What has Raven been up to?

[MidnightQ4]

So do you guys think that Raven is ripping the MP game apart and putting in all the obviously missing features that we gamers demand?

Or are they slacking on a beach in the Bahamas with one guy back home lazily recoding the server browser?

[spookmineer]

Hey... I'm a believer
I believe that id and Raven (?) are doing everything to keep the name they earned so hard. Any business man can see that getting a customer is easy, keeping a customer is very hard (! lol) and losing a customer will take a lot to get him back again. They will be slacking on the Bahamas after they fix it.

"that we gamers demand?" ----> "that we gamers requested?" :P

[jester!]

Working on the game. Keep the faith boys! :icon26:

[xchaser]

they are working on the game but you can't make everyone happy. like they said on their website expect a pointrelease .

posted on Nov 16, 2005:
We are also working on a larger, required update that will address a broader range of reported issues in both multiplayer and single player.

Posted today: Nov 28th, 2005
Everyone,

On behalf of id Software, I would like to express our regret over the snafu with the Quake 4 demo last Wednesday. We wanted to get the demo out before the Holiday weekend here in the U.S. and were working hard with Raven and Activision to make that happen. A bug in the multiplayer was caught at the last minute and we decided to hold off on the release. Single player was unaffected by this bug. Unfortunately, in our preparation for the planned release the bad build was mistakenly put on our public FTP instead of a staging site, and was apparently seen and downloaded by a website or two, and propagated from there. We tried to get the word out to mirrors and websites that multiplayer was broken in the build and not to mirror the file, but due to the late hour and the impending holiday, the request to pull it back was too little, too late.

We are working on finalizing the demo for release as soon as possible, but we want to be as certain as we can to avoid making the same mistake twice. I'm sorry for everyone who spent time downloading the demo and found the multiplayer was broken. Hopefully a properly functioning Quake 4 Demo can make amends.

Todd Hollenshead

[MidnightQ4]

well at least with the demo ppl won't notice that maps don't download (since you can only play 1 map :icon32: )

unfortunately I think most ppl will notice the 10 fps their old system gets and uninstall :/

[spookmineer]

What does "snafu" mean?

[Foo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAFU

[prince1000]

they've been up to not giving a fuck about whiney bitchfucks this holiday season i can garauntee that...

[{uZa}FreakOfNature]

I'll one up all of you. My prediction is that with the Thanksgiving weekend behind us, they have a point release ready by this weekend.

[jester!]

No. I dont think so.

The demo may be close with the posting on ids front page, but I think the patch will wait until before christmas.

1. Release the game.
2. Make money off Quake addicts.
3. See whats broken.
4. Release the xbox version.
5. ...
6. Stir up press by patching before christmas in style, new maps, models, sounds fixes, lighting tweaks ala Dr4ch, fixed auto download, the works. No I dont expect the world. :]
7. Make money off the swell of christams purchases as hardcore gamers the world around sing id and Ravens praises.
8. Laugh all the way to the bank and hire jester! to consult on Quake 5... :icon32:

[{uZa}FreakOfNature]

hahahahaha

[prince1000]

No. I dont think so.

The demo may be close with the posting on ids front page, but I think the patch will wait until before christmas.

1. Release the game.
2. Make money off Quake addicts.
3. See whats broken.
4. Release the xbox version.
5. ...
6. Stir up press by patching before christmas in style, new maps, models, sounds fixes, lighting tweaks ala Dr4ch, fixed auto download, the works. No I dont expect the world. :]
7. Make money off the swell of christams purchases as hardcore gamers the world around sing id and Ravens praises.
8. Laugh all the way to the bank and hire jester! to consult on Quake 5... :icon32:

why on earth would they tweak q4 to be played under hardware that's beefy enough to run q3? honestly...

edit: duhhhh... 3 scotches later

[MKJ]

christ, how pathetic

[xchaser]

don't forget the expansion pack thats what will have extra maps and models. just like they did with doom3

[nAo dane]

, lighting tweaks ala Dr4ch,

I might be wrong but wouldn't that mean replacing the pak with the map files in it ? If it does, with the pak over 200MB I'd say it's unlikely they'll release a patch anywhere near that size.

[jester!]

I dont know, I think if they have the same map names in a pak with a higher number it will just overwrite? Either way, we all have broadband these days, dial up doesnt work in Q4, so hit us with a 500 meg patch, PLEASE!

[Tormentius]

I dont know, I think if they have the same map names in a pak with a higher number it will just overwrite? Either way, we all have broadband these days, dial up doesnt work in Q4, so hit us with a 500 meg patch, PLEASE!

Lighting is one of the main features of their engine so them taking it out isn't something I see happening. There are a lot of viable fixes but dumbing down the engine further probably won't be among them.

[jester!]

What I mentioned are variable fixes. Dr4ch fps maps do nothing but make the game scalable, blah blah, you know what I am talking about right?

AFAIK all he did was assign values to the useless artistic lights and give each map an ambiant light. He didnt hack the engine and redistribute the game, he used functions present within the editor to do the complete, and professional, job raven should have in the first place.

[Tormentius]

AFAIK all he did was assign values to the useless artistic lights and give each map an ambiant light. He didnt hack the engine and redistribute the game, he used functions present within the editor to do the complete, and professional, job raven should have in the first place.

Dumbing the game down to play with no lighting probably wasn't one of their design goals. The game and engine are geared towards pushing higher end hardware, not being backwards compatible with dated equipment. We've been over this time and time again and instead of upgrading you still continue to whine.

