QuakeLive: czm posts some old thoughts on QL

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By Duncan 'Thorin' Shields

Jun 29, 2011 02:20

Q3 TDM legend czm addressed his thoughts on QuakeLive via a series of notes he made in 2009 regarding the game.

Quake 3 Team DeathMatch legend

Paul 'czm' Nelson has posted up some 'old' thoughts' on QuakeLive which he originally put together back in 2009, and even indirectly sent to id, QuakeLive's developers. The man often considered to be one of most intelligent and cerebral players breaks down his thoughts on the game in a structured manner, raising interesting points throughout.

Explaining the genesis and appearance of the notes:

"Back in Feb 2009, Slasher prodded me to install QL and write down my thoughts, which I understand he then passed along to the dev team. I've copied them below in their entirety. Even today, 2.5 years later, these notes give a concise overview of what I think are the main issues confronting QL's appeal and popularity. Some other players I've shared them with have encouraged me to share them publicly, hence this post."

An overview point czm highlights:

"- I.D. While it is tangential to what I'm going to write about I'll mention that I believe that the goal of making a game newbie friendly", i.e. making it harder for a great difference in skill between opponents to reflect in a large score difference, is often misdirected, and ultimately counterproductive because it reduces the game's staying power; Quake1 was very popular and yet had the proper weapon and armor /imbalance/ to give a high skill ceiling. It is very important that a game be attractive to new players and this should be a major consideration of the designers, but efforts in this direction are better spent improving the accessibility and user-friendliness of the game than overly tweaking the gameplay."

A matchmaking issue:

"- III.B.2. Right now, if you want to play a 1v1 game, that usually means you have to wait as a spectator on a server, deal with jerks, hope that your opponent doesn't quit on you and so on. I would like, with the press of a button, to be matched with an appropriately skilled opponent and begin a game on a fair server. This should all take less than 30 seconds. Any more, and I'd rather just join a FFA server and get some instant satisfaction There should be a loading screen telling me my opponent's name and his "level" in the game (see below We should both be able to choose graphical avatars Mine should appear on the left with my name and "level his on the right. There should be some indication of the map or server we're playing on."

On 'Selling the genre':

"- III.D.2. There should be a professionally done, extensive interactive tutorial for teaching people how to play FPS games. This might involve simple movement challenges or target practice, but it should be fun and engaging. It could involve "goal sheets" of objectives like "hit this many targets in a big open room in one minute," or navigate through this obstacle course as quickly as possible, and aim for under 30 seconds." Think, for example, of Super Smash Bros., and the various mini-games that accompany the main fighting mode."

czm is best known for being the star lynchpin of the clan Kapitol TDM team, who went undefeated over a two year stretch and won the CPL's FRAG4 tournament. After being heavily hyped from 2000 onwards on his duel career eventually graduated to top tier placings as he managed to place 3rd at Quakecon 2003, 1st at Quakecon 2004 and 2nd at ESWC 2005.

Source: ESReality