[Aristotle Gumball]

NightFright, on 14 July 2021 - 09:19 PM, said:

So we finally have an explanation for why the Petersen episode sucked? Willits sabotaged him to boost his own ego?

Nah, people respected Sandy because he was the older guy with experience. This is all about Mcgee's maps. Also, I vehemently disagree that his episode sucked, hahaha. ITS MY PERSONAL FAVORITE.

Maybe that explains my "suffering is good for art" comment. I sure suffered playing through his maps. Still, they were visually interesting to me, and I don't hate the spawn as much as other folks.

@ck3D, you kinda brought this up already, but it does seem like they were all a bit cunty at id and Willits seems like a convenient bogeyman, probably because he wasn't as useful as Carmack, although if you read between the lines, Sandy didn't think that highly of him either besides his obvious programming talent.

And I wasn't there obviously so I can't speak for how "bad" things really were, but I've just found this to be true generally that conflict is good for creativity. I don't mean working in an office under a shitty boss where you're not really making anything, but between a partnership of equals, such as in a band or a small team of developers, being kept on edge by everyone can brute-force great work. Long term it definitely destroys the band/company, yes. Maybe the product is worth it, though. All good things come to an end one day.

Honestly, I've noticed my personality in a team situation is definitely more abrasive and if someone isn't pulling their weight, I have let them know. Being too "gentle" with another man can almost seem more disrespectful than just letting them know in an insensitive way. If I've completely lost faith in someone and don't even see them as being capable anymore, that's when I start being really soft and nice. They had a macho atmosphere at id and in the end they made a lot of great games and carved their names into history. You don't do that shit with a feather, you do it with a hammer and chisel.

[ck3D]

Jesus Christ, on 18 July 2021 - 11:39 PM, said:

@ck3D, you kinda brought this up already, but it does seem like they were all a bit cunty at id and Willits seems like a convenient bogeyman, probably because he wasn't as useful as Carmack, although if you read between the lines, Sandy didn't think that highly of him either besides his obvious programming talent.

And I wasn't there obviously so I can't speak for how "bad" things really were, but I've just found this to be true generally that conflict is good for creativity. I don't mean working in an office under a shitty boss where you're not really making anything, but between a partnership of equals, such as in a band or a small team of developers, being kept on edge by everyone can brute-force great work. Long term it definitely destroys the band/company, yes. Maybe the product is worth it, though. All good things come to an end one day.

Honestly, I've noticed my personality in a team situation is definitely more abrasive and if someone isn't pulling their weight, I have let them know. Being too "gentle" with another man can almost seem more disrespectful than just letting them know in an insensitive way. If I've completely lost faith in someone and don't even see them as being capable anymore, that's when I start being really soft and nice. They had a macho atmosphere at id and in the end they made a lot of great games and carved their names into history. You don't do that shit with a feather, you do it with a hammer and chisel.

Ah yes then in this case I completely agree with you. Regarding the situation at id, just like you it seems I try to never project over situations I realistically don't know jack about and basically live in fantasy world but in general from the descriptions, it really just sounds like the basic, typical situation where everybody was the others' collective bogeyman at some point or the other in the history of the company for this or that reason, when there's probably some truth and some delusion to every person's version in the end. The 'scapegoat rotation system' Petersen has been describing is one that often leads to deaf communication, in that usually blaming the next guy for all the trouble instead of considering one's own part of responsibility in the matter is sterile as far as serious teamwork is concerned (and so, much ado for nothing any more constructive in the long run than the clash of a few limited egos).

Of course that certainly doesn't mean you should tolerate someone constantly fucking up if that's an evident isolated case, and I'm in fact very much in favor of raw honesty in general (and then if someone is too immature to understand justified criticism of their position, that's purely on them). If you'd ask me I'd say this world cruelly misses more honesty in general, which is exactly why I feel like things actually wouldn't go as far as someone evidently and singlehandedly fucking up teamwork if people just knew how to communicate a bit better and openly keep each other in check - then problems can be defused before they develop and egos start degenerating.

