Quake Champions: A Game That Could Have Been Legendary

[@DeadPixel1105]

I admit I had some fun with Quake Champions. What killed it for me was the absurdly long wait times between matches. And the fact that you are disconnected from the server and have to find a new server in between every single match, which only makes the wait between matches even longer. When playing Quake Champions, I spent FAR MORE time waiting than I spent actually playing the goddamn game. F*ck that nonsense.

[@bojcio]

For me it just didn't feel like Quake. Its hard to explain exactly, but noting felt like quake, the asymmetric heroes, the movement, the sound. It just wasn't Quake.

[@50PullUps]

It has gotten quite a bit better. Long wait times have been a thing of the past for several years at this point. I encourage you to log on and play a few matches 👍

[@bulasturubula3660]

Yeah, it would've been pretty easy to make you able to tag in FFA while waiting for a game, for example

[@kulafula8763]

Exactly the reason I stopped playing too.

[@arcticridge]

lol.. the guy who probably one shot every single player he came across complains about load times of all things. Yeah dude, that was definitely the problem.

[@Cat_in_The-Box]

Despite all of that, game is still getting updates, its still playable and they even have end of life plan so it will remain playable forever. This is commendable, as usually games get shut down very quickly and end of life plans just dont exist.

[@MrSlaughterrific]

True tbh

[@abhinandanil7775]

What's the end of life plan?

[@Cat_in_The-Box]

@@abhinandanil7775 no concrete info, but something like QL with server browser and server binaries being released

[@ksln]

@@abhinandanil7775 Meow meow

[@ryanlafferty5815]

and it still plays well tbh, I've never understood the complaints about the actual gameplay, the movement & gunplay is solid... this still feels better to play than a lot of more recent shooters

[@Nikolaos34]

I would love to see a Quake 3 Arena remaster with the graphics of Quake Champions. No hero abilities bullshit. Offline singleplayer. Map editor. Modding support. Defrag.

[@satnav1980]

I'm down for that.

[@etceterax144]

offline singleplayer quake 3? 😂 playing the same detahmatch arena with bots over and over? sounds like fun for about 2 houra and ask for a refund. what a joke.

[@Nikolaos34]

​@@etceterax144 You know Quake 3 had a singleplayer campaign, alongside the ability to play online multiplayer... right? I have great memories playing through the base game up to final fight with Xaero. Sorry if you don't share that memory. Quake 3 Remaster would still be dope.

[@etceterax144]

@@Nikolaos34 If you consider playing deathmatch arenas with bots as a campaign, then I am truly sorry for you lol But on the upside, if that's your jam, you should be very easily impressed with modern games and their... uh... "deep and immersive" stories.

[@therealshug]

don't forget C P M AAAAA!

[@Arrokotth736]

Quake with a single player combining eldritch horrors and alien robots combined together would go so hard fr

[@yutro213]

Instead id Software just went with another DOOM Game, set in "Middle Ages" setting. Cash-Grab Sucks!

[@DARamosYT]

I'd be inclined to settle for some cookie-cutter mini campaigns with the various champions already introduced. Perhaps it could work as an appetizer for the fans, and while devs gain experience to tackle a main line quake entry again.

[@josephikrakowski1137]

Honestly yeah mixing of quake maps and vibe with the strogg stuff of 2 and 4 would be cool

[@Moji55a]

​@@yutro213They could do Quake, its just DooM just have bigger brand than Quake...

[@ryanlafferty5815]

@@yutro213 the last 2 doom games were great but this next one looks like a cash grab

[@lakermangmx]

Tim Willits was that cockroach you sell with the house. For a while he thought he owned it.

[@olisk-jy9rz]

And Sync is the roach that never left

[@michelians1148]

Ultra low competence netcode to the point of seeing non-cheating players run through walls. At one point they tried to fix it by fiddling with hit boxes, utterly misunderstanding the real issues. They need to go back and read papers on netcode from the HL1 era and earlier. How many videos even mention this? Did they not notice? Stunning.

[@doctorstainy]

Promoting the game to streamers that cant even figure out strafejumping was a bad idea, but also says alot about how noob many of these cs and fortnite players are.

[@Jacket430]

I was literally the only person I knew who played this game. Near the end of my play time, I was spending upwards of 16 minutes in the queues. I just couldn't do it anymore. I'll always love my memories of sliding around the arenas at lightning speed on my roller skates, but I can't spend a quarter of an hour looking for a game.

[@Jammet]

I never even played Quake beyond 3. I liked the original Quake, Quake 2 (yes! TWO!) and 3. And Quakeworld. And that's where the franchise ended, if anyone asks me. Do they? No. Whatever.

[@wiggytommy8607]

The moral of the story, Tim Willits shouldn’t be trusted with Quake

[@Kobold666]

I love the awkward silence after he announces Quake Champions on stage 🤣 This guy shouldn't be in the industry at all, but they let him have the company's greatest franchise.

[@devilmyeyes9450]

He killed the original id software team

[@yutro213]

@@devilmyeyes9450 Nah, that's on John Romero...

