Okay War Flail has hit the forum...

[peewee_RotA]

I'm going to interject into this again.


The vanilla (and part of the DM crowd) have absolutely no concern for their own skill level. They are playing just to have fun. You can't judge the vanilla crowd based on the same criteria that you judge tdm players.

Mostly because after you wasted your time yelling at someone in a cow skin who is crouching in front of a tele_dest with an SSG, you're the idiot engaged in the petty smack talk that the cow won't even remember by the time the next map changes.

People like "hitme" are the smartest people in the entire community. They realize it's just  a game and they have good fun every time they load it up regardless of score.

[[BTF]Gator]

If you want to keep your self-respect, don't give in and join them. Putting it short, FFA is like going to college just for parties. Dueling is like a middle school student arguing over his favorite episode of Dragon Ball Z

Ok, perhaps i should have cut it out better, this is what i thought nailed it.   My post really meant to have nothing to do what so ever with trash talk, only the sense that the FFA servers are like a random, public party, and the tdm servers have a much more focused and narrow culture to them.

[sirgalahadwizard]

Suicide Binges?  I dunno but ive seen it happen. I remember seeing Cheesy kill itself a number of times in a row when it got shot.


And ive deleted most of those crap skins that make people look like cows and whatnot. I don't think it belongs in the game. I want to see awesome and cool skins, not ridiculous ones, it totally ruins the atmosphere.

I also replaced the Female/Athena skin with a bright neon yellow colored armor skin just because so many people use it, so I might as well make these jerks stand out. Replaced the Male/Grunt skin with a Blue armor skin too for the same reason - or really just because I got tired of seeing the same dude being used by 8 people in the crowd because they're too lazy to pick a skin.

Yes... I did download the full Tasty skins pack. And then deleted a whole hell of alot of it.



I generally agree with Peewee on the Vanilla crowd.
For me Quake 2 is an outdated FPS that could have done better in a number of areas.
Even if it was revolutionary (but ID Software was noteworthy for that).

In my opinion ID Software is one of the poorer quality game manufacturers these days. Its like some old man that went out of his prime a long time ago, and we just keep tossing him kudos because he was the forefather.

Many other games that have come out have much more interesting and dynamic game concepts in them, are just as good visually. And I think the newer ID game engine is bloated and slow compared to the level of graphic capability it delivers. Its one thing to forecast 5 years into the future what computers will be capable of - its another thing to just add unnecessary complexity and not care about trimming the fat off.



As far as im concerned the only fun thing about playing Quake 2 is using the BFG on people, because its such a dynamic and unusual weapon among FPS games (and requires Different skills to use it effectively than normal weapons). And believe me that is probably 50% of the draw that keeps me playing it. Of course I do use other weapons too.

Oh - and also managing to actually hit Fragcount or come in 2nd-3rd place, that's a little fun too.
Otherwise im okay if I got 10 frags. And I feel pretty good if I got 20. That just means I don't get flustered.

Oh - and because im bored as hell.



Regardless of my skill level I have Hardware limitations - on any given map at any given time you would see somewhere between 20 and 40 frames per second on my fps meter. And whenever anyone enters the game I get LAG for a few seconds because the game is loading their skins and crap. And I get LAG at the beginning of every map for about 5-10 seconds while its loading the map.

Quake 2 isn't a normal FPS either, some of the skills translate but others do not. The characters move faster here than they do in many other games... for example... and projectile weapons usually move faster in other games (so you don't have to lead targets as much). Every game has its own quirks though - like those annoying dodge moves in UT2K4.

So for these reasons its not worth any considerable effort to increase my skills. My main skills are im a Sneaky Bas1ard, I stab people in the back, and I lead people into traps, and I am purposefully unpredictable when someone is chasing me. And im quite happy with those skills. I dont like direct confrontation. If you want to know why read Sun Tsu's Art of War.

And I cant really use those skills very well in Quake 2 because people dial up the brightness and Wallhack (and no, this time im not talking about you Vae, your complaint is well noted). So its like what the hell, why give a sh1t.

