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Source code for Quake 2 rerelease

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Re: Source code for Quake 2 rerelease

#121
post #46

Why do people like Quake so much? I'm too young to understand. Does it do something unique compared to other shooter games?

The firsts are actually insane. Here are some of them:

- First real 3D FPS game using OpenGL (GLQuake)

- First real multiplayer 3D game with 16 players

- First to introduce the idea of a "clan" or "guild" for a multiplayer game. It's where the term "clan" came from

- First esports game

- First instance of Capture the Flag mod later used in other games

- First instance of Team Fortress later used in other games (e.g. TF2)

- First game to have "demos" (aka VODs) where you can rewatch / replay a match

- First game with a multiplayer competition match mode (Clanring or CRCTF or CRDM)

- First web service allowing you to see what's going in in games from the internet [qstat](https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/qstat)

Aside from all of these firsts Quake 1 and Quake 2 were incredibly executed.

- Soundtracks made by Nine Inch Nails. Who at the time ever heard of a tier 1 famous band making entire videogame soundtracks?

- Creepy gothic lovecraftian demonic theme combined with space. The space parts were later ripped off by Half-Life. And you can see the influences even on modern cultural artifacts like the show Stranger Things (which itself seems to rip off Half Life's storyline).

Quake is basically the original online multiplayer game and had almost everything we have today but had it all the way back in 1996. The only things that game didn't really have was deep API integrations to websites the way games have now or complex matchmaking with elo and ranks.

Re: Source code for Quake 2 rerelease

#122
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was one of the very first FPS games where you had true mouselook. All the predecessors either didn't (wolf3d/doom/rott), or faked it (ultima underworld). Notable exception is Descent (which is probably the actual first 3d FPS game), but IMO controlling a spaceship in 3d was a barrier to entry that Quake didn't have.

Descent had mouselook? Now I feel stupid. Or maybe I just didn’t have a mouse when I used to play it with friends, can’t remember.

Yes. Very difficult to play with a mouse, but the pros with a mouse were amazing. I had a few friends that were mouse players.

The most popular choice of accessory was the Sidewinder 3D Pro. That was my choice of input device and I was easily a top 5% player in my teens.

I never touched one, but many people swore by the SpaceOrb 360 as the pinnacle of controllers for Descent.

Re: Source code for Quake 2 rerelease

#124

Quake II was my first experience writing C. The code is clear, coherent, and straightforward. I’m not going to say it’s the best source code I’ve ever read, but it set a high bar. I’ve read source code to games since then, and I’ve seen all sorts of weird stuff… I’ve seen functions with nesting levels that go past the right side of the screen, I’ve seen functions a mile long that do a million things, you know. It was…

Appreciation for that id code means you may appreciate "John Carmack on Inlined Code (2014)": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12120752

Re: Source code for Quake 2 rerelease

#125
I got in trouble for playing this in class from a teacher in her early thirties who I had a crush on. The red hot chili peppers had just released Californication. The matrix was all the rage and felt threatening to my young Christian sensibilities

Re: Source code for Quake 2 rerelease

#128
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah they use a substantial amount of proprietary middleware now, so even if they wanted to open source the engine it would be difficult to pull off. As of Doom Eternal they're using middleware for at least audio (Wwise), video (Bink), compression (Oodle), physics (Havok), culling (Umbra) and networking (Playfab), plus any references to console SDKs would have to be meticulously scrubbed from a public release, which…

Rage should still be releaseable as Carmack wanted to release the source code at some point but he left id before that happened. I always found amusing that to replace him Zenimax built a whole new studio in Germany to hire the top programmers from Crytek and even then Doom 2016 used a litany of middleware :-P.

Shame they never finished Rage. It was a pretty good game up to the point where the boss came in and said they needed to have it out the door in a week.

Re: Source code for Quake 2 rerelease

#130
post #46

Why do people like Quake so much? I'm too young to understand. Does it do something unique compared to other shooter games?

The firsts are actually insane. Here are some of them: - First real 3D FPS game using OpenGL (GLQuake) - First real multiplayer 3D game with 16 players - First to introduce the idea of a "clan" or "guild" for a multiplayer game. It's where the term "clan" came from - First esports game - First instance of Capture the Flag mod later used in other games - First instance of Team Fortress later used in other games (e.g.…

Great summary. Just wanted to say that the Q2 OST (at least the base game) was made by Sonic Mayhem while the Q1 one was made by NIN.

Both are great OSTs, Q1 is a "ambient-horror-esque" styled album [1] while Q2 OST [2] is practically industrial metal made using synths.

[1] https://youtu.be/5n8iU7abqkQ [2] https://youtu.be/svRkAEoT5Hc

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