



First Public QuakeLive Footage In HD 65
QuakeMaster33 writes "The first public footage of id Software's upcoming Quake Live title comes in the form of a collection of high definition videos from tournament matches held at QuakeCon 2008. The event held a 1v1 and CTF tournament with prize money totaling $25,000. Included in the video set is the finals match between the 17-year-old Belarusian Alexey "cypher" Yushanevsky and the American John "ZeRo4" Hill. All of the videos are available for download or streaming via Flash video.
QuakeLive, which is currently in the public beta testing phase, is a free, web-based version of Quake III Arena which includes updated graphics and gameplay. On the developer front for QuakeLive, id has plans for custom maps, but mod support is far behind. On the Linux front, id Software's resident Linux guru Timothee Bisset is working on the project, so we can only hope that if the game becomes popular, a Linux client is also made available."
Can't be "web-based"... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Web-based" would kind of imply that it was all done in HTML/SVG and Javascript -- probably with a dozen audio tags for the effects.
And while that would be really cool to attempt, I don't think you could really match Quake 3 visuals, not to mention the difficulty (impossibility!) of porting a C/OpenGL rendering engine to SVG/JavaScript.
No, this would need to be supported by some sort of plugin -- if it was to be cross-platform, my first guess would be Flash 10, and my second guess would be Java. But both of these would, again, imply a full rewrite.
So it's probably an ActiveX control, which certainly would explain why it's Windows-only.
That or it's a client which embeds a browser, in which case, it can hardly be called "web-based".
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There is a java port of Quake 2 - called Jake, i believe. Very little is shared between 2 and 3 in the code, but interesting factoid. Runs well on a 1ghz computer.
Something smaller! (Score:1, Troll)
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The "footage" is in HD quality.
Therefore, it's easier to assess the quality vs. the regular Quake III.
Speed (Score:1, Insightful)
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Yeah, it's too fast and there aren't enough dark corners to set up a camp. I enjoy games where you can outfox your enemies by picking really random places from which you can hit them, especially enemy bases in CTF.
As a sidenote, I don't really like Q3 because the graphics are so childish and dated. The guns look like toys and the characters aren't fleshed out with detail. Unreal Tournament 3 is so much easier on the eyes and the level detail is gorgeous.
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You do realize you're comparing a NINE year old game versus a game released at the tail end of last year, yes? If you were to look back at all the press articles and cover stories when 1999 was breaking news you'd find one superlative after another about how wildly detailed and fantastic the Q3 visuals were at time of their release. Also, Q3 rooted its gameplay in lightning paced deathmatch and CTF action, whereas the Unreal Tournament series has always aimed for a more tactical approach (instagib matches
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You could dodge in UT99, which was triggered by a double-tap.
It wasn't enabled by default though so lots of players missed it.
WRONG!!!!! (Score:2)
Dodging was in the original Unreal and is a staple for the gameplay.
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Yea, the Skarrj dodge, you have the option of turning dodging on or off in the main menu (or if you're a tweaker you can bring up the GUI console and find that option plus many other options to tweak)
Unreal owns the concept of the Double-tap dodge (kinda like how ET did the double-tap forward-crouch prone)
Graphics vs Gameplay (Score:2)
Quake3 is clearly not the game of choice if you're looking for shiny graphics, it's all about the gameplay.
Funny, when Quake 3 was new it was seen largely as a shiny engine that was *mostly* about the graphics. The gameplay was basically a rehash of Quake 1 & deathmatch. People looking for interesting gameplay at the time were holding out for Q3-engine license games like Alice.
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Well it does seem to be about as fast as the original Q3, thankfully. I like the slower paced tactical FPS about as much as the fast twitchy ones, but the recent FPS trends seriously piss me off. The tactical games are dumbed down (see all Tom Clancy games) while the others are slowed down and overloaded with unnecessary "experience" and "ranks" bullshit. Why yes I'd love to grind XP points for a month just to be able to use the AK-47! It's nice to see that they didn't fuck around with what worked (and actu
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Yeah, the XP system was seriously screwed up in CoD4. Starting off with a extremely lame weapon facing people who had the best of the best gear.
That only resulted in people modifying their multiplayer file so everything was unlocked(or playing search and destroy with an infinite timer giving you inf XP)
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Id did release the Quake III Arena source code some time ago, so there are at least plenty of free games based on it floating around. You're right though, I would have much preferred an updated and free Q3A over this stuff. Oh well, I'll just continue to play Generations Arena... it's easily the best Q3A mod ever, and it's only getting better!
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You mean "Team Arena", the Quake III Arena expansion pack? I also read that... somewhere. If so, that's good, as I do think Team Arena had many decent ideas. Ultimately, I believe that the expansion pack suffered from simply being too little, too late.
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Quake Live *is* Q3 for free, with the only modifications being some advertising (the banners on the walls, etc). Supposedly it is compatible with existing Q3 games, but since I'm not in the beta and I don't have Q3A currently installed, I can't check that personally.
If you want a free Q3 shooter, check out OpenArena or Warsow (but with a funky S symbol that I can't be bothered to look up right now). Both are based on Q3's engine, but are totally free.
