not much info in it though, this are the two interesting parts imho:
We actually have 15 new maps that we're already working on that we'll be releasing," says Nix. "We haven't worked out the schedule, but ideally we'd like to release maps once a month."
Though the subscriptions to Quake Live are low per month--$2 and $4 a month for Premium and Pro respectively--plans are billed on an annual basis. It turns out, this is mostly due to credit card fees. "If you're charging $1.99 for something, but have a $1 in credit card fees it's really hard to make economically feasible," says Nix. "The idea was to find the absolute lowest cost we can keep the services at, but still do it on an annual basis."
Edit: okay now that i have read everything here in this thread and played more FT, i have to disagree with some of my initial thoughts, that were probably mostly influenced from my previous experience with FT in other games anyway
i was heavily opposed to not resetting health/weapons each round, but after playing a bit more now i have to admit that it creates an interesting dynamic (distinguishing it from other modes even more). i am not sure if it is better, but i think we should at least try it out for a few weeks before we judge on it. just because we arent used to it, doesnt mean that it is not working.
respawning after being thawed was new to me, but not to most others it seems. by now i have to agree that it is a better system. but i think the spawns shouldnt be random, you should spawn somewhere next to your mates instead of right in between the enemy team.
i still like the idea of a progress bar for thawing. sure, we also need a distinctive sound when thawing starts, but on top of that i would like to see something like this, that does not look artificial:
having this information displayed will add to the thrill when its close and help new players to get a feeling for the time it takes. also it will show what happens when you get out of the thawing radius for a second or you thaw with two players, right no, as a new player, you just dont know
while i have to admit that pushing frozen players around adds some depth to the game, i still dislike it cause it slows the match down. so i guess if you are a bit more serious about FT, its an essential part of the game, while its mostly just annoying for the casual public player :/
team spec is a no brainer imho, while hnns writes
t's part of the excitement to stay in frozen POV when there's lots of action around you, to see people succeed in reviving, fail miserably, or just betray you altogether. It's often quite exhilarating to see you completely helpless.
i think that it does not justify the rounds where you are stuck for 2 mins with nothing going on around you. when there is action around you and you can expect to be thawed, you could switch back anyway.
-------------------------------< old post >-------------------------------
freezetags feels kinda unfinished in ql, here is what i would like to see changed:
- health/weapons should be reset after each round
- when you thaw you shouldnt respawn, you should just be able to play again from where you were killed
- progress bar for thawing
- the enemy shouldnt be able to push around frozen players
- team spec while frozen
its still a lot of fun, great mode for publics <3
Edited by Nukm at 08:59 CDT, 9 August 2010 - 11606 Hits
i started watching entourage like 4 weeks ago and watched all 6 seasons in that time.
so season 7 was the first (and last :( ) season i could actually follow unfold and i must say, that i am really disappointed, the series has somehow lost its touch.
ep5 yesterday was fucking awesome though \o/
who else is watching entourage around here?
i know carmac does
Edited by Nukm at 16:19 CDT, 2 August 2010 - 5080 Hits
so i guess now the time has come for me to make the switch to ebooks...
139$ is a great price and they seem to have polished an already good product. same screensize but a smaller case, even lighter, more contrast, faster page turns, ...
only bad thing is that it still doesnt display epubs :(
The ESWC Finals 2010 will take place from Thursday to Sunday at the New Port Bay hotel in Disneyland Paris. All matches will be played as best-of-3. You can find the schedule below.
Thursday
Group Stage 1 - Group A
03:30 CDT: R1 - noctis vs k1llsen
04:15 CDT: R2 - rapha vs k1llsen
05:00 CDT: R3 - rapha vs noctis
Group Stage 1 - Group B 05:30 CDT: R3 - Cooller vs strenx - On stage (Canceled!)
