King of Deathmatch: Quake 3 or UT?

[Lt. Drebin]

Quake has its roots firmly in the hardcore gaming community, people who would upgrade their PCs and internet connections just for the game, who would spend hours tweaking their CFGs to get the most competitive results and who would mod the crap out of the game. It was very much an underground thing.

This is not nor has it ever been unique to Quake.

Back then, there were no casual gamers. Quake has never been mainstream, and the people who play Quake are a very different kind of gamer from the people who play UT or CS or anything else. Most Q3 players had a background in QW or Q2, at least initially.

I have no idea where you've gotten the notion that Quake is not mainstream. That's simply ridiculous. Quake 1-4 were HUGE (especially 2-4). I remember not being able to find 1 or 2 anywhere when they were first released. They were not exclusive, at all.

Further, if you really believe that you need to be a special kind of gamer to play anything Quake then you're kidding yourself.

UT came out in an era when online gaming was already popular, and was aimed squarely at the mainstream. To aim a Quake game at the mainstream would do a disservice to what the game is all about.

Well, then I guess Id has shit all over the last 3 iterations of the game because Quake 2-4 are about as mainstream with as broad appeal as they come...same goes for UT.

Yes, but it's just not the same thing.

Wow, nice reasoning. That's not being elitist at all.

Varied, yes...but the gameplay is anything but refined. UT is a lacklustre game with great packaging, whereas Q3 is a great game with lacklustre packaging.
The key difference is that mods gave Q3 the great packaging.

Don't understand why you're still arguing this point. You've already stated that UT was the superior product from the start. Regardless of what eventually made Quake 3 great, UT was built for gamers from the start and didn't require the amount of modding that went into Quake3. UT was stacked from the beginning and still had a massive modder following.

 

[Gray Fox]

I remember playing q3 demo for months. Still I liked UT a bit more.

 

[repiV]

This is not nor has it ever been unique to Quake.

The only other FPS with a similar cult following is Tribes, and that's consigned firmly to history.

I have no idea where you've gotten the notion that Quake is not mainstream. That's simply ridiculous. Quake 1-4 were HUGE (especially 2-4). I remember not being able to find 1 or 2 anywhere when they were first released. They were not exclusive, at all.

Quake and Quake II might have been huge in terms of PC gaming at the time, but PC gaming itself was not remotely mainstream when those games were released.
Furthermore, well over 90% of the people who bought any of the Quake games would never have played them online - the first two because hardly anyone played online and it required a high degree of technical knowledge to do so, Quake 3 because online gaming still wasn't massively popular at the time, and despite the game being designed for multiplayer, most people never went online, and Quake 4 because its main focus is the singleplayer.
Quake 4 sold massively, but this was never reflected in the player numbers.

Further, if you really believe that you need to be a special kind of gamer to play anything Quake then you're kidding yourself.

I didn't say that, I said a certain type of gamer chooses to play Quake. You prove this point yourself by saying noone really cares about competitive play. Pretty much everyone who plays Quake cares about competitive play, in fact if it wasn't for competitive play, they wouldn't play at all.
And it is a fact that the average skill level of Quake players is far higher than in any other game.

Well, then I guess Id has shit all over the last 3 iterations of the game because Quake 2-4 are about as mainstream with as broad appeal as they come...same goes for UT.

Quake 2 and 4 were singleplayer games with multiplayer tacked on as an afterthought. Quake 2 didn't even have any DM maps on release, they had to be added in a patch. Quake 3 would have sold a fraction of the copies without its singleplayer mode.
In any case, twitch shooters don't have any mainstream appeal anymore. You may not have noticed, but UT3 was a complete flop. It hardly sold at all, there's hardly anyone playing it and there's not even any competitive community to speak of. It died the same day it was released.

Wow, nice reasoning. That's not being elitist at all.

I already told you why it's different, several times. If you can't read that's your problem. Show me a mod (not a total conversion) that's actually used in UT leagues.
Every Q3 league uses a modified version of the game.

