IGN has shared a new video, showing almost five minutes of raw gameplay footage from the on-going closed beta phase of Quake Champions. And to be honest, it looks like old Quake. Yes, the game features Champions, however it’s nowhere close to Overwatch or other similar titles. In other words; it does feel like a proper arena shooter. Enjoy the video after the jump!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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I got in last weeks test. It’s pretty damn fun.
not shown is the 5 mins of lobbies to get into a 10 min game 🙁
Yeah, but for how long…..
Yeah, we must not be watching the same thing….. the gameplay is slow (granted, he/she may just suck, but I noticed the same thing in the previous gameplay video as well, so I’m going with slow), & besides, the “look” or “feel” or whatever is just one of the problems, anyway.
Abilities change the nature of the gameplay, regardless of cooldown timers, duration, effect potency, etc. etc. etc. just like loadouts (which have already been introduced into Quake Live as of a while now, so I don’t expect id Software to backtrack on their inclusion, suddenly) do. Abilities, both active & passive piggyback & expand on that problem.
Likewise, there’s the scrub crutch that is the Quad Damage spawn timer, & the accompanying announcement of “Quad spawn in 15 seconds.” Then, of course, there’s the arrows that everyone has over their heads now, because [reason], not to mention all the screen clutter because……?
Yes, the last one is easily fixable with some UI improvements, I agree, but as for the rest – yeah, no, this not cutting it.
P.S. Censored by the Disqus auto filter? Over what? Scrub?
This constant moaning seems annoying (it’s apparently a game where you should always jump – so it should be toned down). Also, the edginess of the character puts me off. It’s like they tried too hard to attract Overwatch crowd. And weapon animations look weak.
Weapon animations? Hell, even the weapon models look terrible, regardless of how much they’ve taken it upon themselves to “improve” on the old designs with some new ones.
LOL, serious flashbacks to the 343 Halo redesigns controversy are coming to mind, now…..
Yeah, models look bad as well, and hands are very small. And why do we see that rocket launcher from a different angle than the other weapons?
Not sure, that is weird, isn’t it. Historically in Quake you’ve had the option to choose if your weapon is “angled left”, “angled right” or “centred” but that’s a general setting for all weapons, not a per-weapon setting, unless they’ve taken it upon themselves to make it that, now, for some reason.
As for the hands; either that, or the weapons are just huge. I noticed that in the last video, as well.
Because the industry is responsible for far too much mediocrity these days, & I like pointing it out to people. As for Quake specifically; I take serious issue with the direction id is trying to head in because Quake is not Halo. Halo is big enough that it can take a couple of hits & it still has a chance to recover. Quake, on the other hand, is not. Not anymore, at least.
This entire ordeal is a pass-or-fail affair for the IP, & once QC crashes, they won’t bother to take any more chances with it for a long time, which means all these years of waiting for a new Quake game were, in the end, for nought, which is just f*cking disgraceful to both their studio’s legacy, & their fans.
You want something positive? The Bayonetta PC port is great, hopefully they’re working on an equally-as-good (if not even better) Vanquish PC port, as well.
There you go. How’s that?
I’m going to just repost what I posted on this last week, since, while it is indeed very long-winded, it explains everything that’s wrong with QC, as I’m too lazy to re-type it all, anyway;
TLDR: Quake Overwatch will fail specifically because it’s appealing to the TF2/OW crowd, rather than the standing Quake 3 community, itself.
Long version; So I wrote this in response to another such post by some randomer who’s ardently decrying that “people should give Quake Champions a chance”, & I decided to transcript it here, too;
Aside from the allegations of dumbing down the gameplay (I don’t (currently) have beta access, & the Beta is under NDA, anyway, meaning I can’t confirm or deny anything personally, but there have been two gamepaly videos so far indicating that there have definitely been various noob-friendly additions, regardless of what);
The way I see it, the fact that they’re taking a new approach, coupled with the fact that there won’t be mod tools at launch constitutes the most dangerous thing of all for this game, & the Q3 community as a whole. After all, Quake 3 has splintered itself off into various sub-communities of people who only want to play one, maybe two specific mods, & Quake Live never made any major concessions in that regard, which in turn resulted in a lot of people just never bothering with it at all. QC, likewise, seems to be starting off on much the same path, which does not bode well for it, or us.
