First off, let me say that Nexiuz is *infinitely* superior to its main competition in the multiplayer freeware FPS field, Alien Arena. There's just no comparison in terms of speed, excitement, weapons, and gameplay. It's also great to actually have someone to play against! The single player campaign mode was especially good, as was the bot AI. On a more trivial level, I loved how compact the map files are and how fast they downloaded, as well as the handy 35 map pack. Nexuiz blows away AA in this area too, as the latter has no compilation of maps and the maps/textures/models take forever to download with the in-game interface.

The only suggestion I have is better regulation of Beginner servers. There are expert players lurking those servers who toasted me regularly. Very frustrating.

Still, awesome job to the dev team, and all of it for free??? I have to pinch myself now and then to make sure this is real.

Yeah, it's all for free, but not just "free as b33r". Free as FREEDOM (that's what GPL is all about).
About the comparisson to AA: I don't realy think it's competiting AA. As I've never played it, I can't tell what's better or worse than in AA, but the two games are realy not the same: AA has a pretty well designed "martians vs humans vs robots" storyline, but Nexuiz is nothing more than "new age pure DM".
But it's nice to hear, you like this game About the n00b server, there is one, I just can't tell you it's name now. And prectice more, if you have a little experience in other FPS-es (quake series or unreal) you'll find yourself in a pretty familiar place in a short time

I also dislike those comparisons very much.. especially as after a hard time the developers of both games get along quite ok and i think neither of us thinks too much about competing. We just like to create fun games and both have their fans. I like both very much and i think we had enough posts comparing them and creating bad blood. If you do not like AA thats fine but it would be nice to declare that in a more nice and friendly way. But i'm sure Irritant will read your post and try to improve that download thing..
I just think you did not take enough time to discover AA, it also has some nice map packs, a friendly community and is fun to play and btw it is as free as nexuiz as far as i know

Hmm i have no clue about that newbie server, i think it would be the wrong one for me.. what is its name?

I've looked up that server in XQF:

80.82.220.60:26004
DCC's Maiden's Delight BEGINNERS ONLY DM [Duesseldorf, Germany]

To connect, just type "connect 80.82.220.60:26004" in the console from the menu (shift+escape to pull down the console).

GunHammer wrote:On a more trivial level, I loved how compact the map files are and how fast they downloaded,

Actually, we are cheating in that respect.

Currently, Nexuiz has no in-game map download protocol (the next version will have that too), so maps get downloaded from external HTTP or FTP servers the server admin has to set up. However, as those servers usually have much more bandwidth available than the game server and don't need to get limited like game server traffic needs to, downloads go quite fast - and it's easy to get some web space, even free one, to store one's maps.

Maps, OTOH, are not compact. Map packages usually reach 5 to 10 MB, that is anything but small. It just appears smaller due to the faster "off-loaded" download from "external sources" by HTTP or FTP.

Well, I seem to have managed to step on everyone's toes quite nicely with a single post. I guess I'll shut up now. But yes, it was the Maiden's Delight server.

I still have AA on my computer, and I would like to give it another try if I could find a map pack. A weekend of empty servers and fifteen-minute downloads just sort of turned me off from the outset. Honestly, I didn't really mean to sound quite as critical about AA as I see my post was; I was merely trying to commend Nexuiz for appealing to me more, or at least making a newbie's experience smoother.

All I was able to find that even resembled a map pack was this site, http://www.alienarena.info But it didn't have the maps that people were actually playing on.

And lastly, I had no idea that there was a history of debate between the two games, so obviously feel free to lock this thread and chalk it up to ignorance.

Well you did not step on OUR toes but flaming is VERY low in this forum and i think at least those that are game developers too know how it feels to read a comment that bashes ones game. Both games are created in the free time of their respective developers and both try hard to make it as polished and great as possible. I guess you would also not like to read something bad about stuff you created for fun.

Not sure about your problem on the beginners server.. Maybe he just wanted to have some fun or was drunk or what ever. But its not sportsman like to bash beginners, guess the admins will take some extra looks at the server if they read your post.

If you need more help or want more direct response you can also get on irc.. Channel #nexuiz on quakenet. I think the admins of that server are there too.