Don't understand why you're still arguing this point. You've already stated that UT was the superior product from the start. Regardless of what eventually made Quake 3 great, UT was built for gamers from the start and didn't require the amount of modding that went into Quake3. UT was stacked from the beginning and still had a massive modder following.

Quake 3 was always great, it just lacked certain necessary functionality. The core gameplay has never been altered.
No matter how much modding goes into UT, its still a noobish, clumsy, mediocre game. Fun, yes. Entertaining, yes. But great? No, not really.
It's obvious enough from the fact that the hardcore gamers chose Q3 while the more casual players chose UT. All the top players of the time played Q3 (or QuakeWorld).

I think you're really missing the point of Quake by hammering on about how it needed this mod and that mod. We like the game to be released in its "unfinished" state, because then the community can decide on the more intricate details like game modes and features and such.
Q3 received an expansion pack to "finish" it, and it was poorly received because people would rather play what the community created. It was brilliant, but redundant.

 

[Seagull]

Q3 is the definition of deathmatch.

There is nothing remotely comparable. (This comes from a similar competitive viewpoint of Viper)

 

[Tagaziel]

Quake 3 was always great, it just lacked certain necessary functionality. The core gameplay has never been altered.
No matter how much modding goes into UT, its still a noobish, clumsy, mediocre game. Fun, yes. Entertaining, yes. But great? No, not really.
It's obvious enough from the fact that the hardcore gamers chose Q3 while the more casual players chose UT. All the top players of the time played Q3 (or QuakeWorld).

Your point is that hardcore gamers prefer Quake 3. And that's the entire point, just because a handful of hardcore competitive gamers prefer Quake 3 doesn't mean it's a better game.

And this is not NMA-type hardcore, since we judge games by their merits such as aesthetic, plot, atmosphere, art design and similiar, while you judge them solely on the fact whether hardcore competitive gamers consider them good competition games or not.

Last, tactical TDM my ass, Battlefield tramples it any day.

 

[repiV]

Your point is that hardcore gamers prefer Quake 3. And that's the entire point, just because a handful of hardcore competitive gamers prefer Quake 3 doesn't mean it's a better game.

Yes it does. Competitive gamers will choose the game with the best, most testing, most interesting gameplay. By definition, the competition choice is the best game. Q3 isn't the best game because hardcore gamers prefer it, hardcore gamers prefer it because it's the best game.
Really, it all coems down to the fact that you can slate Q3 all you like, but you'll be hard-pushed to actually find any flaws with the gameplay. UT is full of gameplay flaws.
In a similar vein, I love Dawn of War. I could just play it all night long. I also hate Starcraft. But I can easily see that Dawn of War is a deeply flawed game which sucks for competition use, and Starcraft is actually the better game. I just don't happen to like it.
Q3 and Starcraft are refined enough to make the game something more - a sport. UT does not even approach this level of quality.

And this is not NMA-type hardcore, since we judge games by their merits such as aesthetic, plot, atmosphere, art design and similiar, while you judge them solely on the fact whether hardcore competitive gamers consider them good competition games or not.

No, I judge them also based on their merits. Competitive games succeed or fail based on their merits, Q3 succeeded because it had many.

Last, tactical TDM my ass, Battlefield tramples it any day.

How would you know?

 

[Tagaziel]

Yes it does. Competitive gamers will choose the game with the best, most testing, most interesting gameplay. By definition, the competition choice is the best game. Q3 isn't the best game because hardcore gamers prefer it, hardcore gamers prefer it because it's the best game.
Really, it all coems down to the fact that you can slate Q3 all you like, but you'll be hard-pushed to actually find any flaws with the gameplay. UT is full of gameplay flaws.
In a similar vein, I love Dawn of War. I could just play it all night long. I also hate Starcraft. But I can easily see that Dawn of War is a deeply flawed game which sucks for competition use, and Starcraft is actually the better game. I just don't happen to like it.
Q3 and Starcraft are refined enough to make the game something more - a sport. UT does not even approach this level of quality.

