Will a potential Quake 3 Arena Remaster be well received?

4 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

This is a similar problem for RTS games. In fact, it applies even more for RTS games and even since the PS360 generation, the genre went into a decline.

4 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

Again another common issue with RTS games. Those didn't evolve much beyond the mid-00s either, and no RTS after Starcraft 2 has managed to gain a sizable audience.

Age of Empires 2 DE has had 25,694 unique players on Steam alone in the last 24 hours, and AoE4 16,162. For reference, Quake Live had 402 and Quake Champions 698.

Given that MS has established a studio dedicated to managing AoE, it seems they're fairly confident in the future of the RTS genre.

2 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

Age of Empires 2 DE has had 25,694 unique players on Steam alone in the last 24 hours, and AoE4 16,162. For reference, Quake Live had 402 and Quake Champions 698.

 

Given that MS has established a studio dedicated to managing AoE, it seems they're fairly confident in the future of the RTS genre.

I stand corrected then. I knew AoE 2 DE was very well received and is often quoted as an example of how to do a remaster right. But I didn't knew it had that big of a player base. My perspective was jaded by how many RTS games I had seen fail since around or after the time of SC2's initial release.

9 hours ago, Kinsie said:

 

Age of Empires 2 DE has had 25,694 unique players on Steam alone in the last 24 hours, and AoE4 16,162. For reference, Quake Live had 402 and Quake Champions 698.

 

Given that MS has established a studio dedicated to managing AoE, it seems they're fairly confident in the future of the RTS genre.

RTS games aren't nearly as saturated of a market as FPS games though, comparing the numbers like this directly makes no sense.

13 hours ago, Kinsie said:

Id Tech 6 was not ready at the time development started.

If that's the case, then they should've put the project on hold until the engine was at least mature enough to begin development on. Though I suppose that's possibly Bethesda's doing, trying to milk id for what they're worth. 

50 minutes ago, OpenRift said:

If that's the case, then they should've put the project on hold until the engine was at least mature enough to begin development on. Though I suppose that's possibly Bethesda's doing, trying to milk id for what they're worth. 

Id had two teams at the time - the Doom 2016 team and the not-Doom-2016 team, and teams of people don't stop costing money when they're twiddling their fingers and sitting on their hands.

1 hour ago, Kinsie said:

Id had two teams at the time - the Doom 2016 team and the not-Doom-2016 team, and teams of people don't stop costing money when they're twiddling their fingers and sitting on their hands.

They could've been reassigned in the meantime to do some work on Doom 2016 and preliminary work for Champions (modeling, concepts, etc.) until the engine is in a usable enough state to begin the main part of development. But clearly there weren't enough people in a position of authority who cared enough about the risks of using such a wildcard engine that could potentially create more problems and make the whole project a bust. 

The least they could've done was at least keep development in-house until the game was in a complete state. Then the game wouldn't have been received so poorly and course-correction of poor design decisions wouldn't be such a tug of war. 

20 minutes ago, OpenRift said:

They could've been reassigned in the meantime to do some work on Doom 2016 and preliminary work for Champions (modeling, concepts, etc.) until the engine is in a usable enough state to begin the main part of development.

You don't know how game development works. You don't simply assign more people to a thing as this requires scaling up logistics and management which in turn requires you to have even more people to manage the larger staff pool and asset throughput for the single project. You also start to get higher chances of asset conflict and fewer jobs to assign, two people can't work on the same thing so micromanagement had to increase. What things can even be worked on has an intrensic limit as well, two people can't model the same demon at once.

You can't make a rocketship go higher by only putting more fuel in it because the fuel itself has weight of which it must lift itself.

13 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

You don't know how game development works. You don't simply assign more people to a thing as this requires scaling up logistics and management which in turn requires you to have even more people to manage the larger staff pool and asset throughput for the single project. You also start to get higher chances of asset conflict and fewer jobs to assign, two people can't work on the same thing so micromanagement had to increase. What things can even be worked on has an intrensic limit as well, two people can't model the same demon at once.

That's a fair point, but certainly there could've been a better way to go about it than using such an unstable engine.

Even if they truly had no other option but to use Saber's engine, they had so many opportunities to course correct and let the game's code and design mature internally, but instead they did stupid thing that too many big-budget studios do now where they release a game in early access, leading their game's release with a crap reception and the community's dwindling faith in the game's development as it receives half-baked updates once every 7 eons. Based on what is known publicly, whoever was making these decisions really set the game up for failure.

On 5/8/2023 at 3:37 AM, ReaperAA said:

I think one major factor is that the genre doesn't work well with consoles. Sure there are some popular arena-shooter-like games on the consoles. Halo is very popular and it has some arena-shooter like elements. But the traditional arena-shooter franchises like Quake and UT have always been PC-centric.

