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The Art and Design of Quake 4
Gamespy has a feature discussing the upcoming first person shooter Quake 4. More details about the title are revealed in an interview and screenshots provided by some of the folks at Raven. From the article: "I think we have a lot of diversity throughout the entire game. We have some dark areas, and we have outdoor areas that are brighter. I think how diverse everything is will really go a long way. We didn't really set out saying, 'This game is going to be dark, this game is going to be light' -- we set out to make a cohesive environment where you go through different extremes and you'll see a bunch of different stuff."
Quake 2 was the best one single player wise.
Maybe this one will be as good?(although that's not saying much heh, better then doom 3 I hope though)
i can't wait for Super Mario 54 turbo special edition, Quake 4 is just a stepping stone !
One of my good (internet) friends is a programmer on Quake 4, and I know a few other guys on the Activision tech team and such. The story is a continuation of Quake 2, but you can expect Q3A style multiplayer awesomeness as well. It's going to be a great game.
Quake not dark and brown? Blasphemy!
Just what we need; a politically correct multicultural FPS!
Cooperative mode makes "single-player" games better!
I'm not a solitary gamer, and as such, never make time to play single player games. However, if I could have my wife (and/or our friends) play with me, it would make the game much more appealing!
I understand the difficulties in providing content that is achievable by both single and multiple players, but that's why I pay for games-- for innovation!
Am I the only one who thinks like this, or are there other people out there who have been disappointed by the lack of a coop mode in most games?
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
... the name quakenet will make sense again!
... or its just the same game we've already played, with nicer moving pictures.
Just once, i would like to see an FPS multiplayer online game that takes into account good animation and movement. I want to see cool stuff while i play, not just run around and see others running simply with silly guns we've all played with a thousand times already. Bring more stylized movement into the game, more theatrics and less of the old "run and hop" movement.
I think this game will be great, and the people saying it might be like doom3 are part of the problem with doom3. Doom3 wasn't bad, it was just overhyped as the game of the millenium
Hopefully this game won't be expected to entertain you, run your life, cook your meals and generally rule the universe like Doom3 was
Business Voyeur
Are the lighting subcontractors in the Quake universe as horrible as those in the Doom 3 universe?
I'm hoping to have my massive 32/64-player Quake 2 DM level, Aquaphobia, done before Quake 4 comes out. I only been working on it (on-and-off-but-mostly-off) for the last six years.
Aquaphobia Project Page
After I get done with Quake 4 single player, I'll start working on some new levels for that game.
Doom 3 was a poor game. It amounts to hours and hours of running down cramped hallways, encountering monsters that other than visually don't really differ much. It gets really boring really quick.
The game feels more like one long technology demo, than something built to provide compelling entertainment. And even being a technology demo, the results are less than impressive. The vast, lush environments in HL2 make the cramped environments in Doom 3 look quaint in comparison, even if the Doom 3 engine, with its real time lighting, is ultimately more advanced. I wonder if Doom 3 can even handle environments that have the same scope as HL2. The portions of Doom 3 that take place on the outside of Mars look really bad. Hell ends up being a bit more impressive, but it quickly reverts back to the familiar small enclosed envirnoment.
Hopefully the Quake 4 team will be able to make a more compelling game.
The Heart - blatently stolen from Natural Selection's hive.
Strafe jumping
double jumping
sliding around on ice and up ramps
and just the sheer speed of it all --if you can master it.
I don't expect Q4 to have these fun aspects though because I just can't imagine models like this : http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/611/61 1006/440Building_B_Marines06_1115438005.jpg
moving around so unrealistically like in q2.
Mmmm.. High resolution nipples!
Seriously, i wonder wyh these games enjoy such great success. I remember getting my first one, Alien Breed 3D, back on the Amiga. I played it for a couple of hours, then switched back to something more interesting. Over the years, I've had a couple of goes at about ten or so more modern ones, but apart from the graphics, nothing ever changes. No FPS has ever been able to fascinate me like i.e. Civ I-III or a good RPG.
These guys did the design work for the Jedi Knights games right? They know all about dark sides and light sides.
Good choice for a game that has an amazing lighting engine I would imagine...
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
We have some dark areas, and we have outdoor areas that are brighter.
Wow!! They have both bright AND dark areas! You can't beat that binary diversity! A pinnacle of innovative game design, I tell you.
I've heard rumors that your character will also be able to move both left AND right, but shhh, you didn't hear it from me, I don't want to get sued for releasing trade secrets.
Am I really the only one thinking: "screw the lighting and effects, I'm turning them off anyway" For me Quake is about gameplay not graphics. Even when running the lowest possible graphicsmode(Wich I alwas do) it still fun. How are they going to change the gameplay? more open areas in the standart mappack isn't going to do it. People moved away from quake to Counter Strike because of the different and more tacticle gameplay. Will Quake4 try to be a little more tacticle and less "chaotic"? How is it different gameplay wise, that's the important question. Not if whether brighter or darker.
