apease my curiosity

I personally come from +hook and I can tell you that the alt-hook dynamically changes all aspects of the game. It significantly changes the game from air fighting to ground fighting, and I can tell you keeping fights on the ground and concentrating your fire from the ground up on your opponent is superior. Once you are a strong ground fighter you are much more better off then if you are used to hook and you feel like a baby on the ground (since you can not hook to escape). The ground fighter knows how to move fast and effectively in all mods without relying on the hook, which if it is not present (and mostly it is not) you are screwed.

I can say the same what you have said about using +hook, because you are vulnerable when you essentially look completely away from your opponent to where you want to hook to, hook, then change your view and aim back again on your opponent to shoot at him again. In fact doing this over and over again it is even much more dangerous then just simply keeping the fight on the ground and your sights on your opponent and just changing weapons (you can change weapons really fast with practice with alt-hook). When you keep your opponent in your sights you can see all his movements and what he is doing much better then taking your eyes completely OFF of him to hook somewhere else. Makes sense, right?

I was originally a +hook player but after I reached the pinnacle of skill using it and being rivaled by the few (but very skilled) alt-hook players, I ultimately switched to it and began learning to play all over again. It was rewarding and I appreciated a lot more, and it was much more fun to play this way (even though it may seem harder until you get used to it - and let me tell you it does take significant TIME to get used to it, trust me ). I would say 1 year and a half of every day play around 1hr30m, but it will make you much more effective in firefights.

If you would start using it, it does look hard and it does require more work (especially getting used to it) but over time you can see yourself progressing and you feel the steady improvement in your skill, and in the end you do get more satisfaction and it is more rewarding.

Also this type of configuration is excellent training for other First Person Shooter games as well, because you will not find people flying around with hooks in Call of Duty and other games of this type, as fighting is done on the ground. Therefore, you are ultimately training yourself in fighting on the ground (where all FPS take place), rather then cheat yourself and take the easy way out and end up not learning anything and be deafeated in similar FPS as the fighting is done on the ground and not by hooking around. Therefore, the key to victory is to know how to efficiently fight on the ground.

You will find yourself improving using this ground based configuration and even though it is more difficult to learn and getting used to, it does yield superior results, both in this game and all other FPS games across the board which are all being fought on the ground. And ultimately in the end you are having fun obliterating other players with your uber-ground based alt-hook configuration.

I hope this answers all of your questions.

[Shadowswift]

well, i know why they WOULD use the axe-hook for any other server/mod such as 3wave CTF, but i dont know why they WOULDNT use the +hook for Shmack. thats why i said i was raised on the axe-hook. back in the day, thats all there was, so for the longest time, thats all i knew. then when +hook came around, i evolved my set-up to use that rather than a weapon-switch bind to the axe-hook.

your reason is valid, Sole. i just wonder if everyone else has the same reason. im set up with standard WASD movement and space for jumping. i use mouse1 for +attack, mouse2 for +hook and mouse3 (wheel button) is rune-use, so i have everything i need to aim and fire right at my trigger finger.

+hook was not meant to compromise aim. you can aim just as carefully with +hook as you can with axe-hook. if you cant, then theres something wrong with you.

[Solecord]

I myself use axe hook and don't have any reason not to. I play just fine on Shmack and +hook only hinders me. For me, it's mostly my setup. As I've said in other posts, I use a different config than most:

standard WASD movement
mouse1 = fire
mouse 2 = jump
f = rune-use

I have g bound to +hook and occasionally use it but I simply find it much easier to move and maneuver with my config by using axe hook and hitting mouse1 to fire and pull myself in with hook. It's much harder for me to be moving with wasd, using a rune with f, AND tossing out the hook with g.

Oh and the reason omi mentioned 3wav was that in your original post you said you noticed that most of the skilled players use the axehook... most of those types of players come from a 3wav ctf background so that is the type of hook they've always used. Just my guess/opinion on that...

[Shadowswift]

Really, +hook should be standard, rune-use should just be "use" and made mod-neutral, rune-tell should be info (or something) and made mod-neutral and rune-delete should just be remove or delete and made mod-neutral.

Although no one in this thread is aware of this, me, Yellow No. 5, Bam, Rook, Solecord and probably some others had big discussions a couple of years back regarding this stuff.

The "old" experience with mods, particularly CTF, is connecting and not knowing what the f*** does what and no one knowing what the impulses are and so forth.

