Your views on Quake3

[SAS]

Right it's out. So tell me what you think of Quake3

I've just updated my column with a huge rant about the problems with Quake3 here: http://www.barrysworld.com/news/columns.asp?Author=37&Category=35

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Posted by S.A.S
www.barrysworld.com/guides

 

[old.diaR]

sadly not much atm

 

[old.frankie]

ok
this may make some of you quake 3 lovers out there cry
ok, well start with the maps

we have a choice of 2 colours to use for all of them, thats what mr ID must of said when he put down the brief for q3.

"YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE THE MAPS OUT OF ANY MORE THAN 2 COLOURS. YOU CAN MAKE IT BROWN SHITE COLOUR OR GREY METEL COULOUR, AND YOU ARE ALSO NOT ALLOWED TO COMBINE THOSE 2 COLOURS, CAUS THAT WOULD BE TOO CREATIVE."

The maps all look the same, all are the same basically. crap colours, crap gameplay.

The graphics:

Ok they are ok, curved surfaces rule, and it runs quite fast. The coool reflective textures thingys really are good.

Other than that the graphics arent really fantstic.

Weapons:
now this part really sucks.
how many wepons are there, caus there seems to be getting less and less. the gauntlet and machinegun dont count caus they are crap and u spawn with them. The shotgun has to be the most ponsy gun on the whole planet, it really is poor, its like poof poof. The lag with it is awlfull, really bad. the grenade launcher is cack, looks cack, plays cack. plasma guns is cool, really good. railgun is very poor, really pathetic, you cant even call it a railgun its more like a pulse of hot air gun. the bfg owns, its a really good wepon. quaility weapon. What i hate is that thats all the weapons, there aint really many. the rocket launcer is good though.

Summary.
colours = crap
maps = crap
weapons = most are crap + not many
graphics = nice curved surfaces.
models = weird, bent, homosexuel ??
sounds = not really that good, is it me or are some taken from q2 /?

overall =
its a very poor game, ID have been doing nothing for the game, the engine is very good, but the game itself is very poor. The only thing that can make this game good is the new maps comming out and the MODS.
i cant wait till action Q3.
thats all i have to say. im off to play UT ctf, which is far better than Q3's ctf.
( BTW i am not a non quake supporter. i have played doom, quake, and q2 all my life. q3 is poor, simple as that. )

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN




[This message has been edited by frankie (edited 19 December 1999).]

 

[kryt]

Right. Had it for two weeks. The metal box version, imported from Activision US. Tried it online thursday night. CD key didnt work
Got it changed for a normal one last night.
Frankly, didnt think much at all. The single player is a good idea, it does have more replayability than q2,half life, unreal etc. Its a good idea. The online side tho - well in my humble opinion, sucks goats. I will try and get into it when they bring out a version of Battleground for it (thats when q2 got good) and see how goes. It might just be my connection, but it still feels like a 300 ping in q2, on my isdn :/ Its too overhyped too, it could do with some real mod backing soon.
It has the competition from Unreal Tournament of course, but like most ppl i know have been told by me -
UT will always be the better game
Quake 3 will always be the most popular.
Again i believe its a case of personal preference. A lot of Quake 2 players call QuakeWorld players gh3y, cos they dont share the same preferences. Think about it. How old is qw now? the "brown game" ? 4,5,6 years? I duno, ive forgotten. Q2 will soon be like what QW is like now. Far less graphically pleasing. But still must hold something for the people that enjoy it to keep coming back. A fair few Quake 2 players have been waiting for quake 3 with the attitude, that it WILL be better than q2, and will move over regardless. Im going to be like those brave QW players, and stick with the game i love. Q2.
I cant stand Heavy Metal music. Doesnt mean i have to completey slate the people who listen to it.

Views Out
[C5]Kryogen

 

[Jace]

Played it off line and though that the bots would at least be good . . . sadly they are shite

They seem to moonwalk everywhere and I have had MANY occasions where the bots simply run right past you, almost pushing you out of the way. This was on the middle skill level and is pretty appalling. In fact, in games where there are multiple bots, I often feel totally ignored. Hardly the involving experience that I was hoping for

The levels all seem pretty non-descript and as a result totaly unmemorable.