A big part of me used to think sugarcoating criticism was a complete, superfluous waste of time and in fact it still exists, but sometimes I'm also tempted to relativize; if the person is too weak to accept their bubble being bursted then perhaps it's actually just as counterproductive to not learn, and keep poking it, as all they will get from the interaction anyway is oh noes you're attacking them and so you personally are an asshole, while they really never did anything wrong, comforting their ego. Whereas sometimes if you can read and adapt to the other person's 'language' (not just verbal, also non-verbal and, most fundamentally, their cognitive patterns and psychological profile altogether), even if that feels like stepping down into what feels new lows to you, they will actually get the gist of what you're trying to express as opposed to only hear noise. It's possible to bark both bullshit and honesty (and so the solution doesn't reside in the barking per se); where things get a bit tricky is when your honesty is being received as bullshit, but that only signifies you still have a few gaps in communication to bridge with the individual you're dealing with (if you can, or need to bother) because if you could actually speak their language then they would understand you as soon as you need them to. I don't think that's sugarcoating stuff, just being the wiser and more mature person, one more prone to efficiency too since then no energy is absurdly lost on unnecessary bickering and more on general progress.

Also just to say, I do like Petersen's approach to level design, it's unique in its own way and I always like at least seeing that (not necessarily playing, though; depends). Specifying because my previous post sounds a bit harsh on Petersen rereading it in retrospect while I didn't mean any negative commentary on the guy in particular (and I don't think I even really expressed any, but surely can see how some people could read it the wrong way).

[Aristotle Gumball]

@"Why is Quake like that?" Romero responded:

John Romero
1 week ago (edited)
Hello Sandy, hope you're doing well. Great job on the video. There are some pieces of info you can correct. (1) Paul Steed was not at id while I worked there. Kevin Cloud did all Quake 1's models, and Adrian did the skins. (2) The zombie attacking you from pieces of its body was my idea – I talked to Kevin about putting a zombie in the game and pulling parts of itself to throw at you. (3) the slow Vore spikeballs didn't match the rest of the enemy projectiles (or the player's), so they needed to be sped up. (4) the Spawn belonged only in the 4th episode so there's an additional enemy later in the game (5) the reason why Quake is not in the game is because the entire design changed in Nov 95 and half the people wanted to make an FPS instead of spending time exploring design. This is how the medieval design disappeared, but not the name which had been heavily publicized by that time.

He said nothing about Willits, lol.

[MrFlibble]

Recently I started playing Hexen II for the first time (not counting the demos played before that), and I wonder if the Force Cube is a kind of a nod to the similar feature in the original Quake character design that Sandy mentioned, or just a coincidence? (I knew about Quake being the hammer-wielding guy as described in Commander Keen, but did not know about the cube thing.)

[Ninety-Six]

Did Romero have a hand in Hexen 2 like he did Heretic? Or did Raven develop it wholly independent of id/former members of id (minus any engine help)?

[MrFlibble]

Good question, I wish I knew! According to MobyGames at least, he's not on the credits list in any capacity.

On a completely different note, NightFright's mention of After The Fall prompted me to look for other Quake TCs, which generally seems to be a topic that is not at all well documented, strangely. I've found several sites that obviously cover only some of the projects, and of course there are idgames2 and planetquake mirrors, again a lot of stuff there seems to have little to no coverage when you look it up at Google or YouTube.

Anyway, I found a TC called The Alien Earth, with a downloadable demo (apparently the TC was never fully completed) available here. It includes a custom engine called TomazQuake, and the build included with the demo just crashes, so I downloaded the latest version which does not, but it also does not run the demo for some reason. I use the OpenQuartz PAK files (notably Seth Galbraith, the author of OQ, is also among the developers of The Alien Earth) and when I try to run the TC demo it just throws me into the usual OQ start map, as if nothing was loaded from the demo data folder:

TQ1481.exe -game taedemo +map start -window

The log file it generates has a lot of messages about "unknown function" but I have no idea what it has to do with anything.