You're right. It surpasses it. Q3 is bland and repetitive, UT never gets old.

No, I judge them also based on their merits. Competitive games succeed or fail based on their merits, Q3 succeeded because it had many.

Interesting, last time you said UT was better than Q3 out of the box.

How would you know?

Played both.

 

[repiV]

You're right. It surpasses it. Q3 is bland and repetitive, UT never gets old.

That's a completely subjective and meaningless opinion. You've made no point other than that you find Q3 bland and repetitive.

Interesting, last time you said UT was better than Q3 out of the box.

Yes, as a package. That doesn't mean the actual gameplay of UT was better.

Played both.

Competitively, or on public servers?

 

[99.vikram]

Quake 3's gameplay is superior, IMO. But if I had the money to buy one of the two games, it would be UT for the awesome replay value and out of the box customization options. Plus Epic released free map packs, id pretty much left Q3 to the community.

 

[Houndini]

UT easy

 

[Narcolepsy]

I think the problem here is repiV's extremely limited definition of "good." There's no grounds arguing with him on the competitive merit of the games, since I don't think anyone here has more experience than him. So why are we still doing this, exactly?

 

[Tagaziel]

That's a completely subjective and meaningless opinion. You've made no point other than that you find Q3 bland and repetitive.

The same applies to you.

Yes, as a package. That doesn't mean the actual gameplay of UT was better.

With a lot more interesting weapons and environments, I dare say UT's gameplay is better.

Competitively, or on public servers?

Public. And before you vault off your high horse, let me say that I don't need to play competetively to know what makes a better game.

 

[Bad^Hat]

UT, easily. I played the freakin demo for probably a year straight and never got bored of it. Didn't get into any of the 'sequels', though.

By definition, the competition choice is the best game.

No it isn't. You're just judging the game by an entirely different set of criteria than everyone else and applying your own view to their opinions. The only thing this shows is that the game was designed to be more competitive, which is fine - for competitive gamers. Because the rest of us haven't played the game quite as extensively as you doesn't mean we aren't able to form an opinion.

Personally I enjoyed Quake 3 quite a bit aswell, but I was actually put off a bit by how "competitive" it was, ie: straight-forward and functional in favour of varied and interesting. I agree it'd be the better choice for competing by far, but that doesn't neccesarily make it the better game.

The only important criteria to me is which game gave me more enjoyment, and - by "definition" - games are meant to be enjoyed.

 

[repiV]

The same applies to you.

Not in the slightest. I've given very specific, objective reasons for why Q3 is the superior game.

With a lot more interesting weapons and environments, I dare say UT's gameplay is better.

"Interesting" weapons and environments are totally irrelevant to the gameplay.

Public. And before you vault off your high horse, let me say that I don't need to play competetively to know what makes a better game.

Yes, yes you do.
That's like judging the game of basketball by playing a one on one in the back yard, or judging badminton by standing there and hitting a shuttle back and forth. It's only when you play the game as it's intended that its true nature becomes apparent. Team Fortress, for example, seems very complex, but when played in organised matches (the only way it was ever intended to be played), it's an extremely repetitive and simple game. There's only really one way to play each map. There's less strategy in a game of TF than there is in standard CTF.
How can you possibly comment on the quality of a team game based on a setting where there is no teamplay? That's insane. Team games are meant to be played in organised settings.
I can completely guarantee that TDM is an entirely different game on public servers, and the features that BF2 has to make it work on publics destroy it for clan play. Not to mention that it kind of loses most of its appeal when you take away the huge teams.

To go back to the badminton example, most people see it as a girls' game, but the reality is that it's the fastest, most demanding, most tactical racquet game of all. It's three times faster than tennis and it also has a great deal more depth.
Likewise, such misconceptions abound about online games when you haven't played them properly.

UT, easily. I played the freakin demo for probably a year straight and never got bored of it. Didn't get into any of the 'sequels', though.

