QW Competitive Feedback

Quakewars - It's at the tip of everyone's tongue, some love, some hate it, some won't even try it. Currently at it's open beta stage, the game has come to a situation where are people are giving the game a shot and seeing what they think, however the majority will not get the opportunity to gather an opinion on the competitive game at such an early stage in the game, so here's something that may give you an idea of what we'll be seeing in the future.

So here are the people who've been kicking you from public servers, so that they can play and find out just what quakewars is all about in the competitive scene -


Hello - could you please inform the community about yourself.

IloveYou: Hello i'm Jop ''ILoveYou'' Huisman. Currently i am the backup and teammanger for cZar.etqw. I come from the Bf2 scene where I played a lot with inFlux.bf2, until my interest got lost due to some random patch destroying the game ever more then they already did;)

FoX: Sure, my name is Julian "FoX" Sander, born and living in germany. Before i started to play Quake Wars i was playing Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 in a competitive level and Counter Strike 1.6 just for fun. I'm currently competing with team cause.

Adacore: Hi, my name is Adam "Adacore" Oddy, and most people from ET probably know me already. I come from England (near London), and I'm an active player for evolve gaming and admin for ClanBase and Crossfire in ET (and, hopefully, ETQW). I'm currently playing ETQW competitively with lolicon.

SonDac: Hi im Thomas "SonDac" Sørensen. I'm 19 years old and live in pixie land Denmark. I work/study as a trainee to be a electrician some day and Im currently the leader of the dignitas quakewars team and previously played for the first dignitas bf2 team.

dr3am: Hello, my name is Carlos, also known as dr3am around here, i live in Madrid and i have been playing ET since it came out. I'm currently trying to get in the ET:QW scene with wArning!

So what got you interested in the ET:QW beta?

IloveYou: When I heard the first information about ET:QW I wasn't interested that much. I found it too futuristic and I saw too much vehicles in the game. However a few months ago they released more information about ET:QW that made me interested. So we signed up for the ET:QW beta. While playing for the first time i got instantly excited (thats all I can and will say).

FoX: I've been waiting for Quake Wars since July 2006, it was just something different to Battlefield. After playing the first 1-2 hours i thought "hell yea this could be the next big hit" and so it was worth it to wait for the game.

Adacore: Well, personally I feel that ETQW is the nearest thing to a spiritual successor to ET (although I did not and do not expect it to be identical, as many seem to). I hate to say it, but ET is dying - at least for me - the ease with which people can cheat and the incredibly relaxed attitude towards cheaters in the scene is a major part of it. I think it's time for another game with comparibly fun and complex gameplay, and I can see ETQW being that game.

SonDac: After playing bf2 for about a year hardcore i got quite tired of the game and have been waiting for a game to take over since. Quakewars looked eactly like that game with a good mix of gameplay from both ET and BF.

dr3am: Mostly the idea of testing a game which seems to be similiar to ET, atleast under my point of view, i saw that some of the old wArning! guys suddenly got interested as well, so i thought that grouping all up once again would be as great as it was in ET.

How do you feel that games such as BF & QW compare, as this is certainly one of the things that is causing the community's interests to stir?

IloveYou: These comments probably come from people who never played scrims in ET:QW. This game is everything but BF3. First off all the gameplay is much faster, besides that vehicles in BF2 could dominate an entire map. Where in ET:QW there are basically only vehicles on the first objective.

FoX: Much faster gameplay and more infantry fights than in Battlefield.

Adacore: Well, QuakeWars is certainly an interesting mix of game styles - it borrows about as many elements from BF as from ET, but from the singe public beta map (Sewer) that I've seen, it has a lot more close quarters high-paced combat than games such as BF. To be truthful I've not played BF on any kind of competetive level though, so comparing them in detail is impossible.

SonDac: QW is very different to BF, it's faster and the action is centered around one spot on the map all time, compared to BF where you got all the action spread out on different flags around the map. The vehicles do in QW exactly what they did in bf2 and for me that is really the only thing that can be compared to bf.

dr3am: Well, at the moment i can only judge both ways of playing, it seems that using the same agressive and spamy tactics we use in ET fit great in that new game, vehicles is something that should be limited or even some of them removed. It's true that if you keep playing this game for weeks in a public, you will end up sick of it, it totally changes when it comes to a "real" (overtaking a public :9) match, it's more like playing ET with 40 frames less plus some annoying vehicles moving around and trying to spawnkill.

What do you feel would should be changed in the game to help make it more suitable for competitive play?

IloveYou: They should remove the airvehicles and increase spawntimes of the heavy vehicles a bit more.

FoX: There should be some different spawntimes in stopwatch mode. Perhaps a higher spawntime of heavy vehicles. Quake Wars TV would be another major improvement. Anyway they have to fix the actual bugs and it could be ready for the competitive community.

Adacore: I really would advocate removing the strogg grenades from stroyent packs - as I said, infinite grenades really is a bit silly, especially when you can get two new ones just by respawning at your convenient spawn host. The obvious point aside from this is vehicle restrictions - this is a big point of debate, but I personally feel that the game would play better with only the transport type vehicles (Armadilo, Icarus, Husky and Hog), at least on Sewer, and hopefully a standard set would be workable on all maps. Perhaps less powerful artillery with a faster targetting time as well. Obviously, it might be an idea to tinker with spawntimes a bit as well, but that would require more testing for me to be sure - given the Strogg's ability to spawn anywhere longer times may be more appropriate for them, at least.

SonDac: Vehicles should be limited one armor per side and no fliers(not icarus) is what i would go for. One rocket launcher per team could be added to a competition config. I don't believe any tools/classes should be removed for competition since they are all usefull and adds more tactical decisions.

dr3am: I would remove every useless vehicle, i mean, you have tanks/cyclops but they are pointless actually, you won't need them to complete any objetive, you can just get in one of them and move around while spawnkilling, that's something i don't enjoy even if im the one killing 3 players each time i shoot, that damages the tactics, the action and the competitive way of playing. Perhaps it's crazy but i would multiply the husky/icarus intead, to still let both teams move around the map.

Do you feel the game should begin in a 5v5 or 6v6 format?

IloveYou: I would 6v6 format especially if you want to keep vehicle dominancy low.

FoX: Personally i prefer 5on5 so the game should begin with that format :D

Adacore: That's probably the biggest question of the lot, isn't it - personally I think the game works with either, and I'd really need to see all the maps to have a clear answer. At the moment, however, I'm erring towards 5v5 providing the vehicle restrictions I suggested (or restrictions more severe) are implemented. This has big advantages for trying to get the game into LAN play, but I also think it plays better in the chaotic indoors areas with 5 rather than 6.

SonDac: 6v6 seems like the right choice to get the full potential out of the game. A map like sewer is playable in 5v5 but other maps may not work so well with only 5. Going for more than 6v6 turns the game into a spam fest where the individual skill gets less important.

dr3am: I would start playing it 5on5, now is when we can do it, the reasons are obvious, it has been discussed several times, and it always ends in the same point, LANs/sponsors/money, doing it now means having to stick with it for a long time from now on, and it will happen the same once again if we try to change it 2 or 3 years after it's release.