new here- many questions

[frankv569]

first off, id like to say that i like the website. it has alot of good info on q3.
ive read through the users guides here and on other sites but there is still a large area of confusion in my mind on how to use different features of the game, settings and other things to do also.
i dont know exactly what my version is q3a is but know its pretty old. i bought the game a long time ago and luckily copied the whole game to my hard drive as a backup to copy when the day came that the disk no longer worked (or when i lost it). there is a blue screen that pops up briefly and im sure it tells me exactly what version i have but it disappears too quickly. from what i have read, it appears as if i should be downloading a 1.32 and 1.32c patch? is that correct? i get confused to what should be "run" or "saved" or unzipped and to where. it seems as if this should be saved to the base3q folder? is that correct? my folders for the game may have gotten a little jumbled over the years so i hope that they are right. i have a networked xp and vista home in my home and they seem to play on the LAN ok but only if the vista is the "host". if i begin a game in the xp computer, the vista cannot detect it. does anybody know what to do? when i downloaded the 1.32 to the xp and the vista computers, i could no longer play against the vista machine with my xp. when i tried to download the 1.32c to the vista, it gave me some sort of "could not configure" message on the popup blue window. i removed the updates from both and ive been only playing my family on the LAN because i read that there may be "security issues" when using my bone- stock old version in online servers (buffer overflow or something). when i did use the game with the updates installed on the xp machine, it gave me servers and opponents that i never saw before i did the update. when i removed it, they were gone (back to the original 112 servers) -- why?
it seems as if when i am playing against people online, they are using "advantages" that i cannot seem to locate on the board - such as grappling gun. yet, when i ask the console for one, it informs me that "cheats are not enabled". what would i need to do in that scenario to also use those items?
ive seen different skins and add ons- where do i save those to so that i can use them in my games? i tried saving them how i thought i was supposed to and it didnt work. being that i run the cd in the cd drive that is a copy of my original and i also have the full game saved to my "C" drive, where would i save to? i get a bit confused on that. i have seen different downloads of different versions of quake. are those usually a free downloadable stand alone program or do they work in addition to my full version of quake since i have the full program (not a demo). i see that there is a etqw 1.4 version for download but i cant actually tell what that is. is that another version that i could download and play? im more than sure that my questions are beyond basic for most of you- but theyre not for me so if you can give me some direction, i will gladly appreciate it!!

[Eraser]

Find Version of Quake 3: Open the console with the ~ (tilde) key and the version number will be stated at the right bottom of the console.

Quake 3 doesn't automatically download patches. You should download and install them manually. 1.32 is the latest version and 1.32c is a security fix that's only really necessary if you're planning on running internet gameservers.

As for Vista not detecting the XP machine when it's hosting a game, make sure all your Windows network configuration settings on both machines allow network access. Maybe you have windows firewall blocking the connection on either one of the machines (if so I'm guessing it's the Vista one since Windows Firewall blocks only outgoing traffic).

The grappling hook is enabled by a mod. Figure out which mod the server is running (it's stated by the game server browser) and download it (or at least it's documentation so you can figure out how to use the grappling hook in that mod)

Skins, maps and player models are usually packed up in a file with a .pk3 extension. Those files go in your baseq3 folder on your harddrive.

Mods are place in a folder next to the baseq3 folder.

The etqw 1.4 file is an update patch for the game "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars". This is a completely different game and doesn't have much to do with Quake 3.


That's all answers to all answerable questions I could retrieve from that slab of text.

[^misantropia^]

1.32c is a security fix that's only really necessary if you're planning on running internet gameservers.

You're doing it again, Eraser: 1.32c is a fix for an exploit that allows a malicious server to run arbitrary code on the client, that is, to hijack the client's PC.

[obsidian]

Eraser and Misantropia pretty much nailed it, but for the love of all that is holy, please use paragraphs next time. That block of text is painful to read.

[frankv569]

obsidian, ^misantropia^, and Eraser- thanks a million for your responses!!! im sorry about my poor writing style there. it was actually very late at night (for me) and i was trying to think of as many issues as i could to throw on there.

[frankv569]

btw, im running verion 1.11

thanks again!

[Eraser]

1.32c is a security fix that's only really necessary if you're planning on running internet gameservers.

You're doing it again, Eraser: 1.32c is a fix for an exploit that allows a malicious server to run arbitrary code on the client, that is, to hijack the client's PC.

I'm terribly sorry. I really was under the impression that 1.32c was only a fix for servers, not clients. I will avoid this error in future postings.

[Eraser]

btw, im running verion 1.11

thanks again!

You might want to update to 1.32
I think most online servers run 1.32 and you can't connect to servers running a different version of the game. Most mods won't run on old versions of Q3 either and 1.32 fixes a lot of bugs in the game.

[^misantropia^]

I'm terribly sorry. I really was under the impression that 1.32c was only a fix for servers, not clients. I will avoid this error in future postings.

[Eraser]

*kiss*