This is the cranky old man in me talking but I don't think Bethesda id gets the mod scene.
As much as I love Doom 4, snap map is a complete failure. The differences between building out a toy level editor vs giving players the same tools developers used is massive.
Losing Carmack was not only a blow to the tech side but also was the last nail in the coffin of classic id culture. A culture that understood that the players could give legs to a game far beyond the efforts of a small dev team. A culture that spent man hours releasing tools and even eventually open sourcing game engines and in return getting one of most vibrate and dedicated fan base of creators possibly ever.
When Quake 2 came out, long before the engine was open sourced, id released the entire game source to the public and basically gave their community just as much power as the original devs. Bethesda just doesn't get that and what makes that even sadder is that I don't think the rest of the industry gets it either.
Playing devil's advocate--and proving all the haters wrong!--I'll point out that they've already said they couldn't use snapmap even if they wanted to. And snapmaps was really just there for consoles, and Quake Champions has been pretty firmly a not-console game since announcement.
The guy leading the project isn't even Willits. It's the same person who was in charge of Quake Live for the last few years. (Which leads some people to speculate about why exactly they made those drastic gameplay changes, but that's another story.) Live was never as open as Quake 3, but it did rely heavily on community content. All the most popular maps, gametypes, even mechanics and engine modifications were all borrowed from mods.
Now, I don't expect we'll be seeing Action Quake Champions or anything like that, but I do think they'll make the effort to open the game up for people to contribute with what is necessary for it to succeed within the Quake community. Mapping is one such necessity.
this looks to be a video of gameplay from Quakecon
edit: video taken down
On another note, TOXIKK, another game throwing its hat into the DM FPS arena, released a free version/demo. In this version, you can play a lot of the full version, but some things are restricted. One of the things restricted, which is an odd choice, is the server browser. Only the quick play option is available. There is a workaround at least that you can use the Steam client itself to list the servers. It plays a ton like UT 2004 and has all the dodging stuff from that game. I only got 1 game in because they game has a really hard time connecting to servers. It keeps booting me back to the menu when I try to join a game.
According to this reddit thread, one of the programmers stated that upon spawning, you can choose between 3 weapons and "good" weapons will need to be picked up:
It's a lot of people talking past each other right now, as well as alpha leaks that keep on changing. Either way, this isn't that much of a surprise.
Everyone is still thinking about duel, but id is dead set on reframing the entire game around their new TDM modes. I'd be surprised if they're giving duel much thought at all right now.
It's funny that people are back to complaining that q3 spawns were too weak. When the game came out, the number 1 complaint was that you were way too strong off the spawn. One of the biggest changes CPMA made was just dropping you back down to 100 flat (and making the mg weaker, but there were other factors involved, and quake live did that as well).
So here we have something a little interesting. We don't know that much about the nailgun, except that it's q1-style, so it's the non-hitscan option and the replacement for the plasma gun. The machine gun will probably be just as weak as it was, and the shotgun looks like it's not super shotgun or even q3 shotgun levels--it's also swinging back to q1 strength. Which means none it's likely none of these are going to be that dangerous. Except they're pushing the team angle and they might be going with classic TDM weapon spawns--which is upwards of 30 seconds. I can see why they'd let players feel like they're changing something or doing something, anything at all, when there's a chance they haven't gotten a decent gun in 5 minutes or more.
Of course, the biggest additional factor to consider is the new champion health system. Sure, you get those 3 options, but if you're Anarki and only spawning with 75 health you're the weakest you've ever been in a Quake game, in terms of conversion frags.
One additional note is that a major reason players cite for Q1's TDM scene still kicking to this day when TDM died in every other version of Quake is that the spawn gun is so utterly awful and you are such complete food that it really, really emphasizes teamwork and map control. On those small Q1 maps, a player with a rl and a bit of armour can basically kill unlimited numbers of just-spawned players, while in Q3 you can be as stacked as you want, but when you have a couple of guys with 125 health and 50dps machine guns coming at you it doesn't work out nearly as well.
It's a lot of people talking past each other right now, as well as alpha leaks that keep on changing. Either way, this isn't that much of a surprise.
Everyone is still thinking about duel, but id is dead set on reframing the entire game around their new TDM modes. I'd be surprised if they're giving duel much thought at all right now.
