Quake3World

I dunno but AFAIK everything that Quake 3 offers out of the box is present in Quake 4.

Stuff like OSP is so much work that they left that to the community. In fact, the community can do it best, because whatever Raven would implement, people will always moan and bitch about "OSP/CPMA can do this and that which Quake 4 can't".

Off the top of my head:
* Mouse Acceleration
* Portals
* Simple Items
* Fine network controls (Snaps, Maxpackets, Packetdup, Timenudge)
* Proper RCON (Chat)
* Alias/Binds/VSTR System

Foo wrote:Off the top of my head:
* Mouse Acceleration
* Portals
* Simple Items
* Fine network controls (Snaps, Maxpackets, Packetdup, Timenudge)
* Proper RCON (Chat)
* Alias/Binds/VSTR System

Mouse accel, granted. i don't use it though so I don't really miss it.

Portals? What's those green things I've been jumping through then? If you mean see-through portals, then I'm not sure why they're such a good thing. They were cute in Quake 3, but them not being in Quake 4 doesn't make Q4 a lesser game IMO. They weren't there in Q1, Q2, UT, UT2k*, EF and HLDM either

Simpleitems are just a "pro" player's overrated way of showing how pro he is.

Network controls, in the current day where broadband is usually a given for the type of market Quake 4 is aimed at these sorts of things aren't as relevant anymore IMO.

Dunno about proper rcon. I have to admit that this is important.

I might be wrong here, but I remember rgoer talking about how there was some prefix people should use when writing their own scripts so they weren't labelled as cheats by Punkbuster. So with that I assume there is a script system.

Eraser wrote:
Mouse accel, granted. i don't use it though so I don't really miss it.

Portals? What's those green things I've been jumping through then? If you mean see-through portals, then I'm not sure why they're such a good thing. They were cute in Quake 3, but them not being in Quake 4 doesn't make Q4 a lesser game IMO. They weren't there in Q1, Q2, UT, UT2k*, EF and HLDM either

Simpleitems are just a "pro" player's overrated way of showing how pro he is.

Network controls, in the current day where broadband is usually a given for the type of market Quake 4 is aimed at these sorts of things aren't as relevant anymore IMO.

Dunno about proper rcon. I have to admit that this is important.

I might be wrong here, but I remember rgoer talking about how there was some prefix people should use when writing their own scripts so they weren't labelled as cheats by Punkbuster. So with that I assume there is a script system.

Dissing the items I listed isn't refuting my point. Neither is listing older games or games in a different series as examples of where they aren't implemented.

On the one you weren't clear on: Scripting is fucked... aside from being just plain messy right now, you can't add a weapon switch to a script because it will only execute on its own.

As for the rest and how you feel they're not 'relevant', sorry but personal opinions is a non-sequiter. They were there, people used them for legitimate reason, and now they're not there... and it's the reason they're not there any more that's so baffling. It's like Ford motors bringing out a new faster sports car, only putting a manual-operation window wiper and cassette player in it.

Okay that's true what you're saying.

What I should be saying instead is that I find that many a Quake 3 player considering to play Quake 4 turn away from the game because they're nit-picking about features like fine-tuning their graphics or network settings to the most minute details.

Why can't all these people simply enjoy the game with full graphics settings and the choice between "33k6, broadband and LAN"?

I find Quake 4 in itself thoroughly enjoyable, and so far haven't really felt limited in what it had to offer me. All things tweakable and scriptable are icing on the cake, but not a neccesity for it to be an enjoyable experience for me.

Sure, this again might be my own personal opinion, but sometimes I do feel that people take this whole tweaking thing too far. I'm not surprised anymore at the race for getting the most ugly config settings ever conceived, but I do find it kind of pointless. Just jump into a game server, get some frags and enjoy it.

Yeah I can agree with that.

There are a lot of aspects to FPS gaming, it's a very complex hobby. So accordingly, there are a lot of different reasons people enjoy it. Hence why many quake players dont dig counterstrike's gameplay, and then within a single game like Quake 3, there are a lot of different motives for playing, and methods by which enjoyment is sought.

I mean at the basic levels, you've got the mappers, modders, regular players, newbies, server admins.