08:30 CDT: R1 - Cooller vs Sl1p // strenx vs bodzo
09:15 CDT: R2 - Cooller vs bodzo // strenx vs Sl1p
10:00 CDT: R3 - Cooller vs strenx // bodzo vs Sl1p
Friday
Group Stage 1 - Group C
03:30 CDT: R1 - Cypher vs l1nkje // stermy vs GaRpY
04:15 CDT: R2 - Cypher vs GaRpY // stermy vs l1nkje
05:00 CDT: R3 - Cypher vs stermy // GaRpY vs l1nkje
Group Stage 1 - Group D
03:30 CDT: R1 - DaHanG vs fazz
04:15 CDT: R2 - av3k vs fazz
05:00 CDT: R3 - av3k vs DaHanG
Saturday
Group Stage 2 - Group A
03:30 CDT: R1 - av3k vs strenx // rapha vs stermy
04:15 CDT: R2 - rapha vs strenx // stermy vs av3k
05:00 CDT: R3 - rapha vs av3k // strenx vs stermy
Group Stage 2 - Group B
03:30 CDT: R1 - cypher vs noctis // dahang vs cooller
04:15 CDT: R2 - cypher vs dahang // cooller vs noctis
05:00 CDT: R3 - cypher vs cooller // noctis vs dahang
fnatics Quake player Sebastian "Spart1e" Siira will participate at the Quake Live tournament of DreamHack Summer this weekend. It will be his first offline event since he went inactive after a disappointing result at the Intel Extreme Masters European Finals in the beginning of 2010. fragster spoke with the Swede about the upcoming tournaments, the future of his gaming career and of course about the Spart1e-Parties. Here is a snippet:
Who do you fear most when it comes to DreamHack/ESWC? Spart1e: Cypher. He really improved the most if you ask me.
What are your goals for the upcoming tournaments that summer? Spart1e: My goal is try to attend all the tournaments. With QuakeCon being the only tournament I will be able to put in some real practice.
Multigaming-clan fnatic announced that in cooperation with MSI and fnatic PLAY they will be hosting a series of tournaments for Quake Live Duel, Counter-Strike 1.6, Call of Duty 4, Heroes of Newerth for prizes worth 65,000$. QL and CS players will have the chance to qualify for the LAN finals in Beijing at the 4th of September, with a $45,000 prize purse.
Amateur teams and players will have their chance to qualify for the finals and battle invited duellers in the QuakeLive tournament and top European teams in CS 1.6. The Qualifiers will be streamed by Level UP TV.
QuakeLive Qualifier #1 - June 19th
QuakeLive Qualifier #2 - June 20th
QuakeLive Qualifier #3 - June 26th
QuakeLive Qualifier #4 - June 27th
QuakeLive Finals - 16rd, 17th, 18th July
Qualifying for the LAN event in Beijing means that team's travel costs (flights) will be paid. Besides qualifying for the LAN event in Asia, winners of the Quake Live and CS 1.6 tournament will have their chance to win many other prizes. Further details will be announced shortly.
Make sure to read the interview with FnaticMSI PLAY head admin Danijel "StreeT" Remus
Go4SC2 takes place every Saturday
- €100 prize money for 1st place
- Top16 players earn points for the monthly ranking
- Final always on Monday on ESL TV
Go4SC2 on Wednesday
- Top 4 earn points for the monthly ranking
- Unlimited participants (EU-Key Users)
Go4SC2 Monthly Finals
- €500 prize money for 1st place
- Top8 of the Monthly Ranking qualify
- Takes place on last Thursday of the month
-vs-
ZOTAC
ZOTAC takes place every Sunday
- €100 prize money for 1st place
Edited by Nukm at 19:00 CDT, 24 May 2010 - 3256 Hits
what do you do, after you realize that something you pirated, was actually worth the money?
for me, it depends on quite a few things.
if its a music album that i enjoyed and i feel like the author could use the money, i usually feel that i should somehow pay him back for his work. i rarely go buy the cd though, i am quite free in my interpretation of paying him back. in most cases i do it by going to concerts and buying some merch or i will buy the next release.
while watching american tv-series online though for example i never pay the creators back in any way, even if i actually enjoy the series and would like to support it (even if its just for ensuring future seasons). but that is mostly because there is no decent offer for their product. i would be willing to watch ads, like every american viewer does, but there are no official streams there are only country limited and overpriced downloads and season dvds.
with pc-games it is again, a different matter. usually i buy games i wanna play online or that are just awesome and i know that they will entertain me for a lot of hours. thats why i bought every single blizzard game for example. on the other hand are quite a few singleplayer games that i just wanna try out. mostly they just arent worth the money for me cause they are no fun and i wouldnt have ever bought them anyway if i had know what i would get beforehand. also i would never support companies like ubisoft who release unfinished shit, harass their customers with stupid drm limitations and milk the money cow with overpriced dlcs.
what i would certainly like to see are offer like this: http://www.wolfire.com/humble
4 indie games that can be downloaded without limitations and for a price that you can decide yourself.
