Happy Birthday Quake =)

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
5
81
I missed this, but June 24th was Quake's 5th birthday. I know this forum is just full of CS and UT monkeys, but without Quake your games probably wouldn't be here. The first true 3D FPS game, Quake 1, was released June 24, 1996, and the gaming world hasn't been the same since. I'm not sure how many of you were around along enough to remember QTest which wasn't even a demo of Quake, more of an Alpha test release of the game. I remember spending God knows how long downloading that on my 14.4 modem but when I finally fired it up on my Pentium 100MHz with 16MB RAM and 1MB video, my jaw dropped.

I was an avid NetQuake player before the release of QuakeWorld and at first, QW was very buggy and most NQ veterans didn't like it, but I eventually made the move to QW, and when all the kinks were worked out, it really improved online play. Then came the first modifications - ThreeWave Capture the Flag and the original Team Fortress. Others such as Rocket Arena, which was released a little later, were very popular as well. Then there was other cool things like "Quake Movies" where people would record demos and then edit them, add sounds, different camera angles, and basically make movies inside the Quake engine. Some classics that I can think of off the top of my head are Rangers Gone Bad (1 and 2...the first quake movies, total classics), Blahbalicious (one of the funniest things I've ever watched to this date), and Apartment Hunters.

Next was the release of GLQuake. GLQuake was the sole reason I spent over $300, every penny I had saved up til age 14, on a 3Dfx Voodoo1 video card with 4MB RAM. At this point my machine was now a Pentium 150MHz, 24MB RAM and the Voodoo1, and Quake just flew on it. And nothing will ever replace how I felt when I first fired up GLQuake in all it's 3D accelerated glory (i know this sounds really corny, but i'm serious :eek: and this was the first 3d accelerated game i had ever seen).

The whole clan scene was really big in Quake. I was in several clans, one was a Deathmatch clan called Clan Wallace. I did a search on Google and sure enough, our old home page is still hosted over at Planet Quake. You can see it here. If you click the Roster link you'll see me with my old nickname (Kamikazie...that's how i came up with kami) as the Second Leader. We had a Spy (spy on other clans) and everything. Man I had some good memories from back then. I even met two of my clan mates in person. Practices every Tuesday and Sunday nights if I remember correctly. :) After that clan died, I moved on to a Team Fortress clan and played the role of a defensive Engineer. My favorite maps were 2fort5 (duh!), Well6, and BaM4 (wonder if I'm the only one who remembers details like this?).

There was other things in the "Quake community" such as QuakeTalk, which was a weekly real audio radio show hosted by Blue of BluesNews and other important people in the community. I never missed that!

At the end of 1997, Quake 2 came out. I wasn't a big fan and I continued to play QuakeWorld...but less and less people were playing. my TF clan broke up, and then all i was really playing was Clan Arena (a sub-mod of Rocket Arena) on the map DM3. The only people left in Quakeworld eventually were people with the highest of skill. There was NO newbies at all. Everyone (and all the newbies) was playing the new games like Quake2, Unreal, and Half Life.

Recently (out of coincidence) I have been playing more Quake. I've found a few active Team Fortress servers and have mostly been playing that. It's hard to find CTF servers so I've been playing a lot with the "CTF Bot Plus" modification. Brings back lots of memories and I'm pretty much giving up all the modern games because they can't compete IMO. :D

This post got longer than I thought, but the whole point is to let everyone, mostly the newbies, know exactly what started this whole craze of online FPS gaming. If you've never played Quake, I urge you to go pick up a copy for $10 somewhere in the bargain bin and give it a shot. The single player is pretty spooky...play it in the dark :) then try some deathmatch online in Quakeworld or even get some bots. If you want to play it 3d accelerated, you'll have to download a patch called GLQuake.