For the record, I unpacked all of the contents from the ZIP with the latest version of TomazQuake and overwrote all files, and then also unzipped the latest version into a new folder and copied only the taedemo folder there.

I am able to load individual SP maps though.

[K1n9_Duk3]

My Hexen II box has three logos on it: Raven, id and Activision. It says:

Quote

Developed by Raven Software Corporation. Published by Id Software, Inc. Distributed by Activision, Inc. under sublicense.

The credits in the manual only list Raven and Activision staff members, so no mention of Romero or Carmack.

[NightFright]

I discovered a new port called Retroquad:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/54152228

Its goal seems to be to provide the best 8-bit software rendering possible, featuring multicore rendering, colored lighting, fog and shoreline foam (sounds interesting, but right now I can't picture it).

The downside is that it's not a lightweight port regarding filesize, indicated by its 2.6GB (!) d/l size (9 GB extracted). No idea how this came to be, but I guess it comes with tons of external files which need to be loaded on top of the actual game data.

[Aristotle Gumball]

I checked it out and while I see some of the new effects and they're neat, it doesn't quite seem coherent aesthetically. I'm also getting low framerates and frequent crashes. Hmm.

[NightFright]

I think qbism Super8 is a far better choice for the average user who wants a beefier 8-bit experience. I am still missing a stricter Chocolate/Crispy Quake approach, but some ports can be brought close to it with proper tuning. Quakespasm actually doesn't do too badly regarding that.

[Aristotle Gumball]

NightFright, on 27 July 2021 - 09:18 AM, said:

I think qbism Super8 is a far better choice for the average user who wants a beefier 8-bit experience.

This shit is great; thanks! I like how I can change my weapon position in this. Plays really smooth and looks nice.

[NightFright]

Just be aware that it's not really a vanilla-like port. It looks retro, but it's doing its own thing. More like a "Quake the way we remember it" approach rather than "Quake the way it used to be". Guess you can compare it with Doom Retro. "Retro style" by the definition of the port author. Still, it has a lot of nice features. Main downside is that it doesn't seem to be actively developed any more. But well, if there's anything you cannot run with it, you can always use QSS.

[Aristotle Gumball]

NightFright, on 27 July 2021 - 11:21 AM, said:

Just be aware that it's not really a vanilla-like port. It looks retro, but it's doing its own thing. More like a "Quake the way we remember it"

Yeah, I read the feature list. Works for me.

[DisgustedGrunt]

NightFright, on 27 July 2021 - 07:45 AM, said:

I discovered a new port called Retroquad:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/54152228

The downside is that it's not a lightweight port regarding filesize, indicated by its 2.6GB (!) d/l size (9 GB extracted). No idea how this came to be, but I guess it comes with tons of external files

..yeah, i'll stick to Quakespasm. Whatever it is it's just bloat.

EDIT: Downloaded it. 90% of the weight comes from a "textures" folder, inside ID1. (Guess he just included 4k textures) without that folder size drops from 9 gb to 825 mb. Still a lot of bloat: model replacements, etc.

[NightFright]

Well, if anybody wants a classic Quake experience, Mark V WinQuake delivers pretty much that. It's as close to the old WinQuake as it can possibly get, both visually and gameplay-wise, while still supporting many of the enhanced maps and features. Like with qbism, it's sadly not developed any more, at least for the time being since Baker vanished off the radar (in spite of some dubious short reappearances without any meaning). If it supported AD, I actually wouldn't use anything else. (Same goes for Mark V itself, btw.)

In the meantime, I will keep this unfinished port called "Richter" under observation. Still in pre-alpha, though.

[Ninety-Six]

The Quake source port situation seems to be... far less straightforward than the Doom engine's or Build's. I remember I had a tough time finding good info on a decent source port to use before finally discovering spasm.

[Kristian Joensen]

What Quake port would people here recommend for those that like modern graphical features?