Also, id typically doesn't release its games free of ch
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TF2.
Try the free (next) weekend.
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TF2.
Try the free (next) weekend.
QWTF [gamespy.com]
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Just thought I'd chime in here to provide a voice for the alternative view: I *love* the speed which they chose to pace the game at. If you go back to Quake 1 or 2 (or even 3, though it's slower), the speed is right on that mark. Rapid, fast-paced twitch action. I can appreciate slower paced FPS titles too, but it's been a long time since we've had an FPS that got back to its roots in those terms. Seriously, when was the last time you saw an FPS at this speed? It's been years, so I was quite happy when
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Too right - all these "hide behind a box and shoot at each other with endless variations of sniper rifles and other slug throwers" whilst shuffling around the map at the speed of an asthmatic donkey, slavishly carrying out "the mission" really put me off playing FPS.
Let's get back to running around at ludicrous speed like demented Ninjas firing weapons of biblical proportions, in shiny locations, with no plan other than to kill the other guys more than they kill you!
That's not to say there are no subtleties
Re:Speed=WODX (Score:1)
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The thing that really made Quake 1 was all of the mods. The game itself wasn't fun for more than half an hour to an hour at a time, but you could intersperse it with Team Fortress, Quake Rally, AirQuake, Quake Horrorshow, Pain Keep, or if you wanted Quake-like gameplay taken to extremes, Kil
Re:Speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides that, there are a number of ways you can play the game of course. Hastily engaging or staying back and avoiding confrontations etc.
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I'd love to see how TF2 players would react to seeing a game of Quake or Q3A. They'd probably shit their pants and start crying.
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Exactly what I was thinking. When I see someone playing other FPSes that include 'crawl' or -- dare I say it? walk ferchrissake -- that's hyper realistic, I simply want to smash that monitor. Give me the speed of Quake Classic, anytime, man.
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It's not just the speed, it's the amount of skill required. You don't get free kills because the game decided that your next rocket is a critical hit (that kills half the server), and you can't just go around flailing around randomly like a moron and still get points. If you don't know what you're doing then tough shit, you lose. Of course, this sort of philosophy does not really appeal to today's casual gamers.
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Hehe. I wonder how JoshJ would have enjoyed watching doom2 deathmatches.
When I moved from doom to quake, the first thing that struck me was how slow you moved.
Doom is a game where you can run almost as fast as the projectile weapons without any tricks. And faster with wall hugging etc. Now that was arcade action.
Of course with some hopping and some optional rocket "boosts", you can achieve really high speeds in Quake/Quakeworld.
Anyone who wants realistic has no clue. Nobody wants to be dropp
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After some time away 'on vacation' playing tf2, coming back to Q3A and UT3 at a lan party, it did feel like I needed to be on a high dose mix of ritalin and caffeine to keep up.
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There is a truckload of strategy involved in playing a fast online FPS at professional level. Additionally, camping behind some door with a sniper rifle does not strategy make. Thank god there are still some FPS developers out there who actually make games that demand skill in order to get kills in an online game.
If Quake Live is fast for you, I'd love to see you try to wrap your head around the action that goes on in QuakeWorld.
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You know, there are like billion of drivers on planet but only handful of Formula 1 and NASCAR drivers.
I was once very lucky to play Q3A with top end players of my country, they were at some party or something and I decided to sit and watch rather than playing. Funny is, those guys can also manage not to shoot the noob (you) while killing each other in all that chaos.
Watching such top end players shouldn't make you think that the game is played that way. It is like not playing chess because you watch how Ka
Re:Open Source? PK3? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. They still hold the copyright, they can do whatever they damn well please with the code, which they still own.
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So... why exactly was this modded troll?
Re:Open Source? PK3? (Score:4, Funny)
-1 Suggestion Of Existance of IP ;)
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Since the Q3 engine was open-sourced, do they have the right to make a new closed-source client? After viewing these videos, it appears it's quite far from the "new, enhanced quake 3" we were told about: except for the new maps and the chaingun, I cant see any of the new things that are already included in many FOSS ports: blend mapping, bloom, blurring, dynamic lighting,...
As others have said, id is the copyright holder of the original Q3A code, so they can do whatever the heck they want with it. However, the big thing to remember is that, by default, you have the copyright to your code: If you contribute to a Q3A-based OSS project, you retain the copyright, it doesn't get transferred to id unless there's a specific contract. Therefore, id can't use, without permission, the stuff that has appeared in other Q3A-based projects. They'd have to either negotiate a permission from
cybersport angle, technology angle (Score:1)
The comment by JoshJ above leaves me puzzled somewhat, by the naive expectations of the poster.
In the long course of Q3 history as a cybersport discipline, the skill range between just a casual player and a pro like Cooller or Cypher, has grown miles. Meaning, further, even though with QuakeLive id takes apparent steps to bring Q3 for the masses, don't expect the gameplay to be immediately appealing to an uninitiated spectator: it really takes nearly equal skill to appreciate a match between masters. This
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