a poll, of sorts, from an ex raven guy

[tequila!]

As an ex Raven employee who put many many hours into Quake4, mapping and scripting:

I'd love to see this thread turn into an opinion poll based on 3 questions.

Question 1: Are you glad you have it in your hands now?
This is a simple pass / fail test. No other answer is required

Quesion 2: On a scale of 1-10 - give it a number, no explanations.

Question 3: rant and rave about any aspect of the game as long as you'd like - rant about the junk you hate and rave about what you like. Cohesive and constructive thoughts would be appreciated, but not required.

-

As a sidenote, I left Raven a few months before Quake4 was done. While some reasons I left were for professional reasons, the bulk of reasons were personal issues - aka - none of your business.

-Robert Bettenberg

[neh]

1. yes
2. 6.5
3. The single player game design is very week, the graphics (unless you go to ultra) are also dissappointing - seems there was very little progression in texture detail until you get to ultra at which point they were suddenly decent. Did I mention that the single player game design is very weak

[o'dium]

1) Yes

2) 8.9

3)High's ; It feels like a Quake game. MP fells like Q3.

Lows ; The weapon models fucking suck, nothing like the original designs. The strogg suck for the most part, nothing but retarded looking multi colour random aliens.

[o'dium]

An example of what i dont like is the eyes of the strogg. I fail to see why the humans look, well, human (Apart from kane, who was the only retarded ugly stupid looking one).

The strogg have eyes that are massive spheres sticking out of their heads... WOW. Looks shit.

Take a leaf from Splash Damages design book and see how the strogg look in that game. THATS What they should look like.

[Eraser]

1) Yes, absolutely so. Even the single player has caught my interest more than I initially expected. The design is awesome.

2) a nine.

3) MP is very good, although I'm slightly disappointed at how you feel rather bulky and slow compared to Quake 3. I'm sure that is also caused by the relatively low framerates, but in Q3 you feel as light as a feather after playing Q4. I'm also a bit disappointed at the number of kind of obvious bugs in MP. Most of them are visual things so there's no big worries there though. The new tournament mode is a brilliant addition and the stats are great as well :icon14:

[Grudge]

This goes for single player, I haven't had time to get into the MP yet.

1. Yes

2. 9/10

3. Excellent single player campaign. Great visuals, great pacing, overall great design.

I have 2 major gripes though:

-- SPOILER WARNING --

The vehicle sequences felt kinda unnecessary and soulless. Vehicles work much better in more open environments - now they felt like they were more or less just there because of all new games need vehicles in them. Plus those "firing range" sequences on the hover truck caravan and the tram ride through the canyon where enemies and turrets and stuff kept popping up to get shot down felt very contrieved.

You guys should had taken a couple of hints from the Halo games in that area - the execution of vehicle combat there is more or less flawless IMHO: The vehicle sequences were much more "open" - the maps allowed for more choice of which path you take, you were not locked into your vehicle, you could choose if you wanted to drive or shoot, and you could choose to go by foot too if you wanted to. The same goes for weapons fixtures. You could use the mounted machineguns and plasma cannons if you wanted to, but it was not always the best way in every situation.

Quake 4's vehicle sequences felt more like Pariah than Halo, which is not a good thing.

The other gripe I have is with the final level - the Core. I was thoroughly unimpressed by it. There is this huge tower that you have been spending a lot of effort to get into, and after seeing it from the roofs of those three surrounding towers I was expecting something a lot more impressive than those same old small corridors and rooms that I had already been running through during the entire game.

I mean, wtf did you completely run out of ideas or what? I can understand that the final Nexus chamber couldn't be made any larger than it was because you had to spawn a lot of enemies there at the same time, but you could at least spent some effort on the surrounding areas in the rest of the Core, making them feel like you were actually in the center of the Strogg nerve system.

Other than that I really enjoyed the game. The idea of having both medics and techs fighting with you was great and the team AI worked very well. All the weapons were useful, the enemies weren't annoying, the story was ok for this kind of game and the voice acting was really good (again, for this kind of game). Great game.

EDIT: added spoiler warning

[MKJ]

weapon models fucking suck? please, theyre miles better than q3's. i liked q2s a lot because they had animations (both idle and active) going on, and theyre back now. its grat :icon14:

[Audio]

Thanks for looking at my reply.

