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Comment by pixelpoet | Hacker News Reader

Bethesda recently announced there won't be a Quake Pro League next year, massively depressing news. IMO Quake is peerless in its mechanical skill and speed requirements, truly one of the most challenging games in the world, like comparing Go to lesser strategic games.

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Noooo you just give me that sad news to me. I really enjoyed watching Quake Pro League previous seasons. The finals where a big event to me, I cook some special stuff to watch those games. I'm a fan of the player Raisy, who several times finished in second place and never won the tournament. Sad that he may never have that opportunity again.

Here is the video of the last final when Rapha beat Raisy 4 to 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI4M5u5IxAA

Go is one of those games I could never understand whether a move I was making was a good one or not. It just felt like I was randomly placing stones and then at the end had to count up and see who won as I certainly had no clue how it was progressing. Is that normal for new players or am I particularly challenged in that area? Chess is a less abstract game where I can generally tell what's going on.

Regarding Quake, I think you're right. Nothing else is quite like it.

You're not alone. It takes a bit of studying to figure out the strategy of Go, which is primarily conceived of as creating different shapes. Shapes of stone groups impart certain properties to the group.

When I first started playing Go, I realized I thought about it like Risk. I was trying to draw Napoleonic battle lines on the board, and push back the opponent. And it kinda worked for very entry-level games, but mostly didn't make sense? Because then the opponent would just place somewhere behind my "line" and it all fell apart.

Over time, I started imagining each of the spots on the board as being a person in a city. And placing a stone, really, was like bringing the AOE II priest to "wololo" convert the person to my team. So really, the goal wasn't to create battle lines, the goal was to pick and choose who on the board to join my team, so that by the end of the game, I would have the most influence in the city. (I've heard others describe it as planting plants to grow over the majority of a garden, which is similar) At that point, I started choosing spaces around the board in order to make sure I had enough friends in each neighborhood that I would be the most popular person there, even once my opponent started advertising in the region too.

That begs the obvious question, are there different neighborhoods that are more important than others? And the answer is yes. As you learn about eye shapes, you'll realize its easier to be popular and own in a corner than it is a side, and a side than it is the center, so when you start the game, you prioritize being popular in these regions, in that order (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqpqa5NCbMY&t=52s)

And then over time, I've learned how to do that more and more efficiently, and the tradeoffs that come from that.

It also helps to start on smaller boards, then move to bigger ones as you get a feel for what's going on : )

eSports are going through a slump right now. Psyonix also cancelled upcoming RLCS. Instead it's going to sponsor a bunch of smaller tournaments like salt mine with 10-20% of the budget of last year's RLCS.

Given how much they neglected Quake Champions (or the Quake IP in general) this doesn't come at a surprise I'd say.

Frankly, they should have pulled the plug years ago. The game has been dead for years. I try to watch every QPL grand final and it has been a borefest. Most exciting moment was the million dollar tournament. Newcomer beating Vo0 in spectacular manner.

StarCraft, which MS also owns these days, at least had traction for about a decade. Quake Champions was a bad game and it failed immediately. Maybe NS could finance proper Quake and StarCraft games with their infinite cash

it's a genre issue. these types of games will never be popular to most people given the alternatives now available

Agreed, and people (presumably under 20) even call them "Boomer shooters" :( I get pretty upset about that, especially considering how unbearably Fisher Price Fortnite and Valorant etc look, to say nothing of their completely lacking the hardcore, balls-to-the-wall fast aiming, prediction and spatial planning.

It takes the most difficult mechanical aspects of Counterstrike and makes it 10x faster; apparently "kids these days" have no appetite for the challenge.

John Romero wants you to feel okay about the term "boomer shooter". [1]

Pull quote:

"The funny thing about boomers, it doesn’t even matter because for people who made up the term boomer shooter, anyone who’s old as a boomer, boomers are actually the kids of World War Two vets.

"That’s my mom. My mom is 20 years older than I am. She’s actually a boomer. So, boomers are not typically developing games.

"It’s funny. It’s a funny name. And I usually say it is a boomer shooter. It’s got a shotgun in it. It makes a big boom sound and you’re shooting. it doesn’t bug me. It’s really like you’re trying to nail the aesthetics of the style and that’s like that’s a phrase that kind of says what you need to know."

[1] from https://howtomarketagame.com/2023/09/25/john-romero-on-his-b... and HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37649594

I am old and don't get upset. Some of the best games over the last few years are Boomer Shooters. My favourite do far is Turbo Overkill - double jump and crazy air control right from the start. Plays better than Doom

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