Brink, like Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Wolfenstein, has been awaited by a large part of the competitive ET community as a possible sequel to their favourite game. As of its release, May 10th 2011, it's been pretty clear the game has problems for competitive play: ATI cards have horrible problems (and so do certain nVidia cards), the game has a very low skill ceiling and is geared towards pub play. Furthermore, there's barely any way to reinforce a competitive ruleset, there's no first person spectating and demo recording is impossible. Sound slightly familiar?
Splash Damage, in all fairness, did manage to patch a few of the issues up. However, the bigger, problematic ones, are still around. A patch is supposed to be coming, but thanks to Brink's publisher, Bethesda, there's virtually no information on what exactly the patch does and how soon it can be expected. Meanwhile, player numbers are dropping at incredible rates; yesterday's peak activity was less than 2,000 compared to 17,000 on release day.
And with this essentially flawed game, we're playing tournaments. Big tournaments even, €15,000 in prize money from ESL is no small feat! But what does that mean for the competitive community? It means that after the tournament, the competitive playerbase will know what state Brink is in, and they're off to play other, more polished titles instead.
This sound familiar? Because it's happened before. When Enemy Territory: Quake Wars came out, it faced a lot of similar problems; the game was geared for pub, no SDK for almost 2 months, no competitive restrictions, but still there were tournaments with prize money. After the big tournaments, the playerbase died. People were fed up with ETQW and its flaws, and rightfully so. However, those that did stick around got to play ETQWpro in it's 1.0 form; and my compliments to hannes, as it made the game a lot better.
But was it too little, too late? It definitely was. The ETQWpro community existed of roughly 50 active players, far too little to actually sustain a game at all. Should the game have been in the state it was in now at release, then perhaps the activity would've been a lot higher - you can't tell. It would've been worth a try, though.
And with Brink, there was a chance for Splash Damage and Bethesda to give it that second try: And early SDK release to selected modders, or even a proper integrated competitive mode, would've seriously empowered the competitive community. Instead, the same mistakes were made, and we'll be seeing a dead game after ESL is done, most likely. And that's not just a shame for the competitive community, but also for the developer and publisher; I don't think anything shows off a game quite as well as some top-tier fragmovies. Sadly, we probably won't see many of those in Brink.
Next time, please, Splash Damage and Bethesda: Examine what happens after release, and learn from it.
Splash Damage, in all fairness, did manage to patch a few of the issues up. However, the bigger, problematic ones, are still around. A patch is supposed to be coming, but thanks to Brink's publisher, Bethesda, there's virtually no information on what exactly the patch does and how soon it can be expected. Meanwhile, player numbers are dropping at incredible rates; yesterday's peak activity was less than 2,000 compared to 17,000 on release day.
And with this essentially flawed game, we're playing tournaments. Big tournaments even, €15,000 in prize money from ESL is no small feat! But what does that mean for the competitive community? It means that after the tournament, the competitive playerbase will know what state Brink is in, and they're off to play other, more polished titles instead.
This sound familiar? Because it's happened before. When Enemy Territory: Quake Wars came out, it faced a lot of similar problems; the game was geared for pub, no SDK for almost 2 months, no competitive restrictions, but still there were tournaments with prize money. After the big tournaments, the playerbase died. People were fed up with ETQW and its flaws, and rightfully so. However, those that did stick around got to play ETQWpro in it's 1.0 form; and my compliments to hannes, as it made the game a lot better.
But was it too little, too late? It definitely was. The ETQWpro community existed of roughly 50 active players, far too little to actually sustain a game at all. Should the game have been in the state it was in now at release, then perhaps the activity would've been a lot higher - you can't tell. It would've been worth a try, though.
And with Brink, there was a chance for Splash Damage and Bethesda to give it that second try: And early SDK release to selected modders, or even a proper integrated competitive mode, would've seriously empowered the competitive community. Instead, the same mistakes were made, and we'll be seeing a dead game after ESL is done, most likely. And that's not just a shame for the competitive community, but also for the developer and publisher; I don't think anything shows off a game quite as well as some top-tier fragmovies. Sadly, we probably won't see many of those in Brink.
Next time, please, Splash Damage and Bethesda: Examine what happens after release, and learn from it.
Next time bros, next time.
We have all that we want, GTV is doing a nice work & cf too.
We just need to integrate the "jaymod&etpub" players which wanna switch to etpro better,even if they ask niucely for some help they are allways getting flamed at cf.