Then if you drill down to players you've got your regular weekend gamers, and the guys who play becuase their friends play, the guys who live in the middle of nowhere and multiplayer is a social thing, and the competitive players. Heck, we even have a few OAP players dotted around.

So I can see there's priorities for one group of players and others have different troubles.

Eraser wrote: Simpleitems are just a "pro" player's overrated way of showing how pro he is.

I'm not in for discussing the whole thing but this point stood out a bit. I found the simple items thing bloody useful in Q3, it's so much easier to distinguish between the weapons displayed as simple items than as renders, even moreso the case in Q4 when I'm forced to run it on low settings with crap textures and everything's the same murky brown colour. It's not important for maps you already know of course but getting round a new map for the first 10 times it proves useful.

@foo:

Very true. I guess my "worry" here is that because of this rather odd nitpicking Quake 4 is left in a dark corner by many people while it in fact is a fantastic game to play.

If that happends, then Q4's demise would be because of utter arrogance of a large number of people who feel that they are important enough to trash a game in such a fashion while it's only the details they can't fully agree with. It probably won't go downhill as fast as that but you never know. I have fully experienced how rusted shut Quake fans can be in "their" ways.

Eraser wrote:@foo:

Very true. I guess my "worry" here is that because of this rather odd nitpicking Quake 4 is left in a dark corner by many people while it in fact is a fantastic game to play.

If that happends, then Q4's demise would be because of utter arrogance of a large number of people who feel that they are important enough to trash a game in such a fashion while it's only the details they can't fully agree with. It probably won't go downhill as fast as that but you never know. I have fully experienced how rusted shut Quake fans can be in "their" ways.

I dunno man. If there's enough of a voice saying 'we're not happy with this game', then surely that's not the players faults, it's the developers for not catering. If it happens with this game and not other games, then I dont think it's the fault of the players, I think it's the fault of the designers for not catering for their fans.

It's been said that Quake enthusiasts whinge a lot, but I think thats no more true with quake than any other FPS community out there. I've spent time (read: 6 months to 1 year or more at a go) in other FPS game communities (UT99, UT2004, CS) and the level of general complaining that goes on there is generally comparable. Infact I would say that pound for pound, there's the same amount of complaining but quake players tend to justify their arguments more thoroughly.

Also, I think your notion that complaining about problems with the game will somehow destroy the community is rubbish, and you're missing the real cause. People complain because they want the game to be solid. Q3 was a VERY high standard, and following that standard is difficult, sure, but entirely possible if enough attention is paid to it. And that I think is the root of the problem, developer response.


Let me give you the clearest example of how it should be done:
With UT2003, Epic produced a fucking slick game, but missed some of the key things about UT99 that made it so cool, and generally rushed the product out just a little too soon.

The result was nasty. The game made the usual successful base sales (like the kind of sales D3 got, probably more), but the fanbase response was dull. People were dissapointed. The scene all but died out over the course of 1 year. Comparably, for every 1 custom level and mutator produced per year from UT2003s launch, there were probably 50 levels produced on UT99's equivalent year. The community dedication and enthusiasm just plain died.

After that, you probably know the great success Epic had with reworking UT2003 into UT2004 and, critically, listening to the voices of dissent, and improving their product based on this feedback.

Anyway, to sum up: Game fans complaining about problems they feel with the game wont destroy the game. It's the developers response to these complaints which determined the outcome.

Yeah but knowing id Software and (to a lesser extent) Raven, they won't do a bloody thing about it

Everytime this sort of thing comes up I just can't stop thinking of the statement carmack or hollenshead made about coop, how the community didn't want it. So out of touch

The fact is, Q3A is a 6 year old game (though age is irrelevent) that is superior in almost every respect to quake 4 at the momment. I didn't spend £30 expecting regressive gameplay, but that is what we have.

I'm not saying Q4 is a bad game by any means, but Q3 was designed from the ground up to be the ultimate action FPS. And thats what it is.

The whole "competitive vs fun" argument is stupid btw. If you do anything for long enough, the chances are you'll get good at it. But I certainly wouldn't play Q3 if I didn't enjoy it.