I Need A History Lesson

[Absolut]

Since the release of Q4, alot of us have been upset with what we've been given. A new Quake with SO many bugs that it desperately needs serveral fixes. I've never had the pleasure to play Q1 or Q2 but Q3 was a huge addiction to me. To me, the perfect game. I started playing Q3 two years ago, so to me it had no bugs and needed no fixes.....it was already perfect. I'm getting to my point While bitching about Quake 4 to one of my buddies, he told me to be patient. He said that when Q3 first came out it sucked. This of course was hard for me to believe. He went on to say that at one point, strafe jumping was taken completely out of Q3 with a point release or patch. According to him, it took several point releases and fixes to get Q3 to where it's at today. Well, I wasn't around when Q3 was first released, can someone give me a history lesson and tell me if that's true or false? Is what's happening with Q4 now, happen with Q3?

[Foo]

It's false. Q3 had a few problems but it was far from 'broken' as some people are trying to suggest now.

All you have to do to confirm this is to install a fresh copy of Q3 from the original CD and play it. Barely anything is different.

The changelogs for the various Q3 patches can be found here: http://quake4world.com/q3wiki/index.php ... t_releases

[AnthonyJa]

Well its not so different really...

Q1 didnt ship with QW, which took quite a while to mature, but then that was the first major online gaming app of this type.

Q2 didnt ship with coop. It didnt ship with CTF. It didnt ship with DM maps either. Nor auto-download. All were added in point releases. Pretty major network changes between initial and final too.

Q3 didnt ship with autodownload. Q3 didnt ship with working pure (players got kicked if they'd installed pk3's player skins the server didnt have). The initial server browser didnt show which mod was running, and was always pretty poor (hence ArenaSpy in the early days before everyone decided to stick to external apps).

Yes, in some ways Q4 is probably a bit more broken than Q1-3 were, but id have a good track record of improving upon the initial release substantially, and not abandoning the player base who have already bought the game.

Edit: oh, and yes, in the 1.25 series of betas they removed the movement bug, but it was restored in 1.25y as everyone whinged. (I've just updated the changelogs on a few of those PRs at that link since you didnt seem to have them)

[Don Carlos]

and dont forget floor damage in q3

[MKJ]

the difference is thouhg, that it feels like they learned nothing from the mistakes that were in the retail q3.
sure q3 had the same bugs, but that was a first in its genre (being online only n all). we're a few years further down the road now, and some of these things are so elementary that they really shouldnt be in there.

but patience, itll all be good in the end

[alucardx]

reading the thread, i was agreeing most of the way that when all the quakes started they all had issues that were stupid and then improved up later.

but what MKJ says is right.. since q4 MP (what we're really concerned about) is based so much on q3, it really seems that they have not learned anything from all the work that was done on q3.

this can even been seen with the map remake choices of raven, like xaero's map (q3tourney6 i think?). it just seems that many things had no input or design from real q3 players that knew the in's and out's of the game and the community mods.

[Aquashark]

you can install Q3 demo and see that the game is better polished than Q4

[Lukin]

sure q3 had the same bugs, but that was a first in its genre (being online only n all).

But "Q4" is not "online only game". Raven spent much less time on multiplayer for "Q4" than Id on "Q3", and with such sophisticated technology as "Doom3" is this story couldn't have a happy end.

[prince1000]

sure q3 had the same bugs, but that was a first in its genre (being online only n all).

But "Q4" is not "online only game". Raven spent much less time on multiplayer for "Q4" than Id on "Q3", and with such sophisticated technology as "Doom3" is this story couldn't have a happy end.

which is totally ridiculous. how many games that survive today do so strictly, or moreso than MP, because of SP? especially given the Q3 Mp success of oh say the last 5 years??

why wasn't this an id only release?? im ignorant on that subject...

[jester!]

Pretty sure for the majority of people who play, SP is what ppl buy for MP is a diversion every now and again, this belief must be supported by the financial information id has on hand, even though many believe Q4 MP to be flawed in this way or that, id/Raven must be acting off of some kind of information that leads them to act in this way.

