Fascinating and in-depth Quake 3 analysis

I seriously did not think I would enjoy this, or even watch it but, this is a analysis of a single quake 3 game from the grand final of the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship, with the winner Shane "rapha" Hendrixson going through the emotions, thoughts and strategy that was in his head at the time of the game.

Even if you only have a slight penchant for gaming or Esport, I recommend that you watch this.
westysays...

>> ^syncron:

Why hold a tournament of such an old game which nobody really cares about?



There is a huge difference between games that are "fun" and games that are for sport (although game used for sports can allso be fun , and more comon pop games can allso be used for sports)

classic Sport games: are quake 2&3 , starcraft , Rfactor , poker , css ,cs1.6

For a game to be a good sport game they are normaly compleaty focused on the raw mechanics of the game rather than the suger effects and gratificatoin mechanics , games with allot of suger like MW2 , or more arcady stile games often have far less of a skill difrentatoin to them they often have allot of mechanichs that are designed to draw skilled and less skille dplayers together to make them mor eenjoyable to play. as apoosed to a game suted to sports which make no real effort in the games design to flatten and auto balence the play exsperance.

allso allot of it is down to a games history and size of its Core solid user base , u might have games come out that for 8 months that are huge , but the games that are more suted to comps are games that last for 5 + years and have a ver large solid fan base.

when you have a versoin of a game where the core mechanics have stayed the same for 4+ years it can be almost garentied that anny bugs and (unfair imposable to counter) exsploits can be removed and fixed.

Jinxsays...

>> ^syncron:

Why hold a tournament of such an old game which nobody really cares about?

I would -1 if I could...

"Nobody really cares about... These old games stood the test of time, dedicated communities stuck with it because despite its simple graphics there was a deeper complexity that made it competitive, fun to play and exciting to watch. The fact these games get tournaments, the fact players like Raffa exist is testament to how many DO care it.

Go back to playing MW2 or some shit that will be forgotten when the next sequel comes out...

marinarasays...

>> ^syncron:

Why hold a tournament of such an old game which nobody really cares about?


*quality
hell didn't play quake 3 for long, loved UT so much. (for the maps and CTF)

apparently this was recorded in july 2010. that's 10 years of quake. Nice to get inside the head of a competitive player.

Sylvester_Inksays...

I was never really into the fast-twitch shooters like the Quake games until recently, but once I got into Quake Live and Warsow, I came to appreciate the complexity and depth behind the games. They certainly don't look as pretty as some of the more modern games out there, but they are a lot more involved. It's not just about having good aim, but also about moving around quickly and efficiently, listening to your opponent, and controlling the map. Techniques like timing the item respawns and trick jumps also add to the complexity.

Once I started getting a handle on the techniques, I started to realize how boring and slow the other games were when I tried to go back to them. (I remember playing Scout in TF2 after a round of Warsow and being frustrated at how slow it was.) Now I definitely understand why people keep playing these games for years on end.

dannym3141says...

Really interesting. I enjoy this nerdy bollocks though. I used to play for my national squad in TFC a long time ago, and currently i mentor people (competitive community) on how to play scout in tf2. I really enjoy the brain-work of fps games, especially team games.

I love the way that you can put yourself to an advantage by doing certain things to make your opponent play differently or think differently. If your aim is good enough, and you're playing an opponent with an aim good enough, it comes down to whether you can outsmart them and playing for intelligent risk vs. reward choices.

I've always wanted to do a kind of video of an average tf2 game, annotated (within the video) to explain what i do and why i do it.

nach0ssays...

This made me re-install QuakeLive. I played Quake when it first came out (great time to be in college) over TCP/IP and IPX, going to cons and whatnot. Skipped Q2, then played Q3 for awhile. QuakeLive recreates Q3 pretty well, though when I started playing during the beta, it was ruled by kids who are so good at it, I just couldn't keep up. I'm sure I'll regret re-installing

Xaxsays...

>> ^dannym3141:
My mistake - carry on with the comments!


It's my error that it came off as sarcastic. I'd actually be quite interested in TF2 class videos. The scout is one of my least-played classes, but I'm surprised at how effective some scouts can be at defense sometimes.

dannym3141says...

>> ^Xax:

>> ^dannym3141:
My mistake - carry on with the comments!

It's my error that it came off as sarcastic. I'd actually be quite interested in TF2 class videos. The scout is one of my least-played classes, but I'm surprised at how effective some scouts can be at defense sometimes.


It'd be a bit on the technical side - we're talking competitive tf2, not pub servers.

arghnesssays...

>> ^Deano:

What's with the Connection Interrupted where the game slows down massively?


They're using the "timescale" command to make the engine play the demo back slower so that the narrator can describe what's happening but the engine then sees updates less often than it should and thinks that it's missing data.

There are workarounds to this but it looks like they haven't used them in this case.

While the guy was playing, he wouldn't have seen the slowdowns or the "connection interrupted" message.

NinjaInHeatsays...

Loved watching this but I gotta say this sorta competitive gameplay frustrates me. Much like researching starcraft build queues and memorizing keystrokes, being able to time exact respawns of items and understanding every single move the opponent can make in a map and trying to beat them to it just was never the point for me (and it isn't why and how I enjoy competitive gaming). I'm not criticizing, just saying I find competitive gameplay much more enjoyable with some (or a lot) of chaos thrown in the mix. When 20 people are running and gunning around a map the skills required to win have less to do with chess-like strategy and more with actual twitch-gaming abilities (and group tactics). The game showed here, while fascinating, seems like a fucking nightmare.

mentalitysays...