On line play? Can't be bothered to tell the truth, very uninspiring.

As has been mentioned before, UT will always be the better game but Q3 will be more popular. Who says money can't buy you everything?

 

[old.telescopi]

I am tempted to rush out and buy it, even though I am deeply dissapointed by it, I guess it's quake, and I will have to play it online at some point, and thus need the CD key.

Half life was not much good, but I took MANY hours of pleasure from counter-strike, so that CD key was well worth it.

As for the bland colours in maps, hmm, your right, Q3 just feels orangey brown to me - even quake had more colour in it!! It looks to me like they wanted them all to fit in together - just like your told in graphical deisgn classes, don't use too many colours, and keep the design constant.

New maps will fix that - Just keep telling them new mappers to EXPERIMENT!

Weapons, hmm, BFG annoys the hell out of me, 'point and gib' weapon, more skillful that the doom 'press button and gib', but not by much

I do think most weapons are for LPB's, the lack of blast radius in ANY weapon, and limited bouncing, means a LPB with good FPS and half decent aim, os gonna destroy any modemer, sad, but true.

Ahh, single player, I really feel sorry for any non-net players who buy this game, thinking it has a decent single player mode. When I got the first playable beta of UT (about march build) the bots impressed me SO MUCH, I raved about how phucking great the game was. In truth the bots impressed me more than the game, how they managed to suspend your disbelief, in short, you forget you're playing bots. In Quake3, one of the most annoying things is the bots, it just feels like playing bots, reaper/eraser etc. Frogbot's are even better, at least they knew tactics for maps, Q3 bots are just the usual ameteur hob of dumb bots with stupidly good aim. We deservedly expected more from iD here, I hope magazine reviews rip it apart for this, perhaps if iD didn't rush the release for xmas, the bots would be far better, we'd see maps with more variation and colour, and iD would have given more time and help to hardware vendors to fix their drivers for the release.

Don't worry though, all these problems will be patched, I'm sure they're hard at work on it allready, just a shame for all those ppl who buy it for the much hyped single player game, then find it sucks, and shops mostly refuse to extend their money back guarantees to Q3, because of the CD key, and add to that a lack of a net connections means waiting months extra for patches to appear on magazines (then add cost of buying mag if you don't normally buy one).

There really should be something done about the quality of software releases - but alas those phucking licenses make you give up all rights to be able to use the software.

Do yourself a favour, don't pay 30 quid to beta test iD's latest marketing project, wait a couple of months, and buy something vaguely resembling a finished product, it'll save you a lot of grief. Play homeworld or someit instead and don't validate iD's shitty release policy, Quake isn't the only game in the world after all!

 

[old.frankie]

sounds right to me
its official
quake 3 is a very poor game
its sickening really
so everybody here it is
Quake has died a horrible death
This is the worst type of death you can get from a game.
the should of made it good or not bothered making it at all.
ID make me feel sick

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN

 

[Embattle]

It has a solid base to work from now and Q2 mods have given so many ways to play the game that we feel disapointed when we go back to basics. I like the new CTF maps and much like Q2 there will be patches that improve it.

 

[old.Delboy]

I've read the replies which are definite f00d for thought. And I have to agree. Q3 was definetly rushed out, pressure must have been applied to ID to get it out. It was not "finished".

One of the posters above mentioned using the middle skill level which surprised me. Everybody here are prob Quake veterans and should all be playing Hardcore mode!

For those new to Quake series (and new to bots in FPS games) the bots will prolly suffice. Despite them being "unbalanced".

I enjoyed the CTF and DM matches last night, played fine on a NON BTi connection with 19 other people no problem. Nice graphics and great fun. There was a different excitement to what you get playing Q2CTF. Maybe thats what is it, "fun" rather than an adrenaline rush which wont please people who have played Q1 and Q2.

Early days yet, mods and new maps will bring us real excitement. Plus the usual .....erm...ID update or two.

CTF must've been last minute too, I'm in disbelief at the 3 big flaws pointed out to them. What is going on? Not the pretty picture they paint at ID anyway.