The underwhelming pickup of Q4 especially in NA is hopefully sending some kind of message. Quake style DM has become something of a niche it seems, but then maybe its just my perceptions that are off...

I really hope that if/when Quake 5 rolls around that the game will be MP only with bots for the single players out there. I also dream that the teams of threewave, cpma, ra, and so on will be brought in so that the game will release with all the popular game modes, with tons of maps, and models, working sound implementation, great netcode, and so on and so on.

I can dream cant i... :icon32:

[wviperw]

I don't have any stats on hand, but I'd venture to guess that 10 times as many people play the SP alone (or at most play MP once or twice),

[jester!]

I don't have any stats on hand, but I'd venture to guess that 10 times as many people play the SP alone (or at most play MP once or twice),

Yeah not that surprising really.

[prince1000]

well ok, i guess i see your point but i was looking at more from the angle of who is going to still be playing q4 in a year, the sp people or the mp people.

edit: ill also add that given the cpl backing and the multiple sponsors backing their events it would be wise of id/raven to get a good mp patch released, even if it takes another month or so.

[jester!]

Thing is relying on the CPL to promote and maintain interest in the game is a bad thing, I think its 50/50 that Q4 gets dropped next year for UT07, and then what? If theres no established community the game will just fade away.

As it is now in NA, there are a couple of CTF servers, one Arena CTF server, a few TDM tops, a few FFA, and a dozen or so tourney servers, and 1 or 2 full CA servers, thats it on any given night that have any kind of numbers.

I dont think its all because of flaws in the game either, I think a very large part of it is that Quake players have gotten so good that any new players who try to enter the community, unless they have skills from another series, just get raped over and over until its /quit time. Thats a reason CA is so popular and why it should have been a default game type, why it wasnt included is beyond me but there needs to be stepping stones into the community and CA is one of them without a doubt, as is Instagib.

I just think that id has gotten out of touch with the community that is loyal and wants to play Quake style MP.

[AnthonyJa]

I think a very large part of it is that Quake players have gotten so good that any new players who try to enter the community, unless they have skills from another series, just get raped over and over until its /quit time. Thats a reason CA is so popular

Well I kinda agree with you, but I also dont.

Before I started on Q4 CA I had a play of CPMA's implementation of CA since I've never really played it. I was seriously thrashed. I may not play regularly, but I've been playing Q3 for long enough to be better than your average noob who hasnt played quake much.

I havent played any Q4 CA online, but I imagine players are still damn good at it, so even a "newbie friendly" mode like CA they still find it pretty hard.

[jester!]

While it may be hard it is, besides Instagib, the easiest of the Quake modes imo.

Tourney being hardest, followed by TDM, CTF, FFA, then CA and finally Insta.

There is a post on the ra4 forums about 200 HP, some screenies are in there of ppl playing ra3, the average rail is probably 45-50 percent. Those are the average players these days, so yeah even in an easier game mode, a pure new player is going to get dominated, but what to do about it is the more interesting question.

[Legrand [LN]]

Abs,

Much of what has been said here is correct, at least parts and pieces thereof. One example might be Foo's initial comment: sure you can install Q3 right off of the CD and play it against bots on your computer. Afterall, that's what it was made for and if you couldn't do that then it would have been nothing but a coaster from the beginning. Online though, there were quite a number of problems.

One large problem I remember was that some players were invisible and you had to do a /vid_restart at the console to fix it. Other problems were (as stated previously) no autodownload, movement issues, pure problems, etc... I remember months of frustration as a server admin for q3, and I didn't really seriously switch to it from Q2 till 6 months or so after it (Q3) was released.

One other thing Foo included was a link to the point release history, where you'll see that the first PR was in January of 2000 (a month or so after the release of the game) and the last one was in August of 2002. Previous to August, the 1.29 PR came out in December of 2001. It took them at least a year to get the game to a (relatively stable) functional point and they continued to release patches up till 2 years after the games initial release date.

My two cents on q4 is that it was a single player game with the promise of mp maybe someday. I certainly didn't expect to be able to play mp online perfectly the day that the game arrived at my door, that's just how games are these days. I'm sure that they wanted to capitalize on the X-mas rush, which is why it was released when it was.

