The State of the Union
“Quakeworld is dead.”
Is it?
I’ve heard “Quakeworld is dead” multiple times a year since I started QW back in Feb. of 2002. Every time players return to QW after a few months of being MIA, it’s almost unheard of NOT to hear them say “People still play this shit?” as if their lives were so much more active and they’ve grown too “mature” or “cool” to play QW anymore. “LOL, I’ve gone on to play CPM, WoW, professional poker, working a shitty job, saving the world, and/or <insert other lame excuse here>”.
I played 15 rounds of 2vs2 last night, so really, is it dead?
What’s considered dead?
The last successful 4v4 tournament, NQR-NA happened in the fall of 2005, a few months shy of two years. The last successful 2v2 tournament, Vendetta, finished during fall of 2004. There have been a few attempts at running a few more since then such as Vendetta-II and /DM4-NA, but both failed within a few weeks of their inceptions. I also participated in two different Clan Arena tournaments within the past two years, one being UNF’s League and Codelock’s League. Both failed in about three weeks.
The last four duel tournaments, however, have been successful, relatively speaking. GGL Americup and GGL Invite were successfully completed. The Fenris completed two seasons within half a year (with a few drop-outs as always *Cough* immy).
What has killed American teamplay?
My guess is real life. Too few people with busy schedules are the only ones active these days. Players grow up (some of them). Players get jobs (some of them). Players get kids (a lot of them).
As of now, the only thing that has kept, and will keep, QW alive is the influx of new players, regardless of what game they originate from; however, this is difficult to maintain as well, seeing that QW’s learning curve is excessively steep and any veteran in the country can rip a new asshole in any new player that joins the community.
Enter The Dojo.
For the past three years or so, there have been a few players in the community that have grown partial to teaching QW to newbies. KovaaK, myth, and myself from The Boss are just a few. A few players that have been instructed in the past few years include: Scarecrow, Proz, Ziel, and Zef.
Very recently though, the three of us have banded together to collectively teach a group of students, including ravenxx and plazmaz. Our instruction is a collection of lectures on map strategies, battle scenarios, timing scenarios, in-game instruction via MM3, discussing played games in a private channel and watching demos together.
Retention looks promising.
In my opinion, all american QW players who constantly states that "NA QW is dead" need to get a grip. While those may be some harsh words, there has just not been any considerable effort done since qw.us went down. You just need to start somewhere with a community site like Quakeworld.nu/Besmella, promote fQuake and then tutor the new players and gather them in the right IRC channels. As the NA scene is "dead", new players must enjoy the game more than ever in NA if you can get a few to play as they wouldn't be bashed by that many players. (yeah, it's a very naive way to look at it but wtf :D)
I see NA players every day on the euro servers and if you can get those to actually play against eachother instead of doing mixes then it would seem more alive me thinks. Get friends to join your clans and stuff and get things moving. I think a top notch NA community site is needed though.