Messages

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Quake / Re: tastyspleen.net turns 20!

« on: October 17, 2024, 06:37:31 PM »

Continued thanks to MrsQuadz, and a toast to quadz for giving so much of himself over the years and for providing a reliable Q2 playground for so many. I can't imagine what the Q2 scene would look like without his efforts. Long live tastyspleen!

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Quake / Has anybody ever heard of a mod that...

« on: September 07, 2024, 05:18:13 PM »

Has anybody ever heard of a mod that randomizes, in the middle of a match (like for FFA), the weapon that spawns at the respective weapon spawn points? Like every 60 seconds or so, the rocket launcher spawn becomes the chaingun, hyper becomes railgun, etc.? It would be totally random, though without multiple copies of each weapon, unless there were already more than 1x spawn of that weapon on the map (like 2x RL on DM1, or 2x MG, etc.). I probably wouldn't like it, but it would be a unique gameplay experience at least. I was just curious if anybody happened to know if something similar had already been done.

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Quake / Re: Quake 2 remastered discussion - news and rumors

« on: September 07, 2023, 09:22:35 PM »

I'm pretty sure I never actually purchased Quake 2 (I've been playing, off and on, since 1999). I decided to purchase Q2 on Steam to right that wrong a bit and to try out the remaster. I like that the railgun (and all hitscan weapons, I presume?) has updated code where you don't need to lead the shot based on ping. It's weird getting used to that though after you've been playing by leading a bit for so long. It was running really herky jerky for me though - not like really low fps, but just didn't look smooth. I presume it's some setting that I don't know how to fiddle with yet. I'm glad it's getting some attention again.

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/dev/random / Re: The Strange and Interesting Thread

« on: July 02, 2021, 08:16:06 AM »

This is 7 years old now, but in case you haven't seen it - skydiver gets accidentally knocked out mid free-fall, then another diver in the group manages to glide towards him and pull his reserve shoot, potentially saving his life (though apparently there's an automatic, altitude-dependent, deployment system in place that theoretically would have worked):


https://www.reddit.com/r/Unexpected/comments/obh4pk/the_ultimate_ko/

Possibly better quality video here (on Facebook - sorry, quadz):


https://www.facebook.com/ben.pigeon/posts/10100602866907010

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 14, 2021, 12:36:14 PM »

In your case, if someone as good as you or better was playing, you spawning furthest on...dm5 for example, could easily screw you out of winning if there were 5 or less people on.

The only time I'm ever on the DM server and there are 5 or less players, or even less than 10, is occasionally in the middle of the night, or early morning, like at 4-5AM EST. Even then there's often 10+ people playing. To my knowledge, the Tastyspleen DM server is the only continually active DM/FFA server in the US remaining. If people live in the US, if they want to frag on dm1-dm8, if they don't want to ping well over 100, AND they want to actually have players to play against, they have to play on Tastyspleen. Believe it or not, there are often at least 10 Americans, at just about any time of the day, that still want to play Q2 DM.

Also, not winning is not the primary aggravation, it's the interruptions to movement or gameplay by a randomly spawned player. Like on DM6/Lava Tomb last night, near the single rocket ammo leading towards the BFG - being 10 feet away from a player, in a close duel/fight with them, getting close to finishing them off with the MG, then someone randomly spawns on that pad 5 feet in front of you, with a one-second impenetrable spawn protect on (which I'm in favor of with +sf), gets in between your fight, and causes you to lose, or otherwise not get the frag. It's that kind of stuff that sticks out like a sore thumb to me now and I notice it multiple times on literally every map rotation (more noticeable with more players).

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Bot Drop / Bot or not?

« on: March 14, 2021, 05:02:55 AM »

Was spectating someone named "Pumpkin Lips" on the DM server yesterday. It seemed they actively avoided picking up hitscan weapons (railgun, machinegun, etc.), but when they did get them, once they focused on someone, the crosshair movement looked sorta bot-like.

Here's a demo of them on DM1. It's kinda boring, and you have to wait a bit to get to what I'm talking about, but check it out if you want to give your two cents.

The first time happens when he has 6 frags, and he respawns in the sewer/mg. He gets MG and his crosshair movement seems really jerky, but still very precise. There's another time when he's got 10 kills where it looks more suspicious (also with MG). He's kinda erratic with movement in general, but it just looked odd to me.

It's not a smoking gun necessarily, but it might be worth putting more pairs of eyes on it to judge. Perhaps it's a bot with a really low fov setting.

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 13, 2021, 09:52:03 PM »

I wish you could see a replica of you play simultaneously, one with how spawns are and one with spawn furthest.

Maybe quadz would be willing to test it out for a day or so and see if it's even noticeably different.

I essentially only play FFA (it's my favorite game mode even though it has lots of shortcomings). I 'sweat' it because that's what I play and what I play is significantly less enjoyable because of this one setting.

Imagine if the only TDM server on tasty (which was also essentially the only active TDM server in the US quake 2 scene) had spawn farthest ON. Wouldn't that drastically change the dynamic of the TDM game, particularly 1v1? That might make it less enjoyable for you, when it's predetermined where your single opponent will respawn based on where you are on the map when they die (and vice versa when you die), no? I think you might make it a point to explain to the admin of the server why they might want to switch to random spawning for TDM.

Edit: Oh, and imagine you were still playing quake 2 and actually cared

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 13, 2021, 02:04:19 PM »

Yeah, which is relevant for maybe 5% of any given day on the DM server, if that. The other 95%, not so much.