public play in ql stayed almost the same, but with win statistics/awards and newer/bigger pool of players its almost unplayable right now and far worse than in the later q3 days. and i am not talking about stupid ego-focused play here. the problem is that nobody is willing anymore to balance out teams and try to have the fairest and most interesting match. 3/4 public tdm matches i have played ended with one team having 2+ more players in the end.
and that is although id software now has far more possibilities to enhance the experience for everyone by. lets see what possibilities we have, by having a look at hon (dota clone) for example. right on their website you can see that they thought about the problem and took measures:
Leaver Protection:
Create and play in restricted games that can not be joined by players with a history of leaving games early.
it is that easy.
the exact system behind it doesnt even matter, just separate the players who want to enjoy their matches and are aware of their role in other peoples match experience from the ones who dont care. just mark some servers as "no leaver" and let only people with 90% completion rate in the last 50 games play on it. as far as i can tell this shoudlnt even require much work from id.
now this is imho the most important thing but there are obviously more possibilities.
- add an "auto balance teams" vote that tries to create fair teams based on the players skill rating. (also works great in hon)
- maybe its even a good idea to automatically make one player switch teams when one team has 2 players less.
- encourage fair play and interesting matches by ditching awards like
Shut Out:
Win a Clan Arena match (of at least 5 rounds) without losing a round.
and add awards like
Team Savior:
Win 10 matches after joining a team thats behind and has less players
- same goes for the stats system, it should not encourage players to get the cheap and unfair wins.
- ...
i am sure that there are many more ways to improve public play, but thinking about it feels like a waste of time cause id isnt doing any work with ql anyway. my 2 cents
Edited by Nukm at 11:46 CDT, 23 April 2010 - 8573 Hits
Single Mother Tonya Welch has a deep history with professional gaming including stints at CPL, WSVG and CGS. Now, a year after she quit the business, she speaks about how she unwillingly harmed gaming while working together with Scott Valencia and describes why we should not be hopeful about the new CPL at all. Here is a glimpse of what she has to unveil:
« The next obstacle in our plan was to actually get the money to make this purchase. This was “no problem”, Mr. Valencia told us many times. We would make the deal first, then the investment money would pour in.
But how do we convince the owners that we actually have the money NOW when we don't?
All of this led up the the first outright lie that was propagated regarding the purchase of the CPL. There was NEVER a middle-eastern investment group from Abu Dhabi behind the purchase of the CPL. It was 100%, from beginning to end, a complete LIE. »
Update: While Tonya published the Part 2 & 3 of her blog, Angel Munoz posted a little message on the matter:
« I can unequivocally attest that thus far the new owners of the CPL have been very responsible about their financial commitment to us »
The idea is to create a Top Trump like card game with Quake 3 / Quake Live players.
To do that we first of all need a list of 32 players and their respective stats. To gather this information I created a Google Docs (no account needed) spreadsheet that anyone can edit using this link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AvFqc...&hl=en
Read before editing:
Add whoever you want, they just need to be well known in the community. The rating spectrum for Hitscan, Rockets, Movement/Style, Control is 0.0 - 10.0 so use the whole range and not just give your favorite player 9.5 in every category. You can and should edit values if you disagree with what someone else entered or want to balance it with other cards, but please try to stay objective and dont fuck everything up
Once we have the data for 32 cards/players I will find a picture of the player, add his data to the card template (an optimized version of what you can see on the right) and post all files here.
P.S.: Got the idea from here, but decided to do my own topic for this actual project. Hopefully it works out, i just need a little help with judging the players and gathering all the data.
Edited by Nukm at 09:38 CDT, 17 March 2010 - 13078 Hits
After dominating the Quake scene in 2009, Shane "rapha" Hendrixson was thrown off his throne by EG player DaHanG at the IEM NA Finals. At the World Championship in Hannover rapha took revenge with a 3:0 victory and is looking stronger than ever. fragster sat down with him to talk about his performance and the US scene.
You mentioned that you practiced with Cooller a lot before the Event. So what did you expect before the game and what do you think about how it went?
rapha: Well our styles clash and I have the feeling that we know each other inside out. There were so many times where one of us tried to attack and he was just shot down immediately. Or we would know that one of us is waiting in a certain area to catch the other out, so we would always choose the right path to run away. The first mistake normally costs a match, so it is about who will do less mistakes during the game. I did too many yesterday and he managed to win and rightfully so. I hope I get to face Cooller in the final but if I don't, I am not worried about it. I am only worried about getting into the final.