One mappack for AA seems to be here: http://www.forsakenweb.com/alienarena/f ... y_pack.zip
Or take a look here: http://www.alienarena.info/
Or the official AA forum.. http://corent.proboards42.com/

one of the things I find with the nexuiz community is that 1 the "flame" rate (bad pun) is very low, and 2, even if you do flame someone, they don't take it so hard. If I'm mad (I remember I was one night, sorry for anyone who was on that server) and I call everyone on the server a newb, they don't take me too seriously untill I disconnect. Other games are known for their trashtalkers, we are very lucky.

GunHammer wrote:Well, I seem to have managed to step on everyone's toes quite nicely with a single post. I guess I'll shut up now. .

Dont worry dude, You didnt step on anyones toes, I personally enjoyed your enthusiasm about the game. Dont let those old dusty germans scare yeo.. they tend to forget thay are talking to people and not just some alive website somewhere

But seriusly.. You didnt step on any toes. Cya ingame

Dont let those old dusty germans scare yeo..

WTF?

C.Brutail wrote:

Dont let those old dusty germans scare yeo..

WTF?

Norwegians live with the seven midgets behind the seven mountains, believe in trolls and pixies and consider everything that's living beyond the baltic sea "german", never mind the tChr

esteel wrote:[...] guess the admins will take some extra looks at the server if they read your post.

Having played a little on a Warsow newbie server I know how annoying it is to go to a beginner server to get into a game only to be squashed by some bog heads all the time. On DCC's server it's even more annoying cos the server keeps telling that it's a newbie server so people abusing it know what they do. This is one thing I really don't get.

I don't have the time / interest to constantly watch the DCC's newbie server though. So if there are experienced players with much spare time, you are very welcome to have an eye on Maiden's Delight. Kick voting is enabled on all DCC's servers. That is you can open the console and enter "vcall kick # 1" for example to call a vote to kick the player with the id 1. You get the player's ids with "status". Then you only have to tell the others to accept the vote by pressing f1.

I have Alien Arena installed and from time to time I enjoy a nice botmatch in colorful and flashy arenas. It's really a different beast, and I enjoy playing it.

In the past there was tension between our two communities - in part because one of their community members (which I have mistaken for an AA team member) used to do "it sucks, play AA instead" reviews at download sites and in part because I moronically overreacted and accused the AA community to be spoil sports. Ouch, *that* was a damn stupid thing.

I think it's a lesson everybody has to learn: You can't possibly assume you'll please everyone and you have to accept criticism even if you feel it's over the top without getting mad at someone. And: If you feel like rating someone else's work it may help to give reasons beyond "it's just so much better". Some games fit like a glove, some others don't. That doesn't necessarily mean the non-fitting game is "inferior".

But back to that 'good players on beginner server' Problem.. people will keep an eye on it and i guess for now we'll have to teach players how to vote kick. when we get a ingame menu for voting later this will be easier.

I don't really get offended when somebody prefers Nexuiz over Alien Arena, I mean people have their favorite games, it's only natural to have preferences.

The only thing that bothers me is when people say things that are either untrue or uninformed, such as "empty servers", or "no map packs". There are *always* people on AA servers, it's not quite the level of popularity of Nexuiz, but the average over a 24 hour period is usually right around 15 or so, and much higher during peak hours. Regarding the maps, perhaps you didn't have the latest patch(pre 6.04 release available on the forum) in which there are a a series of brand new maps that will be included in the next full release of the game in a few weeks.

Interestingly enough, the AA community member that SavageX speaks of, realized his mistakes, and re-reviewed Nexuiz on his freeware site very favorably. I really have enjoyed the fact that the communities get along so much better now. I personally play Nex quite often, and Warsow, and find that all three offer different things in regards to gameplay that make it interesting.

Irritant wrote:I
Interestingly enough, the AA community member that SavageX speaks of, realized his mistakes, and re-reviewed Nexuiz on his freeware site very favorably. I really have enjoyed the fact that the communities get along so much better now. I personally play Nex quite often, and Warsow, and find that all three offer different things in regards to gameplay that make it interesting.

Amen.

I just brought up that old topic to illustrate why we dislike comparisons with other free(ware) games, even in case they happen to favor Nexuiz. On this machine there is Alien Arena, Digital Paintball 2, Warsow and of course Nexuiz installed and every single game has its merits.

C.Brutail wrote:

Dont let those old dusty germans scare yeo..

WTF?

Of the two people that had spooken, one is old and one is not, one is german and one is not, to whom do you think I was reffering?