[@eduardosanchezbarrios5810]

That way Tim is the Snake

[@yutro213]

That's a BrainDead take if you are not trolling.

[@ahdnoh]

The lack of Id tech engine meant QC was corrupted at its foundation, it never had a chance.

[@Robertkopp84]

Yay...Doom Eternals bugs in a competitive game.

[@InnuendoXP]

​@@Robertkopp84yeah not like that could've been fixed if competitive multiplayer would've been a priority 🙄

[@MikeyD389]

so basically quake champions is a glorified fan mod and I'm still waiting for Quake 5.

[@SheolAbaddonus666]

My Highschool teacher was more excited for this than the "new" Doom game, which was Doom 2016 at the time.

[@delphicdescant]

Sounds like a cool teacher.

[@jkeizer3947]

I totally agree

[@SinbadNaiver]

Kinda ironic that Quake Champions died alongside Unreal Tournament....

[@OlafPawbelt]

unreal died before quake champions because of fortnite which is sad. I was a huge unreal fan and epic just decided to kill the franchise because of a horrible game

[@explosivesexplode]

unreal tournament was murdered it didn't die naturally

[@SpecShadow]

@@OlafPawbelt didn't UT3 perished due to Call of Duty 4 MW1 release and people leaving arena FPS for more modern, sorta realistic settings but not too realistic gameplay? Both in 2007 that was PACKED with big games - sadly UT3 was the weaker one. Great music, but bloom was awful trend at the time.

[@OlafPawbelt]

@SpecShadow ut 2003 started bad, ut 2004 was the one who became popular, ut 2007 was horrible from start to end so people went back to ut 1999 and ut 2004.

[@BlueLightningSky]

​@@OlafPawbeltstop blaming Fortnite for that sorry excuse of a UT game's failure. Even if Fortnite didn't exist it would still be dead.

[@jrinc6467]

Hey atleast quake is still somewhat talked about. Look at what epic games did to my boy unreal smh.

[@CatsOverdrive]

UT being axed because of Fortnite will never stop being funny(in a depressing sense) to me.

[@GraveUypo]

the worst part is that the probably best game in the series was never played by the vast majority of its fanbase. unreal championship 2 is a goddamn masterpiece and it's locked in the stupid xbox console with no re-releases anywhere else. i loved ut99 and played it to death for years, but it didn't scale very well with low latency internet. it played much better with 200ms ping. for that reason alone i think uc2 aged better.

[@jrinc6467]

@@GraveUypo oh trust me I got it on Xbox and I think it’s better than og halo

[@Chasemo]

Quake III was the pinnacle of Quake multiplayer, you can't get any better than that game. Quake Champions suffers from the same issue other more recent games do, where a studio/company is making a new entry to a franchise, couldn't figure out how to advance the franchise and genre as it already peaked, so their way of advancing things is mixing and stuffing in elements of different genres, examples being Asassin's Creed adding RPG elements and so on in the later entries and every racing franchise now having all of these open world elements. So with Quake Champions, their way of "advancing" the franchise was adding champions into the game. The game ended up being a mixture of stuff that turns off both arena shooter fans and hero shooter fans. If they wanted to make a champion based Quake game, they would have been better off making this game a successor to Team Arena with champions, AKA a team focused game with team-based game modes and maps.

[@House-Metal-Punk-And-Your-Mom]

Being on Steam and add micro transaction to the lot and no more dedicated servers no more mod friendly = CRAP

[@VACatholic]

Quake world is a better tdm game, but q3 is a better duel game.

[@s4uss]

it doesn't run well either, it's continuously frame-dropping, and then there is input lag.

[@50PullUps]

Dude, I play QC every single day. The game is awesome.

[@lmaololovsky]

it's good, but quake in form of hero shooter just doesn't do it for me...

[@House-Metal-Punk-And-Your-Mom]

@@lmaololovsky hey you forgot your bunny ears hahahahha

[@hugostiglitz491]

​@@lmaololovskyI wanted it to have a campaign

[@lmaololovsky]

@@hugostiglitz491 I'd be perfectly happy with q3a gameplay and qc graphics...

[@rinusvandiemen6115]

​@@lmaololovsky just out of curiosity, do you dislike the champion system in general? Or mainly the active abilities? I personally enjoy the difference in speed, stack and movement types.

[@SmashCentralOfficial]

I wish Quake could make a comeback. I tried Q3 when I was a kid because I heard it was the Super Smash Bros Melee of computer games and God they were right.

[@ImaginaryNumb3r]

What happened? The narcissm of Tim Willits happened. It could have been perfect, but nope.

[@yutro213]

Thanks to Tim Willits Quake Champions existed at all. IF depended on Bethesda, there would be no Quake at all. Tim's failure was not to secure personnel on id Software to solely on Quake Champions with id Tech 6 finished.

[@ramgine]

As a long time Q1/Q2/Q3A/QL player the change from typical arena to hero-based I think alienated a large group of the original players.

[@amars7941]

No one is going to make a game catering to 60 year old virgins. The way to keep Quake alive is to draw in new players and appeal to large gaming pool.

