Qcon99 Tournament Info

i\'ve never been to a professional touney..
i\'ve only done lan parties
What happens to the loosers?
do they just get to play on the machines after they loose or do the get kicked out...
i\'d be pissed if i spent $600 on a plane ticket (there and back) and then only to be kicked out after loosing 2 rounds into the event with MANY MANY MANY more to go....
cuz at lan parties if ya lost you getta play with the loosers.. then eventually when the winner is picked he takes his prize (usually a case of coke or $20) and puts it in his car and keeps playing..

If they wana see the pretties get a big ass k7 550 with a TNT2 Ultra....
and if the players wana play on their jalopie old p2 300 with voodoo3 2000 pci then let em!
its not the damn system... the 3 most apolling (sp) factors is 1.) k7 550: WHERE IS THIS COMPUTER AT! IT hasnt even been released!
2.) ATi rage 128 pro or what ever that card is... THAT card hasnt even been released.. and from my experience a voodoo2 gets more frames than a Rage 128 does.. not as pretty but more frames.. another NON existant card on the market
3.)A little PRE BETA of a game that isnt even out....Q3....
I have a funny feeling the officals will be putting up with client crashes and overheating (the Ati card) and unstability with q3test...
and i think id should have new maps.. not the ones that are out there now..
new maps so that EVERY one wont know what the fuck is going on..
I\'ll laugh when they get playing and 20minutes of good playing video cards start overheating and one of the officals runs to a computer store and buys all the tnt2ultras and voodoo3 3500\'s he can find...
but who knows....

>its time events got over this \"machine is king\"
>thinking

Really? I wonder if Citizen thinks the same. Ask him how he would like switching from his dual celeron 550 to, say, a P2-233 vith a Voodoo2. I\'m sure he\'d be thrilled.

__
RooS

I see some posts proclaiming they have been practicing at over 90 fov to gain an edge. Now any player that was serious about practicing for qcon (and not just internet 1v1) should have followed the various postings both here and at the qcon message board where the rumors were very evident that id was going to lock the graphics options. Yet I see post after post suddenly proclaiming astonishment when it became official. Pay attention.


Was the short notice a main contributer to most of the gripes? Yes, most other tournaments of any sort both amatuer and professional lay down the rules in both general and specifics weeks if not months before an event. To me this is an indication of what most of these \"cyber sports\" have lacked and that is clear leadership in the organization. The mistake is not in limiting fov or any other graphics option, it is in not making a decision until the last moment. Indecision is the worst decision.


Other players of other sports have to play through weather, injuries, equipment failures, etc...I think we can handle a little think like fov. Count your blessings....we could be playing with the weapon models on....


To ID: I follow the fighter pilot methdology: Its not the machine..its the pilot. If machines were the huge factor in outcomes then it would be easy to say if player X has so many more fps then player Y then give player Y Z amount of frags to even it out. The truth is machines are a minor factor in deciding these matches, its time events got over this \"machine is king\" thinking and moved on to creating real competitions and not this FFA/single elim garbage that is being spoon fed to us.

Everyone is bound by the same restrictions?
The playing field has been leveled?
I understand that most serious players have personal preferences for graphical and control settings that they would prefer to use, but as long as everyone else is encumbered with these same restrictions, all is fair. Tweak what you can, make the adjustments you deem to be appropriate within these restrictions and let the games begin. Good luck to all!!

>Instead of bitching, calling it a pile of crap, and
>getting a good chuckle over my apparent comedic
>abilities

Allright, I apologize. Harsh language is not helpfull in geting your point across.

>Are you even attending QuakeCon this year, much less
>competing in the tournament ?

I\'d really love to, Polish tried to talk me into coming this year, but $1000 for a plane ticket to the US is still rather steep for me.

>of how to offer a level playing field yet still have
>the game look good and consistent across all systems.

Well, I think you should have said this in the first place - the game must LOOK GOOD. I can understand this, the pressure from gaming press and competing companies requires you to present Q3A in all it\'s splendor and glory.

The problem is that the tournaments like Qcon, CPL or PGL got \"serious\" a long time ago. People practice for weeks if not months before the events, trying to work out a setup that they\'re most comfortable with. For some it is 1024x768 with all the visual flare turned on, for others 512x384 with r_picmip 20, vertex, and fov 120. Maybe you didn\'t know (maybe you did), but 99% of the competitive field in Q1 have the command \"d_mipcap 3\" in their configs, or \"gl_maxsize 2\" if they use GLQuake. Please fire up the old Q1 and see what the game looks like with this setting.
It was like that at the last Q1 CPL I attended (12 months ago), then came Q2 which was exclusively played in GL and didn\'t have such commands included.