No it isn't. You're just judging the game by an entirely different set of criteria than everyone else and applying your own view to their opinions. The only thing this shows is that the game was designed to be more competitive, which is fine - for competitive gamers. Because the rest of us haven't played the game quite as extensively as you doesn't mean we aren't able to form an opinion.

Personally I enjoyed Quake 3 quite a bit aswell, but I was actually put off a bit by how "competitive" it was, ie: straight-forward and functional in favour of varied and interesting. I agree it'd be the better choice for competing by far, but that doesn't neccesarily make it the better game.

The only important criteria to me is which game gave me more enjoyment, and - by "definition" - games are meant to be enjoyed.

Like I said, I enjoy Dawn of War immensely but I also recognise it's a fundamentally flawed game that will never have any real merit in serious play. It totally lacks the sheer depth, balance and polish of Starcraft or Warcraft 3 - games I dislike.
Team games are meant to be played in organised settings - that's true in real life sports and online gaming. Whether you happen to enjoy playing them in a casual way is irrelevant, the only valid way to judge them is by how they play in competition.

 

[Rapstah]

Team games are meant to be played in organised settings - that's true in real life sports and online gaming. Whether you happen to enjoy playing them in a casual way is irrelevant, the only valid way to judge them is by how they play in competition.

I'll be right back, I used to like basketball but as I'm not in a professional team I have no right to express myself in the matter.

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

Loves me some other.

 

[repiV]

I'll be right back, I used to like basketball but as I'm not in a professional team I have no right to express myself in the matter.

Who said anything about professional teams?
It's pretty bloody obvious that shooting some hoops with a buddy is not representative of real basketball. Basketball involves two teams facing off against one another in a match of some kind.

TDM also involves two teams facing off against one another in a match of some kind. A bunch of people playing on a public server that happens to be running TDM is not in the slightest bit comparable or relevant.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Yeah, but who decides what's relevant or decisive?

Oh, sorry, apparently you do.

 

[repiV]

Yeah, but who decides what's relevant or decisive?

Oh, sorry, apparently you do.

So, please explain how a team game can under any valid criteria be judged based on how it plays when a bunch of random people jump on a server and piss around?
That's like saying football isn't tactical because it's just a bunch of people running around a field kicking a ball. After all, if you took a dozen people who knew nothing about how to play the game and gave them a field and a ball, that's exactly what it would be.
We all know, however, that football has vastly more depth than that - but only if it's played properly.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Who said anything about team games? Please read OP. Or failing that, thread title.

 

[repiV]

Who said anything about team games? Please read OP. Or failing that, thread title.

There's no such thing as competitive free for all.

 

[Krynn72]

Subtrack one from Quake and give it to UT. I voted too fast and didnt catch myself.

 

[Bad^Hat]

There's no such thing as competitive free for all.

Who said anything about competitive? (besides you)

This is circular logic at it's bloody finest.

 

[repiV]

Who said anything about competitive? (besides you)

This is circular logic at it's bloody finest.

In case you hadn't noticed, everyone here is talking about team games - why you're using that against me is anyone's guess.
Why, most people's reasoning for why UT is better is the wealth of team content that Q3 doesn't have out of the box.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Yeah, but nobody else is talking about competitive gaming, a criteria which you introduced to back your choice and have been using to hammer in your point for the last 6 pages or so. Face it - there is no one definitive way to judge a game, deathmatch, team, whatever. Competitive gaming is merely a subset of gaming, and (as you've more or less said yourself already) is a completely different dynamic than casual gaming. How, then, does that make competitive gamers more able to proclaim either one as "better", as though that weren't subjective enough already? You allude that Quake 3 is better because it's the "competitive gamer's choice", but did they really choose it because it was an all-around better game? I think not. It's obviously been designed from the ground-up to be used in competition, whereas UT has not. The only thing your argument has proved is that Q3 is a more competitive game, which then requires the assumption that competitive games are, "by definition", better. A view which noone else shares.