[@someone-l5e9g]

Same. It just wasn't my thing as an old Quake fan.

[@godskypodcast]

Quake will never die

[@TheDefender123Plays]

Yes quake lives long! But quake champions had disappointing development and resources.

[@SpecShadow]

unlike Unreal thanks Tim

[@blackagent4754]

This mindset breeds complacency rather than facing reality and accepting that this game is in decline. Accepting that would be better in helping fans and devs adapt and start trying to move forward with helping Quake at least get back up to steam again.

[@Drprophetius]

Just making quake live with good graphics is never gonna sell. What will you add without making the fans mad and new players confused how to play?

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

you can simplify it and add more teamplay. also a different artstyle because my good qc looks so cluttered

[@GraveUypo]

@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 you could just tell them to freaking shit on the game instead, it would have the same effect

[@istvan368]

We had LAN party now and we played a lot of quake live.

[@Robertkopp84]

Those games need dedicated casual servers and game modes to bridge the downtime gaps between competitive matches and to give the casual and new players a non stop playground.

[@ORLY911]

if the whiteboard is to be believed and not a joke, Machine Games might be working on Quake 5, this holds up since they made expansions for the remasters of 1 and 2, with Indiana Jones done i do think it'll be their next project.

[@NemesisOgreKing]

Can't wait for QV in 2047.

[@hugostiglitz491]

You'll be disappointed bc it was a joke

[@CatsOverdrive]

After what happened to Wolfenstein. I'm not really hyped at MG taking the helm for a Quake game. They're great at making expansion packs, so at least they could have that.

[@ORLY911]

@@hugostiglitz491 Well, RIP then! might be interesting if it gets handed off to another developer, lot to choose from whose made very high quality boomer shooters.

[@ORLY911]

@@CatsOverdrive A good point, but maybe with the right director it could come out good. Though im not sure the director and writer even works there anymore who did the Wolfen games, the guy who did Indiana Jones is someone else

[@JogoDetonado]

I have to say something. Quake Champions: Doom Edition is the Quake Champions that, at the very least, was what I expected from a complete experience. I finished the PVE Deathmatch Campaign mode yesterday and liked what I saw. I'm following the development of Quake Champions Classic too

[@nxlevel]

Q3A & QL were my favorite games of all time, I use to play it almost every day until I was 28 hoping to go pro. I missed them and just discovered QC existed 2hr ago, I couldn't believe this thing existed and I didn't know. The team constantly makes bad decisions which slowly pushed me away many years ago. You hit the nail on its head... great breakdown TBH. I do sincerely hope they redo the game with ID or UE engine and the core gameplay we all loved. i don't mind them incorporating skins and other stuff to purchase in games like rocketleage, fortnite, etc. it keeps players coming back. The core gameplay must return, no character should be more special than the other, the players competing is what determines whos special with their skills. I wanted to introduce my kids to the most competitive game I grew up playing and thoroughly enjoy... it hurts my heart I may not be able to as the experience has been diminished and it may not exist years from now! 😔

[@katherinecode-BDA]

Man, what could have been. Thanks of showing off QC:DE btw! I've been working on new from-scratch graphics for every champion to make it more "full game" than "mod", I'm glad to see praise for DE.

[@harleyHDz]

No joke i think if we could mod and do stuff like defrag, QC would actually offer something alternative to the sweatfest that typically is quake. I just think that QC doesn't offer a motivating way to stay in the game long enough.

[@NoStringsPrd]

I remember seeing the announcement and being interested, but a little put-off by the champions idea - and this was back when "hero shooter" wasn't a bad label yet. It just felt that, shouldn't classic arena shooters have even starts? Aren't heroes a little antithetical to the classic design? Plus something about wise-cracking hero characters with attitude just never felt right - show don't tell, and do don't show; a character is a badass because of what you do as them in the game, not because they call people names in the results screen, not because they _tell_ you they're cool. I dunno, something didn't feel right about it. And then all I'd hear about it later was that no one was playing it, and I remember a video highlighting the disparity between the in-game characters taunting "get good" attitude clashing completely with the actual players in lobbies being inviting and welcoming to newcomers and trying to help them learn the game. It's a shame because conceptually I _was_ interested, a new arena shooter from a big name is definitely appealing, but it's the same thing as Lawbreakers, you need the entry level to be low so you can get new players interested in that high ceiling Great video, thank you!

[@paskudne]

Lol, i just thought that i need to binge watch thru your tiberium videos. Its definitely a sign

[@RogerWilcoBond]

Pfff, zoomers... The main problem with QC is the focus on the "formula". How to reward with cosmetics, what balance, what progress. Let me remind that Q3 became popular thanks to computer clubs and communication between real people at tournaments. Autism to skill quickly gets boring, people want to chat. When playing QC you don’t experience any communication. It feels like you're playing with bots. People still play CS16 and CSS (on pirate servers like CSS ClientMod) despite CS2 just for the communication. The gameplay there is also outdated, but people don’t care because they talking and having fun. So it's not about politics, but about the atmosphere for communication. I also heard the opinion that Saber and ID are connected by one person in the management of ID, so the project was outsourced due to nepotism.

