We covet new processors, graphics cards, mice, mouse pads, cellphones, and ipods, and we relish the innovations which the web has to offer: peer-to-peer file sharing, social networking, video sharing etc. Yet when it comes to games, our will to embrace changes is slight: talk of "modification" and "innovation" is considered alarming, often even offensive. It prompts shudders and frowns, bitterness and angry rants. Of course, careful modifications are tolerated: a new anti-cheat solution is welcomed; so is the occasional new map or competition mod update. However, if changes are accompanied by a rebranding of the game, we immediately become wary. We have little faith in new games and, more often than not, meet them with distrust -- a behaviour which is typified by the community's reactions to the recently published screenshots of the next Wolfenstein game.
Such a response is justified, at least in part. We have all invested a lot of time in our games of choice which, in turn, have given us many fond experiences: victories, rivalries, and acquaintances -- in some cases even friendships. Although some might be reluctant to admit it aloud, the games and the fellowships which surround them have come to have a certain value to us, which is why, in spite of occasionally raging against or tiring of them, we keep returning to them, and to this website. In light of this, the reaction of the community is fully understandable, in so far as it is aimed at keeping things the way they currently are. However, the reaction is far from innocent.
The community's approach to maintaining status quo is twofold, you see. One part is an internal effort, an attempt to provide players within the community with a steady flow of information relevant to the competitive aspects of the games which enjoy strong representation on this website. This is a constructive endeavour: it arouses interest in the games and promotes further development within the boundaries of them. The other part is external, though: it does not focus on the cornerstone games of this website as such. Instead it concentrates on games which could challenge the existing conditions of these games. As a female grizzly bear will attack to defend its cubs, so the community will strike at these games to maintain the status quo. It will single them out and persecute the players who enjoy them.
The most glaring example of this behaviour is the community's response to the release of ET:QW. Upon realising that the game bore little resemblance to theirs, ET players became anxious. Fearing that it would cripple ET if it gained success, many of them decided to slur ET:QW and its players. The extent of the smear campaign which was thus launched was so great that the bitterness it conveyed still saturates the community, lingering like the smell of piss after it has evaporated.
The tragedy in this incident lies not only in the injustice committed against the ET:QW community, but also in the irony of the situation, which far too few acknowledge: when ET was released, the game and its community was subject to the exact same kind of attack! The RtCW players ran the game down, complaining that it was inferior in every aspect, that it was easy and slow paced. Some of the harshest critics eventually transitioned to the game and achieved competitive success in it, yet they remained relentless in their objections about its gameplay. For a newbie to the Wolfenstein games their hegemony in the ET scene held ambiguity: one could not tell whether they actually enjoyed competing in the game, or whether they were mocking it, whether they were just proving a point.
The bitter divide, as TosspoT calls it, between ET and its older brother saw the younger game develop an inferiority complex, which it only recently recovered from. Nonetheless, ET is still being played, while RtCW is now in the twilight of its life.
We have wronged the ET:QW community by subjecting it to the same treatment as we were subject to when we started playing ET. If we do not admit this error, we risk repeating that mistake when faced with future changes. Instead of writing coverage and discussing the course of our game and its community, we would end up waging a futile war on multiple fronts and eventually settle into a rut of bitterness, which would deprive us of our dynamic.
The time that is required to slur other games is better spent making your own game interesting.
Such a response is justified, at least in part. We have all invested a lot of time in our games of choice which, in turn, have given us many fond experiences: victories, rivalries, and acquaintances -- in some cases even friendships. Although some might be reluctant to admit it aloud, the games and the fellowships which surround them have come to have a certain value to us, which is why, in spite of occasionally raging against or tiring of them, we keep returning to them, and to this website. In light of this, the reaction of the community is fully understandable, in so far as it is aimed at keeping things the way they currently are. However, the reaction is far from innocent.
