The Problem of Quake's Player Base Size

[scar3crow]

[leileilol]

wel said but wat is quake is it the thing the halo game are made on help please


p.s. "nquake" isn't helping really. it's just ezquake behind an installer that grabs shareware quake remotely breaching sw license. it formerly was an installer that was the full game with a 'no one cares/euros dont have credit cards and cant buy quaek!' excuse to it. Another reason why the playercount is so small is that elitist 'pro' base, you know, . This is why Quake is stagnant online, and Quake2 isn't. Quake2's 10hzness scares away the twitchtweaker to rail-only who-lags-loses servers, and Quake2 never needed some shady installer to 'play online easy' either.

Believe me, I wish Quake was more popular online too, but the attempts at reviving the scene so far have been ill. We have the resources necessary - , , , , etc.

What's that one thing - TIME!!! TIME TIME TIME.

Quake3 has the same unwelcomey pro feel too BTW, but like Street Fighter II: Championship Edition, it's THE prime home of those types. OpenArena (SELF-PLUG WARNING!!) and Quake Live filled the 'casual', 'lax' gap for that game. OQPlus (ANOTHER SELF-PLUG!!!!) could've been that but there's really no interest other than myself and Qbism for it. :/ Haktoria (SELF-PLUG TRIPLE COMBO!!!) was the same principle for Hexen II/Hexenworld, with even less interest as that game is so obscure to begin with anyway and people only remember it for its out-of-the-box 3dfx MiniGL support back in the day more than anything else. Sauerbraten on the other hand (COMBO BREAKER!)... is popular just for being a 'free game' alone, and Urban Terror (DANGER DANGER DANGER) is just 'poor man's counter-strike' which is why its the most popular id tech derivative free game there is. Even the Soldier of Fortune 2 TEST is still popular today as a poor man's CS alternative.


tl;dr version: violating shareware sucks and is for scrubs; let's make something free for them to suck on. perhaps something DP based with a very friendly point-click menu interface similar to nexuiz but not freaky like nexuiz. I tried to start one last year, only got as far as a quakey-ish from scratch menu skin. It would be a csprogs/menu.dat + pk3 only (no progs.dat). Please note there is more overall interest in REMAKING QUAKE ON THE SOURCE ENGINE (bad idea) than anything to give Quake itself improvement.

[r00k]

[scar3crow]

I'd rather not make anything for anyone to suck on regarding Quake, Nexuiz was not an alt-Quake, it was a distinct game of its own. I am not interested in creating any sort of honeypot or alternate path, but rather seeing Quake engines, servers, mods and maps keep players in mind who aren't savvy with a console and aren't used to centerprint menus but rather even development implementation across all components of the game.

Any new project such as those described will simply be another game, not Quake, and would not address the decreasing player base. It is well established that obtaining a title is not the key to the community, but rather being able to get IN to it.

If you do want to spin up your own project with certain design goals in mind, sure, but if it isn't Quake, it is by its very nature competing with Quake for players and community.

What I was trying to communicate was simply stepping up on some unification, and increasing our presentation. It isn't 1996 anymore, and some progress has been positive. Progress such as integrated server browsing, transparency of server types for the user, special rules and mods with clearly defined elements that don't involve using the console, and don't leave a player feeling stranded, or like they are going blind working through an elaborate centerprint menu. I want to evolve how we focus the community, how we funnel players for the sake of the best experience, so more players will stick around. Not simply try to get them to stick to something, but rather to help them see the quality that is Quake and its mods, by stepping up the quality of messaging.

I don't want Another Quake, I want Quake to grow.

[Spike]

if you want quake to grow, you've got to get it easy to get in to, nquake achieves this despite its issues... but in that case, the 'noobs' get on a server and get pwned repeatedly over and over again. its not fun for them, despite it being easy, and even then you don't have the dm* maps.
in the 64bit-world of today, installing quake from the cd is a nightmare, and getting a cd can also be hard. steam offers a legal path here, and a windows-based engine/mod installer really ought to be able to detect the install path, and load up a browser to the right page to push people along the path to obtaining some compatible, legal, game data. Or use openquartz or something if they don't want to have to buy anything (a large legal problem is that of textures inside otherwise-legal 3rd party bsps).
A menu.dat/csprogs.dat would go a long way to increase usability, as would direct ui improvements in the engine itself.

Ultimately, however, you have to get new players to care, and you have to get them to continue to care. If you can manage that, you'll go far.

[hondobondo]

ur pretty funny leleileielol

[jim]

[Jehar]

[Rich]

[scar3crow]

[frag.machine]

[scar3crow]

[Rich]

[Spike]

[mh]