E.T. for competitive (i.e. Clan) games?

(Kendle) #1

I’ve been playing E.T. pretty solidly since it came out and I’m loving it! There’s little I could add to the (constructive) criticisms that have already been voiced here, as I like almost everything about it and the bits I don’t appear to have already been mentioned and discussed.

However, I can’t see any threads that discuss the use of E.T. as a Clan game. It seems most people assume it will be adopted by Clans, specifically those currently playing RTCW, however I can’t really see it happening.

First of all the maps. I know FuelDump is only a test, but if the others are on the same scale I can’t see Clans wanting to play them. Tram and Market Garden are large (and popular) maps, but neither are played in Clan matches because they’re too big for 6v6. And, as Clans can sometimes struggle to field 6 players, I can’t see team sizes greater than 6 really working either. (I believe Mohaa and BF1942 use larger teams, but I don’t think there are as many Clans playing these games as there are RTCW). Also, the Tank in FuelDump is fun on publics, but I’d imagine Clans would totally ignore it and go straight for the sewer/tunnels/covert-ops into base route, thereby missing large chunks of the map anyway.

Secondly, the XPs. This is also great fun on publics, and adds a whole new dimension to the game, but for Clan matches? I can’t see Clans adopting E.T. unless the XP system can be switched off with a server side cvar. Clan matches are about team-work, comms, tactics, and individual skills in a variety of Classes. Clans could and would abuse the XP system in ways never envisaged by the makers. Perhaps everyone goes Medic to begin with to rack up the XPs as quickly as possible and give themselves an advantage over their opponents? Besides, XPs are great in Campaign mode, but Clans would only be interested in Stopwatch, so what’s the point of XPs?

Lastly, is the suitability of E.T. as a Clan game even relevant? I’d say the answer to that is a resounding YES! GSPs (Game Server Providers) mostly only provide public servers as a “loss leader” to entice Clans to rent their own. Indeed, a lot of RTCW public servers are Clan servers running in public mode when not in use by their Clans. Without Clans and the revenue they provide for the companies that run them, there would be no public servers.

So I would contend that E.T. needs Clans if it is to survive. At the moment, after the initial euphoria has worn off, I can see most RTCW players drifting back to vanilla Wolf, and there will end up being no more E.T. servers out there than there are Tram or Market Garden (i.e. not many!).

Thoughts and opinions?

(ulan-bator) #2

who says you have to play 6on6?
I would say 7on7 are prolly better, atleast on fueldump.
Yuo cannot ignore the tankhow the hell are you supposed to get into the base then? The allies will always defned the tunnels in a clanwar remember, will be tough as hell to get through there. If two good teams play fueldump now, i would be almost 100% sure that noone would ever blow the fueldump.

How a team can get alot of XP if everyone goes medic is beyond my imagination, that’s actually the worst thing a team can do.

I’m confident that ET will indeed be one fo the most popular internet fps games, IF splashdamage are able to fix some balancing issues, and most important: are able to make the game as smooth as rtcw. feels like playing with a serial mouse or something now.

(Kendle) #3

6v6 is a settled number now in the UK. We’ve never played 7v7 (unlike some USA leagues) and I can tell you as a Ref for a UK league some Clans have trouble finding even 6 players for a match. The reason Tram isn’t played in Leagues is because it’s too big, and FuelDump is even bigger!

You don’t need the Tank to get into the Axis Base, just a Covert-Ops wearing an Axis uniform, so the Tank becomes a secondary option for Allies. Of course Axis can defend the tunnel, there are many choke points, but then there are on standard RTCW maps and attacking teams find strategies to deal with them. Remember, Allies now have Rifle-Grenades and Smoke Canisters to add to the traditional Grenades and Panzers to help clear dug-in enemy defending choke points.

As for XPs, OK the example of going Medic isn’t a good one maybe, the point is Clans will figure out the best way to get the most XPs the fastest to gain advantage over the other team, rather than use superior tactics / skills to win the game. Xps will become an “exploit” rather than adding to the team-work necessary to win the game, which I don’t doubt is the opposite of what Splash Damage intended. I think others have also raised the point that if a player crashes out during a Clan war (which will always happen some of the time) he’ll lose his XPs and give the other team an unfair advantage anyway. Xps must be disabled for Clan games.

I would agree that currently 2 good, equal teams, would result in the FuelDump almost never getting blown. In other words, like Tram, it’s biased towards Axis, which is another reason Tram isn’t played in Clan matches.

PS: I’m also confident that E.T. will be a popular minority on-line FPS, but look at the really big on-line FPS games (like CS, Quake, RTCW) and they all have strong Clan communities. E.T. has more potential than any other multi-player FPS I’ve seen, but it must be taken up by Clans to avoid being marginalised.

