Quake Champions: The game nobody wants to talk about

[ArrrCee]

bethesda did the same with quake and prey

I know, it's just like all of the movie remakes now too, right? Just slap that name on it, sure, it's Baywatch now.

[Lucifex]

I have played an absolute ton of Overwatch and I really love the game.

stopped reading right there

[ArrrCee]

stopped reading right there

That's constructive.

[ArrrCee]

Well, I'm not exactly calling Overwatch a MOBA and I wasn't really emphasizing on the abilities. People compare it to DotA because of the �heroes�. According to Google class is �a set or category of things having some property or attribute in common and differentiated from others by kind, type, or quality.� There are no classes in Overwatch, every character is unique. Sure, you can argue that the fact that you can have multiple players playing as one character (unlike DotA, where only one person can play as one character) makes it a class-based game, but it seems a bit far-fetched to me. But you're right, MOBA isn't a very well-defined genre. No genre is well-defined, in my opinion.

I think I should've made this a bit more clear. I don't consider Quake: Champions (and Overwatch, if we're discussing it so much, as well) a terrible game. It's far from it � the game indeed is quite fun. The problem is that I don't see it as something I will spend years investing my time into, and I think I'm not the only one. And I see this is one of the biggest issues with modern games. Yeah, the online game might live for some time (especially if it's generating profit) but the singleplayer game... no, it will die in about two years. And in many cases, this is a deliberate move � planned obsolescence. Once again, I just want to say that people want to get obsessed with a game again. They remember all the good times they spent on Quake forums, making maps and fiddling with the engine while making friends, they remember all the fun they had trying to finish some hard surfing map or how they laughed out loud playing on some JailBreak server in Counter-Strike: Source, they remember all the crazy custom modes people have made for Team Fortress 2... and the list can go on. Modern games offer none of this. I can't really name the reason why they do this but I tend to reason all this (as many others) with the "evil corporation" argument due to my beliefs.

I don't think you're wrong in any of your assessments there. I think we agree on a lot of this stuff to be honest, and in some ways I think we are saying similar if not the same things.

While you may not be calling Overwatch a MOBA, many others have said this and it's a weird thing to say. I would dare say people who believe this is true haven't really ever played a MOBA before or they haven't played Overwatch and are jumping on the band wagon from reading it somewhere else without giving it a fair shake.

The one thing we won't agree on is this class discussion! You can look up definitions if you'd like, but I would like to know why you think heroes in Overwatch differ from classes in TF2?

Is it because they have personalities? Well, that can't be it because in TF2 all the characters have unique voices and lines and Valve makes several trailers and movies where the classes all have personalities.

Is it because they have different guns and abilties? That can't be it either because all the classes in TF2 have differing guns and abilities.

I think that Blizzards use of the word heroes here is just semantics because they want the game to have a comic book feel to it. Let me know though, I could be wrong!

[Ebisu]

That's constructive.

I stopped reading right there too. No offense dude, I don't want this to come off sounding mean because it i certainly not my intention, but I don't think anyone that actively plays Overwatch has a place giving a constructive opinion on the game design philosophies of Quake. Overwatch is objectively one of the most casual and assbackward left-field shooters ever made and Quake is unanimously agreed upon to be the pinnacle of skill in an FPS.

(Don't get me started on Overwatch's hitboxes, the game literally aims for you.)

[ArrrCee]

I stopped reading right there too. No offense dude, I don't want this to come off sounding mean because it i certainly not my intention, but I don't think anyone that actively plays Overwatch has a place giving a constructive opinion on the game design philosophies of Quake. Overwatch is objectively one of the most casual and assbackward left-field shooters ever made and Quake is unanimously agreed upon to be the pinnacle of skill in an FPS.

(Don't get me started on Overwatch's hitboxes, the game literally aims for you.)

Okay, I won't post in your thread again. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Carry on.

P.S. Just wanted to point out that Solecard also likes Overwatch and actually has his matches with his team commentated on.

[Dutch]

I stopped reading right there too. No offense dude, I don't want this to come off sounding mean because it i certainly not my intention, but I don't think anyone that actively plays Overwatch has a place giving a constructive opinion on the game design philosophies of Quake. Overwatch is objectively one of the most casual and assbackward left-field shooters ever made and Quake is unanimously agreed upon to be the pinnacle of skill in an FPS.

(Don't get me started on Overwatch's hitboxes, the game literally aims for you.)

