i've had a few close games with players between 1700-2000 elo recently. the game i just finished, i came back from an 8 frag deficit to 4 in a span of 4-5 minutes. it's not much, but i had nearly total control that entire time, which tells me that at some point i started focusing on the right things. i played a winning 5 minutes. :D

need to remember to get to gl platform after mh pickups. this position seems to play a big role in how i score. from this position i can watch and hear every path through the map, which gives me a bit of initiative in determining how and where confrontations occur. even if i decide to run, i can fall back to 6 exits and two decent hiding spots.

when i'm playing 1300-1500 players, i have a bad habit of hunting and playing ca, rather than playing for the items. somehow i deal a lot of damage, but lose most of the fights that i stumble upon. this damage is pointless if my opponent can restack while i'm scavenging like a prawn.

seeing just how strategically deep this one map can be, one rason i can see for demanding that new maps be instated in tournaments is that the people who want new maps are incapable of conceiving of or ignorant of this depth of play. i can also see that people want new situations, as i'm sure the microscopic differences in the common confrontational patterns can grow monotonous for some.

i'd like to see blood run, aerowalk, toxicity, lost world, and furious heights as a standard map pool, with a wildcard pool that introduces one extra random map (t4 [whatever that one's name is], hektik, dismemberment, etc.). it seems to me that these 5 maps possess enough of the major geometrical configurations to suitably demonstrate players' skills and to generate a majority of the power struggles possible in quakelive.

my main argument for standard maps has typically been that other sports and games don't force players to learn new environments every six to twelve months, and i stand by this argument. however, i also believe that subtle changes to a map, such as adding or removing openings, or relocating items, could offer subtle variety in the pace of games.

another argument for standard maps is that i prefer to give the people who care to play the opportunity to really master a few arenas, so that the quality of games is as high as possible. imagine an away soccer team forced to play on some home team's circular pitch with a loop de loop in the middle. the game would certainly be interesting, and probably entertaining, but the quality of play would suffer, and the time, dedication, and love the players put into the game wouldn't apply so much.

a standard map pool's greatest benefit is giving players a few arenas in which to realistically logistically focus their time. time is the most valuable possession any person has. forcing a player with limited time to pick a few from many maps to practice is strategic only in the most banal sense, like having a fencing competition but allowing any type of sword. you're doomed from the beginning if you focus your time on a rapier when a 6'-4" tall mongoloid warrior has put all his time into a buster sword.

it's just my opinion, but quake should not be a game of catching an opponent out on a map he doesn't know or wasn't prescient enough to have practiced religiously. the argument is simple: give players a few areas in which to focus their skill development, and watch the skill grow. give them too many areas, and they will be forced to choose a few areas anyway, and the quality of games on the maps they do not choose to focus on will suffer. sports players have an arena, and within that arena strategies and tendencies develop and oscillate over time. players come and go, and they are tested against the standards set by the players before them.

journal yay!!