Multiplayer network prediction is tricky business. The better your connection, the worse prediction systems become. NetQuake style of the server being the single trusted source makes for more precise gameplay when everyone has good connections, because you can trust that if you shoot a rocket at a player, they actually are where you see them (even if they/you are stuttering). That isn't always the case with QW and it's client side prediction. 

It is if you are on a good connection. Are there any modern fps that don't use prediction? 

I don't know about FPS, but in the Path of Exile expansion recently, they added 'lockstep' which is basically NetQuake style 'you have to wait for the server to confirm your actions' because their client side prediction was causing so much desync. It makes that type of game much better to play when you have low latency (you have the option to enable the older prediction though if you have higher latency). 

sounds like they just wrote bad prediction code

says area man who knows what he's talking about 

I tried PoE and early on in the game you walk down a stormy rainy beach at night, cross a level transition to the next bit of the beach, and it's a clear orange sunrise. walk eight feet back across the transition again, pouring rain, middle of the night.

I said "these guys understand attention to detail" 

Oh, they totally know their original prediction code was poor, they mentioned that implementing their lockstep stuff also made them fix a ton of things in their network code that made desyncing far more of a problem than it should've been. It still felt better even with a lot of the bugs fixed. 

But I like good old netquake better.

A netquake server hosted by people here would be a big motivation to map. 

I used to play QW back in the day because at the time, unless you were on a T1 line or something, the play experience was smoother and better.

That said, I never really liked it. I played a lot of netquake with bot mods (e.g. Omicron) and over LAN connections, and I always found the experience far more precise and enjoyable. More pure? I don't know - I always felt that QW, even in the modern era here, has some "mushiness" to it that I don't like.

My main intent to get this server up is to play with a bunch of my friends in the local area. Given that we all use the same ISP provider/infrastructure, we all ping ~30 to each other which is quite good!

That said, I'd like to get the server opened up to more people, and getting this community playing would be grand!

Current progress/needs in getting the server going:

(1) Server mod
I'm undecided on this. I REALLY like the old "Reinc" mod that Gen and Bal made way back when. I've been testing various configurations and have actually found a bunch of broken features (some of which crash the server). So I'm learning a bit of QC to try and fix this mod. Ideally this one would be great to use. Alternatively there is CRMOD and/or RuneQuake (but I'd need to disable all the crazy extra stuff I think).

(2) Server DNS name. The server works though a direct IP connection, (e.g. "connect x.x.x.x:port), but not with my DNS name (13acres.pwnz.org). I think everything is working right on my end, so maybe it's on the DNS end? I don't know much about DNS stuff ... so .... not sure how to get this working.

I need a server running guru to help me out here :) And maybe a QuakeC guru :) 

I never thought that custom DM maps got the spotlight they deserved. Even back in the heyday, it seemed the amount of DM servers running custom maps was always really small, and most likely running the same limited pool of DM maps (UltraV, Ztndm3, etc.). So many fantastic DM maps were made that most players, even the holdouts still around today, just aren't aware of.

So that's my nostalgic motivation for doing this at work as well! 

yeah, nobody ever wanted to try a custom map, it was terrible. it was like that in every community - the "only" CS map was de_dust, the "only" TF map was 2fort, and the "only" QW maps were DM4 and DM6. 

https://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/7yz4ma1/03956_venicebeachlifeguardtower_1280x720.jpg 

Players didn't like deviating from a small number of maps, it became about being excellent at a few maps, rather than good at many maps.

Having said this, my two favourite non-id maps were aerowalk and UltraV, two of the staple maps for pretty much every server rotation. 

How was the quake3 community at the time? Still the same situation?

It's funny - but I've always felt that trying out lots of different maps was at odds with peoples' drive to pursue (or exert) their mastery over others. If you only play DM4, you can get really good at playing DM4 and stomp people that aren't as good as playing DM4. But if you try a different map, there was a chance that someone else might be better at it than you. Chance = uncertainty. Uncertainty = bad for many people. So there you have it. Just a theory! 

... the norm could have been different. There could have been an interest in playing large rotations of map driven by an interest to have more varied game experiences, recognizing that some maps you might do well on, and others not as well on, but that the total experience would still justify playing on more maps. 

Quake3 went sort of insane because the id maps were mostly terrible, so instead everyone plays 'ZTN', which is what they call Ztntourney1, which is ztndm3 converted to Q3. And q3dm17 camping grounds. 

There are different kinds/tiers of players and they like different maps for different reasons. Playing 'running around until you see someone and aim your crosshair' is a whole different game from playing about map control.

cs has had many new maps over the years. Just think of dust2's popularity nowadays. Only noobs play q3dm17. 

Q3 and now even more so Quake Live have been pretty good about occasionally adopting new maps into the competitive pool -- and yeah, mostly this was kicked off by the initial set of Q3 DM maps being bad.

It's never been broadly popular though to just churn through a giant and ever-changing pool of new maps. A given small set of maps "sticks" for a while, then folks eventually get bored or dissatisfied with this or that map and shake things up a bit. ztn is still a frequent choice regardless. :-)

For example the 2014 QuakeCon duel pool was furious heights, lost world, sinister, aerowalk, campgrounds, cure, and toxicity. I.e. one port from Q1, 2 revisions of original Q3 maps, and 4 new (community and/or post-Q3 id) maps. The 2015 pool was furious heights, lost world, sinister, blood run (ztn), and elder. 

... with the custom server was to have 13 maps (server name is 13 Acres of Hell after all) in a rotation for about a month. I have some fav's (old and new) to start with, but eventually it would be cool to have the months themed around something. Maybe it's maps from a particular time period, or a certain style of maps, or a certain texture set, and so on.

And the point is to keep it all casual. I don't want anything too fancy. I I can play a few times a month in Free For All and work through the rotation a few times, that would be a good time! 

ztndm3 is the map I played the most back in the day. DM4 and DM6 were really high on the play count. One of the best things about the clan league I used to play was that every clan had a "home" map, and my clan always chose a map from episode 4... we weren't nice people ;) 

HPB or LPB, the Elder World hates you all... 

I got always beaten on the internet.
I'm still a keyboard player in his own Sp world. 

I don't see how one could even play SP with a keyboard anymore ... shit is way too hectic. :) 

a few beers, hitting the bong, setting maxfps to 10.
jk 

Did you take down the blog? 

Not intentionally ... looks broken tho. :)