[jester!]

rofl, they arent dumbing anything down at all man. Keep singlelight cheat protected fine, but utilizing the capabilities of the oh so great engine to their fullest includes making use of the flexability in the light priority system.

Its lazy, just admit it. Its not "Oh we want to push hardware because graphics = gameplay" it was just a case of not doing the job and honestly, everyone knows it.

This isnt a whine, the stock maps arent even played anymore ffs on tourney/tdm servers and all custom maps use this because its a more complete solution and effort towards mapping. FPS, TMP, Customs, all the maps use it, except for Ravens. Now looking at the first release, and the xbox release, do you honestly, HONESTLY, think that Raven knew what they were doing by not useing this functionality, or did they just rush it and not make full use of the engines flexability. Come on man...

Lazy, pure and simple. :icon26:

EDIT: Fuck, I will still give them the benefit of the doubt and just say that it was a rush job due to pressure from above, but dont claim this was intentional, it just doesnt look good. :icon32:

[MidnightQ4]

I agree with jester :icon32:

god i love that emoticon :icon32:

designing a map with 45 lights and no ability to turn any off is just a bad, nonscalable design, which doesn't take advantage of the built in mechanism in the engine for making the map scalable. It sounds to me like the mappers and carmack needed to have a little pow-wow about how to use these features, but obviously that didn't happen. I bet new maps we see in the future will use the light levels appropriately.

Really it is not about punishing people with older systems to make them upgrade, as most people just won't until most any game they want to play is unplayable. That is a mentality that would severely limit the player base of the game. Allowing people with 2-3 year old systems to hobble along with less lighting is a great way to get them hooked and playing, and then it will encourage them to upgrade (or not) but either way it will get more people playing.

[Tormentius]

rofl, they arent dumbing anything down at all man. Keep singlelight cheat protected fine, but utilizing the capabilities of the oh so great engine to their fullest includes making use of the flexability in the light priority system.

Its lazy, just admit it. Its not "Oh we want to push hardware because graphics = gameplay" it was just a case of not doing the job and honestly, everyone knows it.

This isnt a whine, the stock maps arent even played anymore ffs on tourney/tdm servers and all custom maps use this because its a more complete solution and effort towards mapping. FPS, TMP, Customs, all the maps use it, except for Ravens. Now looking at the first release, and the xbox release, do you honestly, HONESTLY, think that Raven knew what they were doing by not useing this functionality, or did they just rush it and not make full use of the engines flexability. Come on man...

Lazy, pure and simple. :icon26:

EDIT: Fuck, I will still give them the benefit of the doubt and just say that it was a rush job due to pressure from above, but dont claim this was intentional, it just doesnt look good. :icon32:

I disagree and think you're generalizing a little too much when you claim "all servers" use Dr4ch's maps. You still haven't answered my comment on upgrading. If you quit grumbling and just get a decent vid card this isn't going to be a big problem for you anymore.

@ MidnightQ4: For the last bloody time, you don't need 60fps for the game to be playable.

[Foo]

Torm we've been here several times and you've missed the point it seems.

You should look into the light grading system jester is talking about. It's DIRECTLY comparable to the texture quality slider which is available to everyone.

It's in the engine, it produces very significant FPS gains on lower-end systems. Yet it wasn't used. There seems to be no reason why it wasn't used, either.

[Tormentius]

Torm we've been here several times and you've missed the point it seems.

You should look into the light grading system jester is talking about. It's DIRECTLY comparable to the texture quality slider which is available to everyone.

It's in the engine, it produces very significant FPS gains on lower-end systems. Yet it wasn't used. There seems to be no reason why it wasn't used, either.

Yes, we have been here before but you've completely missed my point: I don't really care at all about the people who are unwilling to upgrade and still expect/demand maximum performance from a new game. If software which I purchase is unable to run at an acceptable level for me, its either time to stop using it or its time to upgrade hardware.

You know as well as I do that lighting is one of the primary features of the Doom3 engine. I can definitely see the reason for not adding that as an option since the game looks like shit when its enabled IMO.

[Foo]

Yes, we have been here before but you've completely missed my point: I don't really care at all about the people who are unwilling to upgrade and still expect/demand maximum performance from a new game. If software which I purchase is unable to run at an acceptable level for me, its either time to stop using it or its time to upgrade hardware.

That's completely arrogant and you know it. If you didn't care you wouldn't be posting but you DO care clearly.

What you're saying makes no sense on any level:

-On the business level, you're alienating great numbers of potential players by excluding their PC specs from being able to play the game.
-On a competitive level, half life and UT both prove highly configurable so it's not as if it's industry standard to 'lock out' your potential player base.
-On a consumer relations level - Players finding out that not every effort has been made to allow low spec players into the game just plain pisses people off.

You know as well as I do that lighting is one of the primary features of the Doom3 engine. I can definitely see the reason for not adding that as an option since the game looks like shit when its enabled IMO.

Texture quality is obviously another primary feature, but you can turn that down. Point refuted.

Final point: Regardless of the outcome of this debate your attitude and stance of suggesting that people should upgrade their PCs in order to play a game which potentially could be made to run on their systems is weak not to mention highly elitist and completely arrogant. Further suggesting that they dont have the right to voice this issue when relevant to the discussion at hand stinks like a clumsy attempt at bullying.