[Barton]

I'm going to interject into this again.


The vanilla (and part of the DM crowd) have absolutely no concern for their own skill level. They are playing just to have fun. You can't judge the vanilla crowd based on the same criteria that you judge tdm players.

Mostly because after you wasted your time yelling at someone in a cow skin who is crouching in front of a tele_dest with an SSG, you're the idiot engaged in the petty smack talk that the cow won't even remember by the time the next map changes.

People like "hitme" are the smartest people in the entire community. They realize it's just  a game and they have good fun every time they load it up regardless of score.

I've played plently of ffa on the TS servers, so this isn't really news to me. I too only play ffa only for fun, but I just described some observations I noticed that when certain players connect to the server, as I thought it was amusing to me.

[VaeVictis]

Suicide Binges?  I dunno but ive seen it happen. I remember seeing Cheesy kill itself a number of times in a row when it got shot.


And ive deleted most of those crap skins that make people look like cows and whatnot. I don't think it belongs in the game. I want to see awesome and cool skins, not ridiculous ones, it totally ruins the atmosphere.

I also replaced the Female/Athena skin with a bright neon yellow colored armor skin just because so many people use it, so I might as well make these jerks stand out. Replaced the Male/Grunt skin with a Blue armor skin too for the same reason - or really just because I got tired of seeing the same dude being used by 8 people in the crowd because they're too lazy to pick a skin.

Yes... I did download the full Tasty skins pack. And then deleted a whole hell of alot of it.

most good players will discard any and all custom skins and replace the defaults with brightskins, its been standard in competitive quake for a very long time as we all know where you are regardless of what your model looks like, its just annoying when it lacks consistency

I generally agree with Peewee on the Vanilla crowd.
For me Quake 2 is an outdated FPS that could have done better in a number of areas.
Even if it was revolutionary (but ID Software was noteworthy for that).

In my opinion ID Software is one of the poorer quality game manufacturers these days. Its like some old man that went out of his prime a long time ago, and we just keep tossing him kudos because he was the forefather.

Many other games that have come out have much more interesting and dynamic game concepts in them, are just as good visually. And I think the newer ID game engine is bloated and slow compared to the level of graphic capability it delivers. Its one thing to forecast 5 years into the future what computers will be capable of - its another thing to just add unnecessary complexity and not care about trimming the fat off.

you really dont understand much about what id software has accomplished and continues to accomplish? even though the release of rage wasnt taken too well by the general public (a mass of cod fanboi retards imo) it achieved things on a technical level that other companies could never do, plus it is a pretty fun game, and its the first from id software as far as i know that wasnt a huge success

As far as im concerned the only fun thing about playing Quake 2 is using the BFG on people, because its such a dynamic and unusual weapon among FPS games (and requires Different skills to use it effectively than normal weapons). And believe me that is probably 50% of the draw that keeps me playing it. Of course I do use other weapons too.

Oh - and also managing to actually hit Fragcount or come in 2nd-3rd place, that's a little fun too.
Otherwise im okay if I got 10 frags. And I feel pretty good if I got 20. That just means I don't get flustered.

Oh - and because im bored as hell.

then why are you playing at all? from my pov, if you cant win ffa you are pretty bad at the game, bfg is fairly boring and not as useful or fun as other weapons, not to mention you dont even have to move fast or aim to get kills with it on the ffa servers...

Regardless of my skill level I have Hardware limitations - on any given map at any given time you would see somewhere between 20 and 40 frames per second on my fps meter. And whenever anyone enters the game I get LAG for a few seconds because the game is loading their skins and crap. And I get LAG at the beginning of every map for about 5-10 seconds while its loading the map.

id make a reference to haunted here, with his hardware limitations and still being able to out class every single ffa player... but you probably dont even know who that is

Quake 2 isn't a normal FPS either, some of the skills translate but others do not. The characters move faster here than they do in many other games... for example... and projectile weapons usually move faster in other games (so you don't have to lead targets as much). Every game has its own quirks though - like those annoying dodge moves in UT2K4.

quake has more transferable skills than any modern fps, they are just above the heads of ffa players, trick jumping is a very small part of q2 (though a fun one), and ut2k4 dodging is the easiest shit ever since ya had to bring that up...