Clear enough yet?

 

[theotherguy]

Half life 1

 

[ríomhaire]

I've never played Quake 3 except once on the playstation (crap) but I love the UT series, but not the DM. I always played UT for the assaults and capture the flags. I'm not a DM fan. Out of the DM games my favourite is HL2DM. I love the grav gun, crossbow, shotgun and revolver. I couldn't give the **** about competetive gameplay, I just find HL2DM damn fun.

 

[Tagaziel]

Yeah, but nobody else is talking about competitive gaming, a criteria which you introduced to back your choice and have been using to hammer in your point for the last 6 pages or so. Face it - there is no one definitive way to judge a game, deathmatch, team, whatever. Competitive gaming is merely a subset of gaming, and (as you've more or less said yourself already) is a completely different dynamic than casual gaming. How, then, does that make competitive gamers more able to proclaim either one as "better", as though that weren't subjective enough already? You allude that Quake 3 is better because it's the "competitive gamer's choice", but did they really choose it because it was an all-around better game? I think not. It's obviously been designed from the ground-up to be used in competition, whereas UT has not. The only thing your argument has proved is that Q3 is a more competitive game, which then requires the assumption that competitive games are, "by definition", better. A view which noone else shares.

Clear enough yet?

/repiv

 

[Seagull]

Gameplay flaws become more apparent in high levels of play, and that's probably what viper's basing his vote off of. Q3 has essentially 0 flaws in any sort of play (unless you count like being unfriendly to newbies etc), while UT has weapon balance issues that the majority of gamers won't really care about as the game is fun. For a competitive gamer (at least me), fun is just battling it out against an enemy with a huge variety of strategy and tactics until the one who makes the smartest/best decisions wins. AFAIK, UT has some flaws in high levels of play which hamper the variety of strategies/tactics, thus Q3 is the better competitive game (which most people won't ever care about, but it shows the gameplay flaws that the majority of players will never see)

it's just a different way of looking at a game and determining if it's good or not

 

[Ennui]

I personally prefer UT to Q3A, but I play both of them regularly still and my friends and I love a good fragfest regardless of which we play.

HL>* btw... when it comes to modding at least

 

[repiV]

Yeah, but nobody else is talking about competitive gaming, a criteria which you introduced to back your choice and have been using to hammer in your point for the last 6 pages or so. Face it - there is no one definitive way to judge a game, deathmatch, team, whatever. Competitive gaming is merely a subset of gaming, and (as you've more or less said yourself already) is a completely different dynamic than casual gaming. How, then, does that make competitive gamers more able to proclaim either one as "better", as though that weren't subjective enough already? You allude that Quake 3 is better because it's the "competitive gamer's choice", but did they really choose it because it was an all-around better game? I think not. It's obviously been designed from the ground-up to be used in competition, whereas UT has not. The only thing your argument has proved is that Q3 is a more competitive game, which then requires the assumption that competitive games are, "by definition", better. A view which noone else shares.

Clear enough yet?

Not really, because multiplayer shooters are competitive games by definition. The only difference between competitive play and non-competitive play is that the competitive players are good at the game - if the gaming experience falls apart when the skill level is raised, it's a sure sign the game has intrinsic faults. If UT is a good choice for casual play, it's only because casual gamers don't notice the flaws.
If you played UT3 with skilled gamers, you'd get sick of it after an hour because it all comes down to shock whoring. It's not a remotely enjoyable experience.
Q3 is balanced for high level play, but it scales down perfectly well. The game doesn't become broken when played by newbies, it works at all levels.
UTs credibility as a game drops off drastically the higher up the skill ladder you go.