Why do they do this? Two reasons. First, some claim they see the enemy better with low resolution textures. While true for them, it may be percieved quite differently by others. The second reason is the single most important one you can have: framerate. Framerate is king and there is absolutely no question about it. Regardless of what \"newbies\" say and what settings they use, Thresh, Gollum, Immortal, Makaveli and all other top Q1/Q2 players will trade every ejected shotgun shell or light flare for an additional frame per second. Ask them if you do not believe me. Ask them what PCs they have. If there is one thing they complain about it is poor framerate. It really doesn\'t matter if the monitor is 19 or 21 inch or if the keyboard klicks softer or harder, as long as the game runs FAST.

I don\'t want to rant forever, let\'s have a few concluding thoughts.

1. Serious tournament should allow people to use the graphic options they want to use and are comfortable with.

2. If the game is supposed to look good at the same time, you should set up a few \"spectator PCs\" and show off the gamplay using those machines. A big projector screen with sweet looking Q3A wouldn\'t hurt too.

3. Locking the FOV (dmflags 16?) is not a good idea. Doesn\'t Carmack use 120? Bigger FOV is not really that helpful outside of Q1 where it allowed you to shaft a little better. I use 100 mainly to make the game (especially Q2) faster and more dynamic. However when you get used to 100, going back to 90 is a real pain. It almost feels like a different game...

4. Sudden death overtime is *a bad idea* in a high profile tournament. Why? Because it puts one player at a huge disadvantage. Maybe less so in Q3 where we play weapon-stay, but even here it is not fair. An overtime is often a result of a frag that occurs seconds before the timelimit. Now, who has better chance of survival: the victim, just spawned and struggling to get armor (you will see how Thresh runs armors if he attends Qcon) or the killer with a RL or LG and some armor on him? Maybe it\'s harder to score spawn frags in Q3A than in Q1, but it is still very much possible.
My suggestion: infinite 3-minute overtime rounds. All the tournaments I\'ve attended and the demos I\'ve seen, no match lasted more than two overtimes. That\'s 6 minutes more. Shouldn\'t be a big problem.

That\'s all for now, please excuse me but it\'s 2:30am at my place. I hope my suggestions will be useful for your tournament.

Regards

__
RooS

In response to #24 by Roos;

Instead of bitching, calling it a pile of crap, and getting a good chuckle over my apparent comedic abilities, offer us a viable solution of how to offer a level playing field yet still have the game look good and consistent across all systems.

Are you even attending QuakeCon this year, much less competing in the tournament ?

-Xian

What is \"cg_scoreboard?\" Are they referring to \"team scoreboard?\"

OMFG

I just read the tournament rules and I must say it\'s THE biggest pile of crap I have ever seen in my entire life.

Funniest comment of the day is Xian\'s \"we want a level playing field\". I\'m still thinking somebody\'s kidding me.

All those tourney\'s I\'ve attended (CPL in the US and many, many more in Europe) I thought identical machines give you equal chances. Why stop at locking the FOV, resolution and graphics options? Make everybody play with a Genius $5.99 serial mouse and don\'t forget to lock the sensitivity at 3. Why the hell should somebody have an unfair advantage of turning around three times faster with sensitivity 9???

I\'d really like to know exactly WHO set such absurd rules for the tournament. He sure is way out of touch with the community...

__
RooS

damn i cant even spell ONE right
hehe

uh #20 as if any ONCE CARES about the spelling.. this isnt a fooking essay or exam.... we dont hav 2 spel wright if wee dunt wana..
:)