At my clan we get 2 new players per month which are moving from jaymod to etpro so ET isnt dead.
It's an old and ugly game, but it's a FUN game. And that's a major difference with all the new shit out there these days.
oh wait.. ;/
Sadly ET is dead man, how many teams playing competition? not even on pubs you see as much players as before, is just a matter of time facing it, and wtf is killerboy?
ET has served well for 7 years, let it rest in peace :D
You know how many players are left from my country for example? say thanks if you can get 10...
we get so much nubies from jaymod & some are coming back from 3 year pause..so ET ist alive here and at poland and some other big et countrys too.
Maybe you have to do something, why there are no spanish people which are playing it?
And to the public thing, i as example dont play public and the most of my people either wars 24/7 ^^
There are no spanish players cause they got bored of playing the same game for years, as I did months ago. As I think is the normal thing to happen. You will get 2 noobies from jaymod and 3 will quit next month ;)
Better all ET players switch to Battlefield, there is an large community and the gamemode Rush is similarly to the ET one.
ET is alive bitch and now gtfo with your battelfield shit :>
I'm afraid we won't see new ETs anymore though. It's way too costly to ignore the console market.
its a free licence now !
(time i've played the games)
Note to SD and Bethesda: if i buy a car i expect it to be a full functional, able to drive good on the road. Not some car which has no steer/wheels/lights etc.
Same goes for videogames. thx
objectives are purely for gameplay and a pure computer gaming imo
as Carmack says: Quake is like an activity
CoD (and other AAA games) are developed like movies yet their multiplayer should be treated as an activity more like a sport
What bugs me is that people whine about ET's graphic limitations etc, but yet when anyone gets to a certain level they set up a low gfx config regardless of pc spec. I can run nearly every new game at high settings, yet with ET it has now just become normal to have dogshit graphics but awsome gameplay.
The only thing that would help the ETPro scene would be to mod ETpro, get some new skins, possibly update the maps with some nice textures etc. to lure in new jaymod, etpub or even new players completely.
Anyone who is into PC games and first person shooters will try out a free downloadable game. and through all the other free shit games out there ET is actually one that works and easily has better gameplay than any.
hf without lan servers unless id software guy comes to your house/major lan to give a server to you
hf without custom/community maps
hf with site being down = game being down(ddos nerds will roll 24/7)
hf without mods
hf without ettv
+ other bs
Gaming should be fun, all these restrictions and game crippling bs don't really seem fun at all.
prolly won't ever happen I doubt id would ever admit their current engine sucks :)
I just want that, and no I don't want to play ET on a browser, I don't think anyone wants that :-/
Clown is absolutely right.
In my personal opinion, without going into any details, I think that ETlive would ruin what ET is all about.
lemme guess, you also think pb is "better" then slac :DDD
go home weak minded nerd
I think ET Live is good because it is an opportunity to include new people, it is a publicity stunt. If you can think of a better stunt, or a better way to make ET accessable, let me know.
Oh and don't be so ignorant to begin a shouting match, I know CF is full of kiddies and fuckwits, but that does not mean you have to encourage them.
it's not like quake 3 is more known cuz they brought out quakelive tbh
Make an interview with these people, should be a fun read how they see us :-P
pic
But learn to show hidden text
but its really a big problem for newbs..
Now a days games are all about nice graphics. And nothing about gameplay.
and ET is free to play so the expectations are way lower.. when i buy a game for 40 euro's i want it to be perfect.
GOGOGO ET
I watch SC2 finals even tho I dont play SC2 myself and the same holds true for many games such as Quake Live. I dont personally get involved with the game too much but seing it played on high tier level is still fun.
I am very certain that the "it must be a spectacle to watch" and "good broadcasting functionalities are essential" have been mentionned over and over again when we have actually been asked for our oppinion. Obviously it did not make their list of things to do...
if you are a spec broadcasting the game you have 3rd person view.
even while waiting for the BRINK stream they played a qw fragmovie... a fragmovie in 3rd person
A fragmovie showing a 3rd-person perspective doesn't mean the spectating was 3rd person. It's possible to switch to 3rd person mode if the server had cheats enabled (or if you were viewing a recorded demo).
they will go onto your profile and search for a recent comment just to leave a "your retarded".
jokes on you small son
...