[@lmaololovsky]

I'd love to see q3a with champions graphics, that's it...

[@JohnDoe-rj8nd]

I love QC. It's sad that it never got the love I believe it deserved. I miss watching the QPL every week.

[@92bego]

First of all Bethesda should take notes from this, second, thank you sync error for keeping this game alive.

[@hugostiglitz491]

Praying Quake comes back properly one day 🙏

[@NoGoodVdW]

This documentary is so well written and edited! 🧑‍🍳👌

[@cryptocatmeow]

Im in live with *HUNTER* since i was 16 years old ❤

[@MegaMark0000]

As someone who always enjoyed Quake Champions but was disappointed that there were so few people online and it took so long to find a match, I can appreciate this documentary-style video.

[@gcavrubio]

Game de developers really want to develop games for competition even before establishing the player base. It is like a builder that starts building a house from the roof.

[@GregMatoga]

About the strafing - didn't they make it a hero special ability? Sorlag has "CPMA movement" in it's description card. Sarge has reduced self damage for rocket jumping. The punk on hoverboard also has CPMA movement. I have 1.3k hours in Quake Champions and I played almost exclusively Sorlag for that satisfying movement

[@WhiTeyFU]

Guys, It's esports ready.

[@50PullUps]

It actually is, because the Quake Pro League ran for about 7-8 years.

[@LotusOfDoom]

Great video and I also was very pleased to see I wasn’t the only one who instantly thought “How is DOOM the Dark Ages not just Quake 5?!”

[@Kankipappa]

Haha well, I feel like Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal are more Quake than Doom in gameplay anyway. If it needs a Doom skin to sell then I'm all for it, but in my heart I know they're just Quake games because how they play and the levels. Think about Doom Eterenals Map layouts - spawning arenas with jump pads etc. - If that isn't just Quake then what is?

[@LotusOfDoom]

@ I never really thought about the jump pad and swing mechanics but you’re right. I was thinking visually, but Eternal especially feels like Quake Arena style mechanics in a solo game. Im all for whatever is fun, Ive just always connected more with the weird gothic style Quake feel and miss it 😢

[@ianjameslake]

A classic arena shooter is about fairness, with skill deciding who wins (with a touch of luck, usually based on spawn points). The problem with Quake Champions is that they decided to take a formula that worked i.e. Everyone has the same abilities, and thus the game is fair, and added special abilities, making things uneven. Each character having unique abilities means you have to develop a sense for every character, learn every character, to be able to counteract the other players character choice. Which still results in non equal fairness and gameplay. They should not have tried to be like overwatch, and should have tried to be (ironically) quake.

[@rosumparat]

I played Champions at first but when I saw those "special abilities" and such a small character rooster while the others were behind a paywall I gave up and never touched it since and after seeing this video I'm glad a did.

[@doritorancho4735]

This could have been avoided if they added Orb.

[@cropathfinder]

Saber interactive is kind of a cursed studio. They either make games with cult following that get worked on and supported forever but whose mechanics and gamplay underappreciated until they copy the same game and reskin it with a much more popular skin (space marine) 2, support other studios doing good work but then taking fault when players don't like stuff they didn't even work on for that game, make niche vehicle games that get a cult following and are made to do generic franchise/movie tie in slop where they still somehow do great work

[@Leprechaun2055]

They fucked up QC and the Ghostbusters Remaster. They're dead in my book.

[@penrar]

Give me a real single player sequel to Q1 in the same universe and all will be forgiven.

[@tehacjusz2010]

I stopped playing regularly when they slowed down Slash. Warfrok in clan arean is where I am getting my speed fix now.

[@u1337ochka]

One crucial point is missing in the video, why was QPL eventually cancelled, it was their core selling feature after all. The strategy wasn't so bad - cast professional matches, casual players drawn by a great spectator experience shower you with money buying skins. But apparently they had severe budget issues, they overspent on 2017 world championship with a prize pool of 340k while drawing 20k peak viewers, and it was only downhill from there. QPL consistently stayed below 10k, with season 4 finals having only 3800 peak viewers. It's like their marketing was just nonexistent, in a sector that is extremely competitive with a ton of big titles. They thought like the game will speak for itself, but in hindsight it wasn't nearly enough.

[@u1337ochka]

Also i'm pretty sure that in 2017 the game was in a pretty bad state after rushed development. Clawz, basically a new player in the scene won 100k in a tournament full of seasoned (in "classic" Quake) veterans, played for a year more, and proceeded to fuck off lmao, that's not a good look

[@augmented2nd666]