>> ^NinjaInHeat:

Loved watching this but I gotta say this sorta competitive gameplay frustrates me. Much like researching starcraft build queues and memorizing keystrokes, being able to time exact respawns of items and understanding every single move the opponent can make in a map and trying to beat them to it just was never the point for me (and it isn't why and how I enjoy competitive gaming). I'm not criticizing, just saying I find competitive gameplay much more enjoyable with some (or a lot) of chaos thrown in the mix. When 20 people are running and gunning around a map the skills required to win have less to do with chess-like strategy and more with actual twitch-gaming abilities (and group tactics). The game showed here, while fascinating, seems like a fucking nightmare.


You're watching the highest level of competitive play here. The highest level of anything would involve a great deal of strategy - probably even more so in a team based game.

Jinxsays...

>> ^NinjaInHeat:

Loved watching this but I gotta say this sorta competitive gameplay frustrates me. Much like researching starcraft build queues and memorizing keystrokes, being able to time exact respawns of items and understanding every single move the opponent can make in a map and trying to beat them to it just was never the point for me (and it isn't why and how I enjoy competitive gaming). I'm not criticizing, just saying I find competitive gameplay much more enjoyable with some (or a lot) of chaos thrown in the mix. When 20 people are running and gunning around a map the skills required to win have less to do with chess-like strategy and more with actual twitch-gaming abilities (and group tactics). The game showed here, while fascinating, seems like a fucking nightmare.

In all competitive games the goal is to understand the rules better than your opponent. The more you understand, the more you can predict, the better you are. A game in its infancy is often full of chaos. Look at SC2 compared to SC, even with the wisdom of progamers nobody has really figured out the game to the same degree as SC. The build orders aren't refined, the small details which made all the difference in Brood War aren't as important as just having solid fundamentals in SC2. I wouldn't say I enjoy that sort of chaos, what I enjoy is the pursuit of order, that very human need to understand as much as we possibly can. Its when you see two players that understand the game so thoroughly that its every tiny move that gains advantages, thats when I get excited. I get geekchills from a perfectly timed +armour upgrade for example. Ofc, if a toy is ever truly figured out it begins to lose its magic. The most succesful games are those which aren't unnecessarily complex, but have enough depth to keep the players learning. I always thought Chess was the perfect game because its so elegant, such simple rules but with almost infinite depth. I don't think Quake is quite that good, but as far as videogames go it comes pretty close.


I guess the tl;dr is that I find the chess like strategy fascinating, and I find gratuitous complexity/chaos frustrating, especially when its jammed in by the developers by some sort of diceroll (I'm looking at you Valve. Don't you ever try that random crit shit again yah hear...) because it always dulls the fine edge that seperates the top players.

ShakeyMcBonessays...

Totally different level of playing. I was always a pretty casual Quake player, so this is fascinating to me. The way his mind works is just so different, it's fascinating. It's just a completely different plane of experience. Good sift!

NinjaInHeatsays...

I get all you're saying, and I'm all for it, though what seems to get your nerdgasm on would mostly be seen in strategy games and one on one matches like this. Fuck knows what brings a guy to reach a level of playing where he memorizes so many tiny details, to me just the thought of playing games in that way is frustrating. But I imagine if you let 20 of these guys play simultaneously I'd get much more excited about the way they demonstrate their skills. Again, more players = more chaos, more chaos = more variables. Seeing how a player utilizes group tactics is much more impressive to me. For example, being an old school UT player, seeing smart players play UT CTF always satisfied the shit outta me. I guess I just never got the appeal of 1on1, and even though I played quite a bit of online strategy games in my time, if I knew the person I'm playing against has reached such a level of familiarity with every single aspect of the game I probably wouldn't enjoy playing any longer...

Oh and, you do know random crits can be turned off in TF2? Why the hell not have that option? Why does the game need to cater only to the top-level competitive crowd?

>> ^Jinx:

In all competitive games the goal is to understand the rules better than your opponent. The more you understand, the more you can predict, the better you are. A game in its infancy is often full of chaos. Look at SC2 compared to SC, even with the wisdom of progamers nobody has really figured out the game to the same degree as SC. The build orders aren't refined, the small details which made all the difference in Brood War aren't as important as just having solid fundamentals in SC2. I wouldn't say I enjoy that sort of chaos, what I enjoy is the pursuit of order, that very human need to understand as much as we possibly can. Its when you see two players that understand the game so thoroughly that its every tiny move that gains advantages, thats when I get excited. I get geekchills from a perfectly timed +armour upgrade for example. Ofc, if a toy is ever truly figured out it begins to lose its magic. The most succesful games are those which aren't unnecessarily complex, but have enough depth to keep the players learning. I always thought Chess was the perfect game because its so elegant, such simple rules but with almost infinite depth. I don't think Quake is quite that good, but as far as videogames go it comes pretty close.
I guess the tl;dr is that I find the chess like strategy fascinating, and I find gratuitous complexity/chaos frustrating, especially when its jammed in by the developers by some sort of diceroll (I'm looking at you Valve. Don't you ever try that random crit shit again yah hear...) because it always dulls the fine edge that seperates the top players.

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