quake

This article is about the original video game. For the series as a whole, see Quake (series). For other uses, see Quake (disambiguation).

Quake
Developer(s)	id Software, Midway Games (Nintendo 64), Lobotomy Software (Sega Saturn), Pulse Interactive (mobile)
Publisher(s)	GT Interactive (PC), PXL computers (Amiga), MacSoft (Macintosh), Midway Games (Nintendo 64), Sega (Sega Saturn), Pulse Interactive (mobile)
Designer(s)	John Romero (lead designer), John Carmack (lead programmer) American McGee, Sandy Petersen, Tim Willits
Engine	Quake engine, Slavedriver engine (Sega Saturn)
Release date(s)	June 22, 1996 (NA) 1997, 2005
Genre(s)	FPS
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer, multiplayer(co-op)
Rating(s)	BBFC: 15 ESRB: Mature (M)/Teen (T) (Sega Saturn only) RSAC: V3: Blood and Gore L2: Profanity
Platform(s)	Amiga, Falcon, IRIX, Macintosh, PC (DOS, Linux, Windows), N64, Risc PC, Saturn, Solaris, Windows Mobile, source ports to additional platforms
Media	Compact disc (1), download, cartridge
System requirements	90 MHz Processor FPU 8 MB RAM 80 MB Hard disk space 2 MB Graphics card IRIX 5.3 / Linux 1.3.88 / MS-DOS 5.0 / Solaris 2.5.1 / Windows 95
Input	Keyboard, mouse, joystick

Quake is a first-person shooter computer game that was released by id Software on June 22, 1996. It was the first game in the popular Quake series of computer and video games.

The majority of programming work on the Quake engine was done by John Carmack. Michael Abrash, a program performance optimization specialist, was brought in to help make the software rendering engine fast enough to be feasible. The game design and layout was done by John Romero. The sound effects and music for the game were composed by Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails (within the game, the ammo box for the nailgun has the Nine Inch Nails logo on it in reference to this). Quake was released just as the Internet was commercially coming of age, and much of Quake's popularity arose because it was one of the few games of its kind playable over the internet rather than just a local network.

Quake and its three pseudo-sequels, Quake II, Quake III Arena and Quake 4, have sold over 4 million copies combined. In 2005, a version of Quake was produced for mobile phones. A copy of Quake was also sold in 2001, labeled Ultimate Quake, which included the original Quake, Quake II, and Quake III Arena.

Gameplay

Quake has two fundamental modes of gameplay: single player and multiplayer.

Single Player

In single-player mode, players explore and navigate to the exit of each level, facing many challenging monsters and a few secret areas along the way. Usually there are buttons to press or keys to collect in order to open doors before the exit can be reached. Once reaching the exit, the game takes the player to the next level.

Before the start level, there is a set of three pathways with easy, medium, and hard skill levels; in order to reach the Nightmare skill level (described in the game manual as "so bad that it was hidden so people wouldn't wander in it by accident"^{[citation needed]}), the player must drop through the water before the Episode 4 entrance and jump into a secret passage.

Quake's single-player campaign is organized into four individual episodes of about eight levels each (each including a secret level, one of which is a "low gravity" level — Ziggurat Vertigo in Episode 1, Dimension of the Doomed — that challenges the player's abilities in a different way). As items are collected, they are carried to the next level, each usually more challenging than the last. If the player dies, he must restart at the beginning of the level. However, games may be saved at any time.

Upon completing each episode, the player is returned to the hub Start level, where he can then enter the next episode. Each episode starts the player from scratch, without any previously collected items. Episode I (which formed the shareware or downloadable demo version of Quake) has a boss in the last level. The ultimate objective at the end of the episode is to recover the magic rune. There are four runes; the Rune of Earth Magic, Black Magic, Hell Magic, and Elder Magic, from the episodes of Dimension of the Doomed, Realm of Black Magic, Netherworld, and Elder World, respectively. After all of the runes are collected, the floor of the Start opens up to reveal an entrance to the End level which contains the final boss.

Enemies

Monsters

Rottweiler

A guard dog that can bite players and can jump quite well. It has a gory appearance and may be a zombie or possessed by the forces of Quake.