So for these reasons its not worth any considerable effort to increase my skills. My main skills are im a Sneaky Bas1ard, I stab people in the back, and I lead people into traps, and I am purposefully unpredictable when someone is chasing me. And im quite happy with those skills. I dont like direct confrontation. If you want to know why read Sun Tsu's Art of War.

And I cant really use those skills very well in Quake 2 because people dial up the brightness and Wallhack (and no, this time im not talking about you Vae, your complaint is well noted). So its like what the hell, why give a sh1t.

i dont thing you even really want my opinion on this last part, i couldnt say one good thing about it and would just flat out insult your play

[fdrjk]

then why are you playing at all? from my pov, if you cant win ffa you are pretty bad at the game, bfg is fairly boring and not as useful or fun as other weapons, not to mention you dont even have to move fast or aim to get kills with it on the ffa servers...
[...]
id make a reference to haunted here, with his hardware limitations and still being able to out class every single ffa player... but you probably dont even know who that is
[...]
 i couldnt say one good thing about it and would just flat out insult your play

[haunted]

No problem Gator, basically the only part that addressed you was "No he didn't nail it" from my previous post. Peewee's points were also made after a very casual/joking comment of mine, with intent just to encourage this newjack to give tdm a try since he says he used to play. Peewee just probably ensured otherwise, and I didn't agree with most of what he was saying initially. Most of the thread afterward I have said "wall of text" and scrolled.

[fdrjk]

That's the thing. When people play FFA, even for the first time, most of it is about screwing around, not getting frags. Some of the most fun I've ever had was playing LOX with the keyboard with 3.20 in 2004. When you then get into TDM and start getting good, you look down at all those who you see just messing around in FFA, and while some of the more better players make fun of them, they're having a blast just fucking around. And then there's people like Vae, whose opinion no one cares about, nor does it add anything just making fun of those who just play FFA for fun. Honestly Vae, it's people like you who drive others away from Quake with your elitism. Just because someone likes to have fun doesn't mean that's any grounds for downplaying their skill.

[Arm0r]

And then there's people like Vae, whose opinion no one cares about, nor does it add anything just making fun of those who just play FFA for fun. Honestly Vae, it's people like you who drive others away from Quake with your elitism.

[VaeVictis]

I can't believe this is the type of discussion that results from a player simply making his first introduction post on the forums.

Is skill in an online game really that important? If people have fun screwing around in FFA then so be it, at this point we can use all the players we can get.

That's the thing. When people play FFA, even for the first time, most of it is about screwing around, not getting frags. Some of the most fun I've ever had was playing LOX with the keyboard with 3.20 in 2004. When you then get into TDM and start getting good, you look down at all those who you see just messing around in FFA, and while some of the more better players make fun of them, they're having a blast just fucking around. And then there's people like Vae, whose opinion no one cares about, nor does it add anything just making fun of those who just play FFA for fun. Honestly Vae, it's people like you who drive others away from Quake with your elitism. Just because someone likes to have fun doesn't mean that's any grounds for downplaying their skill.

i wouldnt normally comment or care one bit about a random ffa player on the forums, nor would i feel the need to shoot down everything they say... but flail has annoyed me since i first crossed him in an ffa server and he claimed he plays that way and that people beat him cause they hack and blah blah blah, its rather irritating and its how a large portion of the ffa crowd thinks

the only reason my comments went beyond a crack at him crying hax occasionally is because he kept talking and giving me more to shoot down

elitism has little to do with it, but if you are a horrible ffa player, dont try to act otherwise... ive had so many arguments with ffa players who think they are good, not just the ones who play screwing around, but the ones who call themselves good players, and they just say tdm players hack and play boring or repetitive and tons of other stupid shit... i dont even control armor in ffa, i just have fun picking off people with any weapon i grab, and so they will hop between "oh you just win cause you camp armor!" and "you just got frags cause your a rail whore..."