I play Quake since they came out, and stuck with Quake 3 (mostly Excessive plus mod) for the past 20 years or so off and on without really having interest in any other FPS games, I even rejected Quake Live after trying it, as Q3 felt better, Qlive was Browserbased when I first tried it and dismissed it but it still feels rougher to me upon trying it again. Everything else feels like garbage to me, I cant stand slow clunky goldeneye walking through mud movement, its just gross to me. I came to QC late mostly due to lack of a modern PC, I hadnt seriously gamed in a while, and didnt require much of a PC to run Q3 at a decent frame rate. I love QC for the most part, the only issues I have are latency related, which might be my still underpowered RTX3050ti laptop (yeah, I f'd up there, I didnt know much about modern gaming PCs) as I find theres delay sometimes for instant hit weapons, (rail, MG's, SGs) firing in general sometimes feels delayed and can be a bit frustrating. Other than that, movement is great and feels like Q3 although a bit slower, its still great. I really wish there was a bigger playerbase, as there are so few players that most game modes are dead, its mostly TDM surviving at this point, and most of the players queing are very very high level skilled players, so the imbalances are ridiculous. Theres also a cheater problem, I want to say its just one individual constantly cheating at matches daily, as I usually encounter this player, they have multiple accounts that are all named very similar, they are easy to detect and most of the high level players usually agree its a cheater and leave matches, making everyone wait for loading matches even more than the game already does. I've reported the cheater numerous times, including capturing the cheater streaming themselves cheating (complete with wallhack and cheats on display, heavily) and uploaded that VOD to my youtube, I then linked the VOD to the QC Discord and to Sync directly, saying this player has been a cancer on the community in NA for well over a year, not only cheating under multiple accounts, some of which have been banned, this user also stream snipes (I stream to rewatch my vods without filling my harddrive) and follows players to other servers including the UK when I tested if they'd follow over to other game modes and server selections, they did. Sync didnt reply, and other players in the discord rejected my suggestion of adding /Callvote Kick, to allow players to kick cheaters instead of everyone leaving and reloading hoping the cheater didnt follow, which they do. Their argument was that many good players will be callvote kicked for being too good and accused of cheating by the rest of a lobby, I found that are somewhat flawed response as the command worked great in the Quake Excessive Plus community and good real players were known and respected for the most part, although adding spectator mode would also allow players to check for cheating, as well as gather better evidence for reporting cheaters, something Bethesda services requires when they follow up reporting a cheater, (Not sure what footage they are expecting to get other than your own VOD from your POV of the cheater, maybe showcasing a ridiculous win margin or highlighting the cheaters stats). I even suggested in the discord to move the player search bar, as when you try to type a cheaters name into the search it covers the player name list from the match, and cheaters often have names like lIlIlIlIlIl or other random character names that are difficult to memorize or decypher, making looking up and reporting post match more difficult (you can report them easier ingame from the ingame menu, but sometimes a match ends before you decide or remember to report). I would say alot of whats killing QC would be a complete disregard for quality of life improvements in the UI, anti cheat system, the match making system when server lists would be just plain better, it worked for many decades now and Qlive even still uses it with a similar playerbase size despite age differences of the game. Thanks for making this video, I wish somthing Quake would happen soon, until then I'll still be playing whenever I can.

[@AlphaGarg]

Agreed

[@nortropgrumann9594]

Absolute true

[@JenyaIsJustChilling]

FINALLY - actually good video about QC, that addresses The Important Issues. Like / share / etc. I was about to make a video like this myself, but i'm so frustrated with this game, i don't even want to bother, at least for now...

[@JenyaIsJustChilling]

P.S. There's a Quake 3 Champions mod called Blood Run, it's developed by russians and supported by a private "pro"-league called RESP.

[@The_Nametag]

Quake was originally more RPG Adventure than FPS, but FPS what was Id knew. So give us Skyrim with Guns for the next Quake. Just imagine a massive open world with Quake's movement and eldritch horrors to hunt down.

[@AlphaGarg]

So... Halo Infinite, but Quake?

[@sneauxday7002]

@@AlphaGargQuakefield

[@AlphaGarg]

@@sneauxday7002 ETQW but Quake 1 instead of Quake 2?

[@OlafPawbelt]

cod players who only sat in corners and didn't do anything more than corner camp since they were to afraid to fight like a quake player, and the sweaty spawn killers who knew exactly where people spawned and killed them before they could even give a fight self. Plus the nerf of some weapons such as railgun and other things

[@luizneto-rq5qq]

Champions being paid also hurt this game alot, it doesn't matter if your game is balanced so well around pure skill, with only Ranger being free any new player would consider a big red flag scrolling through different Champions and see that some of them have bigger health pools than yours, again QC is not P2W but it was just a barrier that i encounter while trying to get people to play this game with me.

[@bad1nfo]

it is pay2win, actually. During that period, to master this game you have to learn all characters to play Duels, since they are asymmetrical. If they were the same, as in Q3 but just locked, then it is not pay2win model.

[@u1337ochka]

That's a fair point, unlocking individual characters makes sense in a game like League where there are 100+ characters to play. It does actually help new players a lot, otherwise it is overwhelming to play against a bunch of new champions every game, you are doomed to be utterly confused for the first hundreds of hours in the game. For 16 characters each with a single active ability though that's weird. I was lucky that they made every champion free when i started playing QC

[@jacksheldon8566]

and QCDE has a built in unreal tournament addon. with all the iconic weapons and character movements from U99, UT99 and UT2004.

