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- | TODO | + | === Cover === |
+ | |||
+ | From the creators of DOOM... QUAKE! Your first look at gaming' | ||
+ | |||
+ | === Table of contents === | ||
+ | |||
+ | Under a shroud of secrecy, the makers of Doom have been hard at work creating their latest and greatest first-person action game -- Quake. As the project nears completion, we travel to Mesquite, Texas, home of id Software, to bring you the first word -- and the first pictures -- of this soon-to-be-released megahit. Join us on an odyssey of great gaming, beef ribs and country western honky-tonks -- all the things our Texas brethren know how to do so well. | ||
+ | |||
+ | === Quake === | ||
+ | |||
+ | //Once you've created the most innovative, addictive, and entertaining computer game of all time, what do you do for an encore? For the guys at id Software, the answer was simple: Make a game that you like to play even more than Doom. | ||
+ | by Steve Poole | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | |||
+ | When Matt called and asked me if I'd like to take a trip down to Mesquite, Texas, to visit id Software, I jumped at the chance. I considered it a genuine honor to meet the guys at id, and on top of that I was going to get the first glimpse of Quake in action. Holy cow -- it was a dream come true! | ||
+ | |||
+ | As I pulled my rent-a-car up to the black, non-descript Town East Tower that id calls home, I tried to prepare myself for the mayhem that must be going on somewhere inside. I'd heard of the intense and extremely verbal Doom deathmatches that took place there, and as I entered the offices I fully expected to walk in on the middle of one. Hell, for all I knew, I might run smack into John Romero wielding a battle axe and screaming bloody murder. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Much to my surprise, the offices were eerily silent. I introduced myself to the receptionist and waited for Jay Wilbur to meet me, but I was beginning to get the feeling that I'd shown up on the wrong day. Then Wilbur emerged and introduced himself, and the reasons for the eerie quiet became clear: John Romero was out of the office for a few days, and id's artists and programmers were busy at work on Quake. | ||
+ | |||
+ | I immediately began to pepper Wilbur with questions about Quake, but he just smiled patiently and said, "I want you to talk with John Carmack. He can fill you in on the technologies we're using in Quake a lot better than I can." | ||
+ | |||
+ | But as the minutes turned to hours with no sign of Carmack, Jay took pity on me and let me have a quick peek at Quake to tide me over. The game world was still in its earliest form -- there were no monsters to halt our exploration -- but the Quake environment alone was enough to hold me spellbound. You want immersion? Quake' | ||
+ | |||
+ | So just what is Quake about? For months, that's been the $64,000 question on the Internet and everywhere else Doom fans gather to talk about their favorite obsession and speculate on what the guys at id will do next. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Quake takes place in a medieval setting -- and that's all that anyone at id will say. In fact, that's all they can say; they' | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | After letting me spend a half-hour or so exploring the jaw-dropping world of Quake, Jay fired up the latest build of Heretic II, the sequel to the dark-fantasy game Raven Software developed for id. After having my butt flamed repeteadly by Dark Bishops, I began to look for a way out. Fortunately for me, it was just about lunchtime. | ||
+ | |||
+ | We headed out for some authentic East-Texas cuisine, and Wilbur slipped me a little more information about Quake and confirmed one of the major rumors surrounding id's new game. | ||
+ | |||
+ | "There won't be music in Quake," | ||
+ | |||
+ | After lunch, we headed back to id's offices -- by that time, Carmack was there to meet us. Sequestered in the relative privacy of John Romero' | ||
+ | |||
+ | "We wanted to do something different from Doom," Carmack says. "You know, sort of how we did the WWII stuff in Wolfenstein 3-D, then switched to science fiction in Doom. | ||
+ | |||
+ | "Quake is actually very, very loosely based on some characters and settings from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign of mine from a few years ago," he says. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Having said that, Carmack is quick to echo the sentiments of everyone I spoke to at id: " | ||
+ | |||
+ | ** Earth-shaking Graphics and Faultless Visuals ** | ||
+ | |||
+ | Even though it was the intense, in-your-face action of Doom that hooked millions of players, there' | ||
+ | |||
