Quake 3 Arena Was Never a Popular Game

[Fly Guy]

For what ever reason I had thought Quake 3 Arena was popular; contrarily, it only sold 170,000 copies when it was released. Today, we have single FPS PvP games which have sold 10 million copies and have over a million active players.

[steeltoe]

When Q3 came out we were still competing in Q1 on Gamespy. Q2 was hated becuse the mechanics were total garbabge but we played it anyway. Q3 was the most anticipated game on anybody's radar. I was at a LAN party and a guy who worked what eventually became Alienware brought the beta so we could play it.

When Q3 came out it had some teething problems and went through some changes. It was incredibly popular. I can't speak for sales but 24/7 worldwide servers heavily populated. Then along came the CPL and Challenge Pro Mode. Also we had Quake TV in conjunction with mIRC watching tourneys became a thing. I don't suppose anyone here remembers Trillian from PMS was very popular commentator.

id/Quake has a lot of history. It has always been a bit of a niche game. Either you played Quake games or you played Warcraft/Starcraft. That was it for serious online competitive games. Tribes and UT were easier for people to get into but never rose to the level of Quake.

I still think Challenge Pro Mode is the best Quake. But it was not easy to play. It was incredibly difficult to become good at. (That is what has always seperated Quake for every other competitive game. It requires a good deal of skill and practice to become proficient. There was never a way to buy your way to success.

I guess to summarize Q3's popularity we weren't searching for players ever. We were often wating for a spot to open up on PACKED servers.

[marsdiamond]

Fly Guy님이 먼저 게시:

marsdiamond님이 먼저 게시:

So, anyone claiming it was never a popular game is either stupid or just fragmeat.

Old fanboys butthurt from the facts. Argue against this: Counter Strike is just as old as Quake and has millions of players until this day; where is your excuse? Arging about weak computers and no Internet, ROTFLMAO. Such nonsense.

? complete different type of game but go on, compare water and wine, apples and tomatoes as you wish...



Anyway, as you asked me to argue on the matter... in my eyes CS is in deed more suited for the casual player, since learning curve is more flat - the scenarios are more static and let's say you hardly make the same mistake twice. That means after a couple of attempts, even a noob may have his moment (requires at least one other noob of course), thus he will return for more.
Now don't get me wrong, to be good at CS you sure need some skill. But this is about noobs.

Q3A in contrary is a demanding game when it comes to skill. You have to move fast, plan your pickups, aim for more than one hit... Casual gamer has a hard and discouraging way to learn these things and frustration comes in heavy sequence. Since the overall skill on the die hard gamer base increased by time, new players became even more frustrated and stayed away.


Point is, Q3A WAS a popular game and I'd still go for it.

[DeadSlash]

Fly Guy님이 먼저 게시:

marsdiamond님이 먼저 게시:

So, anyone claiming it was never a popular game is either stupid or just fragmeat.

Old fanboys butthurt from the facts. Argue against this: Counter Strike is just as old as Quake and has millions of players until this day; where is your excuse? Arging about weak computers and no Internet, ROTFLMAO. Such nonsense.

meh, pretty weak troll attempt imo. It's super easy to blurt out something that is easily verified as incorrect. Sure, you might get a small percentage that will correct you if you say "I know for a fact that the moon is made of cheese." but the majority of people simply dismiss you as a troll or idiot.

Mayhap the tryhard should tryharder?

[NoZart]

poros1ty님이 먼저 게시:

Fly Guy님이 먼저 게시:

Point is, Q3A did poorly in comparison to prior id games.

Point is, you clearly lack any knowledge on the subject.

Copies sold means nothing. Many people played the game without a real cd key (pirated), as one was not required for the multiplayer to function, until Punkbuster was incorporated into the 1.32 point release in ~October 2002. So for almost 3 years, you didn't need a legit cd key to play the game online, which was the main draw for most playing the game.

Didn't they turn off the keyservers for good shortly afterwards? Can't quite remember

[Zell]

I played Quake 1 for many years before jumping onto Quake 3.

My first experience with Quake 3 when it came out didn't even impress me much at the time. It was shinier, but all my friends were playing Q1 so I stuck with it for a while longer.

Then came the frag movies and the 1000-man LANs, and when I started watching those insane rocket launcher frags and tricks, I knew I had to get into Quake 3 and master it.

It took me 6 months of playing every single day for hours on end, and training on Defrag and against CPMA bots (who moved and shot like an agent in the Matrix), to reach a level where I could control the maps entirely (movement, timings, offense, defense) and even draw crowds at local LANs.

There were others like me who got into it and trained for months as well, slowly rising in the ranks and reluctantly being accepted as top players.

I guess today's gamers are looking for easy thrills and to call others noob even though they are noobs themselves - what happened to wanting to be good at something because the better you are the more fun it is?

It's more rewarding to master something when it takes effort, which explains why the Quake Live community, regardless of how small it is, will never die.

Whereas every time there is a new COD or Battlefield, the noobs flock to it to get ranks and unlocks before the other noobs.

[1v4n94]

Fly Guy님이 먼저 게시:

For what ever reason I had thought Quake 3 Arena was popular; contrarily, it only sold 170,000 copies when it was released. Today, we have single FPS PvP games which have sold 10 million copies and have over a million active players.

Being popular does not mean being better... Also, remember that Quake 3 Arena (as much as I love that game with all my rocket heart) is a classic game. Now you should look into Quake Live for a comparison. In fact, I am a hardcore Q3 player, but since Quake Live has more maps and improvements, I plan on buyin QL instead of buying Q3.