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[old.DevPac2]

I'd picked up a lot of interesting comments from players in America saying that Q3 wasn't the game they'd hoped for so i was waiting for it with a certain amount of trepidation. Now i've got it i'm pretty impressed by it t.b.h. I'm not a great fan of DM, but going through the ladders is very entertaining (on hardcore b.t.w.) I'm mostly a CTF player and wasn't particularly impressed by only 4 maps, though the addition of the 3 extra Threewave ones is appreciated. I also like the look of the pretty comprehensive bot command list you can use.

One observation i will make is that it does require some pretty chunky hardware to run properly (or what i term as properly

) I'm currently upgrading to something a bit more beefy than my current setup.

I personally think that id have managed to set out what they meant to do, ie the ultimate DM game, i just think we're going to have to wait for the mod authors to take it on that little bit extra. It took me a little while to move over from QW to Q2 and i can see the same happening with Q2 to Q3, but i think i'll make the move in the end.

Dev

 

[old.graZe]

Q3 netcode, have to either love it or hate it...
I dont really see where people are going wrong; on screaming.net, I can get a 170-180 ping on a server with abt 5 players, whereas others are saying they cant get lower than 300 ping. For me, Q3 netcode is brilliant, although some servers can get over-crowded making the game slow down quite a bit, and the plasma gun lags HPBs out almost as much as the hyperblaster.

C4>graZe

 

[old.telescopi]

I don't really take much notice of the ping reading, and certainly don't compare it with the pings I'm used to from other games, apples and oranges anyone?

Q3 feels okay to play, as does UT, but the annoying part is lagged ppl who jump about, very silly indeed, I'm sure those lagged ppl think they are moving around very smoothly, and laughing at all us silly lpb's who cannot hit them!

ps. FPS is quite good on celeron 450 + SLI V2, some maps chug me, but that is because Q3 maps are soooo huge. I really am looking foward to buying new stuff tho, as Quake3 is ony of those games that really need it's best gfx on to be enjoyed (a shallow experience? You bet!

 

[old.gethsemane]

the shit bit:The maps in ctf are abismal, too small lacking in depth which i put down to the implementation of pads instead of the grapple.The player models well i think their a tad large even in 1024x768 or is that because the maps are too small mmmmm.The scoreboard shows a lack of development oh and the fact that for some reason i carnt get weaplast and next to work on my mouse wheel sucks hugetime.
The good bit: netcode seems far better than previous outings and for me its superior to unrealtourny. Weapons seem quite balanced on the whole although think the railgun isnt as good as quake2 and at last the bfg is fun rather than a pain.
heres hoping someone gets some decent maps out

 

[old.Merkaba]

oh my god are we playing the same game here? I love it! Maybe its cos its the 1st deathmatch experiance ive had in a while, but it's just cool. Some of the levels are shitter, but most look really gorgeous and the atmosphere is soo tense. And about the bots being disapointing and ignoring you, BULLSHIT. I'm playing it on Hardcore mode and I'm having a whale of a time. Maybe its cos I'm re-visitng old style deathmatch, that I'm not as good at it..but the bots are really good and often believeable as real players. Kinda, anyway

I'm glad I bought the game. Its better than the test or the demo by far. The graphics are great, the atmosphere is extremely tense, especially in tourney mode. The action is non-stop, you're constantly on your toes and the weapons, although unorginal, do the job fine. And besides who needs any messing around with a crappy green blob firing thing when you can just pick up a plasmagun and let rip? This is deathmatch in its finest and fastest.

 

[old.B3Z]

Hmm after playing both Q3A and UT I have come up with the following decisions on Q3
1. The maps are crap and where are the beautiful maps we saw screen shots of ??
2. The maps are small get any smaller and we have a 1 room square box with nice curves !
3. The bots are the worse I have seen, even Q2 bots are better. either I wipe the floor with them or they never miss (across a small map with the shotgun, Bang Bang Im dead with 100+ armour !!!! doesn't happen in real life)
4. The GFX and "feel" of the game is brilliant, it runs beautiful on my dual PIII500 + GeForce256, but so it should.
5. I have had the game crash when trying to connect to a network game, may be a driver problem (I think NOT) but the front end has a feel of been rushed and not quite right. I imagine this will be sorted with a "Patch" but how long do they need to get these parts right ?? Oh I forgot its xmas so anything will do.

