here is a preview of q4 by citizen
To be blunt, Doom 3 was a big disappointment for me. id Software's track record of setting the standard for competitive multi-player FPS (first person shooter) gaming was questioned for the first time ever, and the genre has existed for more than a decade. I'm not saying their games prior to Doom 3 were flawless, but most imperfections seen by the masses were remedied via mods; game modifications such as OSP for Quake 2 and Quake 3. The core issues with Doom 3 were too low level for this to be accomplished.
We heard the warnings from id Software about Doom 3 being primarily a single-player game, but we did not want to believe them. We knew they would come through for their fans. Things seemed more promising as the game neared completion and an announcement was made about replacing the peer-to-peer netcode they had initially developed with a client-server model. But then we got our hands on the game. We were limited to 4 players on a server. We had to pay a fortune to upgrade our gaming machines to achieve "just better than slideshow" performance. And the network code made the game impossible to play seriously on the internet. All the shadows and darkness - id Software turned FPS into FPHAS (first-person hide and seek).
But enough about Doom 3. Let's pretend it had no multi-player component. The time has come for Quake 4, which is actually being developed by Raven Software under the close supervision of id Software. It is built on the Doom 3 engine and was publicly playable for the first time ever at QuakeCon 2005 this past weekend. I tried to go into the experience with an open mind, but I honestly did not expect to be impressed.
I played Quake 4 for over 4 hours during the event. First it was at the Intel booth for about an hour on LCD screens using the new Razer mouse. While I was somewhat pleased with the game, it was jittering quite a bit when I moved. My hope was that this was simply a side-effect of either the monitor or the mouse. The next day I spent another hour playing it at the Activision booth which used Microsoft mice and CRT monitors (ReDeYe of Inside the Game filmed some of this which he talks about and shares in his ESReality journal). For some reason the game felt even worse to me there, but it proved that the LCD monitor at the Intel booth was not the problem. It was either the game itself or the mouse.
Saturday night we were hanging out with the guys from Intel when they asked us if we wanted to go back down to the booth for a private Quake 4 session. They let me setup my own mouse and configure it how I prefer (I am a Logitech MX518 fan for anyone wondering). Wow what a difference it made! The game felt much more like Quake 3 than Doom 3 (the jitters I experienced before were completely gone). We played FFA (free for all), TDM (team deathmatch), and tons of CTF (capture the flag) for over 2 hours. Based on this experience, here is my information dump about Quake 4...
THE GAME ENGINE
The maximum number of players in a game appeared to be 16. The server seems to have no issues at all with handling this load. It was, at least, very smooth for our 10 player session on Saturday night. 5 versus 5 CTF was a total blast!
Although I could only test the network code accuracy on LAN, it felt quite solid compared to Doom 3. We'll have to wait and see just how it is on the internet though with a ping of 50 milliseconds or more. This is one of the biggest reasons Doom 3 failed. Let's hope Raven nails this one.
I am certain that the machines we were playing on were completely top of the line. With "high quality" settings at 800x600, I was getting around 40 to 60 frames per second. It seems the 60 frames per second cap in Doom 3 is still present in Quake 4.
THE PHYSICS
Overall the physics feel very similar to Quake 3. You can strafe jump in pretty much the exact same manner, and some forward momentum could be used when jumping off of ramps for increased height. While I have heard it mentioned once that double jumps off of boxes are possible, I could not figure it out. Until you see it in action, don't believe that one.
There were no elevator lifts on the maps I saw. It was completely jump pad and launch pad based like Quake 3.
The weapon physics are definitely worth mentioning here. Most projectile ammunition will actually travel through a portal. Grenades are even affected by jump pads. Check out this video to see it in action.
At first I thought rockets did too much self damage. But after some practice late Saturday night, a good jump takes between 30 and 40 health (with no armor). Rocket jump distance is similar if not a bit more than that of Quake 3.
THE WEAPONS
I don't recall the exact names of the weapons, but maybe I'll get them right. I also was unable to do much damage analysis, so I will only guess when I have an idea regarding it. Only the weapons I actually got to try are listed.
Gauntlet - identical in usage to Quake 3, but it looks much cooler.
Machinegun - the starting weapon. Similar to Quake 3, but it might do less damage (I hope). It has a zoom mode which lets you shoot single shots with each button press. I am assuming that it does more damage when used this way.
Shotgun - this is a powerful weapon. I'd compare it to the Quake 2 super shotgun. It was one of my favorites to run around with in hand in case I stumbled across an opponent point blank.
Nailgun - very similar to the original Quake classic. It does a ton of damage if you can get someone to land in the nails, but they are rather random and slow projectiles. You can climb walls a bit with this (similar to the plasma gun in Quake 3). There is a video of me doing this here.
Hyperblaster - looks like a plasma gun from the Doom series or Quake 3. It has about the same rate of fire as the nailgun, but it had more of a consistent flow. Using this while strafing back and forth made for a very nice defensive weapon. You can also climb walls some with the hyperblaster, but I think it hurt less to do it with the nailgun.
Grenade Launcher - the fact that grenades can go through teleporters and off of launch pads really adds a dimension to this weapon. I bet it will become much more of a primary choice since it seemed to have less arc than past versions (making it easier to aim).
Rocket Launcher - the staple weapon of all id Software games will stay that way. I honestly can't recall how different this was from Quake 3, so I'll have to say the firing speed and rate of fire are probably similar to it.
Railgun - this Quake 2 classic is back and finally done right. It is not much different in usage than past versions, but it seemed to only do about 75 damage per hit. Thank you Raven!
Lightning Gun - word on the street is you can pin someone in the air with it. I never got to try, but it definitely had some push to it. The stream is much more stable than the Quake 3 one (it felt alot like true lightning to me).
THE MAPS
I played on three different maps. The first one is what most video footage seen on the internet is of (it has a rust tone similar to DM7 from Quake 3 or DM1 from Quake 2). It seems like it might make for a decent 1v1 or 2v2 map, but it was a bit small for the chaotic 10 player FFA games that were running. The next map I only saw for a few minutes, but it seemed to be completely indoor and quite small - too small for 1v1 even. The third one though impressed me the most. It was a green, orange, and gray symmetrical map clearly made with CTF in mind. It reminded me of some of my favorite Quake 3 CTF maps which I'd consider ideal for 4v4 or 5v5. One side of the map was dominantly green while the other was the rusty orange. Let's hope this one is included in a Quake 4 internet demo if one is released!
OTHER STUFF
The armor and health system seemed completely identical to Quake 3. You spawn in with 125 health and it ticks down once a second to 100. The megahealth bumps you up 100 health points to a maximum of 200 (and then ticks back down to 100 as well).
Armor all protects at the same percentage level, and you can get up to 200 of it. It also ticks down to 100 at a rate of 1 per second. I remember seeing shards, red armor, and yellow armor, all with the same values as Quake 3.
That is about all I can remember for now. I wrote most of this while flying back to Seattle from Dallas. If I think of any other important details I'll add it in the comments. Feel free to ask me any questions you have or identify something I missed via the comments.
In closing, I will say that I went ahead and gave GameStop money at the event to pre-order Quake 4. I now have high hopes for the game. Please don't screw this up Raven!
Many thanks to the Intel crew at QuakeCon. Without them this article would definitely not exist.