1. Sure, I'm glad I have it now but I would have been willing to wait a little longer for an SDK and documentation for mod/map creation. Radiant seems a litle buggy at present.

2. its a 7


3. It feels like a Quake product and thats good.

Was the croutchslide an intentional physics design? Intresting new way to push beyond the speed barrier.

The RL seems to be a bit slower than q3 and theres a tiny delay between mouseclick and actual rocket firing. Those issues could be looked at. After playing and messing a bit in the editor it seems that the scale is not in sync with actual weapon values. (Rox seem slower because the characters are bigger in size.)

The stairs do not let you strafe smoothly uphill or downhill for that matter. Matter of fact, its much too easy to get hung up on stairs. Needs a fix. Ramp jumps seem fine.

Graphics are lovely but... The D3 engine uses light in a way that isnt quite up to snuff for multiplayer optimization. Giving us a choice between lightmaps and actual rendering might have made a HUGE difference online. Theres sound stutters and when your screen fils up with other players it gets kinda slide-showy.

Overall its a lot of fun and with some point releases from id/raven and some community modding, I have no doubt it will morph into something as successful as Q3 was. Thats my blog.

Thanks for all your hard work.

[Nologic]

1. Yes
2. 9
3. Kevin Long doing art work..the guy is amazing...one of the best, if not the best Sci Fi artist out there. Heh been a fan of his art work for many years.

I really haven't played much of the game to really get a solid impression of the game, but what I have seen thus far has been amazing. Probably my biggest bitch is the underscore _commands...I really don't think weapon switching should be part of a games difficulty...both single player and multi.

I have other things to nag about scripting wise...but over all are lesser things. I think the game was released in good quality...with some minor stuff thats fit for a point release.

[Bueller]

1. Yes
2. 7
3. Never played the SP yet. As a lover of Q3 I guess I'm kinda hard on Q4 but for me it just doesn't seem as fluid as Q3 MP. Like eraser stated...I feel weighted down and in Q3 I could run a map with so much more accuracy and speed. I miss alot of the options such as forcemodel and bright skins. Also I must say the _impulse command is a son of a gun to bind to.

Lastly, I haven't found a map that I really enjoy. A ported pro-q3dm6 would have been nice and kept me busy for some time.

Maybe I'm an unfair judge considering the best solution for me would have been Q3 Version 2 MP.

[ppp]

1. Of course
2 8
3. ** Beware, possible spoilers **
Good stuff:
Lots of brown textures - proper quake
Big chunky Quake 2 style 'Volvo' architecture 'boxy but good'
Nice doors, especially the skinny fast office ones
No 'use' button
Quake 2 logo used liberally
Corpses being dragged away screaming - always a laugh
Blood dripping noise *shudder*
A corpses mobile phone ringing in ceiling - that's a first surely
Not all areas contained bad guys
Ran smooth for a Doom 3 engine
More outside areas than Doom 3
Machine gun sound (unless there's a few more firing close-by)
Watching fellow soldiers flashlight beams in SP (AI in action)
Fast Zoom - usefull
BFG animation
Big monsters, where did that baby go?
Becomming Strogg - that was some flu jab!
Couple of vehicles/mech
Sliding - nice feature
Shooting through portals
Monster-closets avoided
Nice rusty texture sets

Bad stuff:
Plastic railgun and shotgun - yuk
The others look alike and 'cartoony'
Railgun beam too fat (fixed when fov increased)
70% of SP game too dark, MP good though
A few more DM maps needed (but good for mappers)
Needed more varied choice of magazines to read!
Needs more easter eggs
Wanted little 'friendly-bots' like in Doom 3
Phone message retrieval facility not exploited fully, i.e. where's the humour?
Hard to tell friend from foe in CTF at distance
Weapons/Armour/Ammo items a bit small
Footstep sounds too fast when going sideways
Not much air movement off ramps
Can't see through portals
No water
No co-op
No bots
Can't strafe-jump up stairs

Just a personal take and confess a bit 'picky' perhaps with some time needed to adapt

[CyAne]

1) Yes

2) 7

3) Loved the SP. Everythings been said already about MP.
I feel about the same as Bueller.
My personal confession:
What I really miss are good, fun models with some personality.
I really hate those boring, all alike marines and stroggs.
I dont like the way they sound either.
And bring back voicetaunts!