It's funny that people are back to complaining that q3 spawns were too weak. When the game came out, the number 1 complaint was that you were way too strong off the spawn. One of the biggest changes CPMA made was just dropping you back down to 100 flat (and making the mg weaker, but there were other factors involved, and quake live did that as well).
So here we have something a little interesting. We don't know that much about the nailgun, except that it's q1-style, so it's the non-hitscan option and the replacement for the plasma gun. The machine gun will probably be just as weak as it was, and the shotgun looks like it's not super shotgun or even q3 shotgun levels--it's also swinging back to q1 strength. Which means none it's likely none of these are going to be that dangerous. Except they're pushing the team angle and they might be going with classic TDM weapon spawns--which is upwards of 30 seconds. I can see why they'd let players feel like they're changing something or doing something, anything at all, when there's a chance they haven't gotten a decent gun in 5 minutes or more.
Of course, the biggest additional factor to consider is the new champion health system. Sure, you get those 3 options, but if you're Anarki and only spawning with 75 health you're the weakest you've ever been in a Quake game, in terms of conversion frags.
One additional note is that a major reason players cite for Q1's TDM scene still kicking to this day when TDM died in every other version of Quake is that the spawn gun is so utterly awful and you are such complete food that it really, really emphasizes teamwork and map control. On those small Q1 maps, a player with a rl and a bit of armour can basically kill unlimited numbers of just-spawned players, while in Q3 you can be as stacked as you want, but when you have a couple of guys with 125 health and 50dps machine guns coming at you it doesn't work out nearly as well.
I'm really excited about the beta.
They gave you 125 health to start because they didn't want you to spawn and immediately die to rockets/rail (I remember asking one of the devs this while it was in Q3Test). The machine gun was really strong though, 7 dmg a shot.
Well, I mean, obviously. People complained about "spawn rape" in q1 and again in q2, so they just upped the health and damage in q3. And a lot of people hated it, and it pretty much killed TDM. So now they're kind of doing the same thing in QC.
id's putting up job postings for a microtransactions designer, which is almost certainly for Quake Champions. And also what everyone expected anyway, especially after they kept dodging the "is it f2p or full priced?" question in every interview.
So, yeah, selling cosmetics. The biggest controversy would probably be how this works with the extensive modding Quake has always depended on before. But if they want to run tournaments, there's plenty of successful precedent for that. Even Capcom--a developer about as out of touch as you can get--had the gumption to put together a DLC package with partial proceeds going into their official tournament prize pool. Valve accomplished that much with their model, and id has already run its own Quake tournaments for decades now.
Apparently Intel has also been rumbling about wanting to start throwing money at Quake tournaments again.
Pretty much every major Quake player is on a competitive Overwatch team right now, and every one of that that's been asked has said they'd obviously love to play some Quake, but they have to go where the money is.
If id is paying any attention at all, they have to know all of that. They really, really want to position Quake Champions as an esports brand, so how and where they get money for tournaments and players is going to be one of their major issues--they've already "lost" all of their recognizable big names and they need to bring them back. Makes sense to start working it out as early as possible.
Quake modding is dead. You can't give players mod tools that let them produce professional quality stuff and release it for free and then expect players to spend $2 on a weapon skin or $15 on a pack of three multiplayer maps. Modding tools and paid DLC are not compatible with one another and only one of the two will make money. This is gonna be Overwatch with nailguns.
Quake is dead. id is dead. Modding is dead. The 90s are dead. My childhood is dead. Videogames are dead.
Quake modding is dead. You can't give players mod tools that let them produce professional quality stuff and release it for free and then expect players to spend $2 on a weapon skin or $15 on a pack of three multiplayer maps. Modding tools and paid DLC are not compatible with one another and only one of the two will make money. This is gonna be Overwatch with nailguns.
Quake is dead. id is dead. Modding is dead. The 90s are dead. My childhood is dead. Videogames are dead.
At least there's the new Unreal I guess?
I mean....this too shalt pass.
id has evolved into a different state, much like the industry-how could they not? I don't pretend to say it's better, just-there's a number of different factors at play that prevent id software from pretending to be the same company in the same business environment that it was in 1993. I'm not going to belabor any perceived ethos mandates from id's parent company. For the time being, Bethesda has granted the time and space to allow new Wolfenstein and DOOM games to flourish, and flourish mightily.