[Ninety-Six]

Isn't Dark Places the one that's best for that sort of thing? I seem to remember that being one of the fancier ones...

[NightFright]

My current recommendations in general:
- Quakespasm-Spiked: For pretty much anything (except for Nehahra). One the few ports that can also run most demanding and advanced maps, including AD. Also manages to maintain the original visuals while allowing some neat enhancements. Still lacking .vis file support and authentic waterwarp for my taste, though.
- Mark V: If you want to play Nehahra properly these days, but also still OK for standard usage (except for advanced BSP2 maps). It's great because it's a single binary, no DLLs needed. Used to be my standard Quake port before QSS until Baker stopped updating it.
- Mark V WinQuake: Basically the next best thing to "Chocolate Quake" these days. Software rendering only, stipple alpha water transparency, no visual bling-bling. Set it to 480p without any external visual enhancement mods and experience vanilla heaven.

For retro enthusiasts, there is a neat comparison with screenshots of vanilla-like ports in the GOG.com forums. You can decide for yourself which look is the most authentic (besides DOSBox and WinQuake ofc, since those are the originals).

Regarding Darkplaces: Haven't used it for quite a while, but with its advanced shadow options allow impressive visuals. With highres packs and shaders (e.g. for reflective water), the game looks very polished and modern. Not my cup of tea any more, though.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Nightfright, do you know how to get the water to be translucent in Qbism? I have the vis files, but they don't seem to do anything. Same with opacity settings in the options menu.

[NightFright]

I think the port does not support external .vis files. You might need the full maps with vis patches applied.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Yup, vispatch solved the issue. Qbism Super8 with the map changes from Quake 1.5 could be my absolute favorite way to experience Quake in 2021.

[NightFright]

Well, it's great I helped you find a new favorite port! For me qbism deviates too much, but that's why there are different ports. Everybody has different demands.

Btw: I did't know that there are rumors they might be working on a Q1 reboot at id with a female protagonist. Now the unexpected twist: There's also supposed to be a singleplayer campaign! Sounds too good to be true almost, but I believe this could sell really well if it's really coming. QC sucked pretty hard after all, so they might want to give this another shot.

Source:
https://store.steamp...467004860231997

[DisgustedGrunt]

So this is a thing:

[MusicallyInspired]

Lol is that Freeman's Mind dialogue by any chance?

Also, Gman looks like a world mesh object. lol

[NightFright]

Imagine the entire game like this. Route Kanal/Water Hazard could be interesting. Or Ravenholm - zombies everywhere. But they would be much slower than in the original...

Anyway, respect for putting so much effort into this. Most of the sequences actually remain recognizable, in spite of the drastic visual adjustments.

[MusicallyInspired]

It's really hilarious somehow in a ridiculous way that all these Quake enemies look like they're putting on a HL2 play. It's almost adorable.

[DisgustedGrunt]

NightFright, on 30 July 2021 - 09:15 AM, said:

Imagine the entire game like this. Route Kanal/Water Hazard could be interesting. Or Ravenholm - zombies everywhere. But they would be much slower than in the original...

Anyway, respect for putting so much effort into this. Most of the sequences actually remain recognizable, in spite of the drastic visual adjustments.

I played it last night, still amazed by the fact the map maker was able to cram 4 HL2 maps into a single Quake map, and keeping the level of detail high enough to make it recognizable. Sadly most of the other maps included in the pack are ... well, it's an april fools map pack. A lot of them are in the wtf territory but a few are fun enough.

here's the link (it's on the video desc anyways)
https://www.quaddict...jokejam_v1.html

[NightFright]

I like how the author just about ends it before Alyx becomes important. Having an AI companion in Quake might have proven... challenging.

[Morpheus Kitami]

MusicallyInspired, on 30 July 2021 - 09:00 AM, said:

Lol is that Freeman's Mind dialogue by any chance?

Also, Gman looks like a world mesh object. lol

Nah, Freeman's Mind tends to gloss over Dr. Breen, and no "Max Headroom for old people" or "Is this Hawaii?" comments.