[[BTF]Gator]

For me Quake 2 is an outdated FPS that could have done better in a number of areas.

outdated ?  Well, i consider it TIMELESS.  
i am interested in what "could have been done better in a number of areas." means to you.  Just curious, but considering the game as it was in its time, what would you have done differently?

In my opinion ID Software is one of the poorer quality game manufacturers these days. Its like some old man that went out of his prime a long time ago, and we just keep tossing him kudos because he was the forefather.

Put down the gun quadz!

[Sgt. Dick]

then why are you playing at all? from my pov, if you cant win ffa you are pretty bad at the game, bfg is fairly boring and not as useful or fun as other weapons, not to mention you dont even have to move fast or aim to get kills with it on the ffa servers...

 

[[BTF] Reflex]

1> crap skins that make people look like cows and whatnot. I don't think it belongs in the game.


2> In my opinion ID Software is one of the poorer quality game manufacturers these days. Its like some old man that went out of his prime a long time ago, and we just keep tossing him kudos because he was the forefather.


3> And I get LAG at the beginning of every map for about 5-10 seconds while its loading the map.

1> Gasp!  Moo on you!  I think cows are the only odd model I kept.  Handy to have,  those fuckers get into a herd you gotta know about it to break them up.
I think my new ffa name will be Hud

2> part of why I (and a few players here) are still playing Q2 instead of 3 or 4, or doom3, rage, or anything else I might not even be aware of .
   I'd still have Carmack's children though

3> Assuming (probably incorrectly) you are using r1q2, there is a command that defers loading entities.  It loads the map and lets you get started and off the pad while it finishes loading everything else.  You will see white diamonds in their place until they do load, but even on my PII that took only a matter of seconds.

        cl_defermodels 1

That might help your start of the map woes.

 

[sirgalahadwizard]

Honestly Vae, it's people like you who drive others away from Quake with your elitism. Just because someone likes to have fun doesn't mean that's any grounds for downplaying their skill.

Yeah I think that's the case here. For me its not really about the frags, its actually more about not getting killed (or as little as possible). I lose frags that way, because I steer clear of people.

After I die there is also usually a downtime where I spend time going and collecting armor, powerups, and usually at least 2-3 weapons. I don't just grab the nearest high power weapon and go, I rebuild my base. And I might get fragged while im doing that, too.

And because of my playing style, because im not aggressive and don't thrust myself out in the arena like that usually... I effectively consider my number of frags to be like 50-100% more than they actually are.

And if I end up beating other people or hitting fragcount that tells me just how much more acute my overall skill is. THAT is why frags are still fun for me.

Oh - maybe Vae isn't in any danger from me - but for others if I end up in 2nd or 3rd place and you don't beat me like 3 to 1 as far as I am concerned you didn't really outdo me.

If there was a 3 Fraglimit I would probably win against these people, from the word go with no items.
Would probably win 80% of the time actually.

bfg is fairly boring and not as useful or fun as other weapons

Dear lord how on earth is it Not interesting?  Sure it fires a projectile like other weapons, but it shoots out these rays that hit people just because they dont have cover. And then when it explodes it nails them again. Oh and it explodes, too. About the only way it could get more interesting is if it set green fires that stuck to you when you touched them like acid.

Rocket launchers?  railguns?  grenades?  you can find that crap everywhere in all sorts of other games. Maybe they work a little different from game to game, but its become soo cliche.

Maybe the Half Life weapons have a little bit of quirks and originality to them, but I still don't really consider them all that interesting. The most interesting of those being the Hive Hand and the Gauss Weapon (I never played HL2 or beyond). And the rocket launcher there... operates differently enough to be fun too.

And I like some of the weapons in Halo series, but they're not all that interesting either. Maybe tagging someone with a plasma grenade... that never gets old... or tossing a Fuel Rod projectile halfway across the map from a Banshee and actually hitting someone with it...

cl_defermodels 1

Im already doing that, and im thankful because instead of spending 10-15 seconds fully loading things while everyone can shoot me, it spends 5-10 seconds loading it without my hind end exposed.