The community's approach to maintaining status quo is twofold, you see. One part is an internal effort, an attempt to provide players within the community with a steady flow of information relevant to the competitive aspects of the games which enjoy strong representation on this website. This is a constructive endeavour: it arouses interest in the games and promotes further development within the boundaries of them. The other part is external, though: it does not focus on the cornerstone games of this website as such. Instead it concentrates on games which could challenge the existing conditions of these games. As a female grizzly bear will attack to defend its cubs, so the community will strike at these games to maintain the status quo. It will single them out and persecute the players who enjoy them.
The most glaring example of this behaviour is the community's response to the release of ET:QW. Upon realising that the game bore little resemblance to theirs, ET players became anxious. Fearing that it would cripple ET if it gained success, many of them decided to slur ET:QW and its players. The extent of the smear campaign which was thus launched was so great that the bitterness it conveyed still saturates the community, lingering like the smell of piss after it has evaporated.
The tragedy in this incident lies not only in the injustice committed against the ET:QW community, but also in the irony of the situation, which far too few acknowledge: when ET was released, the game and its community was subject to the exact same kind of attack! The RtCW players ran the game down, complaining that it was inferior in every aspect, that it was easy and slow paced. Some of the harshest critics eventually transitioned to the game and achieved competitive success in it, yet they remained relentless in their objections about its gameplay. For a newbie to the Wolfenstein games their hegemony in the ET scene held ambiguity: one could not tell whether they actually enjoyed competing in the game, or whether they were mocking it, whether they were just proving a point.
The bitter divide, as TosspoT calls it, between ET and its older brother saw the younger game develop an inferiority complex, which it only recently recovered from. Nonetheless, ET is still being played, while RtCW is now in the twilight of its life.
We have wronged the ET:QW community by subjecting it to the same treatment as we were subject to when we started playing ET. If we do not admit this error, we risk repeating that mistake when faced with future changes. Instead of writing coverage and discussing the course of our game and its community, we would end up waging a futile war on multiple fronts and eventually settle into a rut of bitterness, which would deprive us of our dynamic.
The time that is required to slur other games is better spent making your own game interesting.
If the game was released with all the competition modifications and work that has been put in by external sources, I highly doubt it would be regarded as the "flop" that it is seen as today.
et wos a bad game when it came out for competition gaming and the rtcw players whined about that and they were right,the game was slower,spam infested and simply far worse then rtcw was at that time.If the game came out like this in the beginning the whine would be in so much smaller amount.(all sequels recive first few months of whine till ppl get use to it)
The same thing is happening with et-qw i am sure that after a few patches and some etqwpros or whatever it is called the game will be a pleasure to play.
The difference is etqw is a lot different from et/rtcw with the vehicles,turrets and different engine that is not even similar to et imo and the biggest difference is et was/is a free game so even if rtcw oldschoolers didnt like it from the start they could just try again after some time and like it in etqw we could try it only when beta+demo got out.
soz for the bad english hope you understand it :P
Edit1
Rrr and yea just to follow it up you are proly right the etqw was done wrong by the et community but at the same time etqw has done wrong to the et community since it simply wasnt the game we wanted and should have had.
Et/rtcw was never about vehicles or silly spam it was about tp,fast game play and strong aim sure it has it fair share of spam but it is strongly modereted and kept in normal limits that require a lot of skill to do it right.
If the creators of etqw designed the game for et community they could have done it a lot deferent and not this shit mix of bf,quake and et/rtcw.
New games do suck, that's a fact imo! :D (personal opinion of course). Except some examples like warsow (not too new either).
whatever, I enjoy playing ET more than et:qw or any other of those slow "realistical" games. And yes, I tried it.
ET might be slower than rtcw, but firstly I did never play rtcw (:P) and secondly the difference between rtcw and et is not comparable to the gap between et and et:qw/other random new games.
and not only in the crossfire community has this happened, but in other communities.
and its absolutely wrong to think that the ET community should change to ET:QW. Only the name is similar the games are totally different. QW will need to biuld its own community. If that didnt happen yet I am sorry for all QW players but I can understand that. Its simply bad.
Allow the et:qw players that enjoy it the space to pursue their pleasure.
