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This
article was blatantly ripped from Methosq.com
site. Head on over to his site for future news on related
topics! -
CaliGirl
Written
by Methos
What
Has Happened To The Quake Scene...
Sit back and get a coffee, this will be a long one.
During the past year, a lot has happened in the Quake scene.
When I refer to the Quake scene, I am referring to all Quake.
It seems to me that the Quake scene is still healthy but,
because of public perception, some people think it's dying.
Quite a number of factors are helping cause this perception.
Let's see if we can think of some.
Myth:
CounterStrike has approximately 47,000 on-line servers
and Quake3 only has 1,200.
Fact: CounterStrike has
approximately 26,000 on-line servers and Quake3 has approx.
3,800. CS may indeed be more popular than Q3A but, when you
consider that CS servers contact the CS master by default and
that Q3A only contacts the Gamespy master server *if* the
admin tells it to, these number are much closer than people
may think.
Myth:
The CPL's decision to stop Q3A matches in their USA
tournaments will be the death of Quake.
Fact: Quake1, QW & Q2 all
survived without the big money prizes that the CPL has been
offering for Q3A matches during the past year or so and it
will survive without the CPL in the future. Very few players
outside of the USA care whether or not the CPL is around.
Sure, they would all like to be in the position of Hakeem,
Blue, Lakerman and other CPL winners but, most of them just
want to play the game they love. This would also be a good
time for the PGL or another start-up league to pickup the ball
that the CPL has dropped and run with it. While I don't agree
or disagree with the CPL's business decision to stop Q3A
matches, the CPL was started with Quake and I feel this
decision will come back to haunt them.
Myth:
There are better games out there than Quake 3 Arena
Fact: It's
easy for N'sync to sing other people's songs. When you have to
write them yourself, it's a different story. Half-Life and
it's mod CS, Tribes2, UT and others owe their existence to ID
Software. When I hear a player say that they like UT's weapons
better than Quake's, I want to strangle them. Bottom line, if
it wasn't for Quake, these other games wouldn't be around in
the form they are today. Most of these other games are just
the Milli Vanilli's of the gaming world. Nuff said.
Now, never let
it be said that Methos is putting down other games. There are
lots of great games out there and many that I enjoy playing
besides Q3A these days. For the record, CS is NOT one of them.
So, I decided to enlist the help of a few well know people in
the Quake scene to offer their opinions on the question,
"What Has Happened To The Quake Scene?".
Here are some of
the passionate responses I received:
Xenon:
Long time Swedish quaker and member of XSReality
That's
a tough question. I think the Quake scene is still kicking,
with the only difference being that some tournaments are
switching over to Counter-Strike and teamplay rather than
Quake3 1on1.
Hoony:
Commander and Chief of the Challenge
Network
The
impact of Counter-Strike has been huge on Quake, most
clearly in the shift in US CPL events away from Q3A to CS.
That seems to have knocked the stuffing out of the US Q3A
scene a bit, though I think they were also getting a little
bored with the "same game/ same teams/ same maps"
sort of thing. The US tends to 'move on to the next thing' a
little before everybody else.
In Europe, probably because of (1) all the competitions (eg
Clanbase and Barrysworld, etc), (2) all the countries (and
hence, country teams and international competition - always
a big motivator), and (3) doing so well at Babbages CPL,
winning at Q3A still seems to be a big deal. I think having
the Russians aiming to do so well, with the Germans so
organised and the Scandinavians having their rep to defend -
it keeps the fires burning. Then you've got the UK and
France which are always competitive, and other countries. In
the rest of the world, I see competitive Quake struggling a
bit due to lack of player/team numbers and not having
national pride at stake, or a large enough audience/market
(as in Europe).
Despite all that, the 'hardcore heartland' of the
"Quake" style of play, which I think of as
"high-performance" FPS (as opposed to the newer
style of "realism" FPS), is still alive and well,
and thriving in some respects. Thus we've got plenty of
activity in QuakeWorld, with Smackdown2, Duelmania, Face|Off
and now the CPL 4-Year Anniversary event. We're seeing CTF
enjoy a bit of a revival. We're even seeing a revival of Q2
(so I hear) and Challenge ProMode has been getting a good
workout in the US recently. The great Quake players are
still there, with their awesome talents and skills ready to
go, but what's letting Quake down, IMO, is that nobody has
succeeded in turning this "high-performance" FPS
into a spectator sport.
