This is the enhanced version of a classic. Quake I and Quake II's main focus was single player, even though they came with multiplayer features. It wasn't until Quake III Arena, Team Arena, Quake Live and later did they try to focus more on multiplayer with single player mode tournaments with bots.

If you are looking for a live service Quake :

Quake Champions :
https://store.steampowered.com/app/611500/Quake_Champions/

You are right. Remaster is not very good and also most players still play old q2 version which is better. You can follow https://www.youtube.com/@Quake2David for some q2 news There's european duel tournament happening this weekend. https://challonge.com/edlcc

Originally posted by Xero:

This is the enhanced version of a classic. Quake I and Quake II's main focus was single player, even though they came with multiplayer features. It wasn't until Quake III Arena, Team Arena, Quake Live and later did they try to focus more on multiplayer with single player mode tournaments with bots.

If you are looking for a live service Quake :

Quake Champions :
https://store.steampowered.com/app/611500/Quake_Champions/

^

Originally posted by phuzzy ⛧:

released and immediately abandoned

By who ? Or are you talking about those playing it ? I doubt a ton of people would play this online regardless though.

Simply the main fans would keep playing this, and yes, they probably keep to the original since that's what they know best, even if the remaster was better.

I love the enhanced version, it reminds me of playing Doom 2016. I wouldn't mind playing co-op once I solo the game and expansions. But even on Nightmare difficulty, the game can easily be completed solo. I haven't played since the original game was released. Once I realized each enemy has their own pattern and style of fighting like most games, I hardly ever die now.

I played a full match recently.
Also the remaster is pretty cool IMO with an easy peasy way to access Quake 64 and the expansions.

Originally posted by CZERigg:

You are right. Remaster is not very good and also most players still play old q2 version which is better. You can follow https://www.youtube.com/@Quake2David for some q2 news There's european duel tournament happening this weekend. https://challonge.com/edlcc

I am curious, in which way the remaster is not very good? I thought the movement, music and flow was spot on.

Originally posted by phuzzy ⛧:

released and immediately abandoned

They are probably busy messing up with the next good old game.

Remaster isn't abandoned by the community at all. We at Map-Center have been producing multiple jams for it, and just announced our most recent one today. Paril from Nightdive converted the playstation port's campaign with modified code and released that as a mod back in October (which Map-Center then did a jam for later that month!).

I can't speak for the MP community but to say Quake II Remaster is abandoned or that "most players still play old q2 version" is objectively wrong. And if OP meant abandoned by id... vanilla Q2 was abandoned by id in the same light over two decades ago. That's how games with a primary singleplayer focus tend to be.

i know way more playing the remaster online than the OG tbh, its mostly only Tastyspleen keeping the OG going, and that seems to be just full of campers and ppl giving others abuse

Quite sure Phuzzy is baiting everyone. The usual post once and leave routine.

I mean what do you want to put gamers on a payroll just to play old games?

People beat games and move on, people watch films and move on. Quake2 wasn't trying to be a lifestyle like world of War craft.

I mean to say it was abandoned is to assume it was suppose to be something more than a rerelease. Play call of the machine and be happy. Get those easy completion achievements and move on. Quake2 is a classic but I wouldn't really play it for more than 30 hours. And a playthrough, hell those xps besides machine all felt pretty boring compared to the original quake2.

Quake 2 is the most fun Quake game, and you do not really need any silly remasters from some strangers to replay it again and again.

Is the remaster superseding the original Steam release rather than being its own item in the Steam store? Is that why there's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ EULA (conduct of conduct, binding arbitration, etc.) on a 25+ year old game that people rely on downloads for to play mods?

Server administrator here with source code for a quake2 master server

The dedicated servers for OG Quake II and it's numerous 3rd party and official source ports (e.g. Quake II RTX, which is based upon Quake II PRO) are still there, as are the players.

This re-release actually introduced new people to the Quake II multiplayer, not killed off the legacy game MP player base.

And yet, still no remake or remaster of Quake Wars.