[c0balt]

1) Yes.
2) 8.5 (I've only played a few hours, just been to busy. Oh, here comes the weekend, gonna git down some q4 action for sure :P)
3) Like I said I just played a couple of hours (2hrs tops tbh), but what I didn't like in the SP was the speed of movement. Strafejumping is completely impossible(like doom3) dunno why this was done since its quake and quake 2 had strafe jumping in SP, odd that this don't. Was annoyed about that :/
Just played a few min MP, mostly ctf, I miss the old q3 ctf feel of it and the maps are ok, but 3 out of the 5 seems to similar in design.
The dm map bloodworks really looks nice, and also the possibility of strafing around is awesome. What I REALLY miss are more models like Q3, I really miss the variety of different models; like klesk, orb, lucy. Not that those are my fav. models, but I really would apreciate if the models were more different, seem it just like a modified version of sarge all the way, felt that was kinda crap.
I really hate that you can't strafe up stairs, for example on over the edge, grrrr :icon33:
Still, the strafing and movement of q4 rocks, and ofcourse its different from q3, but it just takes time to get used to. I allways felt the movement in Q3 OSP was way better than the reg BASEQ3, at times I feel the movement in Q4 is better than Q3 OSP and definitivly better than BASEQ3. Thats a major plus.
All in all, I really hope that this game will be my new found one, cuz I've been a huge Q3 fan for years, and both Q1 and Q2 rocks in their own way( the Q2 mushroom cloud explosion is a classic ) hopefully it will be close to Q3 MP ways, tho I really don't believe it can be better as Q3 (for me atleast) was THE multiplayer FPS out there. I never liked CS tho, no offence to u guys. More maps and a different set of models would be great.

All in all, 2 thumbs up for this game, even tho I've only played it for a few hours.

Nice job.

[tequila!]

Thx for the comments, so far i havent felt like a total shiiiit.

I'll say one of the troubles in Quake4 's develpment, expecially after Doom3's luke warm reception, was everyone involved in Quake4 had a near compulsion to make it fit the shoes of every FPS'r out there.

Which really can't be done anymore. The Daze of Quake 1 are over, gone. My own opinion of the game during develment was "lots and lots of nifty elements, but.... are they really gonna add up into something with a cohesive feel?"

Well, Grudge's comments about the vehicles, in particular, point out this problem. What makes a feature a "FEATURE!" versus "a gimmick".

Trying to makea game that will be all things to all players, just isn't the wisest approach, the FPS as viewed as a typology is just becoming too "big" to mske it all happen in one game.

PS:
Did my "moster magnet" (the giant crane that drops crap on you while you are riding about in the tank) make it into the fianl game?
I have a bit of pride in that sequence as I had to write some simple AI in the scripting language to make it work and am too busy to do more than take a peek at Quake4 yet.

[Grudge]

Well, Grudge's comments about the vehicles, in particular, point out this problem. What makes a feature a "FEATURE!" versus "a gimmick".

PS:
Did my "moster magnet" (the giant crane that drops crap on you while you are riding about in the tank) make it into the fianl game?
I have a bit of pride in that sequence as I had to write some simple AI in the scripting language to make it work and am too busy to do more than take a peek at Quake4 yet.

Exactly, I got the feeling that the vehicles got added on top of the game, instead of integrated into the actual gameplay.

Yep, the crane was in there. It also tried to pick you up and toss you around if you got too close.

[tequila!]

yep, "added on top" and "integrated" lead to totally different results.

-by the way, i'm not going say much EVER, on these boards about why I left raven, I have too much respect for those people than to come here ranting and bitching about them.

The game industry is a harsh mistress for almost everyone who goes through it.

[Agent-X]

Yes.
8.5
The mp feels sluggish. For instance going up stairs stops your momentum completly. NO BOTS!!! The annoying mg sound. We'd all rather hear the affect of the bullet hitting the target. Rocket launcher needs to go a little faster and maybe hit harder.
One thing maybe you could answer is why is there no mouse accel? Some of us got used to it in Q3. In Doom 3 it was no big deal as you werent competing in mp. (well some were). But it would be nice to use a low sensitivity and have MA for those quick 180 turns.
More mp maps. Back to red and blue teams. Hud display for when you switching weapons should be like in Q3. more configs we can tweak like rail trail time.