However it also means that everyone else gets a head start on me - the action has already started by the time I actually get in the door.

Just curious, but considering the game as it was in its time, what would you have done differently?

Among other things, multiplayer and deathmatch would have a different feel than single player games. Specifically the weapons, they would be more balanced and wouldn't be arranged in a tiered system, where some are obviously more useful than others.

I would certainly make the projectiles for the grenades look the same. Either you're throwing a big brown beercan, or your lobbing a nice round hand grenade projectile from your launcher. That has irked me for so dam long I did something about it with models in a .pak file.


I would also, very much, have slowed down the character's movements (by probably 20-30%)... and the error in the physics code that allows the jump and strafe movement tricks would have been fixed. That means little or no jump tricks.

...Instead almost any surface could be Climbed for a short distance whether it was designated as a ladder or not. So long as you were in contact with the surface and probably within a certain number of map units from the next horizontal surface above. And maybe while you're Climbing (no matter where) you cant use your weapon.

Soldiers of any kind know how to jump, grab a ledge, and pull themselves up. You wouldn't need small boxes to jump onto larger ones. And this ability would be reflected in the map design and balance. And that would take care of the need for jump tricks.




Oh another thing I wouldn't have done is artificially code all the Monster weapons to do like 1/3 the amount of damage. Because when they shoot each other they don't do nearly as much damage as Your weapons do to them. Plus rockets and grenades fired from enemies have a pitifully small area of effect. Yet you still get ammunition from them? I mean WTF.

So I would have made the enemy's weapon stats generally on par with the player's, except that when it came to hitting a player they do 1/3 damage to them. That means the Gladiator for instance does 150 with their railgun but only 50 against a player. And when an Enforcer lobs 4 grenades in your direction the blast radius of such a thing would be quite large.

Hardware limitations? not to come off the wrong way, i don't know your budget but even the weakest CPU and graphics cards on the market today can run quake2 with 60 + fps.

I have no budget.

My system has 512mb ram (Im lucky not to have 256) and an ATI 128 32mb video card. I also have an optical mouse, which is actually better than the one I used a few months ago, but it has its own resolution limitations.

I Am using the high resolution models, and textures packs, but since im so used to (read: tired of) the old textures and models this is a requirement. Without the high-res stuff I wont play. In fact im considering modifying some of the high res stuff too even, like the water textures.

Combined with any applications I may be running in the background (ie, Skype since that is effectivly my Phone)... this produces about 20-40 frames per second. Sometimes it dips down to the teens.

This is the kind of computer that takes like 15-45 seconds to load webpages... not because of my connection... but because even an ultralight browser like Chrome has to load and process and run flash, and Windows has to rely on its virtual memory.

[peewee_RotA]

The quake 2 weapons were fairly original for their time. Quake 2 invented the railgun, which everygame now has.

There are a few weapons that are id's trademark, and they admittedly borrowed them from another game, Castle Wolfenstein. So you find Shotgun, Chaingun, and rocket launcher in every game. The double barrel shotgun was a doom feature that has become their standard list as well. And of course the bfg, can't forget that!

What quake 2 brought was the blaster (a projectile starting weapon), hand grenades, hyperblaster (very different from plasma rifle), and the railgun. It also has more items than most people realize:

Adrenaline (different from berserk), silencer, bandoleer, ammo pack, rebreather, (envirosuit doesn't count because it's significently less useful than doom or q1 counterparts), ancient head, armor shards and stimpacks (which changed greatly in play since they prevent a single hit rail kill)

Quake 2 popularized the idea of only dropping the current weapon. It contains a full inventory system which is amazingly still useful in a deathmatch setting and allows for easy item sharing in TDM.

It's one of the first fps in which you can duck! (I think goldeneye64 is the one that beat it to the punch. I'm not aware of any others except maybe a few 3rd person puzzle games that have fps style elements)

Saying that quake2 doesn't have interesting weapons is like looking at a classic T model ford and saying: "That doesn't even have air-conditioning!"