[@olisk-jy9rz]

Wow, really?

[@lbald489]

Quake deserves the reboot treatment doom got

[@Randale-f2w]

Quake will return.

[@RoosTerJunkyard]

i remember after titanfall and CODs with wallrides and tricky jumps and the great DooM 2016 i tought well people needs a revival of arena shooters. Quake Champions and Unreal Tournament 4 appeared... but then the battle royale boom buried the genre forever

[@kudosbudo]

Its hard to get folk into arena shooters cos they are seen as old outdated and simple. I think you could revive them if you waited long enough for folk to forget they exist as a genre. About 15 years to 20 years i'd say from now they could make a come back.

[@f1amesoff]

5:00 This engine now runs Warhammer: Spacemarine 2 and many other games nice and smooth. There is no problem with Saber Engine. The real problem is the company management at that time. So, concluding all it could have been a really fun game if it won't be so focused on esports.

[@asdfghjkl1755]

My 2 cents, in QC maps were a bit too large compared to quake live, which made the game feel slower. QL had a simple matchmaking mechanism which divided players into 4 tiers, if you did well in deathmatches you advanced to the next one, if you could not find yourself there you was downgraded. Simple as it was, it created a safe place for new players. Quake has this advantage that fragging lower skilled players does not gives you way less satisfaction, so there were not many smurfs back then. To have a decent matchmaking you have to have large player pool, without that you have infinite queue times, which will kill the game.

[@sudstahgaming]

Wait times and lack of dedicated servers

[@mawnkey]

They put hero shooter elements in a game series with a fanbase that doesn't play hero shooters but kept a lot of the original fanbase's favorite mechanics that hero shooter fans would hate. They literally built a game _nobody_ in either audience could love.

[@desibrate3244]

The heroes are great, they add lota of deptg

[@abdou.the.heretic]

@@desibrate3244 We had skins as heroes for crying out loud!!! Wtf is a hero anyway?

[@delphicdescant]

@@abdou.the.heretic The thing that a "hero" has that a "skin" doesn't have is a sweaty fanbase making pour'n of them on SFM and blender and stuff...

[@user-bkey]

@@delphicdescant nopeee raven team leader

[@CatsOverdrive]

Reminded me of an interview I read back in 2008, from a developer of Battlezone 2. They thought they had something in the bag when they were developing an FPS-RTS hybrid game, thinking it would net the two demographic. It turned out, it didn't really meshed well with either camps because; "RTS players don't want to deal with the FPS stuff, and the FPS players don't want to deal with the RTS stuff. It's just two camps, seeing the worst of the other genres and rejecting it." At best, the only playerbase they got was the people who already like those two genres anyway, and it's (un?)surprisingly small.

[@xyr3s]

the biggest problem is definitely the skill gap. unless there is actual full sbmm, getting stomped by vets in quake is a whole different level of torture than getting stomped by vets in a game like cod lol. it's just flashing lights, things zip zapping around and you're wondering why haven't you spawned yet when you already died 4 times lol.

[@TARINunit9]

One question I have to ask is: how big is the Quake-style competitive shooter audience? Truly, how big is it? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that to be insulting, I'm trying to get some grounding here on what the upper limit of this game's audience could be in the first place. So let's look at some selling points for Quake Champions: The first is nostalgia for the Doom and Quake franchises. This gets your foot in the door, but I don't think this gets you millions of players. If you played Quake 1 when you were a teenager, you're in your 40's now. If you played Quake 3 when you were a teenager, you're in your 30's now. A grown adult with a career still likes video games, but your time for games is limited, is Quake Champions one of the lucky few games you get to play? Lots of people discover Doom for the first time each year (I've seen lots of indie Vtubers try it out) but they're interested in the story modes, not joining the PvP. The second is fans of Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch (we're still talking Overwatch 1 circa 2017). This was before the big TF2 hiatus and while Overwatch was still riding high. Did Quake Champions really have what it takes to turn heads? Third is the e-sports scene and e-sports wannabees. But lots of games claim to want an e-sports scene only to wind up with a tiny audience that can't sustain it, Lawbreakers springs to mind. It's not impossible for an established franchise to put out a new experiment that catches on with a new, young, widespread audience. Fortnite was originally an Unreal project. But Quake Champions just really doesn't have that casual vibe to it. I don't say any of this to be insulting. I could be way off in my assessment. But I still fear Quake Champions might have actually reached all of its target audience, only to discover that "all" turned out to be a small number

[@gamernippel]

Quake is the Master of all Egoshoote5s - SP and MP and Mods

[@Brian2532010]

Your prologue got you my sub. Congrats and well done :)

[@PandemoniumPirateRadio]

Can you write out what music you used? Specifically at 9:45? Thank you

[@gamernippel]

1997.... what a good time to be alive miss that times - LAN Parties endless MP fights - then online via analog, then isdn 😂😂😂😂

[@KoRnFoReVeR23]

11:15 I still do that from time to time!😂 i knew about the game since 2017, played Quakelive, but only started to play Champions in 2021 when i got a PC that would play it!😅

[@kielmessersmith1956]

Chasing trends rarely works out unfortunately. What made matches interesting were the battles for shields and powerups.