Did I say add mouse_accel?

[axbaby]

YES
8
-footstep sounds really bad for sound cues ofother players because it sounds like a marching band.
-lack of multiplayer bots
-someactions ripped right out of half-life1&2 ..especially running around searching for armour room and briefing rooms.
and the trams "felt like Call of Duty"
*liked many aspects of the single players mode

[Oeloe]

I allways felt the movement in Q3 OSP was way better than the reg BASEQ3

OSP = baseq3/VQ3 gameplay, including physics. No changes there except optional forcing of 125 fps.

[Jenny]

Yes

9

Single Player: was great, not superb, but past the test easily. Vehicles felt rather rushed. The story was a nice idea but implemented terrible, cut too short in many places it shouted "game" back at you. Plenty of substance, but lacking in other areas.

Multiplayer: awesome even though haven't improved or spent alot of time on it. Was expecting something better for Q4, some more innovation. Though crouch sliding and the tournament mode are two spot on upgrades.

[MKJ]

-by the way, i'm not going say much EVER, on these boards about why I left raven, I have too much respect for those people than to come here ranting and bitching about them.

nobody asked

[R00k]

1) Got it on release day.
2) 9

3) -=Spoilers=-
The SP game was great. It's been several years since I've felt so compelled to keep playing a game through to the end and not want to stop. The NPC AI was good, they were actually very useful during the game. I personally enjoyed the vehicles because they were fun to drive and operate, but I didn't like being boxed in; i.e. not being able to get out and explore, and having a set path you had to travel with them, did seem a little contrived. Aside from that, the level design was very good, with plenty of eye-candy but done in a way that added to the atmosphere, instead of distracting from the game. The weapons were all useful, and the way they were found was integrated into the game well. The way bosses were introduced was good, but some of the seemed a little too easy. I agree with an earlier post that it was a little disappointing to finally make it into the core, and not see anything new or different. The final boss was fun and reminded me of the older games, but the ending sequence was completely disappointing. I know this is a Quake game, and it followed the way most Quake storylines operate, but this is also a well-polished game with a lot of dialogue and story development from beginning to end, so it was a little disappointing to have a 15-second cut scene with a few words and then the credits.

The Multiplayer:
Overall I think it's an excellent sequel to Quake3 MP online play. The only major disappointments I have are the lack of bots, too few maps (CTF maps mostly), and how difficult it is to distinguish enemies. I'm also surprised that there is no team overlay HUD for team-based games, which I consider essential. Some of the sounds also detract from the gameplay: footsteps are too noisy and hard to distinguish, you sound a bit like Shaggy from scooby doo when you move and it's hard to hear enemy footsteps when you are walking; the machinegun sound is louder and stronger than the rocket sound, which seems weak, and the sound when you hit an enemy is almost completely unnoticable when there are other sounds going on. Some of the weapon models are indistinguishable from each other without looking closely at them. Also, the way "_" commands are handled, without being able to bind more than one command at a time is extremely limiting for multiplayer configs. I hope this can be fixed, because it makes it impossible to reach the level of personalization that Q3 had for your own setup.

Good things: It may be a little 'heavy' but overall I think the physics are just right for a Quake MP game. I'm starting to like the teleporting rockets and jump-pad grenades, I think they'll add another element of strategy to the game. Overall, there are a lot of things that cause minor headaches, but hopefully the SDK will be released soon and mods will be able to take care of those.

[tequila!]

-by the way, i'm not going say much EVER, on these boards about why I left raven, I have too much respect for those people than to come here ranting and bitching about them.

nobody asked

Quite right MKJ, but sometimes its better to draw a line in the sand in advance, so to speak

and technically, I'm still under contract with Raven / Activision in the form of a "non disclosure agreement."

[tequila!]

jump-pad grenades

As I recall, "jump pad grenade chuckin' was a happy accident that everyone eventually enjoyed enough to leave it final.

Goddamn I need to get some time playing this sucka!

[Denz]

Well as an EX-Raven Employee, what does thread have to do with anything? Can't we geto someone that still works there? Perhaps our comments may make a difference.