Tim Willits calls Quake 3 his biggest failure

[mjrpes]

taken from hardOCP:

Whatchu Talkin’ Bout Willits?
Gamasutra has an interesting article posted today titled "The Path to Creating AAA Games". In it, Tim Willits of id Software is quoted as saying Quake III was his biggest failure. Huh?!?!

“My biggest failure was Quake 3,” Willits said. “The game offered perfect multiplayer for hardcore players. In fact, they're still playing it. But the more casual gamers, and other people who actually have money, found playing next to impossible.”

Imagine if he's correct, and id did research on how to dumb down the game to make it more mass marketable, quake3 would have not been as good

[o'dium]

could of made the game play with 2 colours and a pink teddy bear named Hanz as the main guy and it STILL would of sold. Because its . People want the name not the trainers.

[Foo]

Tim Willits: I'm glad you failed. Q3 is a brilliant game, and for reasons they evidently never envisioned. Just as Q1 was another 'accidental' hit in terms of the multiplayer.

[sys0p]

could of made the game play with 2 colours and a pink teddy bear named Hanz as the main guy and it STILL would of sold. Because its . People want the name not the trainers.

what

When I bought quake 3 I didn't have a clue who id were.

[Foo]

could of made the game play with 2 colours and a pink teddy bear named Hanz as the main guy and it STILL would of sold. Because its . People want the name not the trainers.

what

When I bought quake 3 I didn't have a clue who id were.

Note the person you are talking to.

He knows things. He's in the business.

[Zyte -_-]

wtf q3 is imo the best game out there. still.

[Foo]

Depends on the criteria (oh no he didn't go there!)

Community made up a lot of the 'good' behind Q1, 2, 3. Also tech developments and refinement over time.
What I'm getting at is Q1 was, for its time, 'better' than Q3. Q2 on the other hand got most of its buzz from the community. Q3 was driven partly on its own merits but also quite a lot by community.

...and I've lost myself.

[LeonardoP]

lol. weird statement... even though lots and lots of people REALLY love it, he's saying he cares more about the money. a bit lame imo

[brisk]

This is what happens when you make a multiplayer-only game I spose. First person shooters are generally pretty specialist anyway (most of my friends hate them), and quake in particular is a known competitive gaming brand. They sold it as "the ultimate deathmatch game" and thats pretty much what it is. And to be fair, there was plenty of newbies who played on even ground when it first came out. But its hardly surprising that 6 years later, only the hardcore still play.

[Nightshade]

could of made the game play with 2 colours and a pink teddy bear named Hanz as the main guy and it STILL would of sold. Because its . People want the name not the trainers.

what

When I bought quake 3 I didn't have a clue who id were.

He did because he's a gaming industry insider.

[Pext]

i think blizzard faced quite a similiar problem with starcraft. sc comes pretty much close to be the perfect strategy game - but is is really hard to be good at.

when they made warcraft 3, there were a lot of ideas to make it more newb friendly. they succeeded in making a strategy game, that is playable for everyone - but warcraft 3 has simply not got the same strategic depth, starcraft has. but since micromanagement is the deciding element in warcraft 3, there still is a lot to master.
another thing is the addition of automated matchmaking via battlenet. in theory you should allways encounter opponents of equal strength...

it's an interresting question wether it is possible at all to deliver a competetive multiplayer game, that suits casual players as well as it suits hardcore gamers.

[seremtan]

But the more casual gamers, and other people who actually have money, found playing next to impossible.

Eh? For 'casual gamers' read 'total fucking morons'. You couldn't get any simpler game than Q3. If Willits wants to make games purely for 'casual gamers' he should get himself a gig at Epic. UT2K4 is fun, but with all the alt fire combos and extra key bindings and shit it's more complicated than Q3 for n00bs.

[Pext]

But the more casual gamers, and other people who actually have money, found playing next to impossible.

Eh? For 'casual gamers' read 'total fucking morons'. You couldn't get any simpler game than Q3. If Willits wants to make games purely for 'casual gamers' he should get himself a gig at Epic. UT2K4 is fun, but with all the alt fire combos and extra key bindings and shit it's more complicated than Q3 for n00bs.

why do you think counterstrike owned quake 3 beyond oblivion, when it came to popularity?
it was much easier to play!

simple does not equal easy.

[reefsurfer]

What a fucking lie... who is he fooling?
Q3A is one of the rare games that after 5 years..still is this big on events, tournaments and online... just imagine how many ppl play it and how much money Q3A have brought to the company.


