Quake is 10

cyclomedia writes "Late on 22nd June 1996 Quake was uploaded to cdrom.com's archives in the form of 7 1.44MB floppy disk images. Though it wasn't until the 23rd that everyone realised (or at least, that's my excuse for being a day late with the news submission). Cue much aggravation on the newsgroups as eager downloaders experienced glorious 2 FPS gameplay."

Old schoolin'

[Pope]

Hell, I remember going to a vending machine at a local mall to buy Doom! Had to supply my own 3.25" floppies and everything. What a crazy way of getting software, and IIRC it was $18 in 1 dollar coins.

Still my Pentium favourite

[saskboy]

I used to run Quake I on a 486DX 80MHz with 8MB of RAM. It was fantastic when I upgraded to 12MB then 20MB. It was THE reason to get a Pentium computer.

In recent years Unreal has replaced it as my favourite. I got my screenname [used on Slashdot now too] from playing Quake on dialup, and P2P with another local kid.

I can still remember Quake 1 being released

[phaetonic]

1) Quake 1 was released for $9.99 as shareware with the full soundtrack. It was able to be unlocked with a code, and so of course, keygens came out and enabled you to play the full version for $9.99 with the awesome Trent Reznor soundtrack in all it's glory. 2) When QuakeWorld came out, you could play with others anywhere at 600 ping and still be o.k with it. There was a few seconds delay, but you would essentially predict what you wanted to do. I remember I would turn, grapple against a wall, let go, and shoot hoping I was able to hit something. I don't remember broadband back in the day. I wonder what the next innovation will be that redefines video game playing.

Re:2 FPS?

[PoderOmega]

It was playable 486DX2/66 with 8 megs of RAM

Not Quake, but GL Quake!

[9Nails]

For me, the game wasn't on until a little later a company called 3DFX released the Voodoo graphics card. Which you could install a front end called GL Quake to play Quake with arcade quality graphics. That, was a true game revolution for me. The full 3D engine, and liquid smooth graphics. I love it!

Now hurry and get people to help out at http://www.quakeremix.com/ [quakeremix.com] !!!!!

Quake still has a feature no other FPS has...

[drinkypoo]

...it's playable with 32 players on a single server when all the players (though not the server of course) are on modems. Quakeworld rocked my world then, and it still does. Let's also not forget how easy it was to mod; sure there were doom mods, but quake was the game that catapulted us into the wide world of modding.

Classic quotes

[Robotron23]

Some quotes for our own amusement and wistful recollection :);

"Still have 486? Get a Pentium immediately!"

"I have a 486 Dx2/80 with a Diamond Stealth 64 2120 video card and I get 6.2 fps in the start."

"Am I the only person who just can't /stand/ things like heretic/duke's look up/down?"

"Well over 30+ fps at start of Duke3d ? Thats top DX4-100 speed....actually I haven't seen a DX4-100 that tops 28."

"There's an option, r_fullbright (1/0) which turns off all lighting effects and speeds up the FPS tremendously."

Those were the days - further I can recall back to is the Voodoo 2, anyone have any further fond memories of the mid 1990s GPU situation?

Revolutionary Game and GPL'ed Engine

[aymanh]

Happy birthday Quake!

And thanks to Id for releasing its source code [idsoftware.com] under GPL, because of this, the game is still being played and mod'ed after 10 years of its initial release, check Tenebrae [sourceforge.net] for example, which adds modern rendering techniques like per-pixel lighting and stencil shadows to the original game.

Re:Indeed

[drinkypoo]

The single-player was fun, but the real accomplishment of Quake is bringing in the era of deathmatch.

To me the major accomplishment was that it had co-op play. Unfortunately, it totally failed to usher in an era of co-op. Playing Quake with two or three people (or Doom for that matter - it's not like Quake was the first FPS with that feature) was just riotous fun. I have played Q2 with the co-op mod, but it's buggy. Or it was then...