(bani) #4

all your issues with ET for clan games can be addressed in a mod :smiley:

make a list of problems you have with ET and pm them to me and i will see what can be done.

(Kendle) #5

Heh Bani :smiley:

Yeah, I’m sure you could make a mod to address all these issues. But that’s not really the point, or the reason for starting this thread. OSP enhanced RTCW for competitive play, but then vanilla RTCW was still completely playable without it. OSP just added a few bells and whistles, and its built-in to E.T. anyway.

I’m hoping Splash Damage will read this thread (it’s their forum after all) and take into account the need to produce a Clan friendly “standard” E.T. right from the off (we are still only at test stage remember). It seems a bit premature to be talking of modding a game that hasn’t actually been released yet. Besides which, it’s not for me to say what should and what shouldn’t be done. Maybe you could invite opinion over on www.rtcw.co.uk and elsewhere and Bani-mod could do for E.T. what OSP did for RTCW?

(Dragon) #6

Clans always seem to struggle for numbers, no matter what game or how many members you have.

The first Season in Australian RTCW, clan matches were 8 v 8.
But people complained that we’d do better with less (Caus of the hassles of getting 8 members rock up)

So we voted and went to 6 v 6, and guess what? Same problems…

If people want to play, they’ll find the numbers.

If all the maps are fuel depot size, I would think 7 v 7 or 8 v 8 would be ideal. Not much point having new classes and weapons if no-one uses em.

Possibly for Clan matches, XP might be either A) Turned off or B) Modified
By this I mean, that you can hopefully adjust the amount of XP it takes to level up. So your league/ladder/whatever may adjust the xp so you can get to level 3 in any class in 2 minutes, but level 4 is impossible, even if you play for 5 hours straight.

But who knows what SD are thinking? :slight_smile:

Give us a hint boys :slight_smile:

(Salteh) #7

Maybe that’s right for wolf games, but Q3F games are usually played 8vs8 and sometimes 9v9(YeS, in the UK :))

If clans want to play ET, they should have at least 8 players ready to play, else you might as well not join a league :bash: .

:slight_smile:

(sCa|DarkStalker) #8

100 % agree to Kandle

thats what i ment ( Thread Skillsystem )
On publics the XP system might be fun but in a clanwar its only a problem.
When you play a medic most of the time you support your team with medipacks and revive ( <— right word? ) them, so there are not often situation you fight against other player so only your medic skill gets higher and the other 2 skills stay at 0 so you often have problems if it comes to a fight ( this happended in some trains of us :slight_smile: me medicskill 4 and the other both 0 )
Its a good idea that for clangames the xp system can be disabled. I said it again and again bring the thompson and mp40 from the normal RtCW in ET.

(ToeD) #9

exactly what i think. the maps are to big. and the xp are unfair, especially if one team is already stronger than the other (already been said by someone else). and how about the fights for who gets to start as allies/axis if one has better chances of getting points? please make an option to turn it off. and remember the rtcw map test with beach? the smallest map there was but also the most populair!
small maps are super cool! :banana: :banana: :banana:
and also upgrade the rate of fire plz :wink:

(Kendle) #10

Bloody hell :eek2: :eek2:

I can see that being a issue. There are some top Clans that only have 7 players in total (6 plus a reserve), although most probably have 8-10. As there are, presumably, a limited number of players to go round, I can see the result being fewer Clans.

Anyway, you’re saying bigger teams is the solution rather than smaller maps? Fair enough, but then what about match formats (which I probably also ought to have mentioned). 30 minute rounds seem about right for FuelDump, so to play 2 Stopwatch rounds (2 sets of 2 rounds), which would be the minimum necessary to ensure a fair result, and assuming Axis hold for the full time (given teams of equal ability), you’re talking about games lasting 2 hours!

I’d have said, smaller maps, smaller teams, shorter rounds, is the way to go. But then, that’s just my opinion.

(ToeD) #11

rush hour :slight_smile:

(ToeD) #12

not to mention since its free and a really cool game it has potential to be the biggest multiplayer game EVER! :smiley:

so please concider these things

(Kendle) #13

Agreed, but only if you’ve got the servers to play it on. And who’s going to provide those servers? GSPs aren’t going to provide servers out of the kindness of their hearts. They’re only going to do it if they are bringing in revenue from Clans, and Clans will only play E.T. if its viable. At the moment I’m suggesting large maps / XPs make it great fun for publics, but not so attractive for Clans.

(RivrStyx) #14

Big maps… small maps…medium maps all have their place. Who cares about the so called leet clans moving over… let em stay in RTCW with their extreme pong tweaking. They couldn’t play ET anyway… because thier sub voodoo cards couldn’t handle having to use lightmap lighting, and not being able to handle the open maps {right…lol} Isn’t that the reason for the leagues extreme tweaking in RTCW because of players hardware… when all their other reasons fail.
(hopefully some other cvars are capped like picmip at 3, gamma at 2, intensity at 1.5, overbrights at 2…etc).