[1v4n94]

1v4n94님이 먼저 게시:

Fly Guy님이 먼저 게시:

For what ever reason I had thought Quake 3 Arena was popular; contrarily, it only sold 170,000 copies when it was released. Today, we have single FPS PvP games which have sold 10 million copies and have over a million active players.

Being popular does not mean being better... Also, remember that Quake 3 Arena (as much as I love that game with all my rocket heart) is a classic game. Now you should look into Quake Live for a comparison. In fact, I am a hardcore Q3 player, but since Quake Live has more maps and improvements, I plan on buyin QL instead of buying Q3.

Nevertheless, Quake 3 is better for mods, since I don't know if QL supports community mods other than the ones from the WorkShop on Steam.

[Captain n00by]

Different times, different expectations. Selling a few hundred thousand copies was considered a success on the PC gaming scene in those times, only a few PC games became million sellers, among them classics such as original Doom, Myst and Half-Life.

Secondly, Quake 3 *was* a big deal when it came out, LAN parties and cyber cafes were popular back then and Quake 3 was a regular guest on those, alongside Unreal Tourny, Counter-Strike, StarCraft and other MP PC games.

Thirdly, PC gaming was not yet *as* mainstream back then, and fast internet access wasn't quite there yet, nor were there many "free to play" games out there.

It was a different time, many would say a better time, and a time that won't come back again, but we can still receive some fragments of it via new entries in classic series, if they don't stray too far from what made the originals so memorable.

[1v4n94]

noobean님이 먼저 게시:

we can still receive some fragments of it via new entries in classic series, if they don't stray too far from what made the originals so memorable

Indeed. Bethesda, take note! ;)

[tfa]

Fly Guy님이 먼저 게시:

poros1ty님이 먼저 게시:

Point is, you clearly lack any knowledge on the subject.

Copies sold means nothing.

Old fanboys butthurt from the facts. Argue against this: Counter Strike is just as old as Quake and has millions of players until this day; where is your excuse? Arging about weak computers and no Internet, ROTFLMAO. Such nonsense.

Changing the goalposts eh. Not being as popular as CS doesn't mean it was never popular. And Quake 3 was very demanding for its time. It would be like a game coming out today with a min req of I7 6700k/GTX 1060. You could have bought a $2000 pc in 1997 for Quake 2 and be below min req for Quake 3 in 1999.

[cRaZy eYes]

Q3A was one of the first games I would play when I chose to drink at home. Eventually I met others who would get drunk at people over the mic. So it kind of became a social drinking game for me. However I quit drinking because reasons but there were some good times. I remember talk of tourney matches for big winnings and I didn't believe it. I eventually thought all of you were crazy thinking you could make money playing Quake. The hackers also did not help. I remember my old Gateway PC got all messed up during a Q3A match and just BSOD every reboot. If you think about it thats what you get when you call people noobs when your only skill is gaming. This is insane I thought. Your all out of your mind. So I quit gaming for a long while. I did not play again until a few years after QL release. Suprised to see full servers there, and even after booting up Q3A, full servers there. Some nuts still running in circles with the gauntlet. That's why I find it hard not to go for a pummel. Either way you look at it, I don't see why it wouldn't still be going today. Yada yada, blah blah blah.

[Fritzbube]

Fly Guy님이 먼저 게시:

For what ever reason I had thought Quake 3 Arena was popular; contrarily, it only sold 170,000 copies when it was released. Today, we have single FPS PvP games which have sold 10 million copies and have over a million active players.

thats whats happening when you mix up now, with 19 years ago ...

[1v4n94]

cRaZy eYes님이 먼저 게시:

Q3A was one of the first games I would play when I chose to drink at home. Eventually I met others who would get drunk at people over the mic. So it kind of became a social drinking game for me. However I quit drinking because reasons but there were some good times. I remember talk of tourney matches for big winnings and I didn't believe it. I eventually thought all of you were crazy thinking you could make money playing Quake. The hackers also did not help. I remember my old Gateway PC got all messed up during a Q3A match and just BSOD every reboot. If you think about it thats what you get when you call people noobs when your only skill is gaming. This is insane I thought. Your all out of your mind. So I quit gaming for a long while. I did not play again until a few years after QL release. Suprised to see full servers there, and even after booting up Q3A, full servers there. Some nuts still running in circles with the gauntlet. That's why I find it hard not to go for a pummel. Either way you look at it, I don't see why it wouldn't still be going today. Yada yada, blah blah blah.

Interesting opinion and experience. Thanks 4 sharing it here with us, mate. I hope you can handle the drinkin' problems with ease ;)

Calling people "noob" is and was always a bad thing. You are right and I agree with u in the fact that discrimination generates "bad" people. If you also think about the cheaters, there's no point in cheating when the joy of every game is to get skilled at it, and have fun in the meantime (I once tried using wallhack against bots. It was pathetic..! there's no joy in a FPS game using those hacks.

Some games, never die for me. Quake 3 (even though now i want to play quake live because of its updates and support) is the best example


Godspeed, Crazy Eyes, it was very nice to "meet" you! :)

[El Matador]

Why even argue with some random idiot about obvious things? ♥♥♥♥♥♥ claims water is not wet? Yeah, ok, sure.

[Somali Pirate Radio]

As an old fart that wasn't invested in Quake 3, I can confirm it was pretty darn popular back in the day.
I was completely baffled by this. "Wait, they didn't even include the actual game and they're still charging fifty bucks?! And people are BUYING IT?!"

Yes, I was a solo player. I didn't even have INTERNET when Q3 and UT launched.