He is a moron.

[[xeno]Julios]

But the more casual gamers, and other people who actually have money, found playing next to impossible.”

By impossible, he means impossible to kill experienced players.

Unlike many other games, quake is a game which can be mastered with scientific precision.

Sort of like pool, or snooker.

[dzjepp]

Same can be said for cs and ut.

Maybe hes whining because q3 isn't as popular as the valve game.

[Canis]

I agree I've found it rather frustrating to not get a single point when playing with really experienced players. I can see how it could be offputting to people.

[dzjepp]

The q3 community is usually nice - there is no cunt talking to be found. But, once you start playing a hardcore 1v1 player, a new player's ego gets crushed so bad they leave to a different game.

[Chupacabra]

Willits is right in some way I think.

For casual fans presentation is SO important. Ive always felt that Q3 had amazing gameplay/balance/levels and stuff but the presentation was pretty terrible. I feel that some people (not all) played some UT and had a much easier time (not just because they could be spam whores but because of presntation).

Anyway, some thoughts about Q3:

(1) I thought the graphics style was pretty crappy, uninteresting and boring. (but I realize that thats just my taste so whatever). Im not a goth person and dont think that satanic symbols are SO COOL. Im not turned off by it, but it does nothing for me.

(2) For a new player, the console is a hard way to take care of business. Things arent documented very well. You have to join a forum or have played the previous quake games to really know whats going on.

(3) In game server/internet play finding and stuff was poorly done. I think you guys all agree with this. It was important to go out and get a 3rd party game finder.

(4) To do simple things like play instagib you had to find a 3rd party mod. Or get orange smoothie or whatever.

(5) The instruction book/documentation was poorly done.

(6) The GUI and menus were poorly done. Too many things were left off of there that were/are important. I mean sure if you want to load up Q3, fuck around for a little while then yes the menus are fine. But if you want to step it up a little bit--maybe adjust some video settings or improve internet play, unless youre in the know (or join a forum such as this one), youre pretty much lost.

There are other things that I can list off, but I think that should suffice for now. For hardcore players who are use to things, yes, Q3 was awesome. For people picking it up, its really quite hard and a LOT of that has to do with terrible presentation.

Dont get me wrong. I think Quake 3 is awesome but I think that id could have done some things better to appeal to certain groups of people. That is not to say that they should sacrifice the "hardcore" gameplay, but just trim around the hedges so to say.

i think blizzard faced quite a similiar problem with starcraft. sc comes pretty much close to be the perfect strategy game - but is is really hard to be good at.

I dont think thats the same problem. Then again I just kind of skimmed what Willits was saying...(and maybe I missed some of his point )

Yes Starcraft was hard to get good at. Yes it was suited to the hardcore player but that didnt stop a ton of people from picking it up and playing it and getting to more advance gameplay techniques. It was a really popular game.

Blizzard, out of all the PC gaming companies, I think has absolutely amazing presentation. Theres so much detail in their work. Just look at the small things. Some random insert in the box contains certain artwork and stuff that you cant find on anything else. They're really quite impressive and do some solid work.

[reefsurfer]

I never leave... only way to become better is to play players that are better than yourself.

[LeonardoP]

@chupacabra: i totally agree! the entire presentation is way off, not really appealing and not user friendly...

but to say this was the worst quake because of the gameplay its just... lame. there are tons of servers where newbies can play.

[Hannibal]

I agree that Q3 shipped with a mediocre GUI and bare-bones variety...plus the console command stuff which seems like sanskrit to newer players. But that's about as far as I'd be willing to go in terms of Q3's newbie un-friendliness. The gameplay itself (weapons, armor, movement,etc) WAS, in fact, tailored with the casual gamer in mind. Carmack admitted as much back in '99.

[4days]

I agree that Q3 shipped with a mediocre GUI and bare-bones variety...plus the console command stuff which seems like sanskrit to newer players. But that's about as far as I'd be willing to go in terms of Q3's newbie un-friendliness. The gameplay itself (weapons, armor, movement,etc) WAS, in fact, tailored with the casual gamer in mind. Carmack admitted as much back in '99.

aye. always thought q3's success was limited by its hardware requirements. when it was first released you needed a beefy machine to play it. granted the tech caught up soon after but not soon enough to really mash the sales out.

[MISS ANNE THROPE]

willits just hates picmip 5

[Duhard]

So should we shoot him and hide his corpse?