Doom 3, Quest & Quake by Raven?
This article is a mirror from the original published column at
UKGamer.net.
Written by 155 &
Rising
July 22,
2001
Well well well, that was different. :) Thanks to all for
the welcome backs, especially to Geths, Arclight
and Deuce for the nice mails and icqs. I'll pause to
point out Arc's recent
update on CPMA for those that missed it. Makes for
a good read and having picked up CPMA during our
regular sunday lan sesh's lately, I can relate to a lot of the
positive bits he picked up on. Rail definitely feels homely
for us sad Quake 2 types, and the air control is
refreshing after 18 months of moving like a steam roller in
VQ3. It's also nice to have the option of playing VQ3
physics 'CA style' on the Ra3 maps, without CRT's
queer timenudge and config restrictions. Either way, Arc lives
here and CPMA and the necessary gumpf can be found
here. Enjoy.
The Edge as it was meant to be, but with a
decent rocket launcher :) Recent showboat matches featuring
such talent as UNR's Luke and 4K's Ray have
proved what CPMA is capable of... demos are available
at the official site...
So here we are. Apologies to all for the down time, I know
a lot of people were trying to access the
ThreeWave review after
such good linkage, (ta to all, you know who you are) and it
really was little more than sh*t luck that had the box crash
that night. However, with the upgrades rocker's invested in
over the past couple of days and the new line we're moving to
tomorrow things should be a lot more stable from here on in. A
couple of people asked where they can get what's been released
of
ThreeWave so far, and
skipping fileplanet and it's exceedingly gay login system. You
can find copies
here.
It's defiantly the way to go for league admins and so on, as
it finally gives a decent range of styles for players to
learn, rather than the mindnumbingly dull crap id churned out
on the original cd.
So. July 2k1's almost over and we've very little to show
for the time since I last graced html with my ramblings. The
Quake III wave has been and gone with many people
moving to the overly annoying CounterCamp to follow the
CPL 'pro' trend, whilst
others are even reminicising far enough back to take up
QuakeWorld again. (With varying degrees of success, even
on a Quake II map eh Mark :P) Largely tho, it's just
evidence of how bored the Qummunity obviously is with Quake
III. It's little surprise, id's habit of missing
out the 'content' part of their games and churning out little
more than engines was bound to fuck up when they went
multiplayer only, as there's no single player game for them to
mess up and the Qummunity to ignore. Between the handful of
useful maps, (q3dm6, dm7, dm13, t2 and t4) and the eye candy
there was very little there to sustain us. So when Team
Arena flopped (I'd imagine because of the nervy price
tag?) and mod developers struggled to deal with the myriad web
of patches and network protocols it's left a bit of a vacuum
at the end user part of the chain.
Widely avoided by the Qummminuty, Team Arena is
actually hideously good fun, replacing the much missed CTF
techs and giving us that earth shattering kamikaze to play
with...
And what have we to look forward to? Doom 3? Hmm,
single player only. No surprise then that
Valve can get away
with holding on to their redundant technology for so long.
Would id really market themselves out of multiplayer
gaming? Until a few weeks ago it seemed that way. Then this
turn up.
'NEW
GAMES FROM ID SOFTWARE' Not the most subtle of fish to
throw is it. More followed, and so the id hype machine
slowly ground up through the gears, fuelling a lot of
speculation as to what was coming out and what it'd be like.
And rather surprisingly you'd think, the big news sites kept
relatively quiet, with PC Zone UK of all people first
mentioning the 'Quake 4' phrase that other people quickly
jumped on. But then it's always like that at this stage of
product development. Friends of friends of web admins and
component manufacturer technicians and so forth slowly bubble
over and spill the beans as the truth passes it's way through
the chain of 'bestest friends who you'd tell anything cos
you're *almost* certain they wouldn't tell,' and in typical
Chinese whisper style we get something vaguely resembling the
truth at the other end. Quake 4? Quest?
Q3Tourney5; very dark and very green when it made it's
appearance in the leaked Quake III IHV. Highly amusing,
after the mindnumbing 12 player deathmatch we put it through,
to find it classed as a duel map in the final release...
