This community is large and robust. It is filled with life and many of its own characters. Each day many games happen, day in and day out. You can waste hours upon hours on promode. If you know where to look. And if you don't ... well, then you are straight out of luck!
Promoders tend to operate in a very closed knit community. We aren't elitists. But you just won't find us on the public servers too much.
To connect with us you will need IRC. You can click the connect tab on this website and use the built in webchat but we highly recommend mIRC for these purposes (though you can probably google for other IRC clients you'd prefer).
Once you have IRC set up you can connect to the QuakeNet IRC network (/connect irc.quakenet.org). From there you can join the #cpmpickup (/join #cpmpickup) channel and the #uscpmpickup (/join #uscpmpickup) channel. The #cpmpickup channel is primarily for Europeans to play pickup games. The #uscpmpickup is primarly for North American pickup games. If you are using the built in webchat on this site, you just need to put your game name in and hit connect and you will be connected to the chat channels immediately.
Once in, you can simply begin chatting. Everyone will assist you, European or American with any question you have. Don't be shy to say you're new to promode and want to get in on the craze. When you feel you're ready. You can type !add to add to a pickup.
You will need to now wait for other people to type !add until the game mode you will be playing is full.
The most popular game mode in the North American channel #uscpmpickup is CTF (capture the flag). So you can type !add ctf and you will be added to a capture the flag pickup.
When the queue is full the bot will link you to the location of the game. You will get an IP that looks something like this XXX.XXXX.XXX:XXXX;password XXXXX.
When you launch your game, type in console by hitting the tilde ` or squiggle key ~ key and paste in connect XXX.XXXX.XXX:XXXX;password XXXXX
All you have to do now, is just wait for the game to start and all the players to show up and you will begin the assigning of teams and positions and the match will begin.
The command !add tdm will be of more use to you in the #cpmpickup channel. As TDM is more popularly played there. The process is the same, you wait patiently, all eight players are ready to go, they make teams in the game, and then you are all ready to play.
Team deathmatch is all about getting kills and more importantly not being killed. The tactics behind it need to be learned over time but the primary concern of yours at first will be to minimize your amounts of deaths by playing smart and not trying to be Rambo. Go for armors. Grab all the weapons you can and don't underestimate the weaker ones, like the starting machinegun. And most importantly be aware of what the enemy is doing and where your team is. You don't want to jump into a room where four enemies are awaiting the quad damage powerup and your team is nowhere to be found.
Capture the flag is more complicated because everyone needs to play a certain role and a certain position. It is quite common for someone to play flag defense and to sit on the flag to ensure the attackers don't grab it. The offense tends to consist of two players just trying to forcefully rush the defensive side. The more interesting and most diverse position is the high defense. This person can be very well-equipped to handle multiple roles. They scout out enemies and try to do damage on them as they cross the middle area or the area into their base. They also are often the ones to time the power up in the middle and to grab it or make a run for it and then go offensively towards the flag, or defensively back to their own flag. Better players understand when to adapt roles and to turn around and help their team out. It is highly suggested however that if you are to play offensively you will ignore the people attacking you in the middle area and waste no time on silly kills. The flag is your priority.