Grunt

The standard anthropoid enemy armed with a shotgun. They look somewhat like the player but worse for wear, and much slower and weaker. They also don't speak, and instead announce their presence with grunts and deep growls. It is not explained why this former human is against the player, but it is most likely due to being possessed by the forces of Quake and being zombified. It is mentioned in the instruction manual that the Grunts have electrodes attached to the pleasure centers of their brains to give them bursts of pleasure when they kill. Drops 5 shells when killed.

Enforcer

A more powerful anthropoid enemy with a more futuristic theme, armed with a laser blaster and wearing a vacuum/armor suit with a battery backpack, with the helmet containing a face mask. These soldiers shout "Stop!" "You there!" and "Freeze!", making them the only monsters in Quake to speak intelligible English, and have a heavy breathing sound like Darth Vader. Drops a backpack containing 5 cells when killed.

Knight

An armored Medieval warrior, armed with a sword and can only attack at close range. They run at moderate speed which often catches novice players off guard. They make pained groans when wounded and are killed relatively easily.

Death Knight

These are tall knights with spiked shoulders, horned helmets, and two-handed swords. They have significantly more endurance and can inflict much more damage, while also maintaining a moderate speed. They can also unleash a spread of slow-moving fireball projectiles, which is deadly at close range. Like the Knights, they make pained groans though louder and more hoarse. (Also known as Hell Knights).

Rotfish

Fish that bite and swim in swarms and more or less resemble piranha. They are relatively weak, but are dangerous in groups, for they usually try to keep the player from reaching the surface.

Zombie

Undead creatures that throw lumps of their own rotten flesh at their target. The Zombies also make long moans, and can be knocked down temporarily with normal weapons. Being slow and causing little damage, they pose little threat except in mobs. However, are effectively immune to non-explosive weapons unless combined with Quad Damage since they need to take more damage in a single hit than can be inflicted by any non-explosive, non-Quad enhanced weapon. It would however be possible to kill a Zombie with a regular weapon if it took damage from another source at the same time — for example, being hit by another monster.

Scrag

A flying creature that resembles a pale human torso and head without face or limbs, tapering into an articulated fleshy tail that somehow aids flight. It squirts yellowish acid from its shoulders. Scrags make hissing sounds that resemble whispered human speech and make harsh breathing sounds as well. When they are struck by a weapon, they will cry, "no," in deep resonating tones. Also known as 'wizards'.

Ogre

A brutish character armed with a chainsaw and a grenade launcher. It is one of the most common enemies in the game. When not fighting, they move slowly and drag their chainsaws but when they sight an enemy, they immediately go berserk, snarling and moving around quickly. They can be knocked down if hit by sufficient gunfire though they will get back up.

Spawn

Strange creatures made entirely of blue slime that jump about at high speed, making them difficult to target. Commonly found in levels with blue floors (for camouflage), they start in passive mode as small lumps and then morph into a bouncing blob. They explode when they are defeated, causing significant damage (a good tip is to shoot at spawn only when it is bouncing away). They make wet, sticky noises when impacting a surface. This creature is most likely based on one of the Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua. They are also known as 'Tarbabies' and 'Wizards'.

Fiend

Flightless bat-like creatures with goat-like legs and cloven hooves, thick tails, tremendous fangs and wing-like arms ending in scythe-like claws. Can jump long distances to pounce on their foes, with their leap attacks causing a lot of damage. Also known as 'Demons', as they more or less resemble the Pinky Demon from Doom. They have very high attack power and jump very quickly, although they are very clumsy in their attack patterns and frequently get "stuck" inside narrow hallways. A 1999 editors' poll in Gamespot ranked the Fiend as one of the top ten monsters of all time.

Vore

Tripodal, spider-legged creature that flings explosive spiked spherical purple projectiles which home on the player. Vores make harsh breathing sounds as they walk along and sometimes whimpering sounds but when they spot an enemy, they screech. Some have suggested that they are based upon Driders in Dungeons and Dragons. They are also known as 'Shalraths'.

Shambler

Somewhat akin to a giant, bipedal, polar bear or Yeti that shoots lightning bolts with extremely high attack power. At close range, they use their massive, very damaging claws to pound and swipe their foe. They have a gory appearance, with bloody claws and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Not only does it have the highest amount of hit points, explosions will only inflict half-damage against this monster. More or less based on H.P. Lovecraft's Dimensional Shamblers, as on many occasions they teleport into the area to fight you. Also similar to Owlbears in Dungeons and Dragons.