Re:Indeed

[PhrostyMcByte]

Yup, back with Doom the serial cable was god! The endless co-op games of Doom and Quake were awesome - no matter how many times you'd gone though the game, it was still fun if you had a buddy plastering baddies guts next to you. That ended with Quake, though. Quake 2's co-op felt somehow lacking.

I wish ID would go back to their roots and stop making these single player tech demos :(

Re:Not Quake, but GL Quake!

[spyrochaete]

I remember seeing GLQuake for the first time. It really blew me away. The thing that convinced me that 3D was the way to be was the effect where rockets became their own light source. I seem to recall reading that this effect was coded in 30 minutes on a bet.

Re:Next you'll be telling kids to get off your law

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Name one thing that is in an FPS game that isn't in current quakeworld engines. Note that quakeworld has been opensourced for a long time now and has had time to evolve purel based on peoples desire for a better engine, no desire to try to be able to sell polished crap. Whether you're a visual junkie(Specular lighting, 24bit textures, Luma textures, Bloom lighting, Weather effects, Per pixel shadows, particle explosions/trails, etc), a Tech junkie(MD1/2/3 model support (thats quake1 through quake3 and everything between), BSP1/2/3 (Again, q1-3 and every game based on it), PK3 support(the compressed archive q3 uses to store its files), even so far as to support Quake3 QVMs, which is pretty much a .dll that is the entirety of a mods game-code, Direct encoding from ingame to an avi (xvid+mp3), etc)

And then theres the stuff for gameplay. Fully customizable hud. Arbitrarily re-coloring text(makes for good teamplay scripts), Regular expression triggers for console text(so you can match "someone stole your flag!" and play a sound for example), TCL scripting(I don't like it, but to each their own), Advanced scripting (if/then blocks, variables, math), etc.

It's not that games havn't improved since 1996, its that while companies are busy trying to add a few new features to their engines so they can hype it up, we've all been sitting here playing with the best christmas present anyone ever got us--Quake's source.

Of course I only focused on the engine (whats important-- as a good mod has its balls cut off by being on a bad engine), but for gameplay just look at stuff like CustomTF, RocketArena, MidAir, ClanArena. For that matter, I've yet to have a better co-op experience than quake right out of the box.

Quake Done Quick

[Denny]

This seems like a good time to mention something I ran across again a few days ago - Quake Done Quick. These guys finish the whole of the original Quake, on Nightmare difficulty, in 12 minutes and some seconds. Incredible.

Check it out: http://clanservers.multiplay.co.uk/?p=/ftpfiles.ph p%3Fpid%3D%26fid%3D953 [multiplay.co.uk] (BIG .avi)

Re:Next you'll be telling kids to get off your..

[Anonymous Coward]

Specially if you realize that today's multi-giga games don't offer much more, neither in fun, gameplay, and even content.

to which the reply was:

Seriously, what is it with the grouch crowd on Slashdot that lvoes to hate on any game newer than 1980s?

There are plenty of new, good games. There are plenty of resources to help you find them, or you can ask on Slashdot. However if you can't find any good modern games, the problem is not the state of games, the problem is you.

No, I think the original poster was correct in saying that new games don't offer MUCH MORE in gameplay. The operative term being MUCH, as newer games are improvments over the older classics they are based on, but how much better are they really? Are newer games fun to play? Yes. Are they higher resolution and have better frame rates? Yes. But beyond this what has really changed? What new game really breaks any new ground, concept or game play wise? Take Doom3 and Quake4 as examples, besides the flashy graphics (which require ever increasing investments in GPU cards), what has changed? They are both still 3D FPS games, where you find weapons and ammo then kill things. Sure, the graphics are MUCH better in Quake4 vs. original Quake. But is the game play really THAT much better? Has the game play evolved at the same pace as the graphics engines? No, I don't think it has. I play Quake, Quake3, and Quake4 on a regular basis (skip Quake2, nothing more than Quake with yellow lighting... yay). Game play wise they are all pretty much EXACTLY THE SAME! Yes, BIG differences in the graphics engines. When it comes down to it I prefer Quake3, as it offers the best performance to gameplay ratio I think. Quake4 requires a lot newer hardware, which I have and it runs great on my system, but Q3 is much smoother for LAN games.

