[MusicallyInspired]

NightFright, on 15 January 2019 - 07:47 AM, said:

I am not particularly good in really skilled shooting anyway, with all that fancy rocket jumping, predicted aiming and what not. It's more about having fun, and I dunno if I can have that right now when so many things change fundamentally during a rather short period of time. I am more of a singleplayer person in general, I would say. However, since I had already played Quake III and several UTs, my hope was this would at least eventually turn into something similarly enjoyable. Didn't they add bots a while ago?

I'm like you. I also prefer single player. In fact, I defied the whole multiplayer-only era of the early aughts. But I did enjoy Unreal Tournament. I definitely had fun with QC. I didn't die nearly as much as I was expecting to. It was a blast. Course, that was before all the changes mentioned here. Haven't tried it since.

Speaking of which, has anyone played the new Unreal Tournament? How does that fare? I haven't heard a thing about it since it was announced years ago and that they might be working something out with Alexander Brandon to work on some music for it. It's still available and free, but haven't heard a thing.

[Zaxx]

NightFright, on 15 January 2019 - 07:47 AM, said:

It's more about having fun, and I dunno if I can have that right now when so many things change fundamentally during a rather short period of time.

The thing about fundamental changes is that most of those only affect ranked duels in a very substantial way, in more casual modes like deathmatch or team deathmatch you feel them too but it's not something you should really worry about. Here are the more important changes they made since I'm playing:

- They moved hit detection from server side to client side: what an avarage player notices from this is that they hit a bit more shots than what they used to and that sometimes lag compensation works in the favor of those who have a higher ping. The latter could get pretty bad and it can still be felt. For example people can shoot you through a wall half a second after you've already moved to cover because of lag compensation: your client was already behind the wall but the guy with the high ping still shot you because on his client your hitbox was still visible. It can also occur that you're in a one-on-one situation with a guy, he frags you but you can still land a shot before the hit registers: the shot you landed won't register because you were already dead before his hit registered, the netcode just had a bit of a desync. Stuff like this can be frustrating, it's something that needs polish but it happens less now and if you're not playing ranked duels it likely won't bother you much.

- They moved away from model accurate hitboxes to skeleton-based capsule shapes: this made small champions weaker since they get hit more now but overall what an avarage player notices is that he lands more shots instead of shooting rails between a character's legs and cursing at the moon.

- Timer, ammo and item placement unification between game modes: very good change again, improved the pacing of matches and removed a lot of confusion. It was very easy to get used to it.

- A drastic change to the most hated map of the game: it's good now.

- Unified ability timers and nerfed damage dealing abilities: this changed duel drastically and overall it brought the gameplay a lot closer Quake 3 / Quake Live. Stupid shit doesn't happen anymore, there are no more "press F to win" situations where a guy just deletes you with his ability.

- Better scalability in graphics settings: low looks like shit and medium looks like tolerable shit now which helps a lot in getting to those higher framerates. They still managed to fuck up memory managemenet with this somehow but they started patching that out and even with that issue the game generally runs better now.

- The removal of the loot box based business model, introducing linear champion progression and battle passes: if you care about cosmetics and like loot boxes (shame on you) you may be on the fence about this and the new progression is not exactly rewarding now so a lot of people are pissed about this change. The devs will balance it out and it will be good, personally I don't care that much and think the new system is not predatory even with the admittedly shit state of battle pass progression.

The bottom line: QC is not a fighting game where a balance change demands changes in gameplay style or character, even the substantial changes don't affect the general experience that much. You'll just feel that the game got better, things that annoyed you are no longer there or happen in a more fair way etc.

Quote

Didn't they add bots a while ago?

Yep, there are bots now for custom matches and one regular quick play mode (TDM vs. bots where your team is made out of human players and you're fighting against bots). They are fine in the sense that all of them have their own playstyles but on higher difficulities they quickly become aimbots and their AI can't use abilities yet. There is also a great new "feature" in bot matches now where you'll find a lot of players who are just idling matches because battle pass progression is too slow, people are garbage and the devs are idiots sometimes.

[Zaxx]

MusicallyInspired, on 15 January 2019 - 09:51 AM, said:

Speaking of which, has anyone played the new Unreal Tournament? How does that fare? I haven't heard a thing about it since it was announced years ago and that they might be working something out with Alexander Brandon to work on some music for it. It's still available and free, but haven't heard a thing.

I played the UT4 pre-alpha. It was well on track to being the best UT game but then Fortnite blew up and the development team got transferred to that game. It's essentially dead now though it has bots and you can find matches during busier hours.

But hey, at least we can still listen to this:

[MusicallyInspired]

Fricking Fortnite.