Modding is just in a different place right now, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if in another five years or whatever the industry decides there's a massive impetus and advantage to nurture and enable mods. Even SNAPMAP, for what it is, is a cursory feeler on this point, trying to figure out a way to allow user created content that, at the same time, won't usher in, say, a completely floor-plan accurate recreation of a real-life campus that thousands of people will download and FPS in. I would like to see more SNAPMAP support, where id opens up the customization options a little more, and is able to determine some meta-path for user created content that can foster the good without enabling those with crasser muses who just want to light up the social media du jour with their unpleasantness.
When someone figures out how to thread that particular needle, modding for games like DOOM will open up again.
News is that id has hired long-time Quake pro player John "Zero4" Hill as their official esport manager. Of all the moves they've made so far in the lead-up to Quake Champions, this is one of the most interesting and potentially most positive.
I think it's worth noting that despite how the trailer presents it, Nyx's active ability (and all the others known so far) isn't quite as you might think. It's more akin to an option than a requirement, in that it is very predictable. She can't jump when she uses it, can't shoot, can't even pick up items, and has no control over the timing of when she rematerializes. That sort of thing is fairly easy to bait.
Game will be "free-to-play" but the only champion who is free is Ranger. All the rest can be acquired by paying a flat cash fee, of course.
"But what about in-game currency?" You might ask. I'm glad you brought it up! Seems like you can acrue "favor" as an in-game currency. But if you thought you could just BUY champions with it, think again. You spend favor for TEMPORARY access to other champions. That's right, if you don't pay cash, you apparently can't permanently acquire other characters: you have to rent them.
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Wow, someone must've been working a double shift to come up with a system that shitty.
+2
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure what the solution is, but man, Overwatch (and, let's be honest, even Team Fortress 2) really raised the bar when it comes to expressive character work in FPS games. I'm not saying every multiplayer FPS needs a shot of Dreamworks in its DNA or anything, but Quake Champions' characters really look inexpressive and lifeless in comparison.
Yes, every character gets one active ability on a cooldown and one passive, movement-related ability. Scalebearer has that stomp, for example, while Nyx has the wall-jump.
Anyway, some more news from the biggest and most dedicated competitive Quake site, esreality, who translated a Russian interview with Willits.
They'll have a Quake Champions tournament at Qcon this year (duh).
The one-time purchase of the full game gives you everything in perpetuity--that is, all new champions created and released after launch, just like the Smite model. Really, this is about as good as it gets for a f2p game these days, so I'm counting that as a firm win.
Ranked matchmaking for both duel and sacrifice (their main TDM mode that they want to be the esport).
They're actually committing to duel as part of their esports model, which is a pleasant surprise. They could have dropped it completely knowing that team modes are always more popular with casual audiences. They're also, so far, focusing a lot of their esports bidding at the EU, which makes sense as Quake (and other arena shooters) has always been most popular there.
Most importantly for this topic, the beta is confirmed to begin "in a few weeks" from now.
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
I signed up for closed beta but no emails yet. However, I was a bit perturbed that you had to accept spam offers and news from the dev before you could submit your beta application. Usually that's optional.
People did some crazy shit in tournament level Quake 3. I remember seeing people who made the plasma rifle fire projectiles that were the size of a pixel so they wouldnt obscure their view when being shot at by one. I was always surprised those things were legal in tourneys.
The max speed thing is interesting and I'm not sure how that will keep going without tweaks, but besides the customization, it's a game that is Quake and that counts for something.
Game will be "free-to-play" but the only champion who is free is Ranger. All the rest can be acquired by paying a flat cash fee, of course.
"But what about in-game currency?" You might ask. I'm glad you brought it up! Seems like you can acrue "favor" as an in-game currency. But if you thought you could just BUY champions with it, think again. You spend favor for TEMPORARY access to other champions. That's right, if you don't pay cash, you apparently can't permanently acquire other characters: you have to rent them.
Posts
As much as I love Doom 4, snap map is a complete failure. The differences between building out a toy level editor vs giving players the same tools developers used is massive.
