Quake3World

Some of the more interesting Questions and Answers from todays IRC Developer chat.

[LoX] asked: are the graphics in beta a good representation of the final product. I'm also referring to framerate
Locki-SD answers: Not at all. There are improvements to come in optimisation, settings that improve the visuals, and maps that have more detail (depending on the gameplay goal). You'll see some big differences in the coming weeks.

Azuvector asked: Is the current beta gameplay 'pace/speed' representative of the final goal? A lot of early footage showed what appeared to be a slower paced, more tactical game than what's being played currently. There are certainly two camps of preference on the matter, with the occassional person happy in the middleground that currently exists. What are your thoughts on this?
adman answers: We're still making some tweaks in this area, but the game speed is close to final. ETQW is a very intense and fast-paced experience.

<Locki-SD> After the Programmers have completed their testing of new things like the anti-lag code in updates (along with Bots), we'll be releasing a brand new build called Beta 2.
<Locki-SD> This 'Beta 2' will feature a new map.
<Locki-SD> At the moment we think that Valley will be the best choice, as it features additional vehicles (such as the Anansi Hovercopter, and the MCP objective).

imp`jolt asked: Locki-SD will people who have keys and logins for beta 1 be able to still have access or is it a lottery again for keys?
Wils|work answers: Logins will carry over - it's just a new build of the game
<Wils|work> Sorry, to clarify - keys will still work, but the database will be wiped

xQuakewars asked: Will we still be able to play the first map in addition to the 2nd?
Wils|work answers: No, the new map will replace the old

xQuakewars asked: About the player stats (post-release), are they stored via central database? If so, will they be accessable through a specific site?
adman answers: There is going to be a statistics website so you can look at your stats and compare yourself with other players. We are also going to make the stats feed available, so you can build your own sites and applications with it.

umuq asked: Does the game already support core2duo CPUs? Or is it only using 1 core?
RR2DO2 answers: The game uses several worker threads, all the MegaTexture de/recompression is threaded for example. The game is definitely happier on a multi-core CPU.

imp`jolt asked: i was lead to believe screenshotjpeg is unavailible, if it is will you be adding it into the game so we dont have to spend money cough cough on programs which open tga files.
RR2DO2 answers: No, screenshotjpeg has been removed. You will just have to use a free image browser or so to change the tga to jpg if you desire.

billiob asked: about jpeg, is it because of patents ? Or is it planned to support png ?
RR2DO2 answers: Nope, it is just that screenshotjPEG was the only reason we had to link to libJpeg. Same goes for libPNG. There are enough good image browsers around (free ones!) to not have to bloat the game executable with this extra code

Read the full Q&A here.

Humm... very interesting. Thanks Bugsy.