[Jimmy]

[pacman]

Zaxx, on 11 January 2019 - 06:38 PM, said:

Most of the playerbase switched to QC, QL is dying slowly but steadily. I get what you are saying and partially even agree but let it go, mate. Quake needs change...

...but for the love of God I hope they do something about QC's current duel format because it's just insufferable.

It doesn't really need change. A graphical update and some other cosmetic improvements to meet zoomer standards, however by removing the core gameplay it is no longer quake. The point of quake specially dueling was that the skill is all about the player, having this element of having to choose "your cards" by selecting different champions is just so non-quake. One of the reasons eSports are a joke is that people are supposed to jump from game to game depending on what the latest fad is. Imagine asking chess players the same.

[Zaxx]

The chess argument is interesting: I always see this come up when a game with a rich history is getting a sequel basically saying "the rules of chess don't change so why do they change the rules of X game with its sequel?" The thing is though that the rules of chess did change for the longest time and even nowadays there are different rulesets you can play the game with (and on top of that chances are that if you sit down to play chess with a friend you won't apply competition rules to it).

And when it comes to Quake every single installment is very different, even Quake Live has a different set of balance than Quake 3. I get that if you've played Quake Live for a long time then it must be hard to even want to adjust to a different installment but really I think that a portion of the fanbase thinks like this because QL has been around for ages even if you don't count the popularity Q3 enjoyed back in the day. If something doesn't change for a long time people come to the point where they don't even want it to change even though chances are the arena FPS can still have a number of ways to evolve.

Honestly that's how I think about QL: I think that Clan Arena being the most popular mode there proves that the other modes and even parts of the core gameplay kinda suck. Just think about it: the majority of the QL playerbase is playing a mode that doesn't give a shit about proper map control, it's just stacked up combat between two teams with the focus being on positioning and weapon switching. CA is fun but I don't want to play that or duel for the rest of my life, instead I gladly take refined versions of FFA, TDM, CTF, hell, even something like QC's Slipgate mode feels like a breath of fresh air to me. That's just me though.

[NNC]

Fuck Quake and all of it's sequels, SP and MP as well. Long live Duke Fucking Nukem.

[Zaxx]

Nancsi, on 17 January 2019 - 01:13 PM, said:

Long live Duke Fucking Nukem.

He's dead though thanks to DNF's reception and Gearbox's terrible handling of the IP in the last 8 years. I know, I know, it's not nice to go offtopic in a thread about a shitty source port that's 2 years old now (hyped for breaking news) but honestly when it comes to Duke I think this video sums it up pretty well:

But hey, since nowadays Gearbox is just shoving the King into random games we might see him again soon... in Quake Champions!

Edit: Btw. when it comes to the modding scene Duke ain't afraid of no Quake:

[Ninety-Six]

I've yet to play QCDE, but that trailer music is dope:



Probably one of the best covers I've heard.

[Tea Monster]

With Quake Champions, everyone I know wanted 'At the Mountains of Madness', but with nailguns ('Quake 1 given the NewDoom treatment). When an updated version of Quake Arena was announced, the general reaction was "Ehhhh".

I like QC. It's fun and fast deathmatch. They didn't completely bodge it up like Doom's deathmatch. I haven't played it in a while through - just not that compelling. I keep thinking of what it would have been like to have a properly lovecrafted-up single player campaign. Sigh.

Yeah. Duke is dead. Gearbox/2K have no idea what they are sitting on. Wait till the IP changes hands.

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 17 January 2019 - 09:42 PM, said:

I've yet to play QCDE, but that trailer music is dope:

Yep, Michael Markie makes some amazing music, stuff like this:

But of course Bethesda never approached him to put this into the game. He is working on the soundtrack and sound design of Diabotical now (it's a multiplayer arena shooter very similar to Quake Live).

[MusicallyInspired]

MIDI guitars......but otherwise, quite nice.

[Zaxx]

MusicallyInspired, on 18 January 2019 - 06:22 AM, said:

MIDI guitars

Dunno about that but what I like about the guy is that he's really good at taking a certain atmosphere and making it sound heavier and more modern without hurting the original. Like his Quake 1 remakes / covers basically:

[Sledgehammer]

MusicallyInspired, on 15 January 2019 - 05:01 PM, said:

Fricking Fortnite.

Blame Tencent for that. Modern Epic is a bitch of chinks, one of the worst and most dangerous companies in industry because they're the one who are starting to buy out Western companies.

Zaxx, on 17 January 2019 - 06:35 PM, said:

He's dead though

He'll truly die when this site and people who create Duke related content or even care about him die.

[Zaxx]

Quote

He'll truly die when this site and people who create Duke related content or even care about him die.