Losing Carmack was not only a blow to the tech side but also was the last nail in the coffin of classic id culture. A culture that understood that the players could give legs to a game far beyond the efforts of a small dev team. A culture that spent man hours releasing tools and even eventually open sourcing game engines and in return getting one of most vibrate and dedicated fan base of creators possibly ever.
When Quake 2 came out, long before the engine was open sourced, id released the entire game source to the public and basically gave their community just as much power as the original devs. Bethesda just doesn't get that and what makes that even sadder is that I don't think the rest of the industry gets it either.
The guy leading the project isn't even Willits. It's the same person who was in charge of Quake Live for the last few years. (Which leads some people to speculate about why exactly they made those drastic gameplay changes, but that's another story.) Live was never as open as Quake 3, but it did rely heavily on community content. All the most popular maps, gametypes, even mechanics and engine modifications were all borrowed from mods.
Now, I don't expect we'll be seeing Action Quake Champions or anything like that, but I do think they'll make the effort to open the game up for people to contribute with what is necessary for it to succeed within the Quake community. Mapping is one such necessity.
And if not, Diabotical will.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
edit: video taken down
On another note, TOXIKK, another game throwing its hat into the DM FPS arena, released a free version/demo. In this version, you can play a lot of the full version, but some things are restricted. One of the things restricted, which is an odd choice, is the server browser. Only the quick play option is available. There is a workaround at least that you can use the Steam client itself to list the servers. It plays a ton like UT 2004 and has all the dodging stuff from that game. I only got 1 game in because they game has a really hard time connecting to servers. It keeps booting me back to the menu when I try to join a game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/QuakeChampions/comments/52dlc9/upon_spawning_players_can_choose_between_machine/?st=it9hdgmi&sh=cd960129
"Upon spawning, players can choose between machine gun, shotgun, and nailgun. Good weapons will need to be picked up".
Hearing this, my first impression is I don't like it. These weapons did have their uses in Quake3 (less so the nailgun which was only in Team Arena).
Everyone is still thinking about duel, but id is dead set on reframing the entire game around their new TDM modes. I'd be surprised if they're giving duel much thought at all right now.
It's funny that people are back to complaining that q3 spawns were too weak. When the game came out, the number 1 complaint was that you were way too strong off the spawn. One of the biggest changes CPMA made was just dropping you back down to 100 flat (and making the mg weaker, but there were other factors involved, and quake live did that as well).
So here we have something a little interesting. We don't know that much about the nailgun, except that it's q1-style, so it's the non-hitscan option and the replacement for the plasma gun. The machine gun will probably be just as weak as it was, and the shotgun looks like it's not super shotgun or even q3 shotgun levels--it's also swinging back to q1 strength. Which means none it's likely none of these are going to be that dangerous. Except they're pushing the team angle and they might be going with classic TDM weapon spawns--which is upwards of 30 seconds. I can see why they'd let players feel like they're changing something or doing something, anything at all, when there's a chance they haven't gotten a decent gun in 5 minutes or more.
Of course, the biggest additional factor to consider is the new champion health system. Sure, you get those 3 options, but if you're Anarki and only spawning with 75 health you're the weakest you've ever been in a Quake game, in terms of conversion frags.
One additional note is that a major reason players cite for Q1's TDM scene still kicking to this day when TDM died in every other version of Quake is that the spawn gun is so utterly awful and you are such complete food that it really, really emphasizes teamwork and map control. On those small Q1 maps, a player with a rl and a bit of armour can basically kill unlimited numbers of just-spawned players, while in Q3 you can be as stacked as you want, but when you have a couple of guys with 125 health and 50dps machine guns coming at you it doesn't work out nearly as well.
I'm really excited about the beta.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
They gave you 125 health to start because they didn't want you to spawn and immediately die to rockets/rail (I remember asking one of the devs this while it was in Q3Test). The machine gun was really strong though, 7 dmg a shot.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
So much marketing devspeak, sure, but it's encouraging that they at least want to care.