FOV is really a small matter, alot of good players use it, those running at 100-110 won\'t notice a big difference anyway. Only those running 120 or higher are really affected...ie all 3 of them at qcon.
<p>
What I think is more important is:
how is seeding between FFA rounds handled? Will doing well in the first round of FFA benefit a player in the 2nd round? Since it looks to be single elim, getting 2nd-5th can be really a matter of luck on who one plays in their bracket if the seeding is done incorrectly. It would be nice if the top 32 or 16 were in a double elim bracket.
<p>
wiseguy
www.teamabuse.com

well to me this seems like a lot of bs for a lan party..
sure i understand the card and comp issue... i\'d rather play on my tweaked p2 400 voodoo3... but when ati n AMDis a SPONCER they have to do what ati n AMD tells them
but what gets me is the FOV issue..
fov90 is fine for ye all quakeguy...
but fov90 SUCKS for ye QuakePro
and whats this i hear of a res max of 640x480..
i dont wana hit pixels with a rail gun..
i\'m sorry but minimum HAS to be 800x600
and the Friggen deal with not playing Q3TEST2 pisses me off it...
That map WAS DESIGNED FOR A LAN PARTY SITUATION...
ARE they afraid they\'ll see too many snipers or jump pad whores?
come on.. play all the maps..
if your gona play the game play all the maps with the users fav hardware.. (mouse trackball joystick personal keyboard TNT2 ultra voodoo3 3500 voodoo3 2000 Voodoo2 sli
it would take me a while to readjust to fov90 and 640x480 and even new mouse n keyboard or what ever..
Amd is good.. but when you got a board like Rage 128 (mac crap) your asking for trouble..
Have they tested this set up?.. i bet they\'ll have overheating crashing computers and will be forced to use another video card
but who knows..
ati\'s next card might be acceptable for todays standards (ya right bunch of bs there....)

If a player thinks that FOV 120 gives other players an advantage, then they should play with it themselves. FOV as an option has been around... forever... I don\'t think anyone has ever really cared about it (outside of id).

Has any other major Quake/Q2 tourney ever locked the FOV?

Graphic settings are locked because of the press. They don\'t want ppl running around with ugly graphics settings while press people are taking pictures. Also, for ppl who haven\'t seen Q3, they don\'t want to give a bad graphical first impression.

Only thing I don\'t like about the rules is the fact there are 2 qualifying FFA rounds, omg. :)

We want everyone to have a level playing field. Everyone should play with the exact same system configuration. That way no-one can bitch that an FOV 120 person beat someone who was playing FOV 90.

If you\'re not used to playing at FOV 90, start practicing.

-Xian

I agree that the biggest problem with the posted format is the locked FOV. I know id has debated for a long time whether a different FOV was cheating, but the fact that the CVAR is not cheat protected tends to indicate their current thinking. Also, the fact that there is a ZOOM key on the controls menu shows that they aren\'t concerned about \"sniping\".

Frankly I don\'t know many (if any) really good players that use FOV 90, so I think a lot of players will be unhappy. I wrote Yoss (the tourney coordinator) about this, and he replied that the FOV decision was out of his control. I\'m trying to find out who made the decision so that we can perhaps reason with them.

Just for clarification it is the ATI Rage 128 Pro. It isn\'t even released yet. It is not the ATI Rage Pro. So it is not the card in Macs or any other system right now. As I said what I said was just my personal theory.

-CP

Why bother using a 550 mhz K7 if you\'re going to use a Rage Pro? Those little pieces of shit perform like Voodoo1s. That\'s the video card in iMacs for christ\'s sake... min spec for Q3...

Verloc-

I didn\'t mean it as a kick, just that it isn\'t the top of the line in todays market. Hell I am sure that video card kicks the living crap out of the video card I play with. (I use a voodoo) I was only saying that is my theory on why the resolution is so low. Of course none of this concerns me because I am not attending quakecon. I get the shit kicked out of me by enough bad players that playing against anyone halfway decent is a lesson in royal ass kicking.

-CP

I was going to say that, but I didn\'t, for two reasons:

1. Why kick a company when they\'re down (with the gaming crowd, that is... the rage128 is embedded in all the g3\'s now...)

2. My \"3D\" card at home is a rage pro (It\'s true, I have no money... :))

I\'m sure they can handle more then that though, don\'t you? Who knows...
Verloc

I think that resolution is small. But I think it is that way due to them using the ATI Rage Pro. I don\'t believe it is released yet and in order to get to use it they have to use that resolutions so people don\'t see how it fails in performance matters against TNT2 or Voodoo 3. That is only my theory though and it has no proof at all.
if this post makes no sense, look who is posting it and you should understand..LOL

-CP

Is it just me, or does a max resolution of 640x480 seem rather small to anyone?

Of course, I could just be reading it wrong or something.

Verloc