Why Did Your Buddy say NO to playing Open Arena?

[Logan]

I'm sure it's happened to a lot of you. You've asked your friend to play Open Arena with you and your buddy said NO.

What's your buddys excuse for not playing?

These are the responses I've gotten from a couple of my friends:

"The game is too fast, I can't keep up"

"I'm dead before I know what's going on"

"You'd kick my ass"

Sad sad sad...

What's your friends excuse?

[Gig]

"Such games are not for me... they are too fast, they give me headache"

[Logan]

"Such games are not for me... they are too fast, they give me headache"

Ah the headache excuse...

When I first started playing these types of games back in 1999 when Quake 3 first came out, I used to get a headache too. It only took a couple matches though for that to wear off.

They have never come back either.

[Udi]

"The game is too fast, I can't keep up"
"You'd kick my ass"

Same here. We sometimes played Unreal, which is also faster than Counter Strike (the most we played), but OA/Q3 has trickjumping which makes the learning curve much steeper and the gap between experienced/new comers huge. Actually I have the same excuses for not playing Warsow, but in reality I'm too lazy to learn the dashing/wall jumping tricks .

[RMF]

Responses from classmates
"I'm not gonna play such old game at home "(they do play Q3 at school)", got better things to do" ..like MW2 or something.
"You own me anyway"
"It's just the same as Quake3"

[Logan]

Yea, there is quite a difference in the speed of games like Halo and Counterstrike that a lot of people can't handle or don't want to learn.

I played Halo 1 online on my PC and XBOX for quite a while. I got really good IMO but craved the speed of Quake 3.

I don't play Halo at all anymore, just Quake 3, Quake Live, and Open Arena.

[PWNAGE]

One of my friends said
"Quake Games are for N00bs"
So i didnt ask any others 

[Logan]

One of my friends said
"Quake Games are for N00bs"
So i didnt ask any others 

lol what?

Tell him the game is perfect for him then 

[PWNAGE]

One of my friends said
"Quake Games are for N00bs"
So i didnt ask any others 

lol what?

Tell him the game is perfect for him then 

Ha 

[Bane]

Some people I asked said they don’t get all the guns when they start out and they think that is lame. Another reason some people gave me is it is too fast and I guess it is when you come from a game where you move at about the same speed of a slug. Also I have noticed that now if you just advance order some games you get some over powered gun usually some sniper that you can hit anyone from any where on the map. They also think it is stupid to have go around and get health. I think that these newer FPS seem to just encourage camping because they give you all the guns, give you the ability to heal yourself and if you advance order you get yet another sniper. Also did I happen to talk about when I played a game once with a friend and found out apparently now you can call down missiles which to me is just so f*cking lame. Anyway games like Open Arena are slowly fading because it takes more than an hour to get good at them and the first couple of times you play you will not simply lose you will get owned.

[Gig]

Some people I asked said they don’t get all the guns when they start out and they think that is lame. They also think it is stupid to have go around and get health. I think that these newer FPS seem to just encourage camping because they give you all the guns, give you the ability to heal yourself and if you advance order you get yet another sniper.

Show them the existence of Elimination/CTF Elimination/LMS mode (and of g_elimination option, that allows to use elimination weapons -and health- in other game modes). Maybe a real problem is that there are very few servers where to play Elimination... and this is strange, since OSP Clan Arena (very similar to Elimination) is a popular game mode in Q3A.
It exists also g_regen to automatically renerate health. Maybe try linking DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Manual/Gamemodes]this page and DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Special_game_options]this one to your friends....

Also did I happen to talk about when I played a game once with a friend and found out apparently now you can call down missiles which to me is just so f*cking lame.

Excuse me, what do you mean with "now"? "In recent games"? And what do you mean with "calling down missiles"?

[Bane]

Nobody really even plays those it seems FFA and CTF are the only game modes with people in them.

Yes I meant in some recent games. Forgot what game it was but I just remember some type of missile coming down and killing a whole bunch of people it was not in OA but another game think it was some type of military game.