[@josephpurdy8390]

The original concept for Quake was to focus on first-person melee. If ranged weapons were to be implemented. These would need to have long reload animations. Short munition travel distances. Slow munition travel speeds. An implementation of a fatigue system for people that never walk and never stop smashing the attack buttons. People will adapt their approach to encounters when their forced to do so. If you want speed and non-stop shooting without needing to reload. We already have Doom.

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

the original concept for quake was a million ideas daydreamed by romero that could never form a cohesive game. thats why quake ended up being so disjointed even after everyone decided to make it a fully 3d doom

[@josephpurdy8390]

@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 I am going based on what Sandy Peterson said. He said that idea was scrapped during development, and the developers focused on the gunplay of Doom. That impacted his design work because of the atmosphere found in the level design. It reflected a period of time when melee weapons were more predominant. The atheistic of the enemies had a better fit within the environment. What certainly doesn't fit is firearms in a medieval setting.

[@diahaidificbs]

id Software using another studio’s engine for the game that created the concept of “game engines” is just so funny.

[@attractivegd9531]

I like your style. I believe that QC is a small project and was expected to have a very low chance of success. It's still a legendary game to me just because there isn't anything better than it or QL so far. Also at 6:25 DOOM Mp run much worse than QC right now. 9:50 you are a genius! :D This video must have taken a lot of time to make. Good stuff! I'd add that maps are completely static (unlike Elder from QL), maps are missing a lot of cool trickjumps and different surface physics like SLICK surfaces in QL/Q3. And invisible wall clips are unprecise af. I hope Sync sees this vid and have a grin :D

[@kiwicami287]

I somewhat enjoyed it, i was there from pretty much the start near 2016 or so but couldn't play it for long due to the issues underlined in the video, long load times etc. it's honestly sad because i have fond memories of Quake as a teen, playing with friends and having "lan" parties

[@FinalFrontier321]

the problem with quake multiplayer is in its strict design philosophy and that It IS the competitive shooter, and I don't think wanting characters with even more unique abilities than what currently exists and unlockable weapons that change the gameplay would help at all, in fact it would upset players more. really though it was the horrendously buggy launch and poor modes that killed it without much hope for recovery. And the Sabre situation obviously which you covered well. I think based on a lot of feedback i've seen is that the only way for something like this to succeed is to make an actual complete package with a single player campaign with a tightly designed multiplayer experience attached to it which you also covered well

[@Etronax]

I don't recall any serious performace issues with the game. Some very early version was sending packets to the server PER FRAME (which is nuts) and that caused lag on high fps. Later on they fixed it or limited it and I've never played a game where the netcode feels as smooth as it is now. I had no idea about the game engine issues, to me the game seemed to run well but clearly not on the same engine as Doom 2016. I've always thought the biggest killer of this game was the lack of promotion. The second thing is that they never got out of early access, which ties directly to what you uncovered in this video. Very few people want to buy a new iteration of a game that's in early access, when quake live is free to play and many oldschool players have already experienced Quake 3 arena. Without a singleplayer campaign or some coop content draw players in, the game just doesn't sell. Especially when everybody knows how hard it is to get into Quake multiplayer in the first place. What we really need is a proper Quake singleplayer game that teaches the multiplayer gameplay mechanics little by little throughout the campaign. Doom Eternal has a lot of movement mechanics and that clearly hasn't worsened the sales of the game. I'm confident that Quake will revive once ID Software makes the next Quake singleplayer campaign game WITH multiplayer. The IDtech engine is just too OP, they will literally mop the floor with all the Unreal 5 slop that everyone is sick and tired of.

[@blipblerp]

Regarding ultimate abilities feeling weak, they used to be more powerful than that but most quake players didn't like the power dynamics attached to ultimates. Some ults like doom guy blazko and death knight would just mow down the entire server with little counterplay while others were severely underwhelming.

[@reliquia66]

Big problem of decadence of arena shooters are squad mode games, where you can be so bad and still feel you are winning something.

[@trofchik9488]

Solo mode in BRs exist.

[@appidydafoo]

Everything you said is true and well researched, my only comment would be that the death sentence for Quake as a cohesive franchise began as a cancer before the first game was even released. The development of Q2 and Q3 completely ignored the direction of the genre and the interests of the player base. Valve was smart enough to pick up TF software and run with it, then do the same with the Counter-Strike team. There was literally no reason id couldn't have done the same, no reason except for their lack of vision to do anything but repeat the same bare-bones deathmatch formula from the Doom days.

[@pewpewliekliek]

Love all the section intros, quality work!

[@braddeicide]

Is that the free browser one Google used to demo browser based OpenGL?

[@vogonp4287]

I feel like arena fps games aren't really popular in general. The skill ceiling is higher than other subgenres, leading to players quickly falling off. The ones that remain are better, which further contributes to the issue. That, on top of all the other issues the game has. It was doomed from the start. A new Fortnite player can join a match, and win by luck. Or at least get very far. Instant gratification.