Some of the ideas that were generally adopted:

1. "commands" should be a feature of every mod. You can also see this RQuake, RocketGuy and I did a lot of talking about this. I don't know who the old school pioneer of this was, maybe JP Grossman, and expanded upon by Slot Zero. But this lets someone play a mod without having to find the f***ing website or read docs.

2. "impulses" are gay and stupid. User friendly aliases should be made standard. "weapon-drop", "rune-use", "rune-delete", etc.

3. +hook should be +hook on every mod. It is stupid for any mod to have it's own way of doing something that is contrary to all other existing popular mods. Granted, 3Wave pre-dates existing popular mods by years, but +hook has evolved to be a standard.

Wouldn't it be stupid if +attack didn't attack on some server and you had to do something else? What if no one else is on the server and to tell you how to do it? Wouldn't you be pissed? Would you want to have some "different" config for ONE mod that was different than other mods.

No one wants any of that. No one worth listening to, at least.

Anyone remember Trinicom and having to make your own gay +hook alias using impulse 97 and 98? Retarded.

true. depending on how you aliased and bound these impulses, it got really annoying and really inconvinient. but then again, as many people as there were that hated Trinicom, there were probably just as many, if not more people that loved it. but i doubt it was for the hook...blech.

thats why Quake 2 was probably so revolutionary when compaired to its predecessor. it did away with almost all "impulse" commands and made them into user-friendly aliases, like "weaponnext" and "weaponprev" instead of impulse 10 and impulse 12. too bad they didnt think of that when creating Quake.

[Shadowswift]

The reason you wonder this is because you are a scrub who can't remember pre-04 when everyone was using the 3wave hook and not this abomination newbie hook. The belly hook allows you to skimp on aim and just fly around like a retard until you either hit something or kill yourself. It is for TU garbage exclusively, which is why I'm guessing Rook even created it in the first place. Remember this is the guy that added a belly hook to CTF to please some random newbie in TU.

On a side note, rook should be executed for what he has done to quake. List of accomplishments:
-Ca X - AKA Splash damage CA
-Belly hook
-Runequake
-Bellyhook added to 3wave ctf
-3wave ctf converted into a circus (found on ctf.quakeone.com)

If I ever see rook IRL I'll rip my quake t-shirt off, chase his ass down and force his body through a 3" sewage opening where he can hang out with the TU scrubs who infest the bottom ranks of quake servers. Down there they can talk about trucks, belly hooks, and whatever else TU white trash garbage usually discourse about.

did i mention 3wave at all?

i dont recall doing so...

no. it appears i didn't.

and dont talk to me as if you're all high and mighty, you joke. ive been a quake player since before 3wave even existed. shit, probably even before Quake CTF itself was thought of. i was initially raised on the axe hook. you are educating me of nothing, clown.

please leave the forums. no one likes you.

[Baker]

Deathknight: The only reason I don't use +hook is because I'm too lazy to put +hook, rune-use, rune-tell, and rune-remove in my autoexec.cfg.

Hasn't this topic come up in the past?

Really, +hook should be standard, rune-use should just be "use" and made mod-neutral, rune-tell should be info (or something) and made mod-neutral and rune-delete should just be remove or delete and made mod-neutral.

Although no one in this thread is aware of this, me, Yellow No. 5, Bam, Rook, Solecord and probably some others had big discussions a couple of years back regarding this stuff.

The "old" experience with mods, particularly CTF, is connecting and not knowing what the f*** does what and no one knowing what the impulses are and so forth.

Some of the ideas that were generally adopted:

1. "commands" should be a feature of every mod. You can also see this RQuake, RocketGuy and I did a lot of talking about this. I don't know who the old school pioneer of this was, maybe JP Grossman, and expanded upon by Slot Zero. But this lets someone play a mod without having to find the f***ing website or read docs.

2. "impulses" are gay and stupid. User friendly aliases should be made standard. "weapon-drop", "rune-use", "rune-delete", etc.

3. +hook should be +hook on every mod. It is stupid for any mod to have it's own way of doing something that is contrary to all other existing popular mods. Granted, 3Wave pre-dates existing popular mods by years, but +hook has evolved to be a standard.