[RMF]

in call of duty modern warfare 2 you can send in some bombardement after some kill streak. Bloodhounds and other easy killing noobshit too, though that might be cod5 (mw2 is cod6).
Cod2 ftw, you just have a couple of guns to choose from and a couple of grenades or something. Quite a nice gameplay (not overdoing powerups like other cod versions), and not that many campers.

[dbX]

Excuse me, what do you mean with "now"? "In recent games"? And what do you mean with "calling down missiles"?

I think he refers to Modern Warfare 2 where you can call a missile strike from a Predator (an remote controlled plane made by the US, quite nasty things). I think you need to accomplish something in multi-player before you can use this. I guess you can call this raining on your parade
I don't remember any other game that offered this kind of a possibility. Though there was that weapon in UT2004 where you could also bombard a region with some laser thingy (I have not played UT2004 much, and it was a few years ago).

Most of the 'buddies' (not friends) don't want to play OA because it looks like shit compared to Modern Warfare 2 or any UT made since 99 (btw, I never played 2003 but I hear it's crap, gameplay wise). Some others don't like the fast paced action or the fact that the game looks unrealistic/futuristic (most of these are Counter Strike players). Others actually don't want to waste their time playing OA when they have access to a pirated copy of basically any game there is. Piracy is wide spread in my country, and you could also call me the local w4r3z dealer (I'm waiting for the day the cops bust into my room and beat the duck out of me with batons, which is unlikely to happen in the near future). It's kind of hard for OA to compete with other games when they don't cost anything or can be acquired cheaply. Even though I thought differently, Angelyss bewbies are not a major selling point.
To tell the truth I'm losing motivation to play OA too. Partly because I'm actually losing motivation for anything. But most likely the primary reason is the fact that the entire effing county is full of Counter Strike twats. I like CS, but the servers in my country are full of very annoying people, cheaters and 12 year old admins, plus a lot of IPs are blocked on my ISP(which I think has something to do with my competitive pro player 14 year old leet clan Counter Strike professional neighbour).

To sum it up, OA is against some hard competition in my country, and a lot of retards.

[Gig]

Nobody really even plays those it seems FFA and CTF are the only game modes with people in them.

If I could find someone in an Elimination server, I would be glad of playing it. I was in a Q3A OSP CA clan years ago, and I like this game type. I don't know why there are so few servers/players other than FFA and CTF modes... we have about 12 game types, and only a couple of them are really played online... strange.

I don't know... maybe OpenArena is still far behind the worldwide success Quake 3 had in the first 2000s, and there are still few OA clans and few "official" competitions... and maybe the name "Clan Arena" was more adapt than "Elimination" to attract the attention of the clans... I mean: Quake 3 had success, so various Clans were born... a mode called "Clan Arena" was later added (in two separate and popular mods, Rocket Arena 3 and OSP), so people thought "if we are a clan, we should train in a mode called Clan Arena...", making the success of the mode.... what do you think?

We should find some way to promote Elimination mode... IMHO it has a great potential...

PS: It would be nice if we could have an Elimination match sometimes...

[fromhell]

Quake3's early success isn't really because of Promode or Clan Arena, but of content novelties. For things, Q3 was really the first place to see custom 32-bit color textures, high poly artwork, and a lot of 'shader' effects creativity. The graphics were the attraction point then and the only seriously played custom map was Mustaine Madness, Japanese Castles and Coral CTF.

It does have a lot of things to do about virtual costume parties and DBZ mods though (Bid for Power anticipation was STRONG in 2000, it was the second most popular third party thing ever until the 'controversy', and its influence can still be felt today by imitators such as ESF for HL). This all 'died' when UT2003 came out, it all majorly 'migrated' there, leaving in the pro, clan arena and rocket arena stuff. Likewise that died when UT2004 came out, and then Half-Life 2, but Source is so crappy for its content creation pipelines, you only really see the dedicated profesional projects ever seen out there. That pretty much gutted the whole movement and killed the momentum of modding. UDK's release however seems to rejuvenate this, mildly.