As you probably see I feel the game has loads of potential but just doesn't deliver the goods that were promised in the pre release hipe in the magazines. I suspect they wanted it out b4 xmas to compete with UT and in doing so may have put a lot of peeps off playing it.
In a recent survey 9/10 times my mouse preferd UT.

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<A HREF="http://www.nwff.org.uk
" TARGET=_blank>www.nwff.org.uk
</A>

 

[old.jim]

Well im gonna add my two pennies worth, I think Q3 is absolutely brilliant and runs like a dream. I own nearly every first person shooter available on the pc and Q3 is up there at the top. Im not going to go into detail why i think its better than any of the others because at the end of the day its down to personal opinion. One thing that is annoying though is how much more of an advantage it is to have an isdn connection as compared to other games.

 

[old.=DI=Penry]

Just played it online for the first time ! Is it just me, or does there seem to be even more bias towards LPB's ?

Oh BTW, dont try and use the menu between maps ! - it goes all squiffy !

not HP

 

[old.sjp]

i wonder if i have been playing the same game as some of u folks ..........

my only "serious" compliants are

1) the system requirements

2) the bots uncanny accuracy with the
shotgun

3) the fact that i get kicked when a map
changes (

)

4) menu text sizes.

appart from these i think its great, nearly always get a good speedy connection, movement feals wright and i have already had a lot of fun playing it.

ill be honest and admit that i dont particuly like UT - sure theres alot of varriation in the levels, be alot are fairly skinky and feal pretty amatuer compared to the q3 ones (imho) (i am not saying the q3 are all brill btw)


O yea, you lot whinning about the bots being to easy ...

************* STOP TALKING CRAP *************

... what do u expect if u DONT play on Hardcore or Nightmare ?, the lower levels are so new players can enjoy the game (i think id are trying to catter to them as well as us ?).

I have tried a few games of ctf today and i was very impressed by them, and i found the bots brigter than ALOT of people on "open" servers

..


PS. can someone tell me whats "wrong" with
the colours ?

 

[old.frankie]

basically we have a really good base to work from.
q3 has a solid base, yes it does have a few glitchs but they will get sorted.
what im saying is this:
think of q3 as 2 parts. You have the base (the engine) and the actuel game (maps weapons, physics etc etc.)
The engine is sweet, with a few update itll be the best next to unreal. The game sucks big time, simple as that, weapons, and levels are poor. but the mods will come out and q3 will hopfully reign, and i hope q3 and UT can live in harmoney.


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DR_FRANKENSTIEN

 

[old.Fusion]

Try playing Quake3 on my machine. A 700mhz athlon with geforce, running in 800*600 at 80-100fps in 32-bit colour and high detail, combined with an isdn line and a solid 50 ping then....

Come back and say quake3 is crap!

You're all probably playing on crap machines with poxy connections and can't hit jack shit and then wonder why you don't like the game.

The truth is Quake3 is really good fun and the most fun out of the 3 games. The level design is good in places, crap in others but overall the game is really enjoyble.

You won't be able to appreciate it fully without a dog's bollocks set up which is the games major fault, so either upgrade or play something less demanding. I played it on a 350mhz machine and it wasn't that much fun, choppy frame rate made the game frustrating to play.

The advantage the other quakes have is that they run well on any crap machine these days.

If you want innovation and originality go elsewhere, if you want the best deathmatch experience money can buy, get quake3, and a fast machine preferable.

 

[old.TUG]

But m8, i spose u gotta wake up and realise not everyone is as loaded as u (even if u're athlon is an OC'd 500@700 cuz what tit would shell out for the real thing?)

My sys aint ded fast but its playable enuff...

C366@605, v3 2000 @ 170MHz, 128 meg, 13.5gig 7200rpm hd etc etc etc...

