![]() ![]() Quake Live was, as a business project, aimed at capturing again the large number of casual players that had once purchased Q3 and Q4 for their single-player campaign. This was still a time period where people rarely owned a "gaming" mouse, and Quake fans were still overclocking their USB ports and modding their Intellimouse. What id failed to take into account however was the gap between home players' skill and eSports players' skill that had developed over the years. You could see stats, rankings, and obviously the Quake community took to it like a duck to the proverbial water. The server browser was built in, and there were some pretty decent social features to use. From a technical standpoint, it was brilliant. In 2008 id tried to bring back Quake with the release of Quake Live, the aforementioned in-browser version of Q3. Those who were just casual players had no idea any of this was going on. Quakecon, the Intel Masters, and a whole bunch of other tornaments that came with cash prizes, giving legitimacy to eSports as "a thing". They had Q4 that added a bit of new mechanics, but more importantly Quakecon happened. Quake continued to develop as a eSports game after Q3. Eventually the skill gap between home players and eSports players became too wide, and the two communities separated entirely. Now, i can only speculate here, but i imagine that a whole bunch of home players populated these servers, on a casual basis, for some time. So at this point quake diverges into two separate entities - the quake for home players, and the quake for "eSports". *I* found it weird beyond belief.Īll Q3 MP was based on private servers, so you'd find servers with different gravity, rail only, Clan Arena, CTF, etc. A whole bunch of people who bought Q3 for the SP would have tried the MP. well, they had a bit of fun, but found it "lacking substance".Īs we would have been in 1999 at this time (or even later), people were starting to have internet. Those few players who embraced MP saw this glorious game developed specifically for them, and those who bought it on the back of the success of the previous SP games. Q3 was both a revolution and a disappointment. When we played Q1, we didn't even own a mouse. A lot of these people had never played MP because of no internet. ![]() Repeatedly.įor many Q1/2 players this was weird. Also there were no map triggers, no map progression, all weapons were available at start for pickup, and you were expected. A lot of Quake 1/2 fans bought it and were fairly disappointed because of the weird map design - no longer a SP dungeon, it was now an open arena with bots that were far more difficult than the usual mobs. Quake 3 was more geared (design-wise) towards MP games but again it was sold primarily as a single-player game. Quake 1 and 2 were primarily designed as single-player experiences, and while some people had a lot of fun with MP games of quake 1/2, this was a time where most people did not have internet and if they did, it was a 56k modem. Id tried back in 2008 to re-launch the quake franchise by creating a F2P, in-browser version of Quake3Arena. Obviously both Wolfenstein and the new Doom were very well received and made a good bit of money for id/Bethesda. That might be kind of a weird distinction to make but there's something about the combination of big, oppressive levels, rune-based powers, and a chaingun that spits literal teeth that really rings that bell for me.Let me do a lil' writeup here so those who are not currently suffering through the hell that is Quake can have a bit of insider knowledge as to what is actually going on. ![]() Wrath leans heavily into its Quake heritage (it's actually built on the Quake engine) but aesthetically it struck me as very Painkiller-like. I got lost (a lot) but the freedom to roam where I wanted rather than being herded along a linear path felt great. ![]() The two levels included with the initial Early Access release are huge and wide open, with interconnected dungeons and corridors that run seamlessly beneath sprawling overworlds. One looks like an imp with its torso cut open and stuffed with teeth (it also screams, which never stops being awful) while another looks like a cross between a Cacodemon and Sheogorath. Similarly, many of the enemies bear a superficial resemblance to Doom demons but are very distinctive in their own right. The weapons currently available are mostly traditional but still very strong: The pistol is actually useful, with an alt-fire mode that really kicks, and the shotgun may be the loudest, messiest videogame boomstick I've ever used. Wrath is obviously nowhere near ready for a final verdict, but I feel like it would take an active effort to screw it up. ![]()
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