Open letter to Quake 2 fam (servers dying fast)

[Sgt. Dick]

Haunted,

Maybe you will get a chance to work in FLA again - http://www.floridatoday.com/story/weather/hurricanes/2016/12/16/florida-hurricanes-matthew-hermine-caused-16-billion-dollars-damage/95519150/

[haunted]

I know florida's great.... but y'all don't have NC shrimp though buddy. 6 bucks a pound, I got 20 for my mom to throw in my chest freezer.

[haunted]

Green tails bro. But I'll be going down to fl soon. Forget this weather these jerseyites can have it.

[The Dreaming Dragon]

I finally have broadband again after 2+ years of  rationing phone data to feel like I'm still in the 21st century. Bad news is I have no idea where the Q2 CD is,or how DMing will work on the crappy laptop I use,or how a WiFi hook up will ping. Second Life turns into a slideshow if I get near more than 5 people,so that's out too. And also that strange thing called Free Time...this is the last golden drops of it for a VERY long time.

Got hit by a car in August,and fractured my left tibia near the knee. I go back to work tomorrow night. It's been a financial hellhole,but thankfully my fioncee has been helping out,but now its back to the 4-5 hours of commuting 6 nights a week. Remember that train crash in Hoboken New Jersey back in October? If it wasn't for my broken leg(and it happening on my night off),I would have been at THAT spot at THAT time holding my coffee and wondering if the train barreling towards me was going to stop any time soon. Funny ol' world,huh?

I miss my "morning calastenics" with a coffee and some deathmatching to get it circulating in my fried brain,but those times are gone. Life is Change. Abrupt catastrophic change at times,but Quake 2 had a good run,and I still prefer its brand of mayhem to anything that came after it. Many games have a multiplayer life counted in months,not decades. Hats off to Quads for keeping the servers running,and I miss y'all moochoes. I can at least post here at the site,and watch the red marks creep under my name,and fling stupid stuff in the pit for old time's sake.

 

[[BTF] Reflex]

Holla!

TMF - Glad you're back on your feet, literally.

Quadz - Try a restart on T2.  Stuttering every 20 seconds, but not on T1 or DM.    Not that anyone else has popped on t2 probably,  Just something I noticed.

Hauntedwood - Shrimp looks divine.    I thought I had it rough with 50+ hours a week, hard to find time to play
                          even with that.  Congrats on the offspring   Fun times ahead.

P.S.  The servers aren't dead,  this is what their retirement looks like 

 

[VaeVictis]

Jehar honestly made the biggest difference from what I can remember. Weekly events, tried to get newer players involved, had the appropriate circles to advertise Q2 to other arena FPS players like QL duelers.

We'd need some one who was very social, in a lot of circles, was willing to teach, liked a lot of game modes, and could put on regular events with twitch streaming in order for any kind of anything to be successful. Maybe a duel or 2v2 tournament would be cool, but even like instagib events or jail break would really help. More casual community events such as the king of the hill event, but maybe in a format that doesn't eliminate new players so quickly would be cool. I don't think large cash prizes are necessary, but some would be cool. I think the biggest importance is a regular schedule of repeating events that happen every week.

Getting people to switch to Q2 isn't going to happen, but getting a few old schoolers to come back and play is likely and maybe giving some newer curious players a fun place to enjoy some events would be good. No real events going on in NA QL other than the odd CA tournaments, pubs, and pickups so it might be a good angle.

The other thing that everyone can keep in mind is that newer players with a competitive mind set typically like map variety so that they can see different styles and maybe get an advantage instead of playing the 2 decade old favorites of most of the people that are still kicking around. So when you do play, try to let newer players do the map picking and maybe get some knowledge of a good variety of maps just in case. (this mostly stands out for duel, not sure it is very applicable in other mods)

I don't think anyone with a negative stigma in the community should touch any type of admin position for any type of event. That includes most of the TDM players, retired or not, and most of the people vocal on the forum. We would need some one like Jehar to really make a difference, but he is too busy and doesn't care about Q2 anymore

Just had to throw in my 2 cents since I actually care about this subject. Glad I decided to check the forums and saw the thread.

[haunted]

Good intentions with your post but good older players ain't gonna come back without a $$ incentive.

[bvughtoonice]

all things are relative.. we all have our own opinions.. and there may be some truth to each of them..

money and prizes... might be a small incentive to come back and play...im not really for or against that idea but you dont need ether one to make oldschool quake2 players return to quake2.

if there was some sort of monetary value to be gained for winning tho.. i think it would be cool to have some type of penny betting system.. lets say there was a pay to play server for whatever mod.. lets say TDM    you go to the quake2bucks online bank, cash in your real money for quake2bucks lets say $1.00 US dollar is worth 100 q2 bucks.. each player can have stats of q2bucks that they paid for... and q2 bucks they earned from winning.

the more bucks you pay for the lower your ranking ... and the more you win from other players the higher your rank becomes..

overtime the best players will accumulate lots of quake bucks and the players who dont win so much well hopefully they havent lost a ton of money since its a penny type betting system

it would be cool if it was poker style where the house always wins and gets a small percentage.. that way donations are always being made every match and the players have the option to tip extra to the ref or admin overseeing the match just like in poker.

just one of my small fantasies..

as far as L-Fire CTF and Rocket arena 2 go .. if north american community collaborated with the global quake2 communities a tournament would be that much easier to put together doubling maybe tripling the playerbase for those mods.

but the first step is sucking it up and learning to play with the lag.. ive been inspired by an australian player who plays railwarz with us pretty often... so that led me to play on the latvia lfire ctf server and chile ra2 server more often enough to actually enjoy my 170 and 140 pings its really not that bad once you get used to it.

[Barton]

You have another problem: Quake Champions, which will take away players from all Quake scenes no matter how shitty the game turns out to be.

[bvughtoonice]

true. but could work both ways... quake champions could get them back into the quake spirit then when they play it a bit they will remember how much better quake2 was than all the rest  and find themselves here

[Barton]

That didn't really happen when Quakelive came out.

[ex]

I talk to people who say they just installed for first time that very day... shows me there's still hope.   

BTW, didn't know Vae was back/playing again.  Lots of aliasers today.  :/  ...that can't win. 

Hope everyone had a happy Christmas btw. 

[Barton]

I would be nice to play TDM 2v2 or 3v3 on North American servers again. 

[haunted]

You guys seem to be in need of a visit from e|ipa 

I got my layoff check today, and I think I'll have around a month and a half off. I'll be traveling a lot but maybe, just maybe I'll join up from time to time. No I won't be aliased if I do so.

[Barton]

You guys seem to be in need of a visit from e|ipa 

I got my layoff check today, and I think I'll have around a month and a half off. I'll be traveling a lot but maybe, just maybe I'll join up from time to time. No I won't be aliased if I do so.

Sup haunted.

There are some players left but they're mainly playing other games now. If you want to play with those folks, I'd suggest hitting up Chief since he can probably encourage them to play Q2 again.