Heh, to answer this question we must travel many years back, to the days when the gaming audience experienced the first glimpses of Quake 3 Arena, through the series of online-released Q3tests. The online world was very different back then. Tactical shooters and MMORPGs were still in their infancy, so competitive players flocked to RTS legends like Starcraft/Warcraft2 or FPS games, especially the Quake franchise.
Released in 1996, the original Quake took the (small) online world by storm and helped create the 'professional' scene that we experience today. Quake was a fast game with a lot of action, perhaps too fast for most people's standards (and that was before bunnyhop was introduced). It was followed by Quake 2, a radically different game which focused more on tactical aspects. The Quake players thought Quake2 was too slow so few made the jump to the new game. Hence, hopes ran high when Quake 3 was announced. Hyped to be the messiah of Quake games that will re-unite the two scenes and bring balance to the Force, it was released in its first form on April 1999 (first Q3test). What better timing, with Quake absolutely dominating the FPS scene, big leagues providing big cash and an increasing number of online players worldwide.
Then started the whinning. It was apparent from the very first test, that id software had taken a different route designing the game this time. In Quake and Quake 2, things were very hard for new players. They were outaimed, outclassed and pretty much raped in their first days. In order to fix this, id designed Quake 3 in a way that helped new players close the gap between them and the more expert crowd. By removing a lot of advanced gameplay concepts and making the game simpler, newcomers had a less steep lurning curve in front of them. Most players were part of this category and as such hailed Quake 3 as the best Quake ever. Some of the more experienced players however saw the danger of such limited gameplay. While it may not have been apparent at first, Quake 3's gameplay favored tactics that made the game less exciting for dedicated players. For most people, such visions were too early at the time as the game was still developing. However it didn't take long for the skill level of the players to hit the limitations of Quake 3's gameplay. In late Quake 3, CTF matches would end 0-0 or 0-1 and TDM matches were 90% machine-gun spam. Duels were boring compared to previous Quake iterations and the 'wow' moments were scarce, despite the players being extremely talented and dedicated.
Thus, in early 2000, some prominent people from the Quake community, recongnizing that a company's vision of gameplay was very different to the dedicated gamers' perspective, decided to make their own game. Quake 3 was selected as a platform as it was very techincally advanced and the new game was named Challenge Promode (CPM). Challenge was a series of gaming sites that supported the promode project and the 'promode' name comes from the famous John Carmack quote.
The goal of CPM was to select the best elements of Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3, mix them together and create the most exciting Quake fps ever. As such a team consisting of the best Quake and Quake 2 'pro' players was selected to give input on what they would like to see in such a game. The promode team valued the input of pro players more than that of casual gamers based on the fact that they knew the game much better. However, the public was free to provide input as well. The design process was simple: if a gameplay element was worthy of being added, it was evaluated by expert CPM players by using beta releases. If the results were good, it would find its way into the official CPM build. This development process is still on-going and the results are incredible. After 5-6 years, CPMA (as it was at some point renamed) has reached a level of maturity never experienced in any other deathmatch FPS. CPMA games are exciting to watch and even more exciting to play.
Released in 1996, the original Quake took the (small) online world by storm and helped create the 'professional' scene that we experience today. Quake was a fast game with a lot of action, perhaps too fast for most people's standards (and that was before bunnyhop was introduced). It was followed by Quake 2, a radically different game which focused more on tactical aspects. The Quake players thought Quake2 was too slow so few made the jump to the new game. Hence, hopes ran high when Quake 3 was announced. Hyped to be the messiah of Quake games that will re-unite the two scenes and bring balance to the Force, it was released in its first form on April 1999 (first Q3test). What better timing, with Quake absolutely dominating the FPS scene, big leagues providing big cash and an increasing number of online players worldwide.
Then started the whinning. It was apparent from the very first test, that id software had taken a different route designing the game this time. In Quake and Quake 2, things were very hard for new players. They were outaimed, outclassed and pretty much raped in their first days. In order to fix this, id designed Quake 3 in a way that helped new players close the gap between them and the more expert crowd. By removing a lot of advanced gameplay concepts and making the game simpler, newcomers had a less steep lurning curve in front of them. Most players were part of this category and as such hailed Quake 3 as the best Quake ever. Some of the more experienced players however saw the danger of such limited gameplay. While it may not have been apparent at first, Quake 3's gameplay favored tactics that made the game less exciting for dedicated players. For most people, such visions were too early at the time as the game was still developing. However it didn't take long for the skill level of the players to hit the limitations of Quake 3's gameplay. In late Quake 3, CTF matches would end 0-0 or 0-1 and TDM matches were 90% machine-gun spam. Duels were boring compared to previous Quake iterations and the 'wow' moments were scarce, despite the players being extremely talented and dedicated.
Thus, in early 2000, some prominent people from the Quake community, recongnizing that a company's vision of gameplay was very different to the dedicated gamers' perspective, decided to make their own game. Quake 3 was selected as a platform as it was very techincally advanced and the new game was named Challenge Promode (CPM). Challenge was a series of gaming sites that supported the promode project and the 'promode' name comes from the famous John Carmack quote.
The goal of CPM was to select the best elements of Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3, mix them together and create the most exciting Quake fps ever. As such a team consisting of the best Quake and Quake 2 'pro' players was selected to give input on what they would like to see in such a game. The promode team valued the input of pro players more than that of casual gamers based on the fact that they knew the game much better. However, the public was free to provide input as well. The design process was simple: if a gameplay element was worthy of being added, it was evaluated by expert CPM players by using beta releases. If the results were good, it would find its way into the official CPM build. This development process is still on-going and the results are incredible. After 5-6 years, CPMA (as it was at some point renamed) has reached a level of maturity never experienced in any other deathmatch FPS. CPMA games are exciting to watch and even more exciting to play.
why dont we see it in the article list ?