MOBA games and tactical shooters like CS and Valorant are PC exclusives and are wildly successful.  Other games like Rainbow Six and other genres like battle royale have a significant PC presence.  Just because a genre was birthed on a PC doesn't mean it now gets left in the dust.

On 5/8/2023 at 3:37 AM, ReaperAA said:

Another not-so-insignificant part of it might have to do with the fact that the genre never evolved in a meaningful way past year 1999.

It did evolve past 1999.  It's just that the evolution was called "Halo" and territorial PC gamers refused to acknowledge it as being part of the same genre.  Which is kind of ironic considering that now in 2023 you can play all of the Halo games on PC and it has more players than all of the other oldschool arena shooters put together.

I will say that it was interesting seeing Halo Infinite adopt arena-shooter-style HUD respawn timers for powerups and superweapons. A step back that made sense.

10 hours ago, LexiMax said:

It did evolve past 1999.  It's just that the evolution was called "Halo" and territorial PC gamers refused to acknowledge it as being part of the same genre.  Which is kind of ironic considering that now in 2023 you can play all of the Halo games on PC and it has more players than all of the other oldschool arena shooters put together.

As much as I like classic Halo, I still consider it to be more of a "post-arena" shooter. It still takes some design cues from Quake III and Unreal Tournament, but feels significantly stiffer in terms of the way its arsenal works and how players move about, resulting in the game feeling significantly slower.

1 minute ago, OpenRift said:

As much as I like classic Halo, I still consider it to be more of a "post-arena" shooter. It still takes some design cues from Quake III and Unreal Tournament, but feels significantly stiffer in terms of the way its arsenal works and how players move about, resulting in the game feeling significantly slower.

As much as I love classic Halo, i have to agree on that, the game feels significantly less like an Arena FPS and more like a "modern" FPS.

Slower movement, 2 weapons at a time and grenade management, less close-quarters combat (looking at you Custom Edition, damn snipers) and regenerative shields.

Classic Forge and Theater is still pretty good though.

I think Halo has more to do with classic FPS gaming than Counter-Strike, which is imo where the Modern FPS as we understand it now really started taking off. Halo's slower and the weapon limit can definitely reduce tactics but it's still very much a game about movement (Halo Infinite especially with movement tricks, clamber and sliding, tools like the repulsor and grapple, etc.) versus CS where it's very much stop-and-pop.

On 5/7/2023 at 7:59 PM, mankubus said:

The required skillset to perform in Quake is just too much. The mainstream moved to CS and team games in general because it's way more forgiving. In CS you can jump in there and get some frags, in Quake you will get obliterated. Of course with a big enough playerbase, this would be solved via matchmaking systems. The problem is that you need a big enough playerbase. The zoomoid will never get good in Quake when he has so many instant gratification alternatives today.

 

Here you can see a top player explaining what goes through his mind in a duel.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58 

The kind of deep analysis you're showing off is in no way unique to arena shooters.

Counter-strike in particular is a really poor comparison to make.  Do you understand how good at the game good CS players can get?  When people yell and scream during a CS major, it's not just because they're excited about their favorite team or player, it's also because the audience appreciates how hard it is to pull off some of these big-brain plays or unlikely clutches.

CS:GO is in my opinion the platonic ideal of an FPS e-sport.  It's a somewhat difficult game to learn how to play because you need to learn how to aim and how to use utility properly in each map, but the skill ceiling of this game is in the stratosphere and it's pulled off without classes like in Valorant or Rainbow Six, which contributes to the game being incredibly spectator-friendly.

1 hour ago, LexiMax said:

 

The kind of deep analysis you're showing off is in no way unique to arena shooters.

 

Counter-strike in particular is a really poor comparison to make.  Do you understand how good at the game good CS players can get?  When people yell and scream during a CS major, it's not just because they're excited about their favorite team or player, it's also because the audience appreciates how hard it is to pull off some of these big-brain plays or unlikely clutches.

 

 

CS:GO is in my opinion the platonic ideal of an FPS e-sport.  It's a somewhat difficult game to learn how to play because you need to learn how to aim and how to use utility properly in each map, but the skill ceiling of this game is in the stratosphere and it's pulled off without classes like in Valorant or Rainbow Six, which contributes to the game being incredibly spectator-friendly.

Yeah but anyone with some basic knowledge on fps can jump on a server and get some kills, however if you were to jump on a duel you would get obliterated 42 -2 and you would never play the game again. To solve this you would need a big playerbase to get an accurate matchmaking system, but since the game is not noob friendly this doesn't happen. It's one of those things.

