Would you play a PUG match if you knew where to find them?

[Jrubzjeknf]

Why so blue?

[2th]

lots of words...

i <3 you 5th

[Ender]

For those of you that like the gg's you can get from pugging but not necessarily all the waiting, you should try out www.purepressure.com as has been mentioned in this thread a few times. Here are some good reasons why:

1.) Web-based pugging...if IRC isn't your thing we've made pugging happen on the web so you just click to sign up, then open another tab in your browser and surf the net while you wait. You will be notified with a sound when your pug is ready to go. The site also tracks stats and data to make the teams more fair - the more you play the better the data to sample and the more fair the teams will be. We also have a large public Ventrilo server for those gametypes where voice comms are a much (ons, ctf).
2.) We're not strictly web-based either, our new GINAbot (GINA = Gamers Interactive Network Assistant) can be used to sign up for pugs within irc, or through AIM, MSN, Xfire etc. Simply login and use it to sign up for pugs on the site and then go do your thing and when the pug's ready, GINAbot will message you through your IM program to tell you your game is ready.
3.) Both of these solutions work wonderful if you want to sign up for a pug and then go warmup on a pub server somewhere - the website plays a noise, Xfire shows up in game with it's message etc.

Give it a shot sometime (we currently support Q4 and UT2004) - the more traffic that goes through there and the more games that are played, the better the teams are when they get made. www.purepressure.com (requires FireFox or Opera currently - we're working hard on bringing IE support to the site, which should happen soon). For more info on GINAbot: http://www.purepressure.com/support/ginabot.php

Also there is a UT2004 CTF tournament happening there tomorrow, you can see our fully automated tournament system in action. You can bring your own team, bring a partial team and be put on a team together, or come as an individual and be drafted to a team. More info on that in the 2003/2004 forums here at epicgames: http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=565047

[Da Spadger]

PUGs sounds fun, but i would prefer it without having to use teamspeak.

[Boksha]

I've PUGged quite a bit, but in the end it's no different from playing on pubs. Just because less people know about them, the average skill tends to be a bit higher, and you encounter the same people more often. If everybody played PUGs there would be no difference between PUGs and pubs besides the extra wait and hassle in case of the former.

(btw, I voted "I've played a couple PUGs and thought it sucked." but what I really wanted to vote was "I've played a couple of PUGs and thought it was sort of OKish-ish.")

[pixelpusher]

I agree with you Boksha... but only from the perspective of traditional PUGing (ie: IRC). IRC is very archaic... and the newer generation of gamers often don't know about it.... or find it too complicated. As a result, you have the same 40-50 people idling in #2k4tdm or #2k4ctf of which even fewer actually participate in the pick-up games...

I've been using IRC since the 90's and I'm pretty much over it. If it wasn't for my new job, I probably would not use IRC at all.

You should try a few pickup games on PurePressure.com... it's entirely automated in the sense that there are no team captains or servers to deal with. Also, the location of the server is dynamic based on who's participating in the PUGs in relation to your personal preference. Assuming the participants of a pick-up game on PurePressure have an accurate power-rating (the more an individual plays on the site, the more accurate their PR becomes)... then the game play is very balanced. In fact, it's so much more enjoyable that many of the gamers helping us test the system have told us we're now their #1 place to find a game before going to either the IRC or conventional server browser.

Now that we have GinaBot which works with Xfire, it's very easy to get the best of both worlds. For example, join a pick-up queue on PurePressure through GinaBot... and hop in a public server until you get an in-game message from Gina that you need to check-in. Wala.

IMO, there's nothing more frustrating than playing in a public server and being on the loosing end of an off-balance match. Or, playing against someone FAR past your skillset... we're able to control both of these mechanics to ensure a quality game experience for both the noob and pro alike.

Who said noobs and pros can't co-exist? With over 1,400 members and more than 1,000 pickup games in the last 2 months (~20+ pickups a day) -- UT2k4 is far from dead..

If you do check out our site, I'm eager to hear your feedback.

[MonsOlympus]

Nice colour!

Well yeah we dont all live in Europe so well players good players can be hard to come by in asia/pacific, I have played against alot of clan level players even though I mostly pub. Infact the level of the pubs here is a step below the clan server although I have played a few players which dominate.

I just found most of the time in PUG's there is a heap of team switching or there is none and the team is stacked against you so either way you never really win.

That doesnt mean I didnt enjoy it but I would have enjoyed it more if I knew who was who as I was holding fire because I thought people were on my team by name just to see them shoot at me then realise they had swapped team "again".

This isnt the whole experience people will have with pug's though and I think they are probably one of the better ways to play instead of just some random PUBing. If you want to be serious then sure go clan on clan but if clans host a PUG it would be nice to have alittle fun and not just get completely dominated by 1 player. See I knew 4 guys who were decent players where 1 was like great and we had alittle PUG on this clan server, if it wasnt for this 1 player the teams could have been even so yeah I ended up quitting after I got spawn killed from the lgun to near the bio on rankin (seems someone turned the spawn protection off in TDM :\)

Still just because I have had acouple of bad experiences here and there doesnt mean every one will. So yeah I would like to see more PUGing less clanning hey, Im in it for the fun at a semi competitive level I dont want to play against those people who break keyboards when they loose. Its just not a game then its a sport!