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Exceed Haven. Best known - or rather unknown, because only about five people have ever
heard of it - as the biggest QuakeWorld mod that nobody played. The story of its creation
is a long meandering tale of bullshit that involves love, betrayal, and 3D boners. It won't be
recounted.
But suffice it to say, Exceed Haven had ambition... And in a shocking twist, it actually delivered
on most of it. The parts that wound up on the cuttingroom floor were, in the end, bad ideas
that copied Team Fortress just for the sake of copying it.
After its breathlessly unawaited public release(which was a comedy of errors. Several years of
development, and only about 1 hour of playtesting. You do the math.), it quickly became clear
the entire mod was cursed by demons from Hell. From chronic server problems to the frankly
paranormal levels of apathy it inspired in all who gazed upon it, Exceed Haven was one fucked
Quake mod.
And yet, it somehow soldiered on. Updates came and went. Bugfix after bugfix.
Seasons changed.
Until finally, I could no longer justify the profound waste of time that was supporting a
QuakeWorld mod that literally no one actually played. Time to abandon this God damn
disaster. That was the plan.
Then I ran accross QEXPO 2008, and thought... You know what? Why not give the old girl one
last hurrah before I push her off a cliff?
And ye, the special QEXPO Edition of Exceed Haven was born. This version finally shores up
some old, nagging bugs and makes netplay a little frendlier. It even has a few bonus features
thrown in. I also decided to finish up and release some projects I'd given up on... Tweaked
monster skins. Launcher app. New user pack.
As an extra special giveaway just for visiting this booth, I've also compiled the QuakeSpy
Funpack. Mmm... Tasty! |
Since the dawn of time, the average Quake mod has focused
on one goal, and one goal alone: extending the gameplay of
the original Quake. Sure, they might have crazy new weapons
and wacky new skills, but at the end of the day, they're still
built on the same foundation.
Exceed Haven was designed from the beginning to knock down
Quake's foundation and build a whole different game on top.
The pacing is thoughtful. The tactics are real. The emphasis is
on survival. And no one weapon rules the roost.
Rocket jumping? Sayonara. Bunnyhopping? You aren't a rabbit.
Playing Exceed Haven like it's Quake is your one-way ticket to
Deadsville. |
What kind of mod is Exceed Haven? Deathmatch?
Capture The Flag? Cooperative? Actually, it's all of
the above. With three distinct and fully fleshed-out
modes of play, Exceed Haven is a regular old triple
feature.
Other Quake mods treat different modes as a mere
novelty, or spin them off into entirely seperate code
branches. Once the cheap thrills wear out, how fun
is playing deathmatch in something that was never
intended for it, and how annoying is being forced to
connect to a new address just to play the Co-op
version of your favorite mod? With Exceed Haven,
you can go from playing CTF on 2fort5, to fragging
monsters in e1m1 after nothing more than a simple
map change.
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Exceed Haven USERPACK(Windows installer, 4.5MB)
All that is Exceed Haven. The game assets, custom SBAR,
qwprogs.dat, EX-Launcher... PLUS! The MVDSV XE server
application. Make playing - and even hosting - Exceed
Haven a breeze.
Exceed Haven USERPACK(Platfrom neutral zip archive, 4MB)
All that is Exceed Haven... But without the fat. Includes the
game assets, custom SBAR, and qwprogs.dat file. See the
included README NOW!! for important information. Extract
with directory structure intact.
Exceed Haven MAP PACK(zip archive, 27MB)
Simply put, a ton of maps. Team Fortress and Three
Wave CTF maps, to be specific. Each one was hand
picked for use with Exceed Haven. Excluded from the
USERPACK because the total would weigh in at more
than 30MB(!). As with all Quake maps, you should
extract these to your /id1/maps/ directory.
*Even though the QEXPO Edition of Exceed Haven
has gone through a multitude of fixes, you should still
expect a bugfest due to the mindblowing lack of play
testing. And, naturally, the main server is currently
running the wrong version of Exceed Haven. You
should definitely expect a bugfest there.
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BONUS! |  |
Ex-Launcher was created
to be an extremely simple
launcher app for Exceed
Haven. Aside from the "
Swap SBAR" feature,
however, it can actually
be used as a completely
stand-alone front end for
Quake... Download now! |
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The GameSpy of today is, inarguably, a
tragically awful piece of software. But
before it stank to high heavens, it was
an indespensible tool for locating Quake
World servers. Alas, those days are
gone... Or are they? With the QSpy
Funpack, you can finally relive the
past - a past where there was still
a decent QuakeWorld browser for
Windows. This collection includes
not only two hard-to-find versions
of GameSpy 3D, but also two
whole versions of QuakeSpy...
Download now! |
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