Wouldn't it be stupid if +attack didn't attack on some server and you had to do something else? What if no one else is on the server and to tell you how to do it? Wouldn't you be pissed? Would you want to have some "different" config for ONE mod that was different than other mods.

No one wants any of that. No one worth listening to, at least.

Anyone remember Trinicom and having to make your own gay +hook alias using impulse 97 and 98? Retarded.

[Canadian*Sniper]

Deathknight: The only reason I don't use +hook is because I'm too lazy to put +hook, rune-use, rune-tell, and rune-remove in my autoexec.cfg.

Hasn't this topic come up in the past?

[Baker]

In a strict sense, the Threewave mod shouldn't have the additional +hook style hook.

However, Rook offers this to appease those used to being able to press +hook to travel about.

If it helps someone play CTF that otherwise wouldn't or would be annoyed by the standard 3wave hook, I say it's a good thing.

The reason you wonder this is because you are a scrub who can't remember pre-04 when everyone was using the 3wave hook and not this abomination newbie hook. The belly hook allows you to skimp on aim and just fly around like a retard until you either hit something or kill yourself. It is for TU garbage exclusively, which is why I'm guessing Rook even created it in the first place.

CTF needs players. If this increases the odds of someone not being totally annoyed, it's a good thing. If you like +hook and it doesn't work there, that's annoying.

A valid argument is whether +hook should do a completely different kind of hook; it shouldn't. But until there are people playing CTF enough to warrant it, what really is the problem?

-Ca X - AKA Splash damage CA
-Belly hook
-Runequake
-Bellyhook added to 3wave ctf
-3wave ctf converted into a circus (found on ctf.quakeone.com)

1. CA.

PLAYERS changed CA, not Rook. The people that made CA+ committed suicide by not making the mod open source and making a piece of shit mod packed full of bugs.

chi.nailed.org and ca.clanhdz ran CA+; Rage ran CAx. Players preferred Rage.

ca.clanhdz.com is still around, it runs CA+. No one connects there. That's player choice, not anything imposed on anyone.

/End of story.

3. RuneQuake

This is a non sequitur. Rook has nothing to do with RuneQuake and doesn't play it.

#2/#4. Stock 3Wave is honestly very crappy for a public server (the code lets you kill yourself infinitely, change color whenever, etc). The mod has numerous holes in it. What Rook has done with CTF is great, although I personally don't like CTF much.

[omix2]

The reason you wonder this is because you are a scrub who can't remember pre-04 when everyone was using the 3wave hook and not this abomination newbie hook. The belly hook allows you to skimp on aim and just fly around like a retard until you either hit something or kill yourself. It is for TU garbage exclusively, which is why I'm guessing Rook even created it in the first place. Remember this is the guy that added a belly hook to CTF to please some random newbie in TU.

On a side note, rook should be executed for what he has done to quake. List of accomplishments:
-Ca X - AKA Splash damage CA
-Belly hook
-Runequake
-Bellyhook added to 3wave ctf
-3wave ctf converted into a circus (found on ctf.quakeone.com)

If I ever see rook IRL I'll rip my quake t-shirt off, chase his ass down and force his body through a 3" sewage opening where he can hang out with the TU scrubs who infest the bottom ranks of quake servers. Down there they can talk about trucks, belly hooks, and whatever else TU white trash garbage usually discourse about.

[Shadowswift]

and no, i dont mean about how to correctly spell those two words

those of you who play at Shmack, this goes out to you.

ive noticed a few people who use the axe-hook as their primary (if not, only) means of grappling around the map.

my question is simple.

...why?

+hook offers you the same hook (yes, the exact same hook. it fires at the same speed, retracts at the same speed, and has the same holding strength. they arent even two different hooks. you cant use them both at the same time like you can on CTF, for example.) why go through all the trouble of switching to an entirely different weapon when you can just click 1 key/button to do the exact same thing? by using the axe-hook, you leave yourself relatively defenseless even if for just a few fractions of a second that you arent holding an actual gun. thats dangerous, my friends. by using +hook, you can grapple around and fire your gun at the same time with no switching back and forth. its wonderful.

the other thing im wondering? the people guilty of using this inferior axe-hook are generally superior players. that makes me wonder quite a bit.

those of you guilty of using axe-hook at Shmack, give +hook a try, just long enough for you to get a good feel of it. see if it improves your overall skill.

and please, dont just brush this away, thinking im some newb that doesnt know what hes talkin about.