Just pointing out the irony here: you don't take the time to read his opinion, and then you tell him his opinion is wrong?

I get it: quake is the best game ever. I agree 100%. But there are some other damn good games out there as well. Is my opinion on quake obsolete because I like gears of war, which couldn't be further from quake style gameplay?

[Ebisu]

Just pointing out the irony here: you don't take the time to read his opinion, and then you tell him his opinion is wrong?

I get it: quake is the best game ever. I agree 100%. But there are some other damn good games out there as well. Is my opinion on quake obsolete because I like gears of war, which couldn't be further from quake style gameplay?

I read his opinion (except the rest of that one post,) I just don't agree with it and most of the things I wanted to say have already been pointed out. I had a general idea of what to expect from may other people with similar speech patterns on the subject and didn't want to take it any further. Don't take this as some kind of malicious intention or anything, because there is none. I've gone off on many people about this subject and I don't want to say anything I will regret, because we have our difference but I like you guys a lot (that goes for the general community on this site, I've never been on a forum with such nice people in my life.) That's how I feel about it.

I do however think it's kind of a low blow to bring in the whole "HEY MAN you better not piss off the admin!" charade. That's a good way to shit up an entire forum (I've seen it happen countless times with countless people on countless websites. I got stories to tell man.) Well I guess there's something I disagree with him on! Big deal. However, the statement implies that there is in fact malicious intent on my part when it's been explicitly illustrated numerous times that there isn't. Why would I hate either of the people mentioned because they have a different opinion?

And I do agree of course I know there are other great games out there, but the difference is that Overwatch is a poorly designed game that tries to promote itself as seriously as something like Quake with the esports market. Naturally, it's going to have harsh comparisons since it can't live up to it's claims. If anyone wants to shit on me go ahead: I play Team Fortress 2 regularly and have for many years. The difference between these two games is that Overwatch tries to be an esports game, and while TF2 has a competitive mode it's mutually agreed upon by the community that esports TF2 is a joke. It practically doesn't exist. Overwatch is a joke to the old players who still hold on to TF2 because it takes the game and manages to do everything WORSE. The game it's based on had no "competitive mode" bullshit for nearly 9 years after it's release and wasn't mad for it to begin with. Overwatch tries to have the gall to make it a competitive from the ground up (while doing a horrendous job.) The result is much less than satisfactory. I'm fairly infamous in some places for hating Overwatch as much as I do, but what I'm usually told by many other people is that I'm just the only one who ever speaks up about it. The game is so popular now that it's taboo to hate it, but somebody has to call it out for what it is! A joke! And I'm sick and tired of sitting here and accepting it's influence on other games. Quake being sodomized by it's sphere of influence is the last straw for me and any true Quake fan should at least have some kind of sympathy for this as I know a lot of people who love Quake who feel disheartened about this too.

I've never been so mad by the existence of a game in my LIFE and I anxiously waited for Duke Nukem Forever to come out trying not to accept that it would probably be shit (and I used to mod the hell out of DN3D and play it every day after school.) Maybe it's a personal problem but I'm not taking it very well. I've lost so much sleep over something so dear to me being taken away by ZeniMax you wouldn't believe it. It's like waking up one day and realizing your whole life is a lie.

[Dutch]

@ebisu

I can definitely see your frustration. Call of Duty irks me for many of the same reasons... Let's face it man, we are throw-backs to the old days, has-beens that won't adapt to the new gaming climate. That's really what pisses me off: the fact that the golden age of gaming is long gone and the chances of another Q1-like multiplayer game existing is slim to none, and slim just left town. I also had the misfortune of missing most of Quake's MP days...LAN line was about all I did. But it was fun as hell.

I often find myself thinking on making a quake-style DM game, with everything awesome about Quake, only juice the action even more. I have pretty big ideas for it. My biggest roadblock is realizing that it will never take off, because it would be a game of raw skill, nothing more and nothing less, and this current generation of young-buck gamers couldn't hang. "WHAT? No achievements?"

Oh well.

[Ebisu]

@ebisu

I can definitely see your frustration. Call of Duty irks me for many of the same reasons... Let's face it man, we are throw-backs to the old days, has-beens that won't adapt to the new gaming climate.