Not everybody can be a 'great Quake player', and that's why
we're seeing games like CS becoming so popular. But there is
a huge 'potential' audience of gamers out there who I think
would appreciate top quality FPS action, if it were made
accessible to them. Somehow, we've got to get wider exposure
and I'm not sure if that means digital TV, shoutcast / qtv
broadcasts, or what. But Quake has the talent and is the
only truly exciting spectator FPS show in town, and yet at
the moment only a select lucky few get to see the most
amazing games being played each night.
Gobo: Former editorial
writer for Methos Quake
It could be argued that a better
question than "What has happened to the Quake
scene" would be "What has happened to the Quake
players"?
The Counter Strike phenomenon has swept a lot of the
potential newcomers to quake away on a tide of newbie
friendliness and weapons that don't need a quake players
precision to control. In Australia at least, the current
climate is pretty quiet. Quake, never a major factor online
here once QuakeWorld reached a reasonable level of
sophistication has now been usurped by Zoid's incarnation on
LAN for most gamers as well. A few stray pockets may hold
true to the original, but all the best players now play
QuakeWorld online and on LAN. QuakeWorld still is held in
high regard as a teamdm and duel format in Australia, with
some truly excellent talent on display in servers on a
nightly basis, albeit in restricted numbers.
Quake2 has recently undergone somewhat of a renaissance,
initially mainly towards Q2CTF, but now also a lot of
interest is being sparked in TeamDM. It's a fair comment to
say that the reason for the enduring popularity of teamdm in
both QuakeWorld and Quake2 is that Quake 3: Arena's stock
standard teamdm is too oriented towards newbies. Many
experienced players seem to have become disheartened at the
perceived flaws in Q3's teamdm model, and have returned to
their Q2 or QW roots. Which is a nice way of bringing us to
what is happening with Q3A. Q3A 1on1 is attracting declining
interest, partially attributable to the CPLs withdrawal of
interest in the game as a pro gaming platform, partially
because the maps don't offer the same kind of spark as their
predecessors. Much like the rest of the globe, Rocket Arena
3 has grown to probably attract more players than any other
single mod for Q3, given it's newbie friendly nature and the
minimal requirement for strategy. At present the Q3 teamdm
scene is in a lull. All conquering Q3 teamdm clan FXR
recently split up and is presently in the process of
reforming with a revised roster. CTF seems to have taken
over from teamdm as the team game of choice for Q3 players,
barring Clan Arena.
There is still a sense of vague optimism amongst quakers who
find Counter Strike's gameplay impossible to stomach; the
hope that maybe something will crop up around the corner.
After the disappointment that was Tribes 2, all eyes are
looking towards Doom3 as a possible saviour for fans of fast
paced fps play. Time will tell.
CHTV|DK:
Old Skull Quake Guru and now with Challenge-TV
Quake
is huge! Of course, people seem to quit everyday for other
games such as CounterStrike. But Quake has been around for
years and I think it will be around for many more. I
envision QuakeWorld being played until 2010 or so, people
still play netquake for gods sake!
I can't count the number of tournaments that are being
created. The CPL has made Quake big and they did that with
money, and Quake would have no international audience
without it. But on the downside, Quake is now too
competitive because most people want to be a "Pro"
so it's just not fun anymore, maybe it's just me.
cK-Czm:
Long Time Quaker
In
the US: Q1/QW/Q2 still have small, dedicated communities. Q3
is in what I hope will be considered to have been a lull.
It's still played a lot at the semi-competitive level - one
has no trouble finding TDM pickups, CTF pickups, or 1v1's.
What's changed is that scrimmages, which were frequent a
year ago, are extremely rare today.
Much of this can be attributed to the CPL's decision to drop
Q3 (technically they haven't completely dropped it, but
let's be realistic - tournaments that are thousands of miles
away with prizes that barely cover airfare are insignificant
for most US players). We've been spoiled by always having a
large 1v1/tdm tournament on the horizon to keep us motivated
- without that motivation, our interest has greatly
diminished.
In Europe (and probably elsewhere): QW/Q3 have intensified.
They still have tournaments within reasonable travel
distances, many of them are sponsored, and they have a
large, active community. The frequency of major tournaments
over there provides constant motivation for the teams and
players, and for that reason their interest has, if
anything, increased.
