes. Lord knows that all the Quake Cult were watching it like hawks too.

 

They just implemented a queue system, right when I was registering an account. My old account doesn't seem to work, it seems.

I'm at position 11k in line. It's not budging.