(Kendle) #15

Lol, yeah right! 4Kings, the “leetest” of leet UK Clans are (afaik) considering E.T. (and are currently providing a public test server, at their cost) and all have leet PC’s as well (they’re sponsored by Intel and all have 3Ghz P4’s), so I don’t think performance is an issue. Besides, have you actually tried picmip 2 or overbrightbits 1? You get a white-washed screen and can hardly see anything!

Graphics are fine as they are and I doubt top clans give a shit about not being able to tweak. Top Clans only tweak because all other top Clans tweak. Limit their ability to do so and they won’t, simple as. Besides, I doubt there are many serious gamers that don’t already have monster PCs more than capable of handling E.T.

The issue, imho, is map size mostly. Big maps = a few dedicated, limited appeal servers (like Market Garden). Small maps = loads of (Clan sponsored, directly or indirectly) publics like the 100’s currently available for RTCW. Unfortunately you should care whether the so-called leet Clans move over, cos without them there won’t be any servers for you to play on! I’m not having a dig RiverStyx, or looking to flame, it’s just the hard economic truth of the matter.

(RivrStyx) #16

Well…thats TWL and CALs excuse for tweaking…also the one you said is popular about everyone else does it. Bring it up to them about lowering the tweaking limits since thats the only reason and all the clans jump on you…lol.

Where do you get that from…no servers available if the leet clans weren’t here. I run 3 RTCW servers (1 public and 2 osp) , an ET server now, and a MOHSP server and thats me alone. Whether these clans come to ET…it’ll be there. My clan/squad runs another public server and quite a few other squads we know have servers they rent but not the leet clans you speak of. Theres a hell of alot of servers out there that have nothing to do with any of the leet clans…so i guess all the empty ones out there would be filled. I’d hate to say this but the game would go on and plenty of servers would exist without these clans…trust me. I love how some think a game revolves around them. My clan/squad has played in leagues (CAL/TWL) but just didn’t make it our main focal point. Guess it’ll remain to be seen if the 4kings stick it out and i hope SD doesn’t ruin the game and dynamics of ET catering to these teams. The hard truth is ET will live without the 4kings. Theres plenty of servers to fill the masses. Most clan servers are empty… but servers like HP1 and HP2’s 64 player server are filled …day and night… as most of the not so leet clans reg rtcw servers. Your kidding yourself and again the leet egos swell.

Anyway… i’m sure a league can be made for ET… but they can’t be much smaller than the test map which isn’t that big for a 8v8 game the way its setup. Gonna need more players per team or theres no point beings elements like mortars, tank obj, etc. Times could be shortened even for Fueldump …say 20 mins. 10 to get tank to blow tunnels… 10 on other side of cave to plant fueldump (not to mention covert could have it over in 2-3mins). Just don’t think maps much smaller will work to well in ET (could be doen of course leaving out alot of elements)… Smaller is more for RTCW.

picmip 2 (1 is default) and overbrightbits at 1 (this is default) wouldn’t give you a whitewashed screen. You better check that again because picmip 4 and overbrights 4…etc would give you whitewashed textures like leagues use. Only thing i change is brightness in the menu and thats it and its awesome. Pretty much default

(Vengeance) #17

Well said Rivrstyx. I too play with default settings. I have a laptop i play ET on and in some areas i get about 7fps on the game, i could tweak the graphics for better play but it just ruins the game atmosphrere.

As for map sizes i think they might be all types of sizes since ppl will be making custom maps for it.

(Kendle) #18

OK, there seems to have been a bit of a misunderstanding here. I’m not defending “leet” Clans, nor do I consider myself to be part of any “leet” Clan scene. Indeed, I’m not sure how you’d define “leet” in the first place.

I’m simply pointing out that servers cost money, and the vast majority of them are provided by ISPs/GSPs, companies who make money by selling their products and services to Clans (not “leet” Clans, just Clans, like yours RiverStyx). Without these Clans (your Clan), they’d be less market for these companies products and services, i.e. fewer (maybe not zero) servers.

The “tweaking” debate is a red herring as far as this discussion is concerned, although I’d add that my picmip and overbrightbits are both 0 and I haven’t changed them (tried it, looked awful, deleted config, let E.T. build a new default one). Maybe they change when you adjust brightness in the menu? Please don’t go down that road. I’m simply pointing out that Clans play a big, probably major, part in any gaming community. E.T. must address their needs or they won’t play it and it’ll become marginalised. I appreciate Happy Penguin and others provide large servers which are often packed. The Jolt Market Garden servers are always full. But I bet you anything a fair few of the players on there are clanned and see it as a bit of light relief from the “war maps” they play in Clan matches. I’m sorry mate but you’re the one that’s kidding yourself if you think the Happy Penguins of this world would exist if no Clans played RTCW. And I stress, I don’t mean “leet” Clans, I mean “any” Clans.