 

[repiV]

Gameplay flaws become more apparent in high levels of play, and that's probably what viper's basing his vote off of. Q3 has essentially 0 flaws in any sort of play (unless you count like being unfriendly to newbies etc), while UT has weapon balance issues that the majority of gamers won't really care about as the game is fun. For a competitive gamer (at least me), fun is just battling it out against an enemy with a huge variety of strategy and tactics until the one who makes the smartest/best decisions wins. AFAIK, UT has some flaws in high levels of play which hamper the variety of strategies/tactics, thus Q3 is the better competitive game (which most people won't ever care about, but it shows the gameplay flaws that the majority of players will never see)

it's just a different way of looking at a game and determining if it's good or not

Zing. Got it in one.
Casual gamers might well find UT more fun (I certainly did, initially), but that doesn't change the fact that Q3 has 0 flaws at any level of play whereas UT is full of serious issues. Surely that's the only objective measure of the quality of the game.

 

[Wanted Bob]

The only difference between competitive play and non-competitive play is that the competitive players are good at the game.

I would disagree with that. Depends what your definition of good is, but I casually play some games and relative to the people I play with I get quite good.

"Serious issues" for UT you say? If that was the case, no-one would be playing it anymore.

 

[repiV]

I would disagree with that. Depends what your definition of good is, but I casually play some games and relative to the people I play with I get quite good. You dont have to be an amazing player to notice minute gameplay flaws.

Very true.

What I meant is that the difference between competitive play and non-competitive play is not some black and white thing, it's just about attitude and skill level. It's not like casual gamers play with the intention of losing. Once they reach a certain skill level, they will start noticing the flaws.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Ok. Does that mean there are serious issues with the game then? I bet there are some issues with UT, but are they that gamebreaking? And surely Q3 is not absolutely flawless in terms of gameplay, there is no slight advantage anywhere? (I havent played in a while, so I'm just asking)

 

[Sulkdodds]

RepiV: considering that both Q3 and UT are comercially released games sold mostly to casual players (as opposed to basketball which is an institution), I'm not entirely convinced by your bloody-minded focus on competetive play. If the difference between 'casual' and 'competetive' is, as you say, merely one of degree rather than type, why do you invoke the conventions and trappings of professional deathmatch ("whoever heard of a competetive free-for-all?") rather than the actual game-experience?

Despite all that, we must attend to the poll question:

Which is the best game for pure deathmatch?

Oh look. It's Quake 3.

I count 2003/4 as total successes, having retained UT's eclectic variety but refined it and smoothed it in a quakelike fashion.

 

[repiV]

Ok. Does that mean there are serious issues with the game then? I bet there are some issues with UT, but are they that gamebreaking? And surely Q3 is not absolutely flawless in terms of gameplay, there is no slight advantage anywhere? (I havent played in a while, so I'm just asking)

They're not gamebreaking to the point that it has no merit as a game - but they are pretty major. Some through disrupting game balance, others through not allowing the level of depth you would find in a game of Q3.
Off the top of my head...

1. The minigun is far, far too powerful - a rapid-fire, hitscan weapon should NOT be the most powerful weapon in the game. It's punishingly overpowered and doesn't take much skill to use, either. Furthermore, it's an effective weapon at all ranges and in nearly all situations. This massively disrupts the mechanic of having different guns for different reasons, and takes a huge amount of depth out of the game - both combat-wise and tactics-wise.
2. The Ripper is spammy as hell. No skill weapon for indiscriminate kills - a bad thing in all cases.
3. You can stack up SIX ROCKETS! Again, a no-skill game mechanic. Always bad.
4. The shock combo radius is far too large. It's too powerful, though not nearly as bad as in UT3. The shock primary rate of fire is too high - combined with the knockback effect, you can just annihilate an opponent with repeated shots in a very short space of time - and this is a hitscan weapon...
5. The Enforcers are too powerful - overpowered starting weapon leads to games where everyone just spawns and spams the crap out of everything. Completely destroys the tactical element of the game and the benefits of staying alive. What's the point in controlling the weapons and armours when some twat can just come along and gun you down with the Enforcer despite your superior strategy?
6. Redundant weapons - you can use the minigun instead of the pulse rifle, the flak cannon is somewhat interchangable with the rocket launcher, the shock will do instead of the sniper...
This reduces the depth of the game because each individual weapon is less important. Who cares if you have control of the flak or not, when the rocket launcher will do the same job?