Cali
Girl: Ran
caligirl.net and now works for Gamespy
From
an observer's view of many gamers I deal with on a daily
basis, I have seen many of them desire a change of scenery
or gameplay. Many gamers to this day love Counter-Strike
among any other action game. Why would they like a game that
was set out to be just a modification of Half-Life? I have
asked them and most of them just like the realism in the
game, like setting off a bomb. Others say they like the
strategic way of having to buy their own weapons. I played
the game for a while but it was in the early versions. I
couldn't handle the time I spent learning how to buy items.
Then there are the people who ended up getting hooked on the
Team Arena mission pack for Quake III Arena. Most of them
said it was the new maps, weapons and game modes for the
original game that caught their interest.
From another point of view, I have really close friends that
are gamers I have known for years. I see a pattern that most
of them have weaved. When they were Quake 1 addicts, they
wouldn't filter to Quake II when everyone else did. Instead
they enjoyed Rainbow Six for the uniqueness and real
environments. Once they were tired of Rainbow Six they
played Quake II Rocket Arena 2 for a while. It was more so a
pacifier for them to wait to see how Quake III Arena and
Unreal Tournament turned out.
Many of them did what I did when Q3 and UT hit the store
shelves. They played both games for almost a month to find
out which one they desired to play the most. I had a problem
with it all because half of my friends played Unreal
Tournament and the other half played Quake III Arena.
Keeping up with both groups and playing matches wasn't an
easy task for those first few weeks. I ended up getting so
frustrated, I forced myself to choose one till the end. My
configurations in both games were not at all alike so it was
hard for my fingers and brain to connect when I'd switch
games each day. hee ;) So I finally chose Quake III Arena
and have only played Unreal Tournament once since then.
About 50% of my gamer friends play Counter Strike right now,
25 % play Everquest, and the other 25% quit games all
together from real life getting in the way. I personally
don't have too much time to play the games like I used to
but I do get in a game of Rocket Arena 3 or Team Arena every
now and then. It's mainly when Pappy-R, Hellchick and
PharCyde from Gamespy tell me I better play or they'll do
something to my lunch that week. (j/k!)
a|Wiseguy:
Member of Clan abuse and Voice for the CPL Q3
Shoutcasts
Quake3
(Q3) was a bit different in its downward trend then either
Quake1 or Quake2.
Q1 had its downturn with the advent of Q2. In those days of
yore when your only real choice for online competition was
Q1, having an alternative was bound to have an effect. Q2
was different enough that a player that could not excel at
Q1 could do very well at Q2. Hence for the most part the Q1
and Q2 scenes were "different but equal". Q2 had
its downturn in much the same way as Q1 did....with ID
releasing a new version...Q3. Many players left Q1/Q2 to
join into the "unification theory" that was
supposed to be Q3...and for awhile it was. However, there
were problems in paradise and the downward trend of Q3 was
spotted almost immediately. So what went wrong?
For some the issue was gameplay. Either it wasn't Q1 speed
or it wasn't Q2 tactics. Whichever side one falls on is
irrelevant because the end result was that it just wasn't as
"fun". This directly led to the challenge promode
(CPM) (www.promode.org) mod which was a great idea but, a
textbook of what not to do in marketing. Players also left
to go back to Q1/Q2. The CPL (www.thecpl.com) also played a
role as it became much more involved with Q3 then it ever
did with Q1/Q2. Now that may sound odd, but the first 4 CPL
events followed the community more then the community
followed it. With Q1 everyone played the maps dm6, dm2 and
dm4 with certain settings to define competition so, that is
what the CPL followed. With Q2 the CPL began to exert a bit
more pressure in things like map selection (match1). Now
with Q3 the influence was over everything from settings to
map selection. The CPL became the standard very early on,
and this prevented the community from evolving Q3 into
something it wanted. This inflexibility made it very
difficult for third parties to try to influence the movers
and shakers of the Q3 community because it wasn't the
"CPL standard". As the Counter Strike community is
slowly finding out, the CPL is a good thing, but it comes at
a price. Overall I would say the gameplay, and its inability
to change was directly responsible for about 25% of the
downward trend.