Furthermore I’m not suggesting SD “pander” to Clan demands and “ruin” E.T. in the process. I’m merely suggesting (and remain to be convinced otherwise) that E.T. as it stands isn’t entirely condusive to Clan matches. I love E.T. and think its the best thing to have happened to RTCW, period! I just hope and pray it doesn’t go the way of other SD maps and other mods, and become a passing fad. To avoid that it has to cater for Clan needs and that, in my very humble opinion, means smaller maps, smaller teams, shorter rounds, etc. and most specifically a server-side cvar to turn XP off.

(ToeD) #19

without private paid servers the game would have very few. id host one for every map, then there is the happy perguin and jolt and bluejonder and other isp they all host some too. but that would be it. and besides that, on a clan server there are admins. on commercial servers its mostly (knowing this from rtcw) newbies playing and lots of flamers and no teamwork :(. if you want the game to get a high level and there being tournaments and competitions and other goodies (WTV, custom maps) there must be big clans to make the game big. its as simple as that. after a while you also want more than just the public games. you want some matches this makes it that the game is played longer. i wouldnt be playing rtcw anymore, or not as often as i do now, if there werent any competitions or nice wtv coverages. think about this. the big clans are very dedicated to the game. they will make sure the game is hosted in tournaments and get widerly known and this will only make it that more people play it. is more clans. is more servers.
i dont really see any clans playing wars on maps like fuel depot. just like there are no matches on mp_depot. its just to big. its a cool map yes. but its just to big. if sixteen ppl have to play on it there will be a lot of draws. the more people, the harder it is to win.

sorry if i misformulated something but english isnt my first language

ToeD

(RivrStyx) #20

Clans…how are you defining clans. My clan/squad/friends are a bunch of guys that enjoy the game or games and met playing these games online. Call it a clan …or a group of friends playing a game we enjoy. We play other groups of friends in scrims for fun. You define clans as those in leagues…but theres alot of clans that that aren’t league clans. My 5 servers are free and no cost what so ever, but we also as a group rent bandwidth for another server (not mine) an use our box for public play. Our friends we’ve meet online that have their own group rent thier servers from different places. My group has played in leagues in the past but don’t now. Whether we did or didn’t play in TWL/CAL …the servers would still be there. Companies host rental servers not for league clans but for the public to play also.
If you want to call a group of guys that handout and enjoy playing but have no marketability a clan thats fine …its just a label. But we all have free or rent servers and has nothing to do with league clans.

ET is more of a public game than a league game and i hope SD doesn’t change a thing to screw it up because league clans think they know it all and public players are noobs and have no idea. I’m not saying you said that. …but league players think what they say is what has to be because they know it all… and that isn’t so. I’ve played online since Q1. I know how to play on a team and I enjoy getting together with my friends/clan for a game on the pubs or against others with the same perspective.

Theres server rentals that can be rented by anyone and if you go in as a group it makes it cheaper splitting the cost which has nothing to do with any league clans.
Its just not all about league clans… theres alot more players that play for fun than there are league clans. My group (not going to call them a clan so not to be confused) have put on tournaments with the PB recommended settings (except lightmap lighting and wolfparticles on were also enforced) and went real well. I’m sure we’ll do the same in ET using the XP system. I say if the big clans in the leagues don’t play… that would be fine by me and i’m sure alot of others. It may be marginalized by those clans but not the numerous players playing for fun. If i was a game maker i’d be a bit pissed at what leagues do to there games…fugly to say the least.

I think most or all of the goty pack is SD …hardly a passing fad since they were included in the game of the year version and played on alot of servers. Market garden has its players for big RTCW games and wasn’t released as an official map. If redone a bit it wouldn’t be to big for the ET dynamics…but even so its hard to get custom maps played if not in the store bought version or an official upgrade because alot of players are just lazy to DL. It seems single obj with advances may work better for ET but dual obj maps i think will have their place. Since SD maps will be part of the DL …they will be played by those of us that will be playing ET. I’ll be playing both ET and RTCW so i want different maps in each game for variety and not small RTCW type maps rolled over to ET.

I don’t think they need to cater to league clans needs to much. As far as noobs on servers not working as a team…oh well. I’m an active admin as the others i spoke of are also and we’ve taken care of that to the point that our servers have lots of regulars that do play as a team either by getting rid of them or helping them out to learn the games. Noobs with no teamwork are part of any game til they learn it…
They’ll be alot more custom maps with no league clans to down the customs. Rtcw leagues are trying custom maps but the league players just bitch and moan even after wanting them on forums. Theres no customs up to their standards …so the custom community for one will be better off