Quake Live is such a freaking joke.
It's a shame, too, because Quake 3 is a fantastic, fantastic game when you've got a decently balanced game going. Hell, even if it's 10-4 you can have a good time. But in Quake3 the skill difference between an experienced player and one who's been playing, even for a few months is massive. When you take that skill discrepancy and add it to team-based pub games (ala Clan Arena) one player can easily ruin an entire team. When you combine a game that needs each and every player on a team to contribute to it to succeed with a 'everyone can play! Join up!' mentality, you get bad things. The skill balancing system they have in place now doesn't work, period. I hope it gets fixed when more players get introduced into the system... but I'm not confident. The less noble players will do what they can to stay at the lower ranks and just terrorize people who aren't sure what they're doing.
Quake does not lend itself to accessible play. :/