Matchmaking and duels confirmed, nothing else really new.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
So, yeah, selling cosmetics. The biggest controversy would probably be how this works with the extensive modding Quake has always depended on before. But if they want to run tournaments, there's plenty of successful precedent for that. Even Capcom--a developer about as out of touch as you can get--had the gumption to put together a DLC package with partial proceeds going into their official tournament prize pool. Valve accomplished that much with their model, and id has already run its own Quake tournaments for decades now.
Apparently Intel has also been rumbling about wanting to start throwing money at Quake tournaments again.
Pretty much every major Quake player is on a competitive Overwatch team right now, and every one of that that's been asked has said they'd obviously love to play some Quake, but they have to go where the money is.
If id is paying any attention at all, they have to know all of that. They really, really want to position Quake Champions as an esports brand, so how and where they get money for tournaments and players is going to be one of their major issues--they've already "lost" all of their recognizable big names and they need to bring them back. Makes sense to start working it out as early as possible.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Quake is dead. id is dead. Modding is dead. The 90s are dead. My childhood is dead. Videogames are dead.
At least there's the new Unreal I guess?
I mean....this too shalt pass.
id has evolved into a different state, much like the industry-how could they not? I don't pretend to say it's better, just-there's a number of different factors at play that prevent id software from pretending to be the same company in the same business environment that it was in 1993. I'm not going to belabor any perceived ethos mandates from id's parent company. For the time being, Bethesda has granted the time and space to allow new Wolfenstein and DOOM games to flourish, and flourish mightily.
Modding is just in a different place right now, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if in another five years or whatever the industry decides there's a massive impetus and advantage to nurture and enable mods. Even SNAPMAP, for what it is, is a cursory feeler on this point, trying to figure out a way to allow user created content that, at the same time, won't usher in, say, a completely floor-plan accurate recreation of a real-life campus that thousands of people will download and FPS in. I would like to see more SNAPMAP support, where id opens up the customization options a little more, and is able to determine some meta-path for user created content that can foster the good without enabling those with crasser muses who just want to light up the social media du jour with their unpleasantness.
When someone figures out how to thread that particular needle, modding for games like DOOM will open up again.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
http://www.shacknews.com/article/99300/quake-champions-closed-beta-signups-open
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
I think it's worth noting that despite how the trailer presents it, Nyx's active ability (and all the others known so far) isn't quite as you might think. It's more akin to an option than a requirement, in that it is very predictable. She can't jump when she uses it, can't shoot, can't even pick up items, and has no control over the timing of when she rematerializes. That sort of thing is fairly easy to bait.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
"But what about in-game currency?" You might ask. I'm glad you brought it up! Seems like you can acrue "favor" as an in-game currency. But if you thought you could just BUY champions with it, think again. You spend favor for TEMPORARY access to other champions. That's right, if you don't pay cash, you apparently can't permanently acquire other characters: you have to rent them.
https://www.destructoid.com/quake-champions-will-be-free-but-there-s-also-the-option-to-buy-it-424122.phtml
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Uh excuse me his name is Orbb.
So do all heavyweight characters have a mario stomp or just this guy?
Heavyweight is his passive ability, I'm assuming all abilities are unique.
Anyway, some more news from the biggest and most dedicated competitive Quake site, esreality, who translated a Russian interview with Willits.
They'll have a Quake Champions tournament at Qcon this year (duh).
The one-time purchase of the full game gives you everything in perpetuity--that is, all new champions created and released after launch, just like the Smite model. Really, this is about as good as it gets for a f2p game these days, so I'm counting that as a firm win.
Ranked matchmaking for both duel and sacrifice (their main TDM mode that they want to be the esport).
They're actually committing to duel as part of their esports model, which is a pleasant surprise. They could have dropped it completely knowing that team modes are always more popular with casual audiences. They're also, so far, focusing a lot of their esports bidding at the EU, which makes sense as Quake (and other arena shooters) has always been most popular there.
Most importantly for this topic, the beta is confirmed to begin "in a few weeks" from now.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Looks like he has a health booster and enhanced air control.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I just got my invite about an hour ago.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
It is a Quake-ass Quake game.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
The max speed thing is interesting and I'm not sure how that will keep going without tweaks, but besides the customization, it's a game that is Quake and that counts for something.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
The game looks pretty good, I was getting excited until I read this, it sounds like a terrible system.
Just sell me the game for $60 please and add characters for free Overwatch style.