Still i enjoy playing it, especially cause the community is so small as it is... u basically know everyone and no "new talents(cheaters)" pop out of nowhere every day...
And when u are used to the game (played it few weeks) u know how to handle with the vehicles etc... also etqwpro helped alot on that... but when playing ET:QW first time on a public u get annoyed being killed by vehicles all the time (as a ET player)... but after short time u know how to deal with it and u will enjoy alot of infantry/infight action.
but there is quite alot of stuff in the offical forums @ http://community.enemyterritory.com/forums
I played standard public the other day - forgot how spammy it was :o
(definately not a good advertisment for the game)
For those wanting to experience etqw, install pro mod & get onto channel #qwl.gather and either play some gathers or pro public. It's something to do till rtcw2 comes out :)
You can't compare it to RTCW and ET. Yes, RTCW players were a bit sceptical towards a new game and tried to hang on to their game. But sooner or later everyone had to admit that ET was very similar and a new challenge that would be a good follow-up.
Due to QW failure, people have their hopes up even more that RTCW2 (or whatever it's gonna be called) will provide the same feeling as RTCW and ET. RTCW2 will have a hard time to prove itself, but I'm sure that if the makers use their brains and ride the RTCW/ET wave, it's gonna be a big success.
LIES, etqw is still alive. i mean competitive scene, not public whores
In my opinion, their biggest mistake was having Enemy Territory in the name. Just putting the name in there meant that their initial product would be judged against W:ET, an established game with over 5 years worth of improvements to it and millions of hours spent on it by thousands of people. Had they just named it Quake Wars, it probably would have had better success as people would not be comparing it to W:ET, where it is doomed to failure. Also, it is proven that WWII games are the most successful FPS, so they just screwed themselves even more. Futuristic games are hit or miss, with more missing than hitting, and having it compared right off the bat to W:ET (One of the top 3 FPS of all time), hurt the game badly.
It was the gamers who didn't like the game and saying so which hurt Quake Wars, instead it was the developers insisting to try and capture the magic of Enemy Territory in a completely different game which doomed it to failure. Hopefully for RTCW2 they realize this, and instead of introducing a ton of new concepts (like control-able vehicles) into the game they should work on perfecting and making minor tweaks to the MP of Enemy Territory. Keep it a similar game, similar style, and similar gameplay with improved graphics, balance, maps, and gameplay and RTCW2 will be amazing. But, try and do everything differently and count on the name to have gamers switch over will doom RTCW2 just like it did with ET:QW.
When gamers gain status and notoriety they don't like relinquishing it, they don't want to throw away something they've invested time and effort to achieve. It's all very imperialist but it explains the reluctance to change. Anti-cheating changes are welcomed because they offer the chance at removing some competition, whereas gameplay changes are frowned upon as it introduces a possibility for others to climb to the top and perhaps even overtake. A new game might result in what's described in this poem. It's not just a matter of fame though, if you're 'highskilled' or perhaps even the best at a certain game, you're not going to be too open to something which will risk disestablishing that.
The reluctance from certain gamers is inherent and perfectly explainable, and I don't think anything will change that, as said, it's human nature. However, the other side of the coin reveals an equal number of gamers who welcome changes and are more open to switching to another game - because both of those things present the gamer with a chance of 'getting somewhere'. To name but one example, the original DSky team were unimpressive at RtCW but quickly saw their oppurtunity to claim the throne in ET.
As you mentioned, RtCW players were critical of ET and its' players for quite some time, but the game still survived. Unfortunately for ET:QW, it didn't enjoy the same success, but maybe that's because the game really isn't very good? Many people are critical of the CoD series yet CoD4 is enjoying unprecented success. The same goes for WoW, it's probably the most loved and hated game there is. A healthy community will only develop if the game merits it.
The hostility of a community is irrelevant. Players and clans will come and go, flame and superiority/inferiority complexes will continue ad finitum - it's the natural cycle of a game. Fundamentally, a game just needs to be considered good by enough people.