One of the biggest quake fans in the world,
kami :D
 

Josh

Lifer
Mar 20, 2000
10,917
0
0
Hey Kami, nice editorial you got there, can I post it on Q3Center.com? With full credit to you, of course :)
 

UnixFreak

Platinum Member
Nov 27, 2000
2,008
0
76
Quake Rocks... What a classic. I played many 3D games before it (Wolfenstien, Doom, etc) But Quake was a great leap ahead. I still go back and play it from time to time, its great.
 

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
136
I remember going to a computer show at the fairgrounds & wondering what all the "Quake" posters were all about. Who would want to play a game based on earthquakes?

:eek:

Viper GTS
 

Daniel

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
3,813
0
76
Yessir I remember downloading qtest, I was crazy about it, of course my brother said,"no way a pc can make graphics as good as a playstation" haha.
 

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
5
81


<< Yessir I remember downloading qtest, I was crazy about it, of course my brother said,&quot;no way a pc can make graphics as good as a playstation&quot; haha. >>


I once wrote a long letter to the magazine PC Games (the magazine is no longer published) about why Quake is better than console games, and it was published. I am looking for it now, because I know I kept a copy. If I find it, I'll scan it.
 

Modeps

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
17,254
44
91
just get the Deathmatch Classic mod for half life and live it all over again! :)

yeay quake!
 

piku

Diamond Member
May 30, 2000
4,049
1
0
I agree 100%.

No online game or community will ever come close to what Quake was. You may think CS is cool now, but it was nothing compared to how Quake was. How many games do you know of that have MADE companies just because of it? Gamespy, 3DFX, all of those websites (the the Planet ones among others)... none of them would have existed without Quake.

Man... I still remember all those kick ass hours I spent grappled to the wall defending my flag. Still remember most of the better maps to defend, and where as well.

Damn! I'm going to find this game online right now. I wish my friend (who I havent seen in years) didn't have my CD... it would be a nice collectors item.
 

piku

Diamond Member
May 30, 2000
4,049
1
0
I'm just pissed that I missed out on the birthday, otherwise I would have made a HUGE HUGE writeup for The Next Level. Next year I'll have to do it, because Quake really deserves it.
 

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
5
81
Nice post piku.

Good to know there's some other veterans here :D

And you are right... all of the PlanetWhatever sites would not exist without quake, nor would GameSpy (which was originally called QuakeSpy. When 3Dfx launched the Voodoo1, Quake was one of the few 3d accelerated games and was most people's reason for buying a Voodoo1. I actually have a copy of the original Quakespy before it was Gamespy.

I know this sounds nuts, but sometimes not sleeping at all and playing Quake all night was not uncommon. Sometimes we would spend hours upon hours searching every nook and cranny for cool secret areas or hiding spots in the levels (i.e. places only accessable by rocket jumping). There is one map, I forget the name of it, but we found a really cool spot and it required like 3 or 4 rocket jumps so you'd have to start with full armor and health. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna go fire up quake and find it right now. If anyone has Quake installed, I'll be glad to send you a demo of it :D
 

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
5
81
Alright I was bored so I'm posting some pics of that level I was talking about. The level was E2M2 btw (The Ogre Citadel).

Go here. :D

If some of you haven't even seen what Quake looks like, well here ya go. There is some fog and slight bump mapping effects because I am using the latest non-official GLQuake release which adds stuff such as adjustable fog levels, adjustable bump mapping, and smooth model animation (looks EXCELLENT).
 

CinderElmo

Senior member
Jun 23, 2000
732
0
0
Wow you are one SERIOUS Quaker. I got in on the Qtest (after playing DOOM II forever) and really loved the single player Quake and the soundtrack was kick-butt...however I didn't really get into online gaming until Quake II came out...and I have been playing Q2CTF ever since (in a few clans over the years). There is no substitute for the railgun IMO...and the strategy and tactics of Capture the Flag makes every match seem brand new me. I think it is an addiction ;)

Newer games have the eye-candy and fancy weapons but to me lack the gameplay you find in Quake II IMO. I can see you feel the same way about the original.

Hmmm, I am going to try to find the QI disk for a little mood music tonight!