[@kudosbudo]

You need stuff to level the playing field if you want to retain a large audience.

[@Timic83tc]

Game is legendary, people just dont play it and needs a server browser

[@thefrxst_]

Engine should have been pure idtech instead of a hybrid pos

[@thefrxst_]

after watching the whole thing, you agreed twice haha

[@rgastmeier4477]

QC is CPMA. I was never a CPMA player. This game is focused on movement. The fights feel hectic and chaotic like fights feel in CPMA. Also you have to be quick around the map and position well. Also the champions. Instead of that every player has everything and can use everything, players are stripped down to a subset of possibilities and thus are forced to play in a certain way and thus are forced to figure out which champion is the best for which map. This is like another layer of gate keeping on the way to mastering a map. In the end, there are those 1, 2 or 3 champions that work for a map. You have to figure them out at first. Also the health/armor. To little stack. Players are afraid to attack and if you attack most of the time it needs to be a killing blow. They wanted it to make more noob friendly through that. But that did not work at all. Noobs are still owned by players who time items and have a larger stack. Also special abilities. Still another resource which you have to manage and which does not add to the game but it subtracts. It subtracts because players have to play around the opponent abilities. They cannot attack as long as the ability is available for the opponent. If the ability was used hopefully without much impact, then normal attack is possible, for a small amount of time, until the ability is available again. Of course the engine is pure shit. Also there were no competition supporting features like bronze, silver, gold, and so on ladders, how every competitive game offers. I as someone who I guess played like 5000 hours of Q3/QL could not be bothered to play QC. QC for me had the wrong focus on movement and I was never a CPMA or trick jump player. I do not want to learn champions since I was never fascinated by DOTA. Also they tried to make it noob friendly by reducing health/armor (and other measurements) which made the gameplay more shallow. And I do not want to play around abilities which feel like they are from a different genre of game and which destroy the normal game flow. Also I do not want to play a game with a shit engine.

[@nortropgrumann9594]

Crazy amount of people just walks the maps, others plays without using abilities. Play how you want to

[@cipollino4754]

18:50 Quake is a long-running series with a hardcore fanbase. These people have expectations and they are very vocal when displeased. This group hated even the basic idea of champions. Imagine how they would shit up social media if the active abilities were as powerful as ultimates in OW or something. I understand that for the casuals abilities feel neutered. Ideally every multiplayer game would have two balancing branches - one for casuals and one for competitive players, but it doesn't seem to be economically feasible for most companies. :/ 24:15 This is purely an issue of matchmaking. It doesn't matter how high the skill floor is as long as both players are equally good/bad.

[@SplittingOfPrides]

Saber Interactive has their own engine which at that time was not very good. Now Space Marine 2 was released on it. Even at the release of Quake Champions I complained about the Sabers engine.

[@Buckfast_Berserker]

Great video mate. Very well put together, thank you. I love all quake games and quake champions and it such a shame that it panned out the way it did with quake champs.

[@somnvm37]

just a few days ago I downloaded a mod for quake 3 called bloodrun. It is pretty good and I like how it works. Sadly the bots don't use abilities and can have grenade launchers, and there's only 2 maps, and no online, but otherwise i kidna like it. I wish got updates, though, maybe some day

[@GraveUypo]

they poisoned it with overwatch DNA. that's what happened. at least, to me, i was winning a one-on-one fight in a tdm or whatever it was, then some other guy came, put up an invulnerable shield and fully healed the guy i was killing and i never played the game again after that. fkn stupid.

[@nazgulsenpai]

I was in the private beta for this game. I had no idea what it was at the time but love Quake, even Quake IV, and was excited for a new title. Except the hero thing just turned me off pretty quickly along with the fact that I literally was unable to join a match the entire beta. Were they going for the Overwatch money with the Quake playerbase? Doesn't seem like there's much overlap there.

[@Cat_in_The-Box]

What overwatch money? They didn't know about each other during development it was just a coincidence

[@nazgulsenpai]

@@Cat_in_The-Box Ah ok, thanks.

[@elijahbowers1]

Quake Champions Doom Edition really is the goat version of champions.

[@Scott-df4op]

It's so Quakeover

[@shrub8644]

One of the main reasons why I quit and why it failed was definitely the long ass loading times, and it ran quite poorly as well

[@dr.lordidaumen]

Quake killed it self by disabled splash damaged in 2002... R.I.P. n!Prophet n!prOPA

[@MisterBunnyHead]

As a Casual Quake player that was on the beta of QC, I can't feel more sad and dissapointed with this game. BTW, you should link Quake Champions Classic & Doom one on the description. Thanks for the video!

[@gyntergyntersen9998]

My thoughts exactly that a fully thought through single player quake game would go as hard as the modern DOOM games.

[@Skullheadq3]

You forgott about the Datacollection paragraph that got patched into the live game. Quake3 is still alive btw.

[@devilevil86]

This documentary is fucking IMPRESSIVE X2 .... EXCELLENT! 💀

[@Hellseeker1]

I just want a proper Q3 arena remaster and I’d be happy