Id software really needs to do something different this time. Their old recipe is getting boring. I would like to see Quake 4 in a more festive environment like maybe a circus with lots of clowns and bright colors everywhere. Instead of shooting weapons that explode monsters, maybe the first person character could walk around and give flowers to people. Or casually listen in on the conversations of strangers in the crowd until they can tell when one of them is going to go to Hell like a Catholic or a Jehovah's witness. Then you could score points by proselytizing them to evangelical christianity and saving as many of their souls as you can before the game ends with the Rapture! But look out for those evil mooslims in the crowd or they may blow you up before you finish God's work. Family fun for everyone!
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
It appeals to the under-aged crowd that's not supposed to be playing this Mature-rated game. No doubt that some government body will try to ban this game while using Duke Nukem 3D as an example of nipple artwork.
I wonder if they will have the easter egg from Quake 2 where two Strogg chicks were blowing a Tank Commander on a throne. Hmmm... Gotta love it when a game appeals to the little boy (or dike for the chicks) in us.
...as Doom 3 so aptly demonstrated. We need more games like System Shock 2. I want cool 3D tech and great art, but really, deathmatch and rocket launchers are boring and inexcusable in this modern age.
I hated Quake 2 and Unreal; I didn't even bother with Quake 3 and UT (or whatever it is now). The fact that the developers are claiming they loved Quake 2 doesn't raise my expectations very high.
This is using the Doom 3 engine, correct? One of the problems with that engine is that it didn't support (or didn't use) any kind of indirect lighting (radiosity, etc.) in order to calculate all the lighting dynamically. That just doesn't work well in outdoor environments. Is Q4 going to support some kind of indirect lighting for those outdoor areas? A static/dynamic hybrid might be interesting -- precalculated radiosity with real-time dynamic lighting "layered" on top.
It's kind of weird, but -lots- of what the doom3 engine -can- do wasn't in the game. If you look through the SDK, there's plenty of stuff that seemingly didn't make it into the game (like support for vihicles, etc.) They could've made it FPS for part of the game, then have the player ride a tank like in UT2004, then fly around, etc. Dunno why they didn't do it.
Oh, and the engine can support huge open maps (just like Team Arena terrain maps).
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
1) Thief. Note that Thief 1/2 are considered better than Thief 3. True stealth gameplay: outsmart guards, be a ghost or knock out everyone, leaving them lying around in compromosing positions for the Lord of the Manor to find. As little violence as you want. At highest difficulty level, the game forbids you from killing anyone.
2) Deus Ex (1, not 2). Near-future nanotech conspiracy fun. Ignore the comparisons with The Matrix. Very high replayability, it's a game about making choices, both practical as ethical. Even on your 5th way through you'll discover new ways to achieve your goals. The locations are great too.
3) System Shock (2 is on Home of the Underdogs, 1 might be hard to get running). Another shooty RPG, like Deus Ex, but on a creepy spaceship. Amazing atmosphere, great sounds (the monkeys are after me), fascinating story, easy to use interface too.
Each of these takes a while to get in to, but once you're there you're hooked. And they are all fun. The graphics are a bit dated, but this is only noticable for the first 5 minutes.
And if you really don't like FPSes anymore, try Fallout. Awesome post-nuclear RPG: if you're tired of Wizards, Elves and Dwarves this is for you. Great sense of humor too. Doesn't treat the player like an idiot.
Each of these is several years old, but still refreshing and unique.
I wish someone would hire some architects to design the levels, not your run-of-the-mill artists. I don't think I'm the only one who thinks level design has been subpar for years now. Bring back levels that are well-designed by people who know how to make them and think broad architecture, not what this scene or that scene will look like.
We play these games, you know---interact with them, explore them---we don't just watch them.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Don't ask how I know this, and don't tell anyone about it, but the word on the grapevine is, this new Quake 4 will involve moving around a corridor in a first-person perspective shooting things with fantasy guns.
Who's going to score this game? NIN, I hope...
There are no nipples in Duke Nukem 3D. All the strippers have these tassles over the nipples, and they don't take them off no matter how much money you give them. No wonder all the aliens were pissed off.
I am afraid I will disagree about Quake2. Though I have every id Software 3DFPS, I would say the original Quake was the best and most revolutionary. It had both a medevil theme as well as a futureistic theme. The monsters were classy and diverse, and certainly the supernail was an amazing weapon.
The sound was also an amazing feat of its own. The music and sound by NIN had a very raw and interesting feel. The sound was very "brave". Now most games have an ultra-pristine and clean tone. Quake's raw sound better fits the world of violence and destruction.
I like everything id has done, and was just playing Doom3 a second ago. I will say that I really wish they would do something like Quake again. It really has magic.
Look at the interior of most modern museums. For the most part their big rectangle rooms with chairs in the center with paintings on the wall. Sure its great when you have 500 different tourists trying to cram into a room designed for 300 people, but its god awful ugly for video games.
Same thing with modern day airports. Why build restaurants, newspaper stands or bookstores into the design? Isn't the goal supposed to be streamlining the process of getting people to and from their airplanes? That sure as hell doesn't happen with all those distractions. A couple vending machines and advertising reminders over time can replace this old design.
Modern day architecture is EXTREMELY overly glamorous. Take a look at medieval castles: tight hallways means easy to defend, towers on the corners means maximum line of sight in 360 degrees, a wall where troops can stand on to defend against attacks either inside or outside the castle. Ugly as hell but it gets the job done with minimal waste of material.