And after gauging the rest of your post, I think you've almost completely forgotten that Q1 and Q2 existing before Q3
Well, uh, no. I liked Q1 and Q2, but 56k baud just didn't work very well for multiplayer. As I recall it, broadband arrived well after Q3. But, to your point, I see the Q's as evolutionary steps of the same thing. No real need to distinguish between them.
My point was: "physics" are far more important than graphics. "physics" in this case meaning the consistent behavior of objects in game. Similar in practice to software objects.
Yeah, good point. I play Q3 online with dozens of other players. We use Ventrilo to comunicate. http://www.ventrilo.com/
So I was asking the others, why hasn't a better game than Quake 3 been produced? We have seen some nice games; Far Cry, Unreal Tournament, Doom 3, Painkiller. Each of these holds the gaming community's attention for about 2 months, then it is back to Q3.
The others told me that they had tried all these other games, but they always returned to Q3. No one had a good explanation. Quake 3 is just better.
It seems to me that when the game producers produce a game, they had ought to try to produce someting better than the last game, or at least as good.
Why hasn't a better game than Q3 arrived?
I think it is because they, the game producers, don't know how.
Quake 3 Arena's success was a bit of an accident. There was no story at all. Single player was a series of 1 vs 1 encounters with various odd oponents. The graphics were superb. The physics were awesome. The game was entertaining, but was a hi-tech arcade.
Then evolved the internet.
Suddenly Quake 3 was a worldwide phenomenon. Networking and computers were judged by their ability to handle Q3 multiplayer. Quake 3 became an important part of our day. I regularly play with people who are in the United Kingdom (sleepless I presume). I am in North Am. Q3 gave us the ability to become part of a different universe, one with strict rules of physics, but also fantastic cartoon environment. It was like being a character in a comic book.
It still is this way. No other game provides the equal experience.
I assume the pursuit of ever more spiffier graphics has consumed all of the time and money of the game producers. The game producers run out of resources before the game is actually done. There may not be enough resources on the planet to produce a game as good as Quake3 with the graphics of Doom3.
And, of course, graphics don't matter. Players turn down the graphics regularly. Gameplay counts, graphics don't.
The cartoon physics of Quake 3 is what is important. Consistent behavior of all the various objects. As time has gone by, this object behavior has been scrutinized, critisied, evaluated, and modified.
It a stunning burst of genious, John Carmack made Quake 3 modifiable by users. A standard user with a standard PC could hope to create maps, models, and even new games with the Quake 3 resources.
Then came the semi-professional modifiers.
How should the Quake 3 Rocket Launcher really work? How fast should the projectile fly? How powerful should the blast from the rocket be? What splash effects of the rocket should occur?
How should the Quake 3 Armor work? How should the various types of armor resist the various types of weaponry? How much armor damage occurs with each strike of each weapon?
How far should the grenade bounce? How long should the Rail-Gun recharge be? How big and how fast should the plasma ball be? Is there really a need for the BFG at all?
Days, weeks, months, and years have been spent arguring and refining these concepts. Each successive argument consumes the previous argment, and evolves. Sort of like computer and software evolution. Eventually the objects in the game become so argued and evolved that they become real. The objects don't really exist, just as software doesn't exist. But in the minds of people who use these imaginary software objects, the objects are used as if they are real.
This is real game development.
Pity the poor game producers who must toil at creating the ever more spiffy and scary looking monster or hallway.
Quake 3 will remain the best game until a better game arrives. That better game will evolve from Quake 3. Which means to evolve in terms of gameplay, not graphics.
What Id Software should do is to consume, incorporate, embrace, and extend the work of the modifiers who have in
[quote] When Quake 3 shipped, it faced similar critisism. Most people didn't have the video resources to play it and it sucked up more cpu cycles on the servers. How soon people forget [/quote]
Very good point. When Quake 3 shipped, folks still saw Doom as the better game. But then something happened. Like the internet, and high speed connections. Suddenly Quake 3 became a world-wide multiplaying phenomenon. It changed history, really.
So why is Quake 3 still the best after so many years?
I am really puzzled why iD did not recognize multiplayer as their new focus. Valve, for instance, bought up Counter Strike and made it a new success. Counter Strike continues to be a successful enterprise.
We are playing for the consistent physics in a multiplayer game. Graphics are way far in second place as a reason to play. Many Quake 3 players turn the graphics down to favor steady frame rates.
Why, after all this time and all this success, has there not appeared the next great multiplayer game? Unreal Tournament, Painkiller, Doom 3, are not a step forward. If there were a better game than Quake 3, I would be playing it.
For the best Quake 3 modification, one that takes its physics and game play seriously, check out: http://www.promode.org/.
Punkbuster is installed with the game, it is part of the game software. You already have Punkbuster installed. http://www.evenbalance.com
Yes, Punkbuster is indeed sending local info to EvenBalance headquarters. It is trusted spyware.
Punkbuster retrieves game settings, game configurations, names of programs running in memory, and even filenames stored on disk.
That said, all installed software is trusted software. Evenbalance has been trustworthy so far.
Punkbuster is a good first step in weeding out the undesirable element in the gaming world, since these are the folks attracted to cheats.
The more significant second step is administration of game servers. Admins can ban any player for any reason from the servers they control. Most admins are proud of their service and attempt to keep the riff-raff out as much as possible.
Internet anonymousness remains the real problem.
Slashdot Mirror
I occasionaly think about Quake 3 played for money.
The missing ingredient here is the cheat proofing.
If Vegas Inc develops the cheat-proof Quake 3 derivitive, then Vegas Inc conquers the world.
Lot more fun to watch GTV than poker.
Well, uh, no.