 

[old.frankie]

so u saying that 60 fps average in 1024x768 on my machine is shit ???
in 32 bit i get a solid 50 fps
i dont know what planet you are from, but thats enuf for a good game.
and it aint the ping niether
q3's network code just isnt as good as UT's
simple as that, although there are people who feel its the other way round, but thats their opinion.
q3 is good, but you have to look at the fact
the levels arnt THAT good, the weapons definatly aint that good, and thats the opinion of many people who actuelly play it.
im just stating the FACTS, you can argue all you like but thats up to you.

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN




[This message has been edited by frankie (edited 26 December 1999).]

 

[old.sjp]

hahahahahohohohohohahahahehehe ....

"Q3'S" hahahahahohoh "NETWORK" hahahahahohoh "CODE" hahahahahohoh "JUST" hahahahahohoh "ISENT" hahahahahahahehehehohohoh (help it hurts!) hahahahahahahehehehohohoh "AS" hahahahahohoh "GOOD" hahahahahohoh "AS" hahahahahohoh "UT's" hahahahahohoh


bloody good joke mate, what make of cracker was that in ?

sorry but what planet u on ?
UT is as laggy as shit and grinds to a halt when a few players join, q3 is very smooth with good pings (even on a modem) ....


this is one whine which iam getting pissed off with, i few mth ago a new diddly squat about online games so i acepted it when everyone said that, now ive tried a few (qw to ut , bit catching up to do

), i think that iam in the position to say that q3 is
**** EASILY THE BEST **** , in the network code department, and comparing it to ut isent fair (on ut) - ut makes my isdn connection feal like v90 !


anyway, sorry for that i no that there is alot of UT bais on this page (for some reason

), but i had to get it off my chest - its been pissing me off for a few wk now -.

 

[old.frankie]

well if q3 worked well on the net then i would be happy
i get ping of around 250 at the least on any server with any connection
this is v90
but with UT its good.
i will try q3 again now and report back with the problems i encounter.
just to refresh my memory of whats wrong with q3

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN

 

[old.frankie]

ok here goes#
connected to eidos DUN on a v90 modem
gives me pings of &lt;150 in UT, in q2 as well.
Found demon q3 server, dm 0-9 maps
11 players
pinged it in gspy, and gave a reading of 158
joined, couldent fit on the list so i played until i beat the person at the bottom of the list, which i did very quickly. I saw my ping was 300 +, and it felt it too.
The bullet sounds were constant and jolty. The players moved with all the smoothness of my old cd rom drive
like 10 fps player movenment. My proper fps was in the region of 70 + but i limited it to 45 to try and lower ping. The lack of weapons make me ill. The levels are dull and lifeless. its just crap to play on the net with anymore than 8 players.
in ut u can have loads of players before it dies.
I enjoy playing with the bots ( they dont charge much you know ) and have the paintball addon which ules and makes it soo much fun, but that doesent work on the net.
Basically its pretty dull.
its ok in 1v1 though, but if u play someone with a lower ping then you are bound to loose. In q2 you could use your ping as an advantage, and shoot round corners etc.
in q3 the client prediction stops this.

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN

 

[old.sjp]

i was only joking before

, but the funny thing is that u have described most of my experiances of playing ut (appart from the disconection icon

) ?

imho, the smothness is the one thing that sets Q3 appart from the other fps that i have played (i started playing online because i d/led the demo, and the other players dident jump arround like the do in q/q2 etc)

to be fair i upgraded to isdn a few month ago, so i cant comment on the modem play in this version (but it was ok in 1.05)

funny u mentioned gamespy, i never get a ping lower than 100 from inside gamespy - even tho it can be as low as 50 when iam playing it (any ideas ?)

maybe it depends on where u live (iam in manchester btw) ?


on the map front, dm1-5 are a bit sad, but i think they are their to cater for newbies, and dm19 is really shit, the rest i quite like tho.

