I thought I would come on here and see many, many posts about this, but to my surprise, I do not see hardly any.  I am not here to complain about the many problems with Quake 4 (netcode, needing all maps to join servers, many balance issues etc etc etc).

There seems to be a breakdown in the lines of communication between the Quake 4 community and Raven Software.  iD software, in the past, was able to stay fairly in touch with the community to see what their games needed.  I do not think Raven has much experience in this category.  So basically, I am here to communicate 1 fact:  the Quake 4 community does not enjoy playing Quake 4.  Ok, I said it.  Please do not be insulted.  The game has many strong points.  It is a close emulation to Quake 3 -- an extremely good game itself -- so it cannot be all bad.

But the reason no one is having any fun is it's too slow!  Quake is not supposed to be slow.  And I know that rockets are moving at the same speed and that the actual speed of the models is the same.  But are you blind?  It is the model sizes -- they must be shrinked!

With smaller player models, the game becomes fun.  Movement becomes faster, shots become harder to hit, and consequently, more gratifying, rockets become more useful since they are now 'faster,' the overpowered shotgun becomes less powerful because there is less model to be hit, and most importantly, the game becomes fun again.  The maps (both custom and stock) aren't fun because they're too big.  They cannot be smaller because the models are so fat and clunky.  Because the maps are so big, gameplay is slowed down to a screeching halt as players cautiously walk around the map with railguns in hand.  This is quake!  It's supposed to be fast, action-packed, lots of fun.  People buy quake for this very reason.

Please, do not think I am the only one thinking this.  I am not.  Visit the discussion boards on esreality.com.  Everyone is asking for it.  Go on IRC to #q41v1 on EntertheGame or Gamesurge (the 2 US Quake Community channels) or go on Quakenet (I am not sure of the euros channel).  The community is providing an awful lot of support (with mods such as Q4max and xBattle) and attempting to make the multiplayer game better.  But shrinking the models is something Raven needs to do.

I refuse to believe Raven simply wants to make this game "easy for new players" and basically shoot themselves in the foot.  Everyone knows that games that are harder provide more replayability, almost always resulting in a better game.  So please, do us all a favor, make Quake 4 fun and just shrink the model size down to Quake 3 size.  I guarauntee you, the benefits of being admired by a community for responding to their cries (like id software did) can definitely be rewarding both in a philosophical sense as well as monetary.

I find all the player models the same and small to begin with.  I use FOV 110.  In Q3 the models seemed bigger.  When I play Q4 (which is very rarely now because I am so disappointed with it) I find it so hard to see the models from far away (I would use zoom, but oh wait, that needs to be fixed too).  

I could go on and on about how much improvements are needed in this game, but frankly it's not worth it anymore.  We give feedback, but hear nothing from any of the developers.  So far we've gotten a browser patch, to improve it.  It is still awful, it has no options or filters what so ever.  Then they release a beta patch a month ago and haven't heard anything on this at all and also a larger patch that would be coming early in the new year.  I am not holding my breath on any of this because hey, my expectations with them can't get any lower then it is now.  

I find it almost impossible to have a "fun" game with it right now.  Most of the maps are so brutal, half of them are remakes.  Like come on Raven and id, get some originality back into the game.  I'm not sure why I said that directly to them, I doubt they read this.  

It's one thing to release a product with your name on it, its also another (and most important) to back it up and try to make it the best possible product you can and continue to do it, which doesn't happen much anymore.

The larger player model size isn't something that's debatable.  It is fact.  Sorry man, don't know how in the world you would mistake Q3 player models as being bigger.  They are in fact much smaller.  I use fov 120 in both.

Well it's probably because I am use to tankjr.  All these models are so skinny and in the base q4, it is sometimes soooo hard to see anything.  All models look almost the exact same.  In Q3, they had different shapes and sizes and people could choose what they like best.  In Q4, its basically same shape and size, but different color, horray! (sarcasm)

LOL @ you guys thinking Raven or ID cares/listens.

Lol im dedicated to making a mod that will change that and make everything hella faster and as well try to make straff jumping and double jumping and all of that easier... I'll probably base it on Quake 2's elements

But first I must learn HOW to do that haha

Everything is OKey with this game, dont listen to those noobies , yes it has some bugs but q4 is just a baby , other quake series were not ideal from the start too, but later on.....
everyone just dont understand that this quake requires some practise to master for example rocket jumps or other movement.(they think that q4 has movement bugs..)
Those problems "too big damage with that or that weapon" etc.. can be solved by fixing Hitboxes. Yes all the problems are in the HITBOXES(they are way too large) , after they are fixed, everything will be alright trust me. And talking about the speed just work a bit on the movement and gain some sliding skills you will see what speed this game has.. btw it is even faster than q3.. (if you shrinked the models, you could see that its way faster than q3 )
Not talking about physics, yes this game has to be polished in some other aspects such as crashing, demo playback and etc...
Good Luck

If its so simple to just fix a few things..then why is it taking them over 3 months and counting to get a decent patch out there.  They have hardly gave us any info on anything.  I guess they like to keep us in the dark.  For all we know, they aren't even close to releasing a patch worth downloading.

lalala must not have read my post...That was exactly what I was saying...

It's hilarious how I post what 99% of the Quake 4 community wants, and you get some random kids who say they don't even play the game anymore coming on here and giving their 2 cents because they literally do not understand anything about the game.  The facts are: Q4 and Q3 are the same speed.  Q4 models are bigger.  Bigger models slows everything down.  Ie. Perceived movement speed, larger maps must be created, shotgun spread seems more condensed, rails seem easier, etc...

And for people who are living in the past with Q2...Quake 4 was modeled after Q3.  If you are going to model a game after another game, you want to get it as close as possible with the current engine.  It is extremely close, but the model size goes in and screws it all up.  And by model size, I of course imply hitboxes as well...not just the model...

Actually it's the player view height that's higher up, that's why you feel like you're moving faster in Q3 because you're closer to the ground