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First Public QuakeLive Footage In HD
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."
"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".
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Yes. They still hold the copyright, they can do whatever they damn well please with the code, which they still own.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
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 I saw the video. FPS's are the fighting games of the PC arena... You've got your super-strategic Street Fighter Alpha, and your hyper-ridiculous-pace of the Versus series. This entry just seems to be the latter.
It may be fast-paced but Quake 3 1v1 (and by extension Quake Live) is very strategy-oriented. The main concern is about controlling the map by denying the powerups from your opponent which can be done by carefully timing the item spawns so the enemy never gets to see them.
Besides that, there are a number of ways you can play the game of course. Hastily engaging or staying back and avoiding confrontations etc.
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 notwithstanding). Both are great fun in their own way. And regarding these championship matches, of *course* you're going to see the extreme use of that twitch sensitive gameplay. Public servers, particularly as the QuakeLive beta grows and becomes more widespread, will certainly create a new playing field where proficiency with a 1600dpi laser mouse isn't necessarily required.
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.
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.
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 to that plan - Quake (1 2 or 3) is a game where the tactics and strategic objectives aren't so bloomin obvious, that they're spelt out in the manual!
Or maybe my attention span has shortened with age :P
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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.