Clan Arena as a name isn't as obvious enough to describe as much as Elimination is.

Also, OA's content is a laughing stock to professionals in the games industry for some reason. Probably because I don't splurge on overpriced Photoshop or 3DSMax, use Quake3 bipeds illegally (like Tremulous, World of Padman, Urban Terror), take and scavenge existing models/textures on a long permission asking spree, or make it on Source (because it's the cool thing to do even when your tools don't work, who cares, it's VALVE and they're supergods for creating frankensteinpatchworkquake... i mean SOURCE "totlaly from scratch"!). The whole doing-it-for-free-in-spare-time-on-a-open-license-thing context is totally lost on them. Some high game industry pros even think this project is totally illegal, ignorant of the GNU GPL clauses the source allows and the kind of direction this is aiming for (like... NOT remaking q3 bit by bit as they think it is, but more like making assets to make a data-less source code work).

[WaspKiller]

One of the strongest attributes of OA is also one of the least mentioned.  OA has the ability to appeal to a wider variety of players than almost any new game because it can support most Q3 Mods.

There are Mods that already support Clan Arena/Elimination, regenerative health, and all weapon spawning.  A Mod like AlternateFire supports dual functions for each weapon but OA makes it difficult for NooBs to join or become aware of these options.

Secondly, while OA will never have 100,000+ active players, it does need sufficient numbers to attract more visitors.  The influx of 100 or 200 active players would be enough to make more visitors take a 2nd and 3rd look.  But, at the moment, when most visitors see empty servers why would they return?

Some people I asked said they don’t get all the guns when they start out and they think that is lame...

There are a lot of multiplayer games (besides the Quake series) like that... both Open Source and Commercial.  Combat Arms, CoD4 (example, you only get the Desert Eagle at Rank55), BattleField Bad Company 2 (BFBC2), and Red Dead Redemption come to mind immediately.  So, your friend is clueless.

...and this is strange, since OSP Clan Arena (very similar to Elimination) is a popular game mode in Q3A.

Clan Arena/Elimination was never popular with NooBs and remains so for most games that support it, regardless of whether it's Q3, UT2004, Urban Terror, etc.  This does not means that there aren't many ppl playing that game type but NooBs tend to join the servers and then leave because CA is hardcore.  It's hardcore because once you die you do not respawn until the round/map is over. NooBs tend to die quickly and generally derive little enjoyment watching other players continue the match.

In Q3, where there remains lots of Clans, the game type is still played because players have a reason to watch the match even after they die.  That is the beauty of Clans and the teamwork they inspire.

...there was that weapon in UT2004 where you could also bombard a region with some laser thingy (I have not played UT2004 much, and it was a few years ago).

The only weapons in UT2004 that come close to "bombarding a region" is the Redeemer and the Ion Painter. But these are awesome hand held weapons not an air strike.

...Q3 was really the first place to see custom 32-bit color textures, high poly artwork, and a lot of 'shader' effects creativity. The graphics were the attraction point then and the only seriously played custom map was Mustaine Madness, Japanese Castles and Coral CTF...

Was Q3 the 1st place to see custom 32-bit color textures, high poly artwork, and a lot of 'shader' effects creativity?

Unreal (the original single player and multiplayer game not the Tournament series) was released in May 1998 (18 months prior to Q3) and the graphics were second to none at the time.  I could be wrong but I believe it had all the visual attributes that Q3 possessed.  Please tell me if I am incorrect.

And as for the maps... we'll have to agree to disagree.

[Thoushaltdie]

after getting some friends to play. they will tell me that they dont want to play an "old game" but the real reason is the steep learning curve. they are noobs that dont want a challenge. just to kill things and get a false sense of pride from doing it(because it takes almost no skill to play cod or halo)

[Logan]

That's a good point made about the difficulty when you first start playing.

Getting your ass KICKED is not fun, especially if your new.

Really though, isn't that pretty much any game online anyway? That's a part of the online world, you will ALWAYS run into someone whose better than you at the game.