3 hours ago, mankubus said:

Yeah but anyone with some basic knowledge on fps can jump on a server and get some kills, however if you were to jump on a duel you would get obliterated 42 -2 and you would never play the game again.

CS is notorious for being a difficult game to learn.

That's because in an actual 5v5 game, prior FPS knowledge doesn't actually do you much good.  The typical new player experience in CS is running around a confusing map not knowing where to go or what to do, wasting money early on expensive weapons that they lose immediately, never buying utility, and emptying your magazine at an enemy only for them to two-tap you in response.

And if you're up against a pro, you're probably dead the moment you enter their FOV because they know the angles to clear and can control their recoil.  Good players in CS are every bit as oppressive as good arena shooter players.

Still, a CS pro player can't move at more than double the speed of a newbie. He can't have around double his effective HP by picking up every single power-up. I'm not trying to say the skill ceiling in CS is any lower or higher than in arena shooters, but i think it pretty obvious that differences in skill in an arena shooter make for a greater difference in performance than in CS.

My dream multiplayer game would be Quake Champions, more polished and with maybe like 4 more champions, but more importantly, with League of Legends levels of concurrent players. That way not only would new players have a much better experience and less frustrating ways to learn the game, but I just can't even imagine what competitive duel play would get refined into with that many players. Not going to happen, sadly.

11 hours ago, Gravepicker said:

I'm not trying to say the skill ceiling in CS is any lower or higher than in arena shooters, but i think it pretty obvious that differences in skill in an arena shooter make for a greater difference in performance than in CS. 

There are folks in this thread who assert that the reason arena shooters fell out of favor is because players these days prefer more forgiving, instant gratification games.  Frankly, I think that's a really lazy take that glosses over the fact that many games from that era have aged much better as competitive games and continue to find a much wider audience than arena shooters do these days.  Q3 and UT99 came out in 1999.  Counter-strike was already in beta and would be out by 2000.  Age of Empires 2 - also a 1999 release.  Halo came out in 2001.  DotA was first released in 2003.  Many of the most critically acclaimed arcade fighting games also came out in that time span.

If you want my take on it, I feel like Arena Shooters in the Quake 3 sense simply didn't age very well.  Dueling in particular I felt was kind of fundamentally flawed in how much it emphasized map control over just taking fights and fragging out.  But I think it's biggest sin is that it just doesn't look like much fun when you're watching two good players duke it out.  Arena shooters have always been difficult to spectate due to player speed and maps that rely on vertical space and teleporters, but most of your time is spent watching them do laps around the map, firing predictive rockets and rails often at what seems like empty space, and looooots of running away.  It just doesn't look like fun gameplay to someone who isn't already a fan of arena shooters.

Issues like these are issues that other competitive games have evolved on.  Fighting games?  Beat their ass until their health bar runs out.  CS?  Plant the bomb at a site and one way or another one team is going to be dead within the next two minutes.  Halo?  Wide open maps and slower player speed makes games easier to follow.  Age of Empires?  Raise a big army and send it into your opponents base.  DotA?  Become an overpowered demigod and wipe out the enemy team's base.  Rocket League?  Put the ball in a goal.  Overwatch?  Plant yourself on the cart, mister.  By comparison, an arena shooter duel feels like you're playing an abstraction of a game.

Back when I first started getting into playing games online, I did try to get into Quake 3 and UT 2004.  Quake 3 I gave up on pretty quickly since I definitely had the dead as soon as you respawn experience.  Finding out that the game was reduced to a science and everyone played with a bunch of hidden settings tweaked, high vis models, etc wasn't particularly inspiring either.  UT 2004 I don't remember being quite as bad, and I honestly don't know why I didn't stick with it longer.  I do like both games for local play with friends since besides being able to run on just about anything, the basic mechanics are really simple compared to say class based games.

Anyhow my game of choice ended up being Doom, and specifically Skulltag.  In the context of this discussion I think Doom (at least of the "new school" variety) really struck a good balance.  Interestingly despite not being traits of arena shooters, most good maps spawn players on or near a super shotgun which effectively emulates a load out system and lowers the time to kill.  (Although I personally quite enjoy shotgun based maps which increase time to kill.)  I'm not sure if it was just because I was most active in a time when Doom was less competitive, if the balance of the game just makes it matter less, or if it's just the way the maps are designed, but it doesn't seem like Doom allows starving the other player of resources like Quake 3 does.  Also probably helps that getting to an acceptable proficiency in movement in Doom is fairly simple (granted there's still stuff to give an edge that's fairly advanced).