Most of the improvment in newer games is almost all graphics. While better graphics do help an already awesome game be that much better, you cannot base a new game on a flashy 3D engine alone. I play most of the good new games, and I enjoy doing so. How ever I have been saying the same thing the original poster was stating for many years now, new games are fun but it's been a long time since a game blew me away because of some radical new gameplay concept. And we are starting to reach a saturation point in regards to improved 3D gaming engines, sure more detail is always nice, but how much more do we really need? How many more pollys does my FPS d00ds gun really need, and will those extra pollys really make the game any more fun to play? I can already get well over 60 FPS in just about any game, and any thing beyond 60 FPS is over kill (your brain will NOT recognize much beyond this any ways!). So I fail to see where graphics are a bottle neck any more. Modern game devs have plenty of resources available to them. It would be nice to see a return to focusing on gameplay it self and less focus on pushing more pollys, frames, and more than the already rediculous 7.1 surround sound channels... Perhaps the one technical improvement that is still worth focusing on is the new ideas for hardware accelerated physics stuff... But how much longer does the game industry think it can get by with just rehashing the same old ideas on newer 3D engines and flashier textures? We need a revival in new ideas, not new game engines...

Re:ah the memories

[dreamlax]

Duke Nukem 3D's engine used billboarding. If you remember back to your old Doom days, some things on the map would look the same no matter what angle you looked at it [a good example of this is the trident shaped candle holders right at the end of episode 1 map 1]. It was similar for Duke Nukem in a lot of ways. The enemies were all billboarded onto the screen, but they drew side-on and rear (possibly more) angles of the enemies so they don't always look at you. In Quake however, just about everything is 3D, including the rockets you shoot... even the nails I believe. I can't recall anything that was billboarded in Quake (but then again I haven't played it for a good 7 years or so). Billboarding was a simple tactic to speed up 3D environment rendering. It looks great until you get close or the angle changes quickly. So main difference: Duke Nukem 3D: Not entirely 3D Quake: More 3D than Duke Nukem 3D (if not fully 3D)

Re:Perfect time to re-install and re-play

[shoolz]

Yes! Serious Sam : The Second Encounter (not to be confused with Serious Sam 2) was a fantastic game... A game I play at least once a year and would highly recommend to any fast-paced FPS fan. Played on 'Serious' difficulty, it's one of the toughest FPS games ever (but really fun!)

God, yes

[metamatic]

I couldn't understand why nobody wanted to play co-op. To me, co-op is the only interesting kind of multiplayer game. Yet even now, the emphasis in online games is on deathmatches.

Me and a bunch of friends against a seemingly unstoppable horde of alien scum--that's what I want in a game.

Re:Old schoolin'

[Skraut]

Heh, that's how I supplied myself in college. Found a website where you could request an AOL disk. I put everyone in my dorm in, then sat a box by our mailboxes which said "Don't want your AOL disk, drop it here" As I recall I ended up with over 80, more than my CS needs, I ended up selling them.

Re:In fact, Quake sucked

[drinkypoo]

I was a big DOOM player, and I was very disappointed in Quake. Not only were the monsters just as dumb, but the rest of the gameplay was dumber than DOOM--the idea of levels you had to puzzle out had apparently disappeared.

One of my favorite aspects of Quake is that they removed the retarded "puzzles" that were all over Doom. Having to run around trying to find a switch that you can barely see because the whole game looks like dogshit is not my idea of a puzzle.

The criticism about the monsters is entirely valid though. They couldn't make them smarter, so they made them able to fire around corners (spider demons anyway) so that the game would be hard with stupid enemies.

Re:quake on a dual ISDN

[Some_Llama]

"Good stuff, having 10ms pings to most other college servers."

Oh man I hated you guys soooo much!!!! I couldn't afford an ISDN or 2 56k connections back then (you could use this special modem from Diamond MM that would aggregate 2 modem connections).

So I would kick everyone's butt except for those creeps with the sub 100 pings, zipping around with your rocket launchers, grabbing the pentagram of protection before I could.. arrgh!!