+ | So why did id choose not to skip those intermediate resolutions and go for full-blown, 640x480 Super VGA for their next-generation game, like other publishers have done? Because id knows that gameplay is the key, and that there' | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | But Carmack also realizes that to release a game that only runs in standard VGA resolution just isn't acceptable in this day and age. " | ||
+ | |||
+ | The work that artists Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud have done with the texture-mapped backgrounds is splendid; even at 320x200, the backgrounds are utterly convincing and will go a long way toward immersing players in Quake' | ||
+ | |||
+ | And the higher-res screens look like, well... they' | ||
+ | |||
+ | But how many horses will gameplayers need to have unders their PC's hoods to get Quake moving at a pace worthy of its looks? | ||
+ | |||
+ | "A 486/66 is what we're considering as the minimum recommended system," | ||
+ | |||
+ | ** The Bottom Line ** | ||
+ | |||
+ | Carmack and company are extremely proud of the technologies used in the Quake engine, and to show just how far they' | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | But don't assume Quake is merely a gussied-up Doom. Just as Doom represented a generational leap over Wolfenstein 3-D, Quake will improve over every area of gameplay in Doom -- and there' | ||
+ | |||
+ | "Quake will have the stuff people wanted in Doom," Carmack says. "Real walkways where there could be a guy hiding underneath you, ' | ||
+ | |||
+ | That realism extends to the characters populating Quake -- including your own. "Your [character] is modeled more as a real physical entity. If someone hits you hard enough from below, you'll bounce off the ground and ricochet off the walls a couple of times," | ||
+ | |||
+ | ** A Bloody Good Time for All ** | ||
+ | |||
+ | One of the keys to Doom's success was its multi-player capabilities, | ||
+ | |||
+ | "The networking capability is one of the most important things we've done on Quake. Every aspect of the program' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Players without access to a network will initially be disappointed to hear Carmack say that "to some degree, we'll sacrifice some of the aspects of the single-player game to make the network play better. There are things that we could do that would be very cool for a single-player game -- attacks that would send out hundreds of different sprites all over the place, for instance -- that wouldn' | ||
+ | |||
+ | To take advantage of the Internet, id has come up with a protocol designed to tolerate the quirks of a network connection much better than Doom did. " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Quake has been designed, in fact, with all the vagaries of Internet connections in mind. "If you're on a server with eight players, and one person has line noise, none of the other players will notice it," says Carmack. "All they see is that guy's character isn't moving anymore, so they' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The emergence of dedicated servers -- both on the Internet and as a part of independent, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ** The Million Dollar Question ** | ||
+ | |||
+ | Another question Doom fanatics are dying to have answered is whether or not they' | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | "All of the effects that go on in the game -- platforms moving, doors opening, the way the monsters think -- all of it's done in an interpreted language, and the source code for it comes with the game," he says. " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Carmack' | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | It's a problem with which id is all too familiar, thanks to the countless WAD files gamers have created to add homemade levels to Doom. | ||
+ | |||
+ | "With the Doom WADs, our attitude was 'go ahead, have a blast, knock yourself out -- we want people who've paid for the game to have as good a time as possible -- but you can't do this for profit.' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Because of the intense concentration on making Quake the network game of choice for the growing legions of multiplayer fans, the issue of third parties reselling WADs takes a back seat to another business issue -- the question of network licensing. Carmack says "the major debate [at id] is over network stuff. One option we're considering is to give out an eight-user network license with the game, but if you want to do some monster 64-user line or AOL-size Quake server, you have to get a specific license from us." | ||
+ | |||
+ | ** The Wait Begins... ** | ||
+ | |||
+ | Almost without a word, Carmack rose and headed back to his office to continue work on Quake. As he left, Wilbur walked into the room, and I asked him when Quake would be released. | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | But both Carmack and Wilbur think that Quake should be ready in time for Christmas -- and if it is, it's going to be one hell of a present to millions of gamers around the world. |