Yes, they’ve said there won’t be mod tools “at launch”, specifically, but at the same time, unless they give us proper mod tools with which to work with (tools powerful enough to recreate Defrag, for example, which is not the case very much these days, with most developers (even CDPR) weakening their mod tools, if anything), then they’re simply not going to properly incentivise most of the Q3 communities to even think about switching over, either. Ergo; SnapMap just won’t cut it this time, nor will some beefed up version of it, either.
After all, the Quake community is small, & that right there, is the root of the problem; it’s fine when an IP like Counter-Strike launches a new iteration, as it’s big enough that each version of it can co-exist separately from the other, but when it comes to Quake, Quake Live seems to have ended up doing more damage through community splintering in the end than not, & so far QC seems to be well on its way to doing the same.
In order to revive interest in Quake, id should be appealing to the core fanbase first by carefully recreating Quake 3 with popular mods like VQ3, CPMA & Defrag implemented baseline, & then, only once they have a solid basis for a community, should they start looking to expand into the more casual crowds by attracting them with modern additions like Hero-Champions – which should be introduced more incrementally, like on a per-game mode basis, or some such, rather than this “TAKE IT, OR F*CK OFF!” approach they’re using right now, instead. Otherwise, they’re throwing away core, dedicated players in favour of people who may &/or may not stay with the game in the long-term. After all, this is a F2P game, not a paid access one, & an F2P requires a long-term commitment from both the developers & the community. Without either one of those two, the game will inevitably fail, & casuals only help with that so much.
I mean, yes, most of the micro-transactions, & thus, the profits will originate from casuals, but at the end of the day, it’s not casuals who’ll be investing the most time into the game. People keep saying Quake needs something new in order to “stay fresh” or vice-versa, or whatever, but at the same time, I can’t help but find myself thinking of DOTA 2; Valve’s WC3 DOTA remake is basically the exact same game – albeit, with minor tweaks, but it has nevertheless taken off like a rocket, on its own merits. Most of the WC3 community has openly embraced it, & while the mod itself hasn’t been entirely abandoned, its continued existence hasn’t crippled DOTA 2’s adoption, either. Not to mention, to a lesser extent, the approach Epic Games is taking with its own Unreal Tournament reboot-sequel.
On the other hand, here’s an antithesis example; Halo 4. For 343’s first major outing, they decided the best thing for them to do would be to replace Bungie’s Halo with Call of Duty: Halo. Needless to say, that didn’t exactly work out for them either, & Halo 5 was all but forced to take several major steps back in that regard, though even Halo 5’s multiplayer doesn’t come close to toppling the epitome of the series that was Halo 3. Regardless, the point being; 343 created a deep divide in the Halo community with their own personal (ripoff) approach, & that was with an IP that can actually take a couple of hits & survive – unlike Quake, which right now is facing a very straightforward “pass or fail” test in regards to its future.
Then, of course, there’s also the fact that creating a Quake-Overwatch combination game means they’re banking on a lot of Overwatch & TF2 people being interested enough to convert, & also stick with it, since it’s an F2P, not a paid-access game, which is really quite weak thinking; Overwatch filled a niche using two major powers which it just happened to have at its disposal: Valve’s laziness towards TF2 development in recent years which infuriated a lot of people, & the words “Blizzard Entertainment” which no matter what, always draws massive crowds (at least until Blizzard somehow kills the game, that is) (note, also, that it is Blizzard’s MO to create “improved” copies of popular IP’s. WoW was originally just a combination of Diablo & Everquest, done better).
Coupled with an over-exaggerated hype campaign, Overwatch put itself in a prime position to compete with TF2. QC, however, has none of these advantages, & most importantly; it’s coming in after, but also not far enough after Overwatch, which means that while it might successfully snag a few people who became bored with TF2 & Overwatch in turn, they’ll be the exception, rather than a sizeable minority, or an overall majority. In the end, it’s the same, basic argument that people were waging throughout the industry in regards to Call of Duty clones just a few years ago, & the result will be much the same; some of them stood out, yes, but none of them ever actually beat Call of Duty – not even Titanfall, which had something actually original going for it, as well. Hell, none of them ever even came close, for that matter.