Sure but I'd like to see Duke being somewhat relevant again. That won't happen with Gearbox and the modding community for Duke is simply not big enough to have much of an effect. I can also see the community gravitating towards modding for Ion Maiden and Blood in the future instead of Duke 3D.

[MusicallyInspired]

Ninety-Six, on 17 January 2019 - 09:42 PM, said:

I've yet to play QCDE, but that trailer music is dope:



Probably one of the best covers I've heard.

Wait what the heck? The video says "Original Soundtrack by Lee Daniels".

[Zaxx]

The first comment under the video from Markie:

Quote

Just realized I put Lee Daniels instead of Lee Jackson in the video T_T

[MusicallyInspired]

Yeah I just read that too lol.

[Malgon]

Lee Jackson made a great comment further down in response to that!

[Tea Monster]

It would have taken him five seconds to Google the correct name.

[Zaxx]

Tea Monster, on 20 January 2019 - 03:32 AM, said:

It would have taken him five seconds to Google the correct name.

Not only that but since he made a cover it was impossible for him not to see whose song he's covering. One of the weirdest fuckups I've seen for sure.

Btw. I'm still bothered by the fact that DNF had a rather shitty version of Grabbag while some random guy can make a cover that is more faithful and sounds a lot better than that weirdness too.

[NightFright]

The title song wasn't the only thing about DNF that could/should have been done better.

[MusicallyInspired]

The title song of DNF was actually better than the original Megadeath-inspired one they had on the website for a time before the game came out. The one that made it in the game is more inspired by Lee Jackson's so at least there's that.

Like Lee said in the comments, I always like me some Grabbag covers that follow the original and don't just rehash Megadeath's version as if that's the be-all-end-all version. Lee's original doesn't get enough credit oftentimes.

[Zaxx]

I don't hate the final DNF version (the "beta" one was super weird though), hell, the added guitar solo is even pretty nice but the sound of the whole thing just doesn't match with how I think Grabbag should sound as a proper rock / metal song. It's "processed", overproduced and the sound is just shitty (especially the drums).

Grabbag should be raw, it should be less Megadeth and more Guns N' Roses, more specifically less Chinese Democracy and more Appetite for Destruction.

Anyway I think the Megadeth version resonated with a lot of people exactly because you can hear that it's a real metal band playing that shit even though there are stuff in it that is again a sign of overproduction (and it's even off a bit, some notes are missing or I dunno). That version was "real" so to speak while DNF's version sounds like those covers made with shitty equipment and a lack of talent from the early 2000s.

Edit: Anyway just to give you an example of how I think a rock cover of Grabbag should sound like in terms of "rawness" and energy:

You know, something that helps grow some hair on your chest.

[Ninety-Six]

Zaxx, on 20 January 2019 - 03:49 AM, said:

One of the weirdest fuckups I've seen for sure.

If there is such a musician named "Lee Daniels" I would sort of understand it... Though I don't know music at all so if there is, I certainly have never ehard of him.

[axl]

Zaxx, on 20 January 2019 - 09:42 AM, said:

Grabbag should be raw, it should be less Megadeth and more Guns N' Roses, more specifically less Chinese Democracy and more Appetite for Destruction.

Well, that just comes down to personal taste. Guns N' Roses is more hard rock, while Megadeth is (thrash) metal. I kinda like most versions of Grabbag... even the DNF version was solid.

[Zaxx]

Sure, to some extent it's personal taste but my reasoning for it is simple: use a style of music that was popular in the time period Duke was inspired by. Predator, Aliens, Terminator, Commando = 80s stuff so that leaves you with classic hard rock and metal / thrash metal. Then you look at Duke himself: I can't picture Duke listening to thrash metal, that guy is listening to You Could Be Mine while mowing shit down.

[axl]

Zaxx, on 20 January 2019 - 10:18 AM, said:

Sure, to some extent it's personal taste but my reasoning for it is simple: use a style of music that was popular in the time period Duke was inspired by. Predator, Aliens, Terminator, Commando = 80s stuff so that leaves you with classic hard rock and metal / thrash metal. Then you look at Duke himself: I can't picture Duke listening to thrash metal, that guy is listening to You Could Be Mine while mowing shit down.

I always imagine Duke having much in common with Jack Slater from Last Action Hero. Hell, Jack even wears the same clothes as Duke, smokes cigars and indeed listens to hard rock. So yeah, Duke is probably more of a hard rock character than a metal character.



Haha, gotta love Arnie.

[Jimmy]

Guns N Roses is for poser faggots. They're chick rock. What the fuck is wrong with you.

Also the best version of Grabbag has already been made.