(the warping starship in UT, is probably the best looking level i have ever seen tho, the first time i started that up it blew me away and made me dizzy with equal messure

, but there is alot of dross in ut too

)


on the weapon front the rockets feel just right, and the rail is great fun, only real complaint is that the shotgun/l-gun feel a bit laggy/weady


on the frames per sec front, ut wins hands down, the slow downs i get on q3, DO PISS ME OFF, but i guess that im due for an upgrade anyway .....

one thing that is probably important here, is that Q3 is the 1st online game i have really played (and there will be a lot more like me soon

), and the fact that i have started on it will bias me towards it - if i started on UT, id (pardon the pun) probably be saying the absolute opposite

PS out of interest, what do u think of the bouncy levels ?, because they are my favourate ones (ie dm17)

- just curious -

 

[old.sjp]

just a quicky, but you noticed how much more active the Q3 forum is compared to the UT one

i guess UT must be damm good !

 

[old.frankie]

yeah
i reckon caus its far more an enjoable game and everybody plays it rather than hit the msg boards about how crap UT is, like on all the msg boards all round the world

i bought both games, and like them both
but UT is more complex, and once you have had the standerd DM then its boring.
I have played doom, doom 2, quake quake 2, action quake 2, and now q3 and UT, and i find UT better caus its more involved and complex. Thats all

If you are new to itall then Q3 is the thing for you.

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DR_FRANKENSTIEN

 

[old.gethsemane]

why o why does the question of how good or bad q3a is always come down to a slaging match between itself and ut? for some folks.
As for some of the comments ive read, i dont claim to have a whoop ass machine but it aint bad p3 500 tnt2 256mb sdram etc. But obvious to me that Carmack engine is in itself amazing, but engines dont make great games in themselves. Personaly i'd rather a game look ordinary and it gameplay be excellent than the other way round. I stick by what ive already said, for me the ctf maps show design flaws in sooo many ways. the jump pads are a railguners dream (you just pick players off on them to easily. The maps lack depth IMO. heres hoping future point releases create the game that q3a could so obviously be.

 

[old.[QOD]MoFo]

Its certainly interesting to see where peoples opinions lie, and theres nothing wrong with critisizing either game. As long as its constructive

For what its worth here are my thoughts on the two games.

Quake 3: An amazing looking game, make no mistake. However there some things that dont quite fit. First up, this superb network code. Where is it? I used to play QW and get 120 pings on Barrysworld. Now I know Barry's dial up has been poor recently, but Im now lucky to get a ping of less than 200 and any stability (on BW or otherwise) Any firefights just lead to pings of 250+ and a frame rate dropping to 15fps.

Gameplay wise it has some good points and bad ones. On the up side its more like QW in terms of game physics, which I personally prefer. The weapons are more balanced, but unfortunatley they are really a bit lame and non progressive. It would have been nice to see some real diversity, and ID injecting some new life into a genre that was getting a bit tired. Instead we have a game that is basically the same as the 2 other incarnations in terms of actual in game play.

Mods, well Im sure we will see plenty, but its a shame that there werent some interesting variations, like come supplied with UT. Some devised and supported mods from ID would surely have gone down a treat.

System requirements.....oh dear. 400Mhz AMD K6-2, Voodoo III, 64 meg RAM, and I get 39fps on time demo 1.......on LOW settings. Hopefully the 3DNOW! (or 3DLater! as it should be named) will improve things when it comes out. But going from 50fps in a corridor to 15 fps in a big room is taking the piss. Combine that with 250+ ping, and you have a game thats hard to play.

After Ive removed dynamic lighting, light flares, decals, high quality sky, gibs, amount of curves, I might as well play GLQuake with everything turned on, it looks just as good!

And what WERE ID doing with the frontend of the game? The server browser is embarrasingly poor, and those little elipse buttons are laughable!

UT however gives me a much better game, better fps, better ping, better frontend, interesting weapons, interesting supported mods, and of course loads of stats for you to look at after you have finished playing.

Map wise I think they are both a bit poor in places.

The only thing wrong with it is that its not Quake

It certainly doesnt have the same 'control' and 'feel' as Quake3 does, but once you get used to the idea it isnt Quake, and accept its a well different game then its actually very good.

Quake3 is a class peice of programming, but I do feel its living somewhat on its name, and not on the game itself (as good as it is)

I cant help feeling that if Unreal had 'QUAKE' on its packaging, it would be far more successful. But I guess we have two vastly different games for everyone to enjoy.

MoFo