Edit: These are just some abstract thoughts - please feel free to ignore them - I won't be offended
Unfortunately, as has been the case with some other servers, these days when players tend to continually dominate the server it often doesn't end well in the long term for the players and by extension the server. I can understand it, on the one hand it's nice to battle through and win a fair and equally balanced fight, and on the other hand from the average player's point of view the fun of exploding every few seconds and not really being able to engage in the game as much as they would like wears off pretty quickly. The end result is usually an empty server. There have been numerous ocassions on Shmack when, lets call them PlayerX with a reputation as a formidable opponent, joins the server with 5 or 6 players blasting each other to bits, only to find that the server empties like someone has set off the fire alarm. That seems to be the reality these days, I'm not saying its right/wrong, everyone has their own reasons, but utter domination = empty server, so what can/should we do?
If the player pool was bigger you could have one server for ultra competitive players and one for more sporting play. Unfortunately the player numbers don't seem to support this as a viable option.
I'm not suggesting for one second that you have do this, but what a number of very skilled netquake players in europe tend to do to avoid this is very quickly asses the opponents skill level and play to that level. For them I think its fair to say it got a bit tiresome winning 50-7 against players who were unable to provide anything resembling a challenge only to find they leave after just a few frags. Players like Polarite, Peg, Sir Henry, Plop, Dude, and others found that this encouraged lesser skilled opponents to remain on the server and thus improve their skill level, which in turn meant that they became better opponents who could give the better "Grand Masters" more opportunity to play and provide more competition. A little sportsmanshp can go a long way
. Yes we're not running a Quake training school here, we join a server to play, but sadly the 90s have gone and there is no longer a queue of players a mile long waiting to play on the server at any cost no matter what (Ahhh notalgia
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Its only fair to mention that there are players that already do this on Shmack. I can attest to this from personal experience where players like Sarah, EZJack and Killa have regularly either backed off slightly, pinged up, or downgraded their weapons/runes in order to give me a chance at 4+ times their ping and probably 1/4 of their skill. Killa is still a frag monster even at 150 ping but its the thought that counts
. End result - I come back to the server and play against them when possible.
I could always be wrong but from re-reading Slot's response it seemed, to me at least, to be more of a helpful suggestion from a very experienced server op and player on how to avoid the empty server scenario rather than him wishing to pander to anyone. I'm not sure what the answer is here and as Slot said you can't please everyone all the time. That said, its sad to have to admit that the community has shrunk dramatically and the pool of players is a fraction of what it was, but as we have seen, sometimes it helps when more skilled players employ a little psychology, sportsmanship, and strategy to bring new blood in to the game and keep them playing ...and improving ...with or without a trophy
I have to agree with you regarding any verbal abuse. IMHO there is no reason or excuse for it on a Quake server.
\Just my 2 cents worth
Kind regards
Monty