Is the same game, when played by both professional and amateur, really the same game? I don't think you can compare the effect of change equally between both groups.
edit: totally agree
Only the pro RTCW community whined about ET, the public community loved it. ETQW failed cause of the horrible public AND competitive gameplay. As Sol said: maybe the game is just really bad?
never played ETQW but it makes perfect sense
It's the same with CS 1.6 and CS:S. CS:S isn't a better game, it just isn't. It was met with great hostility when released from gamers who thought it would just divide the community without adding anything useful and that's exactly what happened. Valve supported their new creation whole-heartedly and practically forced it into the progaming circuits, dividing the community by forcing people to chose between following the big money or still play the better game.
So far almost every time a company has done this, taken a game that was fairly successful in the Multiplayer-world and made a successor, the successor has just been bad. Most companies aren't interested in how balanced their game is on a professional level but just in how much money it makes. Since ET, have anyone released a game with similar gameplay? No. The FPS genre has taken a completely different direction and most companies seem to fall into this trend. The games that sell big aren't games like ET.
So why should we not be skeptical towards the new RtcW? I do think it's very early to draw any sort of conclusions from the screenshots (remember old RtcW SP was pretty weird too), but I still remain convinced it'll suck.
The company that makes a game FOR the hardcore gamer (in lie of the play for 2 hours a week kid) will be surprised in how successful it is.
i see ET community not moving to ET:QW only as a good thing
and u comparing games to gfx cards etc gaming on high level (its these people that have a problem with new games) is almost like a sport imagine if they made some completely new rules to basketball =) bad example but i think u can get the meaning
if i had a team , i would play etqw
again, i'm not saying that the attacks launched against the ET:QW community were the cause of the game's modest success, though i fear they might have been a contributory factor. the validity of my "argument" doesn't depend on the competitive success of that game.
my motivation for writing this column is the realisation that we, the competitive ET scene, are continuing a behaviour which we know to be unpleasant from personal experience. i know i'm not the only one who thought it was annoying; still the bitterness between ET and RtCW rears its ugly head.
don't get me wrong. i'm all for scepticism, de omnibus dubitandum est and all that, but not if it results in verbal assaults on other people.
The game wasn't realy accepted in any community, so it's just a bad game. If RtCW2 is a good game enough people will buy it and the ET scene can whine what they want if they don't like it. But if alot of people buy it the game will be a succes nomather what the RtCW/ET scene thinks about it.
And it's a fact that newer games are more about graphics and not about gameplay, thats why they suck most of the time.
I have also found myself another ETQW clan recently, and can honestly conclude, ETQW is a pathetic excuse for a game..
We also had to give default win in opencup final cause he didn't check when we were playing, needless to say we folded after that.
heard some of you are playing for explanation now?
Personally I can't stand etqw anymore and much prefer playing ET, even if it is on a lower skill level again
I havn't played ETQW at all (made up my mind when i heard about vehicles) but i was amazed how the "community" reacted on its release.
The flametime was indeed better spend elsewhere (read: anywhere).
Unlike many ET games, I don't care if the game takes place in modern warfare, ww2 or even the freaking stone ages (though I prefer hitscan weapons).
Currently, all I see in new games is prettier graphics and more realistic boundaries in the games movement. I wish we would see some new games that concentrated on the feel of the game, better hit-detection and perhaps a bit more innovative thinking on the multiplayer part than just Search & Destroy...
Ps: godt at se du overlevede studenter balladen oBs ;)
Also graphics don't really matter to me, I always run the lowest details possible in every game to enhance the smoothness.
SDK, they still took far too long to release the SDK and to add support for custom content, for months in comp we had to abide by rules that weren't enforcable which was just silly, it also begs the question, where was the promised comp support on release too. Anyway I feel if the SDK had come with the game like in Q4 or D3 the problems that faced the comp community could have been quickly rectified and made game playable faster and some clans would have stuck around longer.