One problem people keep bringing up is how Quake isn’t accessible; Yes, I agree, in this day & age especially, that is a problem, & an “easy mode” is basically warranted in order to increase accessibility (yes, the scrub crutches like a Quad spawn timer), coupled with a strong matchmaking algorithm that’ll segregate the noobs from the “crushers” (for their own good), but that doesn’t mean that Classic Quake, true Quake should be relegated to a secondary mode called “Classic Mode” (or whatever), instead of CPMA continuing to be the pinnacle of what a Quake player can achieve, & thus the only gameplay style acceptable for eSport Tournaments, etc. as seems to be happening here.
In short, regardless of what I, personally think about the Champions degrading the gameplay (amongst other cited things), in the end that’s nevertheless completely separate from how this approach is just a bad decision for a Quake game in 2017, period.
Not to mention how this is definitely being degraded for consoles, regardless of their claims that it’s going to be a “PC-exclusive”, which will be another major problem for id once it’s revealed that they were trolling everyone about that, all along. Also, people make the argument that “oh, it’s okay, there’ll be a Classic Mode that functions without Champions’ abilities activated!” Yes, that’s true, & that’s good, but it’s not enough. For one thing (as already mentioned), id wants to put the Champions in as part of the pro league eSport, & for another, it doesn’t really matter, since the maps will still be designed around ability-powered characters, rather than not, & those will stand in a clear light against the rehashed, remade Q3 maps, which were not. Likewise, there’s also the problem of long-term balancing in regards to the Champions, especially once the DLCs inevitably start pouring in, etc. etc. etc.
Ergo sum; Quake is about to die, tragically, pathetically, disgracefully, at the hands of a bunch of morons who could have oh-so-easily saved it from its inevitable downfall, if only they weren’t too busy pandering to a bunch of whiney little b*tches, instead.
What? It’s a recognised fact that Overwatch is a variation of Team Fortress 2. Champions is a variation of Overwatch, which means at least to a degree, it’s a variation of Team Fortress 2, in turn. Besides, TF2 was originally designed as a variation of Quake 3, & a part of that remains, even today.
As for Champions; the Champions are Heroes, which are Overwatch’s version of the TF2 classes. They’re the same basic thing, renamed. How do you know people won’t be switching Champions mid-game in order to get specific abilities on their side? Take CTF, for example; if you’re going for the flag, you’ll want defensive powers more than offensive, ergo, you’ll want to switch out from whatever you had before.
“Lawbreakers is a class based shooter, still, with skill in the emphasis. Quake is one step even further away from that. 90% skill 10% abilities.”
What. Those are some seriously blatant-f*cking-assumptions you’re making, right now. Quake 3 is a game that has you dominating by controlling the environment. Once you introduce variables into that, namely, movement speed, loadouts, etc. then the sh*t changes far more than “10%.”
“And here y’all b**ch about the 10% that who knows you might start digging. Besides, the top level duals might just have a classic mode so it’s got you covered on every level.”
Again, blatant assumptions. Also, it’s really extremely doubtful that they’ll allow the Classic Mode into official tournaments, since that would lead to demands for separate brackets, as well; one with Champions, one without, which would only serve to further divide the community.
Nice argument – not. I’d actually forgotten you were an idiot for a second, thanks for reminding me. I mean, no, yeah, you’re right, why point out the flaws in sh*t to people, when you can just get on the hype train like everyone else & scream your f*cking head off with all the other sycophants every time a piece of marketing bullsh*t gets released.
Sh*t, you know what, while we’re at it – LONG LIVE OVERWATCH RIPOFFS! YEAH! YEAH! LONG LIVE THE DESTRUCTION OF SO MANY VIDEO GAME IPs! F*CK YEAH!
P.S. “I don’t have time to read essays” Way to avoid actually confronting what I wrote, btw. Very original.