Question is tho, will we be treated the same industrial
leakage with Doom 3? :)
Well let's take a proper look at it all. Think back a bit,
to the surprise
.plan John Carmack made earlier this year
announcing the move to develop Doom 3, the internal strife
over the project and Paul Steed's untimely demise. At that
time, it was rumoured Adrian and Kevin had been pushing
hard for id to move into the mmorg sector and get their feet
in the door before EverCrack completely cornered the
market. More true now as it was then, with the big Lucas
boys and
Star Wars Galaxies not far away, the market for massively
multiplayer is on the verge of consolidation, and if id
is/were planning a move, it's important that they do so now.
sCary's brief look at the new PR refers to Greame
mentioning a project called 'Quest' at a recent industry
event,
sounding hideously similar to the original design brief for
Quake, with a big fantasy theme similar to EverCrack
and a static world for players to explore. Being that the
arguments were so fierce over this not so long ago, I'm sure
we can presume intentions regarding the project are still
intact. Quest by id software at Quakecon? Hhmm....
But if id are making Quest, or a similar
idea, why then this hype regarding 'Quake 4?' Largely
because
id aren't stupid, and multiplayer deathmatching is
worth big money these days. Signing themselves out of that
market after building it up so long would be countermount to
financial blackjack. And following Carmack's ethic on
affording to dabble design wise, it would make sense that if
they're about to go out on a limb with mmorg, then they'll
need some good money coming in to fuel the design time.
Doom 3, despite probably being a huge hit when it's
released, will cost shed loads in development, as both a new
engine, and the huge single player story content will need to
be conceived. I'm sure we all remember the huge wait for
Half Life. Games that good don't come cheap, and for id
to stand a chance in the story telling arena they need to
spend the time getting it right. So money wise, Doom 3's
prolly not the treasure chest they'll need. At least, not now.
So... Quake 4? Well, the title's a bit unimaginative
isn't it. Methinks PC Zone went for the safe bet, but
it would make sense. Quake, in all of it's forms, has
been a hugely profitable franchise. Engine wise, a lot of the
work for Doom 3 will have been done, so leeching off
that and dumping the new game content together really won't
take much time at all. After all, the complex single player
scripting and game events that take so much time aren't
necessary. Just maps, models, game types and weapons, all of
which can be easily ported and resigned from the previous
games. (Which a fair few cynics would say is exactly what they
did with Quake III Arena :P) But then we hit another
problem.
Manpower. And id, despite recent additions to the
team, really doesn't have that much. Spread between Doom 3,
over seeing Grey Matter's
Return
to Wolfenstein and we'll presume this new Quest
project, the updates and maintenance to Quake 3 that
made them so Qumminity friendly in previous releases has been
sorely missed. Simple bug fixes that should take days end up
taking months as the work load piles up and it's obvious
they're stretched already, without taking more on.
Which suggests... external liscening? And as sTeve
pointed out in his brief look at the new PR, this makes
perfect sense. Having already experienced the supervisory role
in many projects and expansion packs, and bearing such ripe
fruit as Return to Wolf, the over-seer role fits them
perfectly, and also brings fresh talent and ideas (if
carefully crafted and moulded ones) to the series, which let's
face it, it sorely needs. Quake 4 then, but by who?
sTeve mentions
Nerve Software, the phoenix of the massively
successful/financially unlucky Rogue, creators of the amazing
Alice. And although it
makes sense as the sympathetic option, the team at Nerve
is still presumably small, and having only worked on single
player recently, probably too rusty to take a project like
that on without a gamble. Leaving....? And here we have it.
Quake 4, by
Raven. Who I'm told have enough coders to raise a small
army at the mo. :) Famous for the ultra violent, perfectly
balanced and immediately complete
Soldier of
Fortune, they took multiplayer by the horns and kicked it
up the arse, harking back to the days of Action Quake 2
and Duke 3D with ease. And then there's
Elite
Force, the severely under-rated Star Trek romp,
which despite over use of hitscan, plays amazingly well,
giving that missing 'cheese' factor back to deathmatch. The
perfect choice then, to take on the Quake mantle and
keep id's slot in deathmatching alive? Well I'd say so,
and yes, I've been known to be wrong before, but on this one
I'm fairly certain. id are no fools, and we all know
Valve have kicked them about lately, so bringing fresh
talent in to rejuvenate the series will prolly do everyone
good.