Potty cant wait for your comment
Rage more!
after reading this it seems my prejudices about splash damage and brink have been fully legit. i would have been mega mad if i paid ~45€ for such a game, plus surely a new gpu since mine is below the min specs (... maybe this is the reason why the game dont even start for me :D?)
ET is a unique game and as it seems, it obviously will be for all times. unluckily the game nowadays lacks of a decent playerbase in the competetive scene as well for all the pub mods. ie getting an oppo after 10cet has become a lottery - with better odds on not finding anyone.
ET would need a Renaissance. Some graphic updates for all the quantity eye candy nerds - tho this is limited itself by the age of the game - still some things could be done, new up to date netcode, bugfixes which would result ie in a new etpro version.
This could be done quite easily with the support of ID or SD. ET seems to be the only big success to them over the last decade, despite the fact they considered it as fail, thatswhy it was released as a free game, which makes this all so "funny". Sadly a new encourage by at least one of these two will never happen, to let this game shine again.
the other problem though is not just giving ET some eye candy and fixing bugs, its making people play it and especially console nerds.
people who haven't played ET before will easily get confused so a layer of tutorial or challenges and awards would need to be added to ease new players into the game
also lots and lots and lots and lots of work would need to be done to advertise the game
also new maps and features would need to be added to keep normal ET players playing the game
its no small job but if you win the lottery then you can do it (euro millions)
In the end no one will pay this.. even if you/i would win in lottery xx million, you wouldnt invest so much money on something where your return income is more or less lottery too ;:/
(OR WE HIRE 50 POLISH NERDS FOR 50 MONTHS!!1)
+
they dont have to make it their fulltime job
+
coders close to the community dont demand the full price
What sacrifices? The fact these is a PC version? Dedicated servers? That's the only thing PC about it, other than that it's a straight console port. It's the least PC friendly game I've ever played tbh.
Having said that, it does have potential.
1. Add 1st person spec + demo recording
2. Add pause
3. Add proper PC control system (not "one button does all" console control system)
4. Sort out performance issues (ATi cards are bad at this game)
5. Sort out balance (Light body + CARB-9 + Sea Eagle is the only viable choice right now)
and you have a decent PC game.
The crying shame is they didn't manage to do these things before launch. If they don't address these issues "real soon" the game is dead for sure.
Don't get me wrong I prefer ET over Brink any day but for the sake of variety (hell we need in in Auz with only 6 active ET teams) a decent amount of communities need something like Brink to stick around.
Just to back some of this "lack of patience" stuff up here is a quick summary/comparison of ET and Brink release dates/patches etc.
[bWolfenstein Enemy Territory[/b]]
Major release dates
Released 29 May 2003
Source code (game logic) January 2004 (just shy of a year after release)
->ETpro beta/release?
ETpro 3.2.6 released Mon Sep 18, 2006
Entire source code 12 August, 2010 (QuakeCon, GNU General Public License v3)
Patches/updates
*harder to find these needs updating*
[bBrink[/b]]
Major release dates
Released May 10, 2011
DLC June, 2011 (expected, http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brink-dlc-details-and-stats-site-update
Patches/updates to date
11 May, 2011 http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brink-update-splash-damage
13 May, 2011 http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brink-pc-update-released
23 May, 2011 http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brink-pc-update-and-new-dedicated-server-released
27 May, 2011 http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brink-hotfix-released-console-updates-coming-soon
3 June, 2011 brink gets balance tweaks
6 June, 2011 http://www.splashdamage.com/content/new-brink-pc-update-released
We just completed a quick cup for Brink in Auz (cybergamer.com.au) and apart from the grenade shooting (which basically ruined the final btw) all teams enjoyed playing in the matches. On the grenade shooting as well we turned it off in the earlier rounds and then back on again because of the ESL rules (not doing that again!).
After we fix some website admin automation issue we will be able to run a large ladder with what we have already.
We might not be able to polish the turd that is the IDTech4 engine but we can still plant a seed in it and grow something slightly less disgusting.
* ET had 1st person spec / demo / pause etc. from day 1. It needed balancing but it was playable and largely free of bugs to prevent it's adoption as a public game.
* Bani had ET source code early under NDA from SD/id, the first ETPro was released 2 months after ET.
* ET had a player base ready and waiting (RTCW) to switch over when it was ready (could argue Brink has with ET but the relationship isn't as close between the 2 games, and many ET players won't switch regardless of how finished Brink becomes).