I liked Q1 and Q2, but 56k baud just didn't work very well for multiplayer.
As I recall it, broadband arrived well after Q3.
But, to your point, I see the Q's as evolutionary steps of the same thing. No real need to distinguish between them.
My point was: "physics" are far more important than graphics.
"physics" in this case meaning the consistent behavior of objects in game. Similar in practice to software objects.
Yeah, good point.
I play Q3 online with dozens of other players. We use Ventrilo to comunicate.
http://www.ventrilo.com/
So I was asking the others, why hasn't a better game than Quake 3 been produced?
We have seen some nice games; Far Cry, Unreal Tournament, Doom 3, Painkiller.
Each of these holds the gaming community's attention for about 2 months, then it is back to Q3.
The others told me that they had tried all these other games, but they always returned to Q3.
No one had a good explanation. Quake 3 is just better.
It seems to me that when the game producers produce a game, they had ought to try to produce someting better than the last game, or at least as good.
Why hasn't a better game than Q3 arrived?
I think it is because they, the game producers, don't know how.
Quake 3 Arena's success was a bit of an accident. There was no story at all. Single player was a series of 1 vs 1 encounters with various odd oponents. The graphics were superb. The physics were awesome. The game was entertaining, but was a hi-tech arcade.
Then evolved the internet.
Suddenly Quake 3 was a worldwide phenomenon. Networking and computers were judged by their ability to handle Q3 multiplayer. Quake 3 became an important part of our day. I regularly play with people who are in the United Kingdom (sleepless I presume). I am in North Am.
Q3 gave us the ability to become part of a different universe, one with strict rules of physics, but also fantastic cartoon environment. It was like being a character in a comic book.
It still is this way. No other game provides the equal experience.
I assume the pursuit of ever more spiffier graphics has consumed all of the time and money of the game producers. The game producers run out of resources before the game is actually done. There may not be enough resources on the planet to produce a game as good as Quake3 with the graphics of Doom3.
And, of course, graphics don't matter. Players turn down the graphics regularly. Gameplay counts, graphics don't.
The cartoon physics of Quake 3 is what is important. Consistent behavior of all the various objects.
As time has gone by, this object behavior has been scrutinized, critisied, evaluated, and modified.
It a stunning burst of genious, John Carmack made Quake 3 modifiable by users. A standard user with a standard PC could hope to create maps, models, and even new games with the Quake 3 resources.
Then came the semi-professional modifiers.
How should the Quake 3 Rocket Launcher really work? How fast should the projectile fly? How powerful should the blast from the rocket be? What splash effects of the rocket should occur?
How should the Quake 3 Armor work? How should the various types of armor resist the various types of weaponry? How much armor damage occurs with each strike of each weapon?
How far should the grenade bounce? How long should the Rail-Gun recharge be? How big and how fast should the plasma ball be? Is there really a need for the BFG at all?
Days, weeks, months, and years have been spent arguring and refining these concepts. Each successive argument consumes the previous argment, and evolves. Sort of like computer and software evolution.
Eventually the objects in the game become so argued and evolved that they become real. The objects don't really exist, just as software doesn't exist. But in the minds of people who use these imaginary software objects, the objects are used as if they are real.
This is real game development.
Pity the poor game producers who must toil at creating the ever more spiffy and scary looking monster or hallway.
Quake 3 will remain the best game until a better game arrives.
That better game will evolve from Quake 3. Which means to evolve in terms of gameplay, not graphics.
What Id Software should do is to consume, incorporate, embrace, and extend the work of the modifiers who have in
[quote]
.
When Quake 3 shipped, it faced similar critisism. Most people didn't have the video resources to play it and it sucked up more cpu cycles on the servers. How soon people forget
[/quote]
Very good point. When Quake 3 shipped, folks still saw Doom as the better game.
But then something happened.
Like the internet, and high speed connections.
Suddenly Quake 3 became a world-wide multiplaying phenomenon. It changed history, really.
So why is Quake 3 still the best after so many years?
I am really puzzled why iD did not recognize multiplayer as their new focus. Valve, for instance, bought up Counter Strike and made it a new success. Counter Strike continues to be a successful enterprise.
We are playing for the consistent physics in a multiplayer game. Graphics are way far in second place as a reason to play. Many Quake 3 players turn the graphics down to favor steady frame rates.
Why, after all this time and all this success, has there not appeared the next great multiplayer game?
Unreal Tournament, Painkiller, Doom 3, are not a step forward. If there were a better game than Quake 3, I would be playing it.
For the best Quake 3 modification, one that takes its physics and game play seriously, check out:
http://www.promode.org/
That was great. It looked remarkably true to the original Frank Miller work.
I dearly admire Frank Miller.
How can the ultra-violence of Sin City make it to the movie theaters? It will be rated triple x for sure.
Doesn't matter I guess. The world and I would pay big bucks for a dvd movie like this.
On a related note, there is no way one movie can cover the three major stories hinted at in the trailer.
This looks to be like an introduction. Perhaps full length movies of each Sin City book will follow.
Punkbuster is installed with the game, it is part of the game software. You already have Punkbuster installed. http://www.evenbalance.com Yes, Punkbuster is indeed sending local info to EvenBalance headquarters. It is trusted spyware. Punkbuster retrieves game settings, game configurations, names of programs running in memory, and even filenames stored on disk. That said, all installed software is trusted software. Evenbalance has been trustworthy so far. Punkbuster is a good first step in weeding out the undesirable element in the gaming world, since these are the folks attracted to cheats. The more significant second step is administration of game servers. Admins can ban any player for any reason from the servers they control. Most admins are proud of their service and attempt to keep the riff-raff out as much as possible. Internet anonymousness remains the real problem.