I still haven't played Halo so can't really compare.

7 minutes ago, Blzut3 said:

it doesn't seem like Doom allows starving the other player of resources like Quake 3 does.  Also probably helps that getting to an acceptable proficiency in movement in Doom is fairly simple (granted there's still stuff to give an edge that's fairly advanced). 

I think you have hit the nail on the head.  I feel like Doom 2 is actually way more fun as a PvP game compared to any of the Quake or Unreal Tournaments, and I never really knew how to feel about attempts to bring over Q3-style item control as a mechanic to Doom in map or mod form.  Some folks obviously liked it, but I never understood the appeal.

3 hours ago, LexiMax said:

I feel like Doom 2 is actually way more fun as a PvP game compared to any of the Quake or Unreal Tournaments

Doomkid would be proud to hear this opinion :p

On a serious note though, you guys made good points and I can see why someone would like Doom 2's faster TTK gameplay over Quake/Unreal, although I am not generally a fan of a lot of duels in Doom 2 being SSG fests.

3 hours ago, LexiMax said:

Some folks obviously liked it, but I never understood the appeal.

Personally speaking, the item controls add a certain strategic depth which has its charm. Like what powerup or weapons you want to control, how do you take control away from your opponent, how to time powerups in a way that you can get to all of them without interruption. A game where players have to keep track of them while duelling, is far more interesting in my eyes than a matchup of who just has better aim/dodging skills.

There is a good deal of strategy and mind-games going on in a top-level Q3/QL duel as proved by the commentary from a pro player

Although I can understand that this strategy element of item controlling is not very apparent to someone who isn't well versed with arena shooters.

I'm with @LexiMax here, a lot of people in this thread seem to believe that arena shooters don't appeal to players today because they are too fast or they are unwilling to learn the mechanics, ignoring the fact that there are games like Titanfall 2, where you can zoom aroun the map while fragging as if it were 1999. 

A more mainstream example would be Apex Legends, which is consistenly in the top 5 most played games on Steam, according to steam charts. The movement variety you can pull off in that game is insane. It's also a fun esport to watch if you're into strategic decision making.

The point is, there are fast and mechanically complex shooters out there that are widely played in both PC and consoles, so I don't agree with the take that modern players are unwilling to learn hard games. Quake 3 and other arena shooters were no doubt a product of their time. They were fun but haven't aged well.

I'll agree with @LexiMax in that the biggest problem for Quake 3-styled arena shooters when trying to attract new players is the abstraction. Timing and positioning are as important as aim or movement in those games, but they're a lot harder to appreciate as a spectator, and specially if you're relatively new to the genre. When I've tried to explain the appeal of the game to friends, they often make the "what-does-all-that-have-to-do-with-shooting?" face hehe. I think that improved spectator HUD, maybe with a way to tell who picked what in the last rotation for example, could improve that; but probably not enough to make a difference.

Even then, I love Quake duel, and not just as a fun or challenging way to spend free time. Anecdotal, I know, but it's helped me a lot with keeping control of my emotions in stressful situations and keeping track of multiple things at once. It has also introduced me to some awesome people. I get it that it's not like that even for most people who know of it, but it's a pretty special game/games/gamemode/whatever for me. So it's kinda sad to not see more people joining in, and knowing that the more time passes, the less potential opponents I get.

Incidentally, if anyone reading this is interested in playing Quake Champions duel, check out the German QC community at gerqc.de. They organize leagues for all levels of skill (I'm losing all my games on the lowest skill league right now hahaha), most people are really friendly and will give tips and even practice if requested, and those few that can't behave themselves get booted out pretty quickly.

P.S.: With both this post and the last post I made in this thread, it wasn't my intention to be adversarial, have the last word on the topic or hijack it into a Quake 3 Duel appreciation thread. It's just that I have a bit of an internal conflict between what I think will happen to new games in the genre (they will be short-lived if they stay close to the original formula for the reasons already discussed) and my own desires (I want a bigger community for those games).

8 hours ago, Gravepicker said:

Even then, I love Quake duel, and not just as a fun or challenging way to spend free time.

Oh no doubt.  Despite not being a fan of duel gameplay personally, I can see how some folks might see the appeal, and I'm not saying that people are wrong for liking arena shooters or anything.  I'm just saying that the gameplay loop is a hard sell to new players on a fundamental "does this sound like a fun activity" sense, and not a "waa this is too hard for zoomers" sense.  In fact, people who actually think that it's too hard for modern players are actually self-defeating and are ensuring that their favorite game genre will die because their stance assumes that the game is fine in its current state and doesn't need to be improved.

And don't worry, you've been fine. 😀