It's true that gamers are too impatient, but Brink doesn't have as much going for it right now compared to what ET did when it was released, and being not free and probably completely dead (in Europe) when ESL finishes, what's going to save it other than a major patch before that happens ?
We have no fresh influx of players at all and apart from throwing money at an online competition (which may or may not entice people), we can't rebuild the depth of competition that is in Europe because of the lack of players/teams.
Like I said if someone told me I had a choice between a scrim/match of ET or Brink I'd pick ET. The big problem here is we don't really have that choice and that is what really bugs me about our player base at the moment.
oh and lets make CONSOLE game.
maybe the deal is not to anticipate and get ur hopes up months before a game gets released but to just roll into one... all this anticipation can only turn into a let down, I'd rather be surprised by a real good game then wait on one that is supposed to be awesome.
I played RTCW single player and rolled into ET because some mates played it.. I didn't wait for the release.. Same as I started playing pubs then competitively maybe the game has to undergo the same process.. go from pubs to competitions?
This community expects to much and thus brings down the game before it can reach it adult life. They did the same with ETQW which turned out okay in your opinion as a competitive game but then the community already turned it's back against it.
NO FUCKING SHIT!? IT'S NOT LIKE EVERYONE KNEW THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN
People dont want to learn new maps, new physic etc.
They are scared to be noobs, to be owned byt other noobs-
this is the truth, cause brink is not bad at all and with time it will be fixed
when rtcw came out, i played and loved it
then i had to follow tmates on et.. i played et
quakewars came out and i played quakewars even if i didn't like it at 100% (i hate vehicles)
wolfenstein came out and i played wolf for some months
now brink: i dont like the vanilla game but i play it in publics with my friends and i have fun
90% of people still play et cause they just are scared to restart from zero, to put themselves on stake.
they are stuck, fossilized in this game scared of the changes
"brink isnt fun cause its not like et"
LOL
And, damn, I feel out of my comfort zone when I read such dumb comments.
You are really wrong. I am not here to start the e-penis war. I let this war to the kids
Second you must be one of them, since your acting like that and there is no point at all talkin to you if your able to comment someone else's thought debutting with an offence.
Deep arguments!!!
You can still go at some public servers and have fun but the game is dead and is time to move to something else.
Just take ET maps as an example, all the new ones were shit, ALL. They were all really shit? NO. Cause there were great mappers in ET getting pissed off for this kids and that made us play supply and gold for 6 years.
How are they gonna change or test something new if they aren't capable of playing a new map in a 7 year old game?
Would never have guessed that, after all, Quake Wars got more and longer active than Brink.
Brink is not a bad game, the release was just a disaster, once again. Not so horrible than Wolfestein MP, but still, it's a shame. Whatever the devs do now, even if they release the SDK very fast, it will take time to make a promod and balance the game. Today, there are already only a few top team training regulary for the money, a few low teams spliting every week, and you can barely count on one hand the few med teams which are really active but can't find interesting opponents easily (not too high, not too low). Perfect story of a dead game.
The three months until Battlefield 3 will seem long...
And also this ESL tourney that from what I understand is in co-operation with the developers from Brink itself. Why the hell are they hosting a tourney that quickly with a massive prizepool when the game clearly isn't suited for competitive play yet. I don't know a lot about this but I can asume they shot themselves in the foot by not quickly releasing SDK. Now they're left with the casual gamers who clearly do not seem to enjoy Brink all that much.
Oh yea, and Brink still doesn't have first-person view when speccing right? :D
That itself is hilarious. We're living in a time where people are always watching streams of games, yet they do not ship the game with an option to spec POV.. in an FPS GAME. I mean what the hell, really.. I was a bit interested in Brink, and yet I haven't watched a full game of Brink yet because of this "problem".
I mean from what I can tell, if they would just have released the SDK quickly, had FPS view while speccing and TDM/DM modes. I think we would be looking at a pretty decent game really. It wouldn't be ET, but I'd probably play it. Now I'm just happy I didn't do the mistake I once did with Wolfenstein and ET:QW, which is buying the game :(
I don't think they have to be too worried at splashdamage though, I'll probably end up buying the game sooner or later just to see how it is. Seems like a fairly decent pub game from what I could tell anyways. The thing is though, that it's not all that surprising to me that Brink is yet another "disappointment" to this community. At the end of the day, has there even been ONE good fps game released since ET? I guess CoD4 would be close although I still do not think it's all that great of a game. Other than that, not that much. Companies need to make money, and to make money you need to satisfy the casual crowd, and clearly you cannot satisfy both as we've seen with ET:QW and now Brink. I think "our" biggest hope is if there were to come some kind of ETLive alá Quake Live or some other teambased, stopwatch game with paid premium features or perhaps a release on steam.