Ranked Servers, ET wasn't great when first released either so when fixes were introduced by mods most players, public and comp alike moved to these mods and used them on their servers. However in ET:QW the vast majority out there wont take up mods of any sort (including new maps) as you can't run them on ranked servers and as the public want stats they stick to ranked servers only, therefore tempting new players into comp from those who have embraced the game is almost impossible.
Valley beta/demo, why oh why did they pick this map to showcase the game with, beta1 with sewer was rather OK from memory and despite some bugs here and there the reception was rather good although not great either but still I remember some people from ET enjoying the game to a degree. Then beta2 valley arrives and then it all went to shit. Beta cups that started in beta1 Sewer had no choice but to use this map for the finals which further put of many clans/players from sticking around due to the spammy nature of the map.
Early LANs, quakecon and i3whatever it was at the time, were just too early, the game wasn't ready enough to be played properly in comp, both these LANs where waste of time and didn't do anything to help promote the game as something worth trying. CDC4 was OK I guess later on but by then they weren't that many decent clans left to make it competitive enough.
Best get back to work.
Saying that it failed because people are afraid of change is bullshit. What changes does quakewars offered? A AWFUL engine + superawesome vehicles in ET class style fast paced game. Sound like a great change! Seriously, get the fuck out.
Poor battlefield wannabe (and battlefield is such a crap) to gather public players made on shit engine. Developers expected public players to jump on this AWESOME game for easy $$$. But even most of dumbest pub heroes realised it's instafail and quit this poor excuse for a game tho their money is already in developers pocket.
Now count amount of word FAIL used in my post and in all comments here. This "change" is a fail and noone is to blame but splashdamage.
i used the quake wars case as an example of the behaviour that i'm trying to make people disassociate themselves from, not because i think that that kind of behaviour ruined the game, but because i think it's fundamentally destructive and should be turned into something constructive.
perhaps the misunderstanding is due to the passage that reads as follows: "Fearing that it would cripple ET if it gained success, many of them decided to slur ET:QW and its players." -- to me, this sentence doesn't express that the ET players ruined quake wars, it simply says that it was their intention to do so: they thought that the game would jeopardise the state of competitive ET and therefore decided to attack it. but just because you attack, it doesn't mean that you'll succeed. anyone who has played ET competitively knows this, yet only a few replies to this column indicate an appreciation of the distinction -- indeed, even tosspot didn't catch on to it; perhaps this means that there's something technically wrong with the sentence, that it doesn't function as intended.
regardless, those who've kept droning on and on about the success or failure of quake wars even after reading my second reply to this column have completely missed the point and have little excuse for not having caught on to it. one must presume that their reading of the column was so superficial, their understanding of it so poor, that they're not capable of making any valid objections against its content, and thus the only proper thing to reply to them would be a "facepalm". unfortunately, posting so many images, even though it is warranted, would probably not be tolerated, hence i refrain from doing it.
ps: to other potential debaters: now that you've read this reply, please respond to the intended message of the column, not to the "perceived" one that i'm trying to rebut here. thanks.
Believe me, if the game has not succesfull its cause is not made for 6on6 and actually, people playing or modding it, don't get this point.
when u propose new things to make it 6on6 compatible (faster moves, smaller maps, and LESS, LESS, LESS vehicles[with those 2 last options, we could cap the net fps at 60 instead 30 that make people unhittable and scatting] ) they answer "this is qw not w:et. if u like more w:et, play it". OK!OK! in fact thats what I (and a bunch of other players) am doing and qw is dying
qw is for 12on12 and untill someone doesn't fix the things i said, it will always be a not compatible game with 6on6 competitions.
AMEN
Only thing is that you can't compare the Crossfire community's boicotting of ET:QW with the death of a recently released game (if I understood you correctly)
I think that the ET community wasted too much energy bashing on games like ETQW, when it was clear from the start that Splash Damage and ID were aiming to lure in the BF2 community (and this pisses me off too). But instead we could have used this energy to the make our game better and not just sit there and do nothing.
Now that our chance has arrived and RTCW2 is finally and officially announced, we have to think real hard in what directing we want to take that game in .....