Oh, and when you do finally kill him with that way it is now, and you survive with like 4 health, and he instantly respawns 3 inches from your face and kills you with a single blaster shot, see how you like that.

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 13, 2021, 10:29:52 AM »

This may be a dumb question because I do not understand how the spawn farthest works.
Question -  where were you when you died before the RL spawn?

A RL spawn would be a good spawn in most cases.

Spawn farthest chooses the spawn pad that is "farthest" away from other players currently spawned on the map, as I understand it. I think it's supposed to give the 'safest' respawn point, where you're most likely to have a chance at not being caught in the crossfire of an ongoing battle, etc.

RL spawn is great if there's not already 2 people practically standing on said RL, each with RL's in hand, actively spamming at each other, when you spawn with your blaster, not knowing where you're going to respawn, taking a moment to process where you respawned, etc., all while being expected to somehow have a chance at surviving such a situation.

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 12, 2021, 11:17:15 PM »

Here's a demo where it kinda shows what I'm talking about (but not the worst instances, imo). I'm sorry it's not in video format, or snipped, I don't know how to do any conversions.

This is on DM3/Frag Pipe. Check out when I have 7 frags. I respawn at RL. When I respawn, there are already TWO people right there in that tiny little area going at it with RLs. I of course get caught in the crossfire and have no chance of doing anything with that respawn. That kind of thing doesn't happen with spawn farthest. This happens again later in the map, when I have like 18, 19, or 20 frags.

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: March 12, 2021, 10:58:34 PM »

quadz, is the only reason for the current spawn setting to minimize telefrags? I still get telefragged at least once on most every map, and fairly frequently I get telefragged twice at the beginning of each map rotation. Sometimes I get a telefrag myself, but that seems to be rarer than me dying once or twice to that. Was being telefragged during a match a big problem with spawn farthest on?

I keep constantly encountering in-game scenarios that are only taking place because of the current spawn mechanic. Like I think I already mentioned, running around the map, with momentum, heading to the armor, a weapon, trying to escape someone, etc., and then someone will literally spawn on a pad you're maybe one character's size away from, blocking your path, taking way your momentum, making you miss that jump, get killed from that person that was chasing you, making you miss the mega, or whatever. I don't think that happens with spawn farthest on.

I think I'm noticing things more, if they've been this way for 15+ years, because the server limit was increased over the years (wasn't it?). That or the average server population has increased. I wish I made a demo for every game I played, then I could reference specific examples of how the way things are takes away from the fun of the game. It's honestly one of the most rage-inducing things I encounter lately. It's not like there's really much other choice these days on where to play either (not in the US), so it's not like I can play elsewhere.

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/dev/random / Re: The Strange and Interesting Thread

« on: February 28, 2021, 09:06:09 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16ZQxlaxVws

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: February 28, 2021, 03:47:33 AM »

Also, can we get a REAL 1-second (or whatever) spawn protection? Sometimes there's literally nothing. I don't see the benefit of the randomness.

Spawn protection time is not random. But it cancels if you press the fire button to shoot at someone. (If you want the full second of protection, don't shoot — scoot!)

Ahhh, ok. I think I often, habitually, hit fire quickly after I die, so I guess I'm cancelling my own spawn protection (and I've seen others appear to do the same thing). Do you actually have to fire a blaster shot, or will just pressing fire cancel it, whether or not the weapon actually releases a projectile?

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: February 27, 2021, 01:16:11 AM »

If everyone dislikes something,

"Everyone" isn't coming here and posting their displeasure with the spawn protection length. And if you go on the server and start interrogating everyone about their opinions on the spawn protect length, sure you're probably gonna get several people agreeing with you that it should be longer. Problem is... they didn't come to that conclusion on their own. You planted the idea in their head. If they were really bothered by it, they would've already been here posting about it before now.

Seriously. You have a good ping. You kick most peoples asses. You win most of the time. Stop being a karen.

Focalor, this bothers me, and I'm trying to get it changed. I'm laying out the reasons why the way things are now creates a frustrating gameplay experience. They may have noticed it, but don't know it can be changed. Anyway, other than it's me, and it's something that bothers me, what reason do you have to be invested in this one way or the other?

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dm / Re: Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: February 26, 2021, 11:35:11 PM »

Spawn farthest doesn't really matter if it's packed with 16 players like it is frequently.

It still makes a very noticeable difference, like in the DM5 scenario I mentioned above. I was playing tonight and was constantly encountering situations where it would have made a difference - on DM1, coming from the red armor stairs (on the tasty modified dm1) towards lift/mg, I went to jump towards mg, and someone spawned right there on the pad in front of me, blocking me mid-jump, and making me drop onto that ramp that serves as the exit from lower rl. That never happens with spawn farthest.

Then you'll have MORE people complaining about the spawn protection being too long.

For ONE second? That's just long enough to spawn and not have a random spammed nade and/or rocket explode before you can even process where you're at, or knock you into lava, or start you off with 8 health or whatever before you have a chance to try to get back on track. In fact, isn't it about that long now when it actually goes for the full duration? It seems to be random now. Sometimes there's literally nothing, and sometimes it's a second or so.

The random spawn shits on EVERYONE sometimes, it ain't just you.

Yeah, and who enjoys that? If everyone dislikes something, and there's an easy alternative to improve everyone's experience, why wouldn't you switch to that better alternative? The lower-skilled players, who are easy to kill, are going to have to deal with it more than anyone else actually. If they're dying more often, they're also being subjected to the RNG of wherever the current algorithm decides to respawn them more often. If you're concerned about them sticking around, then this would be a change that would enhance their gameplay experience even more than it would mine.