I remember thinking that once I had sub 250 pings i would kick anyone's butt, then when dsl was finally affordable CS was all the rage and I had another year of losing before i got some skills...

Bah.

Re:The Size was incredible

[shish]

cough [abraxas-medien.de]. 1% of quake 1's filesize, and much better graphics too... It makes me wonder -- WTF are today's multi-gig games doing with all that space?

I hated Quake

[Overly Critical Guy]

I thought Quake sucked. I was a big Doom guy, so I was used to creepy levels, memorable monsters, fantastic weapons, and seeing my face in the HUD screen.

Quake was a disappointment. The graphics were all brown and green, and the enemies were totally generic. No memorable monsters compared to the Imp or the Cacodemon.

The sound effects SUCKED. The shotgun in Doom has a loud boom and an animation of cocking the gun. Quake has this wimpy click and no animation. I never understood why I seemed to be the only one who noticed the much weaker sounds.

The music was just noisy industrial sound effects, not the fun and catchy tunes of Doom. Quake just had no character at all for me. It felt extremely generic and bland.

Re:Indeed

[donscarletti]

I remember back in highschool, every day we played quake co-op at lunchtime. We had 8 people playing through it on nightmare difficulty. Eventually we got to the point that everyone had an exact role to do and path to follow on each level. We managed to consistantly get through it in 40 minutes or so after a few months of doing it every single day. There's just something that co-op has over everything else, the level of screaming sitreps and orders across the room, the level of everyone thinking that they are elite SAS commandos. There is just nowhere else you can find that stuff, not even in Battlefield 2 (a damn good game though).

I think the edge Quake had was it wasn't designed for coop, but had just enough coop friendly features (late arrivals doors etc) to make it still fun to play. That way we were able to exploit it, wait at certain doors, hit buttons in certain orders and split up into certain sized fireteams in places to thoroughly beat the system. Most coop games make the mistake of making the game linearly harder with more players, that is stupid because you don't feel your buddies are helping you, it would be no harder to be there on your own. If nightmare becomes easy in co-op, you owe a lot to your team and feel connected.

Re:Next you'll be telling kids to get off your law

[Dirtside]

The slashdot crowd is absolutely bloody right to expect that 10 years later something with the visuals of Quake and the level of game AI complexity of Nethack should have been written released and shipped.

Nope. Top-notch visuals, in practice, do not come about without a paid development team of professional artists and designers; the complexity of Nethack was evolved over two decades by geeks in their spare time. Companies will not take two decades to create a game (DNF notwithstanding), and geeks in their spare time do not have the resources to create top-notch game artwork.

It is, in fact, entirely unsurprising that this hasn't happened.

There is no random or even pseudorandom level generation.

There's a very good reason why you rarely see random level generation: It's extremely limited. (As a game designer, I've had a good deal of experience with the problem of randomly generating game content.) "Preposterous!" you say. "Random level generation means exponentially increased variety for only slightly more effort!"

While this is technically true, the problem with randomly generated content is that it's very easy for humans to recognize the patterns and elements of the random set. Anyone who's played Diablo or Diablo II enough is familiar with this. At first, the random levels are pretty neat, each time you go into the cathedral it's a different layout... but after a few times, you begin to recognize certain elements (a room shaped a certain way, a certain set of prison cells arranged just so), and after a while, you see enough permutations that even if the level isn't one you've exactly seen before, it's similar enough to all the others you've seen that it's basically the same.

Even if you create 100 distinct rooms for your dungeon that can be arranged in 100 billion unique ways, there's still only 100 basic elements, and you'll begin to recognize them pretty quickly. Randomly generated content also violates the precept that games are a form of storytelling; and randomly generated stories are not interesting. Notice that even in a game like Diablo II, with randomly generated levels, the quests are always exactly the same and the dialogue is always exactly the same -- because you really can't randomly generate a good, original story.

but in 10 years I would have expected the industry to come up with something moderately more engaging.

I've played plenty of engaging games since Quake came out; if you haven't been "engaged" at all since then, that's your problem.