God, the title length here is short as hell. Anyway, yeah, I posted this on the official QL forums but I may as well stick it on here too. ESR isn't really the intended audience, but feel free to look at it or link people to it if you think it'll be useful. The whole point of these is to have one config that newbs who know they're missing out on something can load up, and another for people who want to know more but don't know what the fuck they're doing. Pasted below:

Hi there folks,

Sparked by a discussion in IRC, I've made 2 config files which are aimed at 2 different groups of people. Read on if you want to know more..

Quake Live is an extremely configurable game, unlike almost any other. You can change so many things that new people usually don't realise, including some settings which provide an obvious benefit to you. A lot of new people often consider it as cheating because they didn't know about these things, but in reality the customisability is a large part of what makes Quake so good.

Here I have made two separate config files. Both include a bunch of essential settings and tweaks which I think every player should know about and use.

The first is just there settings, without any extra settings which are just personal preferences. I feel all of the settings in the config provide a benefit in-game, through one way or another. The second is a very comprehensive config which includes most of the configurable settings someone may want to change in the game, aside from very personal ones such as mouse sensitivity and accel.

The configs are very heavily commented - I have aimed to explain to people what each command does or why people use it. Sections include:

1. Ease of use tweaks
2. Video settings
3. Mouse settings
4. Weapon settings
5. In-game visual settings
6. HUD settings
7. Audio settings
8. Gameplay tweaks
9. Network settings

tl;dr - 2 configs. 1st is for new people who want the 'edge' other people have, and the 2nd is for people who want to delve further into customisation, but aren't sure what to change or what settings do. If you download them please read them - Just open it in Notepad or something.

DOWNLOAD 'ESSENTIAL TWEAKS' CONFIG HERE

DOWNLOAD SEMI-COMPREHENSIVE 'PRO' TWEAKS CONFIG HERE

Please download and reply with comments, especially is it helps you.

How do I use this config? Where do I put it?
Put this in your Quake Live \baseq3\ folder. If you don't know where that is:

Windows 7/Vista: %userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\id Software\quakelive\home\baseq3
Windows XP: %appdata%\id Software\quakelive\home\baseq3
GNU/Linux: ~/.quakelive/quakelive/home/baseq3

.. So for example, in Windows 7:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\id Software\quakelive\home\baseq3

Then you will need to load it in-game. Use the console to do this by pressing CTRL+ALT+`, or CTRL+ALT+~ depending on your keyboard's regional layout. Then type:

/exec m16-qlessentials.cfg or /exec m16-qlpro.cfg depending on which config you downloaded. Then to restart the game with the settings, type in console again:

/vid_restart

More info:
Yakumo's 'Ultimate Quake Live Guide': http://www.quakelive.com/forum/showthread.php?831
My blog: http://emsixteen.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/essential-config-tweaks-for-beginners-and-semi-comprehensive-pro-config/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/emsixteen
Contact: EmSixTeen @ #quakelive