[Gig]

Elimination/CA is not the best for beginners, but for hardcore gamers that are already have a Clan and they can like also too see their friends playing.

Anyway, the fact that there are no Elimination servers around is sad.
If you check on DPmaster, you see that there are 6 "Elimination" servers... but in reality, there is no one standard: 3 are using "Excessiveplus" mod, 1 is using "OAplusplus" mod (sometimes I should try these two mods... how are them?), 1 is not completely standard ("oanage" downloads brightskins in a mod folder) and 1 ("ROFL THE ARENA") is using baseoa, but with a particular configuration where you have only one weapon per match, changing weapon each time you reach the capturelimit (I played it and find it very nice.... but it is not the "classic" Elimination/ClanArena gameplay)...

So, there are no servers that use completely standard "Elimination" mode... :-(

[Bane]

You all bringing up the steep learning curve reminds me of when I first start I did not just lose I came in dead last for about a month and was pretty much a free frag for anyone because I could only bunny hop. I still remember that one time I played Kaos 2 and it turned into a duel because everyone left when this one guy got on but I decide to stay and I did not just lose I got smashed he knew how to time all the power ups and I think I killed him once while he killed me about 14 or 15 times. The hardest thing about this game at least to me is no matter how good you get there is someone who is better and that usually equals four or five extract frags for them. However I have also learned that by playing these people you get better so to all the noobs out there just stick with it you’ll get better.

[WaspKiller]

...If you check on DPmaster, you see that there are 6 "Elimination" servers... but in reality, there is no one standard: 3 are using "Excessiveplus" mod, 1 is using "OAplusplus" mod (sometimes I should try these two mods... how are them?), 1 is not completely standard ("oanage" downloads brightskins in a mod folder) and 1 ("ROFL THE ARENA") is using baseoa, but with a particular configuration where you have only one weapon per match, changing weapon each time you reach the capturelimit (I played it and find it very nice.... but it is not the "classic" Elimination/ClanArena gameplay)...

So, there are no servers that use completely standard "Elimination" mode... :-(

It's even worse than that...

Since baseq3/baseoa and Mods do not necessarily use the same numbers to identify game types, DPmaster is often incorrect.  In fact, there are zero (0) Excessive Plus Servers running Clan Arena/Elimination.

When DPmaster identifies E+ Servers as running the Elimination game type, they are, in fact, running the Freeze Tag game type.  Similarly, when DPmaster identifies E+ Servers as running CTF Elimination, they are, in fact, running the Protect The Leader game type.

Game Types

[WingedPanther]

My response to most of these objections would be to offer up Nexuiz.  I think it's faster, newer, higher graphics, etc.  However, it's not quite as much fun, to me.  The reality is there are a LOT of games out there that have leveling features that make it harder for the really good people to stand out.  StarCraft vs WarCraft 3 has the same issue in RTS.  I like having a game where I know when I got slaughtered, it was skill, not luck, and that I can learn those skills as well.

[KILLIE THE GREAT]

I once gave my friend a copy. A week later he said, OA is lame and that the players suck, (he aint seen nothin, probally had server bots to fight.) but the fact is, he probally got bwned by someone and got pissed, or it could of been too fast for him.(I aint sure.)The problem is people want easy games these day. (eg. My other pal came to visit, so the first game we started playing was PGR3, we did a race on a hard track I also sucked at, half way throught the race(at this point I,m smokin, his ass) he starts saying that street racing games are so much cooler (he was so WRONG...) Because he could not stay on the track, and that there was too little road to drive on....... i,m sure that u all see that world is getting soft, people.... just... dont want games to be (unforgiving and too challenging, as people call it now) It's a real shame. same goes for life, people dont want to work for their money, so what happens, theives, robbers, con-artists, murder for money ETC.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       I got BattleField Badcompany2, Finish the campain in 15 hours, then got bored of it, OA, i got it on a gaming magazine disk, And i love it, even offline... in 2006 *mxn* they dont make games like they used to...

[WingedPanther]

That sounds like why I've basically quit buying games any more.  The classic games still rock, and the new games don't.