After some very inconsistent but anyhow pretty good performances, fragster sat down with Magnus "fox" Olsson to talk a bit about the IEM 4 World Championship. fox provides an insight into his preparation for the Quake Live tournament, that consisted mostly of playing HoN. Furthermore, he explains how his goals for the tournament have changed dramatically.
How did you prepare for the event?
fox: I am almost embarrassed to tell people how I did prepare. I improved my HoN skills to such an amazing degree that it kinda affects other games and that’s how my Quake skills grew. I actually played about, I would say, maybe five 1on1 matches the past three weeks.
Tim "DaHanG Fogarty is one of the top favorites in the IEM 4 World Championship. In Hannover fragster asked the EG player about the accusations of strenx and the recent changes in his playstyle.
You managed to win the last Zotac-Cup and beat Cypher in the final, how do you feel about that match?
DaHanG: Everyone knows about the ping and the issues he had and I won't deny that that helps a ton, especially with a ping in the 80s. That's just so hard and I am surprised that he even played. But in the end it is out of my control and if he makes it to the final, I have to play him. I would have liked to play Cooller or someone on equal pings but that's just the way it went down. So I will say that the ping won the match and we will see how it goes down in our group.
Posted by Nukm @ 21:33 CST, 16 February 2010 - iMsg
During the IEM Asian Championship, where Zhibo "Jibo" Fan managed to come out on top at the Quake Live tournament, fragster had the chance to talk with the Asian superstar. So he explained why QL wasn't his game at the beginning, what motivated him again to play the game and why he is spending most of his time to watch demos.
I heard you've spent a lot of time watching demos from other IEM Finals participants before your semifinal match. Did you find out anything special?
Jibo: I started watching demos since my first practice day. I didn't know anything about 1on1 in QL, so I needed to learn up from the lowest level. I even watched some demos two or three times, from both POV. After this, I started to collect puzzles for my tactic in this game.
The special is: Demos are like a book, aim is like a labs – combine them and you will own.
now about quake. i fucking hate to lose against people that cant duel better than me. what is it worth to time more than 2 items, catch up about the running pattern of your opponent, delaying items then setting traps if he just runs like a madman with rl out and hits every fucking first rocket perfectly and finishes up with 15% more lg than you. sometimes i wish there would be a duel game without any form of execution, just making the right decisions would decide a match...
speaking about it, i wanna get a cat but my roommates sometimes are pricks and would only see how a cat might scar the couch (thats worth about 10€) instead of just enjoying
and i hate ztn. first of all have you noticed that ztn only players are considerably dumber and more polish than the average quaker? its true! besides that i just hate every fight, you always know whats going to happen and it annoys me. you stand at tele exit and someone is defending ra from gl platform, hate it! you are at mh and someone is spamming from rl, hate it! and so on, just every possible fight is annoying me on this map. would rather play on a big piece of crap with holes in it.
now if u think that i am dumb, look at this... this arcticle on a tech blog about facebook somehow managed to get the number 1 search result on google for "facebook login" and now hundreds of users who wanna visit facebook (in an already more than stupid way) are directed to this article, scroll down to the comment box, that optionally can use the facebook login and complain about how they hate the "new facebook design". some of my favorite comments are:
"I am going to delete my account (IF I CAN EVER LOG IN) as this SUCKS BIG TIME ! If this does not get back to NORMAL you are going to lose a lot of folks who hate this and as you can see from all the comments they think it sucks too !!!"
"The new facebook is ok"
"im going back to my fuckin space u ass holes have to fuck up a good this !!!!! dumn asses"
![shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann](/files/avatars/2007/51852-shaftwhore.gif "shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann"){kind=small}
k1llsen and 
strenx
av3k and 
noctis
Cooller
draven and 
Sl1p
noctis
ESWC Finals 2010 will take place from Thursday to Sunday at the New Port Bay hotel in 
CAREEM
Cypher
GaRpY
1st. $8,000
2nd. $4,000
3rd. $2,000
Quake Live Duel, 
Counter-Strike 1.6, Call of Duty 4, Heroes of Newerth for prizes worth 65,000$. QL and CS players will have the chance to qualify for the LAN finals in 
Danijel "StreeT" Remus
CPL, 
WSVG and 
CGS. Now, a year after she quit the business, she speaks about how she unwillingly harmed gaming while working together with 
Hungary vs Netherlands 
