Q3 Archaology, Archive Finds, Trivia, Discoveries

[Foo]

I've been periodically spamming some Discord channels with snippets of information, trivia, and findings as I scour the Internet looking for Q3 content to preserve. This thread is gonna be a grab bag of stuff for the sake of... Well, just putting it somewhere discoverable really.

ZTNTourney1 Stuff
Adventures in finding new places to hide. Already knew about the classic spots:

• Top of (most) archway doors
• Roof above LG jumppad
• Roof of lower TP alcove
• Lamp above RL

But the screenshots are all new spots to me.


Also did you know that in the fog pit under the LG jumppad there's a 'Z' on the wall and a trigger you can't get to which, if you do somehow manage to touch it, says 'I'm Bad'?



Well, now you do.

[Foo]

DM6 Archaeology

Something you perhaps never noticed but has always been there - The wall around this arched window has two missing spots that you can see through to the sky behind.


Old Layout
On a decompiled q3dm6 there is a spare patch mesh underneath the map (first pic)
If you nudge it upwards, it fits this space perfectly (second pic)
Combined with the remnants of a staircase we found nearby (third pic)...
it seems reasonable to conclude that the lower 5h/shards area on dm6 wasn't originally there, and there was either a staircase up to the middle level from the PG/LG room, or possibly a dual-level staircase that linked lower to middle, and another that linked middle to railgun, either directly above it or adjacent
Dunno if there was an earlier test version of DM6 seen in any text/ihv versions, or in any pre-release footage we might be able to confirm this.


At the RA staircase you can see that some brushwork was covered over in the final version. Likely this area was larger to start with then a second walkway was later added along the wall:

[Foo]

Retail Level Crossovers
There have been six commercial releases of Quake 3 (or games heavily based on it):

• Quake 3 (PC)
• Team Arena (PC)
• Q3 Revolution (Playstation 2)
• Quake 3 Dreamcast (PC)
• Q3 Arcade (XBox 360)
• Quake Live (PC)

Each has a different mix of levels or variations of levels that were released in other versions. This sheet is the closest I've got to figuring out which was what in where why and when :owned:

This does not include the community maps pack stuff from Quake Live because there's a huge number of them, they didn't appear in any other versions of the game, and it would have doubled the size of the sheet :ninja:

[Foo]

Q3 versions of Q1 DM1
I went on a bit of a Quake 1 DM1 conversions binge. Turns out there's a bunch.

13Place - by sst13
(map-13place.zip/map-13place.pk3)

Most faithful conversion while also tweaking the scale, brushwork, and item placement in the most tasteful manner possible. Tweaks like raising the MH ledge work well.
https://lvlworld.com/review/id:1596

q1dm1 - by Dominic "<Chaos>" Szablewski
(q1dm1.zip/q1dm1.pk3)

A very faithful recreation of DM1 from Q1, although faithfully re-creating the item configuration means it's not great for 1v1. Would be nice to have an item remixed version with different weapons and swap the RA to a YA since the map is so small.

Place of Two Kings - by Dave Bulow
(po2k.zip/po2k.pk3)

Very weird wattle-n-daub and henry VIII theming. Fairly faithful to the original in layout, but not great gameplay.
https://lvlworld.com/review/id:184

genq1dm1 - by Russell "Castle" Meakim Jr
(genq1dm1.zip/genq1dm1.pk3)

Upscaled in all three dimensions with a bunch more areas added and very pretty. However the additional vertical action is somewhat squandered by too much extra scale - Players at one height can rarely see players near them at other levels and shooting between is hard.
https://lvlworld.com/review/id:2469

q3death - by H. Berger aka Insane Kid aka Rascal
(q3q1pak1.zip/q3Q1pak1.pk3)

Feels like 'early q3' good quality mapping, leans into the new texture set really well. Layout changes to add more connectivity have made the map too interconnected however. The new staircase with YA works well but the replacement of MH ledge with a linking corridor and breaking through from the GL to the SG room flattens the map so much that it doesn't really work.
https://lvlworld.com/review/id:2247

q3q1dm1 - by Mike Zuber
(q3q1dm1.zip/q3q1dm1.pk3)

Very faithful, very basic conversion with all the same issues as q1dm1.pk3 above.
https://lvlworld.com/review/id:113

[Foo]

Adrian Carmack recently shared some of the Q3 weapon concept sketches on his LinkedIn

[Foo]

And also some character roughs that didn't make it in. Although the vadrigar looking thing does match up with the look of the Q3Test version of Klesk, and also got scanned into the texture on the large tower wall in front of the LG on Q3Tourney2.

[Foo]

Speaking of concept sketches that made it in as scanned textures...

[Eraser]

Adrian Carmack recently shared some of the Q3 weapon concept sketches on his LinkedIn

Shame they never actually went ahead and put a grappling hook in.

[MKJ]

The world wasn't ready for a grappling hook to be in a commercial arena shooter yet

[Eraser]

Been swinging around like a goddamn monkey since the inception of Threewave CTF and this man here tells me it's too goddamn exotic. Get outta here ya noob.

[MKJ]

A lot of us were, but it was always a mod. Hence my point, twas too much for casuals to have it be a standard feature.

[Lieutenant Dan]

I love threads like this. Thank you for putting this together.

[eukara]

Bumping because it's so good.