Not everyone here is part of the older generation that played Quake back in the 1990s. I know tons of people ranging ages ~14-25 that play QuakeWorld regularly, often ignored by the older community. You could be fighting any of them in a deathmatch and they might even beat you, and you wouldn't know unless you asked them. It's not that these kinds of games don't appeal to the younger demographic, it's that companies are too busy trying to please the declining casual market. I only stated playing Quake about 6 or so years ago (have been playing consistently since) and I'm mid college age. The older folks aren't the only ones that hate how the industry only makes "cinematic" bullshit and """competitive""" games for the bottom of the barrel tryhards and esports crazes. I'm not going to pay sixty whole fucking united states federal reserve bank notes plus tax for a hallway filled with scripted events that never have more than 5 enemies on screen at a time. And while we're on the subject, remember the phrase "Never pay more than 20 dollars for a computer game?" This still rings true to this day. I don't care about the 10 buckaroos of inflation that's been added since then. I'm still not paying more than 20 dollars for a computer game. And to think that these publishers want to charge that much for a single DLC (that barely has any content) for a game that already costs 60? No, I'm not buying that. The games they're doing this for aren't even good to begin with. Then they ask you to buy the season pass for a whole 60 bucks extra from the original purchase.

Past the big game companies, then you got some hipster trying to sell his stupid SanFran art-house SJW early access walking simulator for 30 dollars or something. Everyone thinks their low quality trash is worth real money nowadays. You know what you can do with that kind of money? You can put food on the table for your family instead of wasting it on some stupid videogame that you won't even enjoy enough to get an hour out of every dollar you spend on it. (I have thousands of hours in Quake, I can't say that about most games)

Hell, most people don't even buy that trash anymore and the industry is scrambling because they don't know what to do! It's not like they even have the talent to make good games again in the first place, so it's do or die mode now for most of these assholes. They're going expending as little energy as possible to continue to get away with creating products that sodomize everything we hold dear to us. It's not just the "has-beens." These business practices are unacceptable for anyone. The new "gaming climate" isn't aimed at people who like video games and I think that's a god-damn problem, don't you?

I could teach a game design class with Doom or Quake, they work that well as examples of great game design. However, even if everyone in the world wanted to learn from my teachings, the executives at these AAA publishers (who don't even play video games) make all the decisions at the end of the day.

And I know all I'm doing at this point is:
but it's important to actually say these things in public space, because somebody's got to.

[vibok]

Hm. Guys, want to give money to small gamedev companies? Like, to me?

I don't have anything to show yet, those things take time, too much of it.

[NightFright]

Independent from what others have written before me, here is what I think about Quake Champions:

I have no problems with the general concept of returning to the Q3 era. Q3A was fun, the levels were great, weapons "felt right" and bots were smart, even with some kinda personality.

I would play Quake Champions under one important condition only, though: Included bot support. Like many other people, competing with super-skilled players online is very frustrating and prevents you from enjoying the game, especially early on. There is also a healthy amount of cheaters. I don't even need a rudimentary singleplayer campaign like Q3A had it, just bot support for playing the levels without human opponents. My fear is just that this isn't the path Bethesda wants to take here.

After all, I am still dreaming of a proper Quake SP experience featuring a return to the universe of the very first installation of the series with modern graphics. However, according to statements from id/Bethesda, they see the future of the series in the online/competitive area. That's really unfortunate since I believe there are many veterans out there who would like to revisit the dark atmosphere of the original Quake. I admit the Cthulhu/Gothic/fantasy mix was quite unusual for its time and may not appeal to everybody like an Overwatch clone these days, but you should always be able to play alone, too.

[DJLawson]

I played it a couple nights ago and did not really enjoy it. Felt like another Overwatch clone.

Money grabbing loot boxes and lack of LAN & bot support and not for me. Just felt like another over the top cash machine.

[Mugwump]

most consumers don't want to eat shit.

This statement has been contradicted by reality countless times.

lack of LAN & bot support

Seriously? Damn, the more I read about this game, the more I feel like id shot themselves in the foot on this one... And, of course, no mod support either! They might wanna consider learning the lessons of DOOM 2016.

[Dutch]

Yeah, nobody makes bots nowadays. Or try to make some smart AI in general. Which is kinda weird, considering the fact that such machine learning technologies like neural networks are a big thing now.

But I guess there's no reason to put so much care into your game if you don't expect it to be played for 20+ years.

Reminded me of A Brief History of Bots by Super Bunnyhop.

Nice link. Pretty interesting. It's a shame there are no bots in Champions. I guess I'll skip it then. I'm not upgrading my computer and spending $60 on a game that will be obsolete in about 2 years. The multiplayer community will not last if the last decade of games has taught us anything.