Oh, wow, you seriously walked into this one. No, seriously, it’s the funniest thing, really; I’ve actually seen, & replied to that video, already….. with the post I placed above. D0h 😮
See, if you’d actually bothered to take 5 minutes to read the f*cking thing instead of just dismissing it “because it’s too long *whine whine whine*”, you’d have actually already read my reply to everything the guy pointed out in the video. The only thing I cut, because I addressed it specifically to him, was this;
“You speak of how small the community’s become. That’s true. How toxic it’s become to newer players. That’s also true. For the latter, however, the solution seems to be simple & straightforward; a matchmaking algorithm, which I have little doubt will show up in QC, since this is 2017, not 1997. If people get matched to people of their equal skill level, it’ll both help the newbies get into the game better by not letting them get constantly “rekt”, & it’ll help the veterans avoid getting faceroll matches &/or teams that infuriate them, & result in swift server kicks. Yes, it’s not an end-all solution, but it does work – when it’s done right, anyway.”
The only thing that he brings up that I didn’t address was the Quake 2 to Quake 3 thing, which worked out in the end for id Software way back when, because they were transitioning from something original to something original. Quake 3 was an experiment, not a ripoff. Quake Champions, on the other hand, is a blatant. f*cking. ripoff.
As for the rest;
“It’s not really a “class” when there’s just one student is there?”
What. No, seriously, this must be the single, dumbest part of your entire “argument”. Like, seriously, is English your primary language, or what?
“What I do know is that id has said they are currently reworking the dual system because the pros said the previously existing duel system wasn’t competitive, so I’m assuming it has to be free of abilities to make it balanced.”
What Tim Willits actually said, in regards to Duel Mode: “The title fights are great for Quake so our Duel mode is going to be uniquely Quake, but will still incorporate the champions.”
So, nice try, but, yeah, no.
Like I said, I care about the IP, & I hate that what they’re doing is going to kill the IP. I & so many others have spent years waiting for a new Quake game, & this was not what we were expecting, or ever even asked for, in the first place. This is nothing more than a slap in the face to the people who supported Quake for so long, even the ones who supported Bethesda’s moronic payment plan in Quake Live.
But I guess you can’t really understand that, can you.
In response to the first part of your deluded rationality;
Okay, so, best I can (finally) figure, you seem to be confusing roles with classes at some point/s during your whole rant there. Also, you seem to be operating under the assumption that TF2 doesn’t have roles, which is just wrong. TF2 has 3 roles, Overwatch has 4 roles (as you said, kudos for figuring that out), & yeah, Quake Champions (supposedly) doesn’t have any roles. Alright, so what? Classes & roles are two separate things, so I’m not really sure what the point you’re trying to make is, exactly.
Oh, & in response to the middle part of your paragraph, there, I am now going to repeat the obvious for you; classes = champions = heroes. Yes, they are the same f*cking thing. Just for the record, though, since you seem to be a little off with the terminology; classes =/= roles. Those are two completely separate things from each other, & are not to ever be confused [with each other].
If you need an in-depth explanation of the difference between the two, Google it.
Yes it is annoying. But that is why I always(almost) played Q3A muted while listening to music or something else,so if I try this one it is MUTE from the start. 🙂
Not as much of an option these days, however, in the face of “Quad Damage spawn in 15 seconds” announcements……
Not to mention – ugh, that horrible announcer voice.
Hehe. Yeah. He seems like hes bored out of his mind.
What if one likes those edgy talks, though?
Insert hate comment here _______ …watch video latter. 🙂
That d**k gun…
Hmm…I don’t know. Seems a bit better than the last RAW gameplay. That middle finger though. So edgy. 🙂
Is the guy playing the game with a controller or he just can’t aim at all?
Might try this out…but I will stick with Q3A!
Therein being the root of the problem….. This isn’t attracting all those Q3 communities in the least.
Played the beta, didnt like it. Then again its called champions and not Quake 5 for a reason.
Used to play Q3A a lot and I was very good at it. I was disappointed to hear that this will be a class based shooter but after watching that I think it looks very much like it will play like Q3A did for the most part.
reskin of doom multiplayer…great ripoff