Why bother? It's dead. Check steam player stats.
And they still have nerve to release paid DLC...
thats everyone who plays it worldwide
there might be some EU pub
but is it worth it?
Why are you happy? As SD only copied RTCW gameplay, they didn't invent anything. ET become playable only because of effort from many modders, not because of SD. Every new game SD releases is worse version of previous one.
It was released for free only because they failed to produce decent singleplayer (no surprise there), and publisher didn't expect that game would hold on only on multiplayer.
It's not about spending 40e of pocketmoney, it's about giving them money and saying "thats ok, maybe next time" when they clearly have no ability in creating decent games. And when you give them money, you support next broken and unplayable game they will release.
But it's just 40e!!!!
make some etpro pubs (not slacced) like cybergames, with crossfire link in the title, same with jaymod
Last Seen: Thursday 23rd June 11
he is observing !
Iam starting to believe that crossfire will never find any et substitute, the scene is just too ambitious and elitist :)
You don't keep playing a game for years, if you find it like only ok-ish and at least to me, it's like the only things which could make the game any better is probably more activity/players, some new really good maps and possibly some variation in the cupconfig's.
has Quake 3 engine and seems to be a funny shooter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3RiOylFcwk
However you give too much importance to the pro mod and imo this game had much more problems, the ironsight was a major issue. This was not aiming to get COD players and ET players won't like that so that was really stupid from splashdamage. Also the futuristic atmosphere of the game well... not bad but is not WWII... and thats a problem for classic players.
The teamplay factor was not as promised... just some "dejavus" from ET... nothing comparable to the medic and its syringe or the field ops and its ammo. It didn't have to be like ET but well, it was just not the same feeling of really needed to work with your teammates to win a match.
Sadly ET is dying if not completely dead (is a matter of how optimistic you are) and I have been looking for any other decent game, not to play competition, just to have fun with some friends and wow, how many shit modern games there are out there?
After testing Team Fortress 2, COD's and Battflefield (all got me bored after 1 hour) I only found a game which made me have a bit of interest. http://www.heroesofstalingrad.com/
We will see when it's released.
Was it so difficult for them to realise how succesfull ET was after all these years still active? they had the game and just had to create new graphics, maps and some small addons...
Brink has nothing of Enemy Territory as Quake Wars and is not just the lack of pro mod or the bugs, the game itself had major problems and a big issue... it was not as fun as ET was on it's day or as fun as the big games in this genre.
Brink and ET:QW died cause the games were not fun, cause there are better games out there, if a game is good 2 months for a pro mod is not a reason for the game to die. I never liked Quake Wars and imo it was a big failure as Brink is. They don't realise that they had a formula that worked already and trying to change that just brough them to the actual situation where after 7 years were are still playing ET cause they weren't capable of making a game half decent.
i wonder what will happen to temas like mouz. fail game for em :D
even quake:wars was much much better then brink.
the game is good but now demo, no sdk, maps are shit and too hard to attack. counting stage percentages bores.
wow, game is so dead
Anyway I judged the game on it's own merits, it is quite a fun game but its riddled with bugs and missing features, how the game was allowed to be released in the state it was is beyond me. This is what frustrates me the most about Brink, a game game spoiled by bad decisions. I think SD and Bethesda have a lot to answer for and deserve some of the stick they are receiving.
I mainly bought the game as it was going for £24, I think I just about got my money's worth, just...
I'm not sure a huge fix with the upcoming free DLC and finally an SDK release will be able to turn things around though, be nice but perhaps too late.
Another thing that is highly complicated to new people are all these stupid scripts and configs. What about making something like the CPL GUI in CS, where you can change the most important stuff with some clicks and that's it. No more stupid config files, weird scripts that other might take advantage of. Same chances for everybody.
Plus a short video inside this ET pack that shows the basics of ET, the maps and competitions. People spend weeks making worthless fragmovies, yet noone came up with this.
Oh, and I'm also quite happy I didn't buy this Brink :-)
Either stay old school or copy CoD/BF - Aiming and Movement, don't try to find the middle ground in an attempt to please both the fans of old school shooters and the mainstream crowd, it just doesn't work.