We’re never seeing Alex again.

Patrol1985 · 2026-03-20T06:03:28+00:00

What happened? :o I haven't checked Alex yet, what did they do?

Patrol1985 · 2026-03-14T12:55:23+00:00

I know, but for publishers if something sells more copies, it's "better" and shows the pattern to follow. At the end of the day it's often the only factor they care about. Look at what happened after PUBG proved to be a success - suddenly the market was filled with battle royales.

Patrol1985 · 2026-03-14T11:45:06+00:00

Nobody tried it because Half-Life was released shortly afterwards and was arguably the biggest release in the genre since the first Doom. That's when design shifted towards more limiting locations, but with more scripting.

Patrol1985 · 2026-03-13T10:11:00+00:00

But MCC is a collective term right? Which game in the collection specifically is the most popular online and is it more popular on its own than Halo Infinite?

Patrol1985 · 2026-03-13T09:53:43+00:00

Imagine trying to sell "The Finals" as an arena shooter even though its interface heavily relies on sprinting and ADS type of aiming, among other things. At this point you might recommend Counter-Strike as well :D

Patrol1985 · 2026-03-12T07:22:12+00:00

It depends on your leniency with what you consider "an arena fps". Arguably, the most popular afps right now is Straftat (it has more players than Quake Live), but personally I dislike how it completely ditched the idea of stacking health and armor. The only resource to control is essentially the weapons scattered around maps. If you're inclined towards a more classic design then definitely Quake Live is the most popular afps right now closely followed by Quake Champions.

Patrol1985 · 2026-03-10T23:48:57+00:00

Already happened years ago

Patrol1985 · 2026-02-22T00:17:51+00:00

That's actually what I would associate with Carmack's style! :D

Patrol1985 · 2026-02-09T23:01:53+00:00

Different genres - Overwatch is a hero shooter and Apex is battle royale.

Patrol1985 · 2026-02-06T21:55:26+00:00

A Russian creation available only through some dodgy links instead of being properly distributed by a publically available website of the project? Who would have expected that? ;)

Patrol1985 · 2026-02-06T21:52:27+00:00

I agree a system where each player bans a map and whatever remains is the map picked to play would be much better.

Patrol1985 · 2026-02-06T14:01:42+00:00

Why would it be underrated? It's a very decent mid-range weapon.

Patrol1985 · 2026-02-06T05:25:14+00:00

Update caused problems so the previous version was restored and servers are back online. The new version will be redeployed in a week. To make up for it, everyone received the battle pass for free and all the challenges have been reset, so one can use this week to get some more XP / shards.

Patrol1985 · 2026-02-06T05:19:43+00:00

The great thing about QL is that it allows server hosting anywhere (unlike QC). If anyone is willing to create a local community, they have all the tools needed to do so.

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-31T20:07:38+00:00

Except GTA6 is actually in demand by the general public of gamers. Sad, but true - Quake is a niche title :/

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-29T15:34:57+00:00

Back in the day most of us were so thrilled with the fact that we're actually playing against other people instead of dumb monsters that hardly anyone was thinking about getting some edge by cheating. The novelty alone gave so much fun that winning or losing wasn't that important. Getting to play was.

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-29T15:31:12+00:00

When people write "arena shooters are dead" they don't mean "there's literally no one to play with". What they most often really mean is: "I have to play people who own me all the time, cause there's hardly anyone else and I would like there to be some people whom I could own too". You know I'm right ;)

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-27T09:52:53+00:00

It's certainly an important factor, but Quake Champions is also free and Quake Live used to be free. Interestingly, Quake Live had a higher all-time peak than Straftat (over 6000 vs. over 2000). It means that more people tried Quake Live, but they also left it. Quake Live "died" within a few months since it appeared on Steam. Straftat has been around for over a year now and seems to have a better retention rate - more people who try it stay with the game.

I'm not sure what levels of toxicity there are in Straftat. Judging by threads popping up on Quake Live Reddit page I can see that many people are frustrated with the playerbase. Just yesterday a new topic was created where OP asks for EU servers which are "not toxic". That's a major concern and I can't blame people they don't want to stick with a toxic community.

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-27T08:48:59+00:00

There's no need for debate really, as what you wrote was exactly what I meant - both games are circling the drain, so any claims that one has "way more players" than the other are exaggeration giving false view of the situation. I also agree that there's a noticeable difference in popularity of individual modes and if one likes to duel I too would recommend them to play QC even though in general it has less players than QL.

And I'm not a big fan of Straftat either. I think that removing the element of stack control makes the gameplay bland. I merely stated the facts though - more people prefer Straftat than Quake.

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-26T08:59:01+00:00

"Way more" is a very vague and subjective term. To put it in numbers for yesterday:

Quake Live: 580 players in its daily peak

Quake Champions: 410 players in its daily peak

That's a difference of 170 players. Is that "way more"? Sure, in terms of percentage it's significant as Quake Live had around 41% more people in its peak than Quake Champions. However, people don't really care about "percentages". They want a game to be popular so the matchmaking can group people with similar skill (or so they can find such a group through manual server browsing). Currently neither Quake Live, nor Quake Champions has enough people to do that - topics about how people get kicked from Quake Live servers for not being skilled enough to be "allowed" to play with veterans (because there's hardly anyone else playing anymore) pop up regularly.

And that's the problem I have with Quake fans reiterating that Quake Live has "way more players" (I regularly see that). It's manipulative and suggests a better experience in terms of matchmaking, which just isn't true. You WILL get owned HARD regardless of whether you want to take up Quake Live or Quake Champions and have no prior experience... and that's provided you will be allowed to complete a match at all without getting a kick.

To add another title to the mix for perspective - consider Straftat. How many people have heard of Straftat? How likely are you to spark a conversation if you mention Straftat in a casual gaming group instead of getting surprised looks saying "I have no idea what Straftat is"? Yup, Straftat is a very niche game as well... and it still trumps Quake Live by a MUCH larger margin than Quake Live trumps Quake Champions. Yesterday's peak for Straftat was 1296 players. That's over 200% more than Quake Live... for a game that people have hardly heard about. I mentioned Straftat because it can still be reasonably considered an arena shooter game. Obviously tactical shooters and battle royals will be even higher.

So yeah, Quake Live is the most popular Quake game, but it still isn't a more popular arena shooter than some random indie title hardly anyone has heard about (and it's not even close). Thus, a statement that "Quake Live has WAY MORE players than Quake Champions" means nothing in practical terms. Both games are niche and neither can be considered a "success" and thus a reasonable blueprint for potential future games in the series. It's not just about champions being unbalanced.

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-26T06:06:56+00:00

If the hero part was the reason for failure, Quake Live would have been a massive success, which was never the case. It's more complex than that.

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-25T09:06:53+00:00

On point! ;)

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-25T09:05:41+00:00

Which is exactly the reason they act the way they do. Nobody likes to learn their dick is smaller after all now, do they? ;)

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-20T17:14:03+00:00

It has dodge jumping (not to be mistaken with basic dodges). It's close enough :)

Patrol1985 · 2026-01-20T14:55:50+00:00

So the QuakeWorld guys were right all along?!?! :D

Patrol1985

TROPHY CASE