The second issue was that there were simply more choices to
go around for online play. We had Tribes, we had RTS games,
we had Everquest and Subspace. Each choice catered to a
select subset of what used to be the sole stomping ground of
Q1/Q2. Then we had a little game called Half-life which
spawned a monster the likes of which the online world had
never seen before...and that was CounterStrike. Each choice
may not have done everything better then Q3, but they
generally did one thing better and that was good enough to
garner players. With more games wanting a piece of the
online pie, Q3's slice just got smaller. Attribute choices
to about 35% of the downward trend.
The last piece of the puzzle is the most controversial
because it lies in the technical flaws of Q3. Yes, it is
ironic that the pinnacle of engine development is brought
down by technical faults. That technical fault? One word:
PING. Lets go through a brief history on how ping affected
the other quakes. Q1 was at the very dawn of high speed
connections, so unless one was at a college or work the
modem was the only way to go. Out of the box Q1 was actually
quite playable (with some server side adjustments) with a
200-250 ping, but it wasn't perfect and that led to the
development of quakeworld. Quakeworld did things that no one
thought possible and made it where a modem player could
compete head to head with a low ping player. One must
remember that back in those days to have anything below 150
ping was considered low ping, and most LPBs actually played
with 100 ping (ISDN). Many clans had separate high and low
ping divisions with separate tournaments to match, everyone
had fun. With Q2 the high ping fun continued, it blurred the
lines so much that we in abuse would put our modem players
(lord vader, method) into our big matches where they would
do very well. Some of my best memories of Q2 was abuse
jumping on EU servers with a steady 200 ping to play against
EU teams. We lost some games, but we won some too and the
lesson was learned that one didn't have to be LPB to be
good.
Now enter Q3. Modem players? What are those? To
realistically compete requires a 70 ping or lower, so lets
not even explore what 200 ping Q3 is like...its brutally
nasty. The result of this "ping intolerance" was
that Q3 players now suddenly had far fewer people to play
against then they ever did in Q1 or Q2. The variety in
players was gone almost overnight. We tried to play east
coast teams when we had 100 ping a few times, but the
matches were not even close and the frustration factor was
very high. Q3 is a different game on lan, versus at 50 ping
versus at 100 ping. So different in fact that one could
nearly not even compete outside of their ping class which
really accelerated the splintering of the community. Since
Europe, with its closer knit countries, can play the game
without the albatross of ping hanging on their necks, Q3
will enjoy a much longer life there. I wish them well. The
ping problem with all its effects on gameplay and players
was directly responsible for 40% of where we are today in
Q3.
Having gone thru the decline of doom, doom2, duke3d, quake1
and quake2, quake3 is unique in that it is the only game to
be in its twilight years without any clear replacement. Many
have gone on to play CS or Tribes2, while free of the CPL we
are seeing more involvement with CPM and a more willingness
from ID to adopt some gameplay changes. Looking back I see
Q3 as a Greek tragedy, something great that was ultimately
brought down by its own flaws.
Athena:
Runs Quakenation
and Admin for Barrysworld DM League
It's
hard to explain to someone who's been away for almost a
year. There's been changes yes, some good, some not so good.
One of the main issues for myself is this whole pro gaming
issue. I mean does it really exists? Whether it does or not,
some players hope to seek fame and fortune from playing
games and will go where money is being offered. Enter
"The CPL".
In recent months The CPL have favored CounterStrike as their
main source of tournaments. Why? Were many gamers playing CS
before The CPL decided to back CS and not Quake? Or is it
because CS is more popular than Quake? It's not *really*
that important.
To sum up - There's more Quake events/Leagues going on than
people give credit for. Just a shame that some people can't
or won't see past the CPL.
There you have
it. Some pretty good opinions from some pretty smart people. I
agree with tidbits from all of these comments and disagree
with some too. While I don't share the complete optimism of
DK's analysis, I also don't believe some of the doom and gloom
of some of the other comments.
The bottom line
is this. The Quake scene will be around for as long as we want
it to be around. As long as there are players, as long as
there is a chance we'll see a new Thresh or Lakerman come
along, as long as we still enjoy it, it will stay as one of
the best places to be in the on-line world. Some of you may
want to go and play other games, that's fine, go ahead and
enjoy yourself. Some of you may think that it will end and
that you should get out soon, that's fine, you can go.
As for me, I'm
going to stay where I am happiest. That is right here in the
Quake world. - Methos
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