There's plenty more flaws too. I think UT2004, for the most part, did a great job of fixing what was wrong with the series and apart from the playermodels being far too narrow and the hitboxes being very inconsistent, I could find little to fault with it.

Q3 does have some flaws, but they're relatively minor...and mostly as a result of the game being balanced for modem/ISDN play. The lightning gun is devastatingly powerful in the right hands, but it's less of an issue than the UT imbalances because it can still be effectively overcome.
The railgun is arguably too powerful aswell - it's a matter of personal preference really, but it's more powerful than it was intended to be due to lower pings. It's one of those things you either love or hate, the railgun is the one weapon that completely alters the dynamic of play. Maps without the rail are much faster and more in-your-face, the railgun tends to encourage long range standoffs and caution.
I think the problem is that it's too easy to use close up - a slightly longer reload time should fix that. I believe in CPMA the rail only does 70 damage, but I'm not 100% on that.
And the machinegun is slightly too powerful. That's really it though, other than that I think the gameplay is basically faultless. And the game just feels right in a way that I don't think any other game has ever done...not even the almost identical Quake 4. It's as if the Quake 3 engine is magic in some way...

 

[repiV]

RepiV: considering that both Q3 and UT are comercially released games sold mostly to casual players (as opposed to basketball which is an institution), I'm not entirely convinced by your bloody-minded focus on competetive play. If the difference between 'casual' and 'competetive' is, as you say, merely one of degree rather than type, why do you invoke the conventions and trappings of professional deathmatch ("whoever heard of a competetive free-for-all?") rather than the actual game-experience?

Games have to sell to casual players in order to turn a profit, but it's the competitive community that drives the development of online play - the patches, the mods, even the servers...once the game is released, it's the enthusiasts who shape the future of the game. Casual players are merely along for the ride.
It's hardcore gamers who keep games alive in the long-term - casual gamers play one game and then move onto the next in a few months. Quake 3 would never have stayed popular for six years without the competitive community - less than a year, I would wager. Hardcore gamers have more of an influence than you might think.
Competitive play doesn't have to mean professional play - division 5 CTF is still competitive play. Even if you're just competing for the fun of it, it's a wholly different experience from messing around on public servers. If you're even remotely into your gaming, why wouldn't you want to play for a clan? It's an experience so far and above public servers it's beyond belief.
And even though it's competitive play I'm interested in (with all the team spirit, adrenaline, massive sense of achievement and such that team sport can bring), ultimately I play because it's fun. UT is designed in such a way that it becomes less and less fun and more and more frustrating the better you get, whereas Q3 gets better and better the more you develop your skills.
I enjoyed UT for one year (and I did play in clans etc before I ever really took Q3 seriously), but as my skill level rose I lost interest in UT and found Q3 to be the far superior game.
With regards to degree rather than type, and invoking the trappings of competitive play - it's more about correlation than causation. Skilled players tend to play in clans, but the flaws would be just as evident to them if they didn't.

Despite all that, we must attend to the poll question:

Oh look. It's Quake 3.

I count 2003/4 as total successes, having retained UT's eclectic variety but refined it and smoothed it in a quakelike fashion.

Yeah... as a preference I lean towards the minimalist side of things, but I've got nothing bad to say about UT2004. It's an excellent game.
UT2003, though, had terrible weapon balance and the engine was crap (UT2004 polished it up significantly).
I thought Bombing Run was brilliant, but sadly noone else seemed to think so.

 

[Tagaziel]

tl;dr: repiv hates any deathmatch that offers a different experience than Quake I, where having the rocket launcher meant you win the match.

 

[repiV]

tl;dr: repiv hates any deathmatch that offers a different experience than Quake I, where having the rocket launcher meant you win the match.

Actually I hate Quake I for that very reason. Although the lightning gun is even more overpowered than the rocket launcher.