I, too, think it could have used at least another 6 mo. for full mp development, and, more importantly, for the end users hardware to catch up. I really didn't like q4 all that much till I did another insane upgrade to the tune of $1500+ Now I can play it how it should look, and play, but how many others are willing (or able) to do this as well. Everyone I've played online with (that I've asked) has said that they like the game better after a hardware upgrade that allowed them to play the game at decent framerates.

I'm currently trying to admin a q4 server and it's frustrating as all hell. At least I finally got the URL redirect to work correctly so clients know where to get the files, but thre are so many problems with custom map setups (other than that so many of them suck) that I've about given up till a reasonable PR (or mod) comes out to address those issues.

What it boils down to is that it should have been better on the mp end, but, then again, I don't think that mp was its primary focus, sp was, and to that end, I think the game is"ok"... not great, but "ok".....

[{uZa}FreakOfNature]

I'm currently trying to admin a q4 server and it's frustrating as all hell.

I feel your pain brother.

[Cygnus the Blue]

I must be the only whos not getting any bugs in Quake 4.

The only thing that sucks is that autodownloading is disabled, but other than that it runs flawlessly for me.

[Legrand [LN]]

Cygnus,

I wouldn't really say that there are "bugs" in the sense that when I play mp the game crashes, it's more like when you play, there are things that irritate you. A specific example I can point to (at least for me) is that I can be sitting in my server on the map "The Rose" waiting for someone to join and be running around with my fps never dropping below that omnipresent ceiling of 60 fps (AMD 4400+ X2, GT7800, 2gb ram). As soon as one person joins the game, my fps gets wacky, especially near where the regen spawns. What's up with that? You mean to tell me that that one client added that much data to the game that I get video lag?

I believe this is the type of "bug" that's being referred to, not so much the game crashing type. Maybe anomaly would be a better word for what is experienced rather than bug.

[Oeloe]

@Legrand: people are still playing 1.16n online though. Somehow they prefer it so it must be playable enough. Players becoming invisible happens at 1.30 servers (1.31 servers too probably), so the last PR's were indeed important. On some servers it happened often though, and on many other 1.30 servers i've haven't ever 'seen' any invisible players. Maybe it was fixed in the mod (Instaunlagged)...

[Bueller]

Cygnus,

I wouldn't really say that there are "bugs" in the sense that when I play mp the game crashes, it's more like when you play, there are things that irritate you. A specific example I can point to (at least for me) is that I can be sitting in my server on the map "The Rose" waiting for someone to join and be running around with my fps never dropping below that omnipresent ceiling of 60 fps (AMD 4400+ X2, GT7800, 2gb ram). As soon as one person joins the game, my fps gets wacky, especially near where the regen spawns. What's up with that? You mean to tell me that that one client added that much data to the game that I get video lag?

I believe this is the type of "bug" that's being referred to, not so much the game crashing type. Maybe anomaly would be a better word for what is experienced rather than bug.

One thing I have learned so far is that playing servers with q4max mod is the only way to go currently. Vertex lighting makes me happy. :-) Plus I can't see shit without me bright skins and bright weps.

I'm running an athlon 64 2000, geforce 6800gt and a gig of pc-3200 ram and I have 60-70 fps regardless of the amount of players on the server. Then again there arent many ffa q4max servers running yet so the average player count is 5 or so. Also worth noting would eb the fact that my cfg is juiced. :-)

[Oeloe]

I have 60-70 fps regardless of the amount of players on the server.

You mean a steady 63 (at which the FPS are capped)?

[Bueller]

I have 60-70 fps regardless of the amount of players on the server.

You mean a steady 63 (at which the FPS are capped)?

No I mean when I take a screenshot it says anything between 60 and 70. I know the game is supposed to be capped but the screenshot says different. Maybe someone else can enlighten us.

See for yourself:
http://bueller.1st.net/files/2.jpg

[Oeloe]

Usually FPS take a drop when taking a screenshot, because of the hdd and cpu activity, but in some the shown FPS number increases. You see 100+ FPS sometimes during map load times, don't you (in SP at least)?