How do you feel about defrag nowadays?

[TittenIgnition]

I love this game more than any other, even the ones I really grew up on (back when I used my family computer, I played X-Com and Baldur's Gate - that computer wasn't even good enough to run BG2, and I didn't know what Quake was. But then again, I was like 7 years old). The game is so good, the players are so good, the content is so good (provided you can get past GVN ). I've made a lot of potentially lifelong friends through Defrag, and have learned a lot that impacts me outside of Defrag, and even outside of the internet. I would love for it to be prosperous until the end of time, or until a game comes along that is actually better, but considering it's been ~10 years in precision-development, I doubt that will happen...

What really makes me sad is that, in time, it will end. There's no way that someone like me could ever compete with someone like Arcaon, in any sense, and people like me are the only way to sustain a game for a really extended period of time. Everyone who's been here since 1990, or even ~2005, are going to leave soon enough. Some people here have been playing Quake since before I stopped wetting the bed. Literally. The original wave is pretty much everyone that still stays here.

--

With all that said, even though I arrived pretty late (2009-2010), Defrag has been some of the most fun I've ever had on the internet, and is one of the most important things I've taken part in.

I will always love you, Defrag <3

[TittenIgnition]

After properly reading this thread, I just have so much to say... It can't all fit in one post!

Even a relatively minor flaw in a map can kill motivation, but I am picky

For a game that's 10+ years old, maps should not have flaws at all, no matter how minor they may be. That's one thing that's annoyed me for a while: people continually release content that just sucks. For some mappers, it may just be that they're making maps to learn Radiant. The problem there is that there's no good reason to spam Worldspawn with 30 maps that are literally a fucking room with 10 brushes and 4 entities. The same thing goes for movies: don't release an unfinished or imperfect product. Everything should be great and new and innovative, but most importantly, it should be PERFECT. At least perfect in the eyes of the creator. I have 113 .maps in my mapping dir, at least 100 of which are my own creations. None of them are on Worldspawn, though a lot of that may be because of how badly I messed up urmom_run3...

That said, I think defrag still has huge potential if it would just go open source. There is currently little to no development going on which saddens me a bit.

This is a huge deal, and I fully understand both sides of the argument. I almost have a hard time agreeing that it should be made open source, just because of the potential implications of that: more community fragmentation, and harder-to-catch cheaters. While they may not be problems to some, and really aren't even problematic to me either, I am still torn for some reason.

Not later than today, on this forum, someone was asking for help with cgaz hud and how to handle staircases. I tryes to help but the best i had to offer was a bit of text and the same answer i always give :"try to check Genesis the Beginning of" on youtube (

One thing that people need to realize about the Gazhud is that it has different modes. You can turn off the compass and turn off the little red accel-bars at the bottom, so that all you see is the important accel-zone part. That makes it so much easier to show off. Even with Genesis, I had a hard time learning how it worked, and it took me over a year to finally realize what exactly each part was. A lot of that was because I couldn't differentiate between the three components. Had I known that I could turn off the almost utterly useless compass, it would have taken me a fraction of the time to learn how to use it. I have since made a bind that toggles between all my favourite modes: full (compass, accel-zones, and accel-bars); compact (accel-zones only); and "stealth", which completely turns off the hud until I pass 320u, at which point it turns on only the accel-zones. It took me 2-3 years to realize this was a thing, and that was much too long.

-stuff about tutoring and basics and whatnot-

See, one of many things that keeps me from making some sort of guide is that I have nobody to teach. I feel like I know enough about this game, I could teach it well enough to someone that they may make proper use of the information. The only problem is that talking to my microphone is awkward as hell. If I had someone who didn't know anything - or didn't know much - to ask me questions, I would just record that and make a great tutorial out of it. I'm confident that I can teach very well one-on-one, but one-on-zero is too difficult for me.

Find me someone to teach, and I will teach everyone D

(On a side note, I'm very proud of my English in this post. I think my writing is really great.)

[Arcaon]

I think it's a pretty cool game

Will play more times in the future

good job

[Arcaon]

In all seriousness, I've always been in it for the community. 90% of the reason I'll join a server is because there's a lot of cool people on it. With an influx of unbearable people, and with nice, fun people gradually disappearing, I am becoming less likely to anticipate long nights of laughter, and more likely to have 5-20 day gaps in my records.

Nevertheless, it's still a great game with exceptional game mechanics, and I don't plan on quitting anytime soon.

That's about it. I still love y'all tho.

[tek*]

Coming from someone relatively new and unskilled, I love Defrag. I don't have time to play it as much as I'd like to, and I don't have the attention span to play for hours, but it's a very easy game to launch and enjoy for some time.

The thing I enjoy most about Defrag, aside from the community, is the fact that you can watch yourself get better. You can see visible progress. It's more than just improving time. It's comfort in mouse movements, be it strafe angles or optimal weapon angles. Comfort in movement is one of the biggest challenges. Sure, it is kind of disheartening to watch pro demos and movies and realize that I'll never be anywhere near that skill level, but none the less, it's still a game to enjoy and that really stresses the importance of physics in a game engine. I find myself not playing other games because of shitty physics or lack of fluid movement.

