He may be refering to gamespys' server stats here:

http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/

That does list it as the fifth most popular online game.

But I *think* that server spy lists the games based on players that aren't bots here:

http://www.serverspy.net/site/stats/

That puts it in eleventh place which seems a little bit more realistic to me based on filtering servers and playing myself.

And that isn't a bad thing. It's a complex game and takes a bit of work just to make heads or tails of whats going on. As a long time Wolf and ETPro player, Quake Wars makes those games look like tetris by comparison, there's a lot to absorb.

I expect that it'll take me several months before I really get the hang of it all on probably several years to get really good.

The beauty of games like this (I'm hoping) is that it takes a few more brains to play and enjoy hard core, and because of that when everything shakes out you end up playing with more intelligent people and there's less riff raff.

Sometimes you want a run and gun game and sometimes you want more. I don't expect this will ever hit mass acceptance like the BF's or Quakes or Counterstrikes because it's too complicated. And that's fine. I expect, or hope it'll be a popular game for a long time but stuck within its own niche.

Sort of like WET has done for the last several years. It's been in the top five or so forever. Of course, it's free and runs on any computer but there is a market for this type of gameplay even if it doesn't, won't and never will be at the top of any list.

It's not a 'better' game, just a different one. I like it.