Over the weekend I dusted off my Quake 3 Arena CD and installed it. At least a decade has passed since I experienced the campaign and here are my thoughts:

The cinematics are little cheesy, but also very fun and served purpose. In my opinion, they educate the player by visually representing challenge and offering reward. The incentive is there and you must defeat these characters to ascend. This is something completely absent in Quake Live. Firstly, there isn't a campaign necessarily. Secondly, there isn't something in the absence of the campaign. Therefore, it's quite possible that the entire concept is lost on a new player. I believe this is important because it plays a significant role in gaming. Aside from the base entertainment value, the true reward is to become better and be a winner. Depending on the community to school a player is not reliable because they are often teased, treated aggressively and will probably rage off. I think it'd be useful to have a campaign in Quake Live. It'd give old players something new to experience and new players something to learn from.

The blood! It's something else missing in Quake Live. To my understanding this is because of the rating board, but it seems a little absurd when consider the primary objective is to kill others to control resources. I don't know how big of a problem this has been or how the rating board works necessarily, but maybe something could be worked out for Premium or Pro accounts? I imagine a good amount of people would pay for Premium or Pro if they could enable blood.

Runs smoother. Some people have frame rate problems in Quake Live and some people don't. Some people have been able to fix their problems and some people haven't. I haven't been able to solve my issue, but I didn't experience any problems in running Quake 3 Arena. I know that Quake Live is a bit more demanding, but I'm going to test some older hardware I have to see how it runs.

Strafe jumping is harder. I knew when I failed Bridge to Rail something was wrong. Movement is so much easier in Quake Live. I'd rather have it be more challenging personally.

Higher accuracy. I had a really easy time aiming in Quake 3 Arena. I kind of expected the opposite because I know that a year or two ago the hit box size increased in Quake Live. It could just be me because my system doesn't run Quake Live optimally.

All in all it was pretty fun to play again especially after all this time. Some of the map differences were definitely strange, q3dm11 in particular. I remember Xaero giving me so much trouble back in the day. I think the first time won I hid and waited to ambush him. Now I was able to deny the rail gun and beat him on my first try. Revenge.

Just felt like sharing. What are your thoughts on Q3A vs. QL?