I started Quake 3 way back when it was released. At that time, DA Clan was a Beryllium clan and I joined them. Then, they all migrated over to Defrag. I tried it a bit back then, but was very discouraged because I had no idea how to use the HUD to aid my movements. Instead, I went back to my comfort zone of CTF where I spent the majority of my Quake life learning to railjump CTF 1 with IU physics. After some time, CTF died, and I had no choice but to adapt to Defrag, play .16 TDM (which is littered with bullshit) or quit Quake. I chose to give Defrag a fighting chance. After some guidance on how to use the HUD, I've noticed some decent progress in my own playing, and that's what keeps me coming back.

That being said, some more tutorials on general movements would be nice. Some more explanations of the advance movements for the average players would definitely be beneficial. I'm not one to understand the coding of the game, so a little more procedural help would be great. Or a list of maps that really exploit the move of interest. For example, maps that require a PGB to start have forced me to learn how to do, at least, a satisfactory single PGB and I am now practicing sequential PGBs.

Either way, I don't think that I will ever QUIT Defrag. I may zone in and out of interest, but at the end of the day, some choose Sudoku, some choose Word Puzzles, some choose Call of Duty, and some view Defrag as a puzzle to solve.

It's fascinating to meet and get to know the different people from around the world that unite through this game. Thanks for all of your help and support in this journey.

[bla]

Coming from someone relatively new and unskilled, I love Defrag. I don't have time to play it as much as I'd like to, and I don't have the attention span to play for hours, but it's a very easy game to launch and enjoy for some time.

The thing I enjoy most about Defrag, aside from the community, is the fact that you can watch yourself get better. You can see visible progress. It's more than just improving time. It's comfort in mouse movements, be it strafe angles or optimal weapon angles. Comfort in movement is one of the biggest challenges. Sure, it is kind of disheartening to watch pro demos and movies and realize that I'll never be anywhere near that skill level, but none the less, it's still a game to enjoy and that really stresses the importance of physics in a game engine. I find myself not playing other games because of shitty physics or lack of fluid movement.

I started Quake 3 way back when it was released. At that time, DA Clan was a Beryllium clan and I joined them. Then, they all migrated over to Defrag. I tried it a bit back then, but was very discouraged because I had no idea how to use the HUD to aid my movements. Instead, I went back to my comfort zone of CTF where I spent the majority of my Quake life learning to railjump CTF 1 with IU physics. After some time, CTF died, and I had no choice but to adapt to Defrag, play .16 TDM (which is littered with bullshit) or quit Quake. I chose to give Defrag a fighting chance. After some guidance on how to use the HUD, I've noticed some decent progress in my own playing, and that's what keeps me coming back.

That being said, some more tutorials on general movements would be nice. Some more explanations of the advance movements for the average players would definitely be beneficial. I'm not one to understand the coding of the game, so a little more procedural help would be great. Or a list of maps that really exploit the move of interest. For example, maps that require a PGB to start have forced me to learn how to do, at least, a satisfactory single PGB and I am now practicing sequential PGBs.

Either way, I don't think that I will ever QUIT Defrag. I may zone in and out of interest, but at the end of the day, some choose Sudoku, some choose Word Puzzles, some choose Call of Duty, and some view Defrag as a puzzle to solve.

It's fascinating to meet and get to know the different people from around the world that unite through this game. Thanks for all of your help and support in this journey.

[RetroHelix]

I gave up on this game years ago but always came back to it.
As it was said before, as an oldschooler you most likely have no time for Defrag anymore. Or at least not enough to make decent runs. But trying to become first place or the best player never was what made Defrag so great for me. To see that you are improving when trying a trick or doing a run, to push your limits and being able to come back any time to take on a new challenge (I mean just playing a new map and trying to finish it and improve your time) just feels great. Its fun to play Defrag even alone. When I then enter this forum after some time and see some old names from back then... Just a good feeling

I don't remember our old discussions over at the opc board but some names ring a bell. And if it only from writing them down while posting results of a comp on bdhq.

[Finalspace]

The feeling when you finally finished successfully a attempt to reach some place with some defined technique after thousands of attempts is incredible good. The same goes for finishing a hard or long defrag map without any mistake. I do not care about how fast i have finished a map.

But talking about perfection in maps or movies: Indeed there are tons of maps and movies out there which are not that high in quality, have bad editing or are so hard that only bots can beat it. But mostly these are made by learning how to do things, like creating a movie, or learning to map... Same goes for me, the PcP-Movie i made was a completely learning experience, therefore the editing is mostly bad. Even "finalize" my last movie i made has a lot of errors (unsync, bad cuts)... but i enjoyed it and are proud of it. So these was not a waste at all!

[wubwub]

That's one thing that's annoyed me for a while: people continually release content that just sucks. For some mappers, it may just be that they're making maps to learn Radiant. The problem there is that there's no good reason to spam Worldspawn with 30 maps that are literally a fucking room with 10 brushes and 4 entities.

loma