According to a recent interview with John Romero, the Shambler has a shaggy coat instead of bare skin as was once thought. It is also eyeless along with the Fiend and Vore, due to the environment of Quake. He also revealed the Ogre was designed differently originally and was also meant to urinate on the player's corpse after it had killed the player. He also stated there was going to be a dragon enemy and a creature known as the Vomitus that were cut from the game. -- [2]

Bosses

Chthon

A fierce beast of living lava and the first boss, found at the end of episode I. Chthon is inherently immune to all common weapons the player holds, and only the two electrical conductors around his arena can damage and eventually kill him. It is pretty tricky as the player must lower both electrical conductors and activate the current, all while dodging explosive lava balls that Chthon tosses.

It is believed Chthon also has children that exist in one of the two mission packs for the first Quake. However, they are affected by smaller weapons, and go down much easier than their parent does.^{[citation needed]} The name Chthon suggests "god or spirit of the underworld", see Chthonic.

Vore

Vores serve as boss monsters in Episodes II and III, where their death will open access to the magic runes.

Shub-Niggurath

The aforementioned creature supposedly drawn from Lovecraft lore is the second and last boss found at the end of the game. The creature's looks are based on a Dark Young rather than Shub-Niggurath herself; it is simply not large enough and lacks the huge number of tentacles and mouths. It sits on an island in a pool of lava, and is surrounded by many Vores and Shamblers. Like in Chthon's case, it is impossible to kill Shub-Niggurath with player weapons, since it has 40,000 health points which get restored every time it's hit

"#wp-_note-Shub-Niggurath.27s_health">[1] ^[2]. In order to kill it, the player must make use of the small, spiked sphere that circles around the map in combination with the portal device that overlooks the boss. When the sphere goes inside Shub-Niggurath, going through the portal device will teleport the player onto the same location as the boss, and messily telefrag it.

Weapons

1. Axe: The player always has an axe, the only weapon not requiring ammunition. Due to limited range, it is rarely used. Because it does not use ammunition, the axe is good for finding secret walls and hitting buttons.
2. Shotgun/Boomstick: The default shooting weapon. The shotgun is a weak hitscan weapon with a moderate fire rate. Seldom used when other weapons are available, except occasionally for sniping at long distances due to the relatively narrow pellet spread.
3. Double-Barreled Shotgun: A double-barreled shotgun which inflicts more damage and has a wider pellet spread than the single-barreled shotgun, but takes two rounds per shot and has a slower fire rate. Moderately useful for closeup or finishing damaged opponents, or in conjunction with quad damage. Uses ammunition more efficiently than the shotgun, since for the two shells it consumes, it does more damage than two single shots from the regular shotgun.
4. Nailgun: A rapid-fire weapon with relatively light damage per shot, but the automatic fire allows damage to mount quickly. Reminiscent of the Gast Machine Gun.
5. Super Nailgun/Perforator: A more powerful, damaging nailgun which expends nails twice as fast as the regular nailgun. It is a moderately powerful weapon, very good with quad damage.
6. Grenade Launcher: An explosive weapon that launches grenades in an arc. A unique weapon, somewhat different from grenade launchers in other games due to limited projectile speed and range (resulting in high arcs), and grenades that bounce off of inanimate surfaces, only exploding after hitting a living creature or a 2.5 second timer elapses. Can be used to grenade jump.
7. Rocket Launcher: An explosive projectile weapon, the dominant weapon in the game in most levels that have it. Rockets travel in a straight line, relatively fast and inflict slightly more damage than grenades. Rockets always explode on impact. Frequently used for rocket jumping.
8. Thunderbolt/Lightning Gun/"Shaft": An electrical discharge weapon with a beam in the form of a solid, jagged (but straight) line. Aiming is challenging, though, since the beam jumps around rather than turning smoothly. One of the most powerful weapons in the game. It will also will discharge when the player using it is in water deeper than ankle-depth, which will release all of its remaining battery power in a massive explosion and almost invariably kill the player and anything in the water around the player. It's possible for the player to survive the explosion easily when having the Pentagram of Protection power-up or cheat (God Mode) active.

Ammunition

• Shotgun shells are used for the shotgun and Double-Barreled shotgun.
• Nails are used for the nailgun and super nailgun. These ammo boxes are adorned with a "NIИ" logo, a nod to soundtrack composer Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.
• Rockets are used for the grenade launcher and rocket launcher.
• Cells are used for the Thunderbolt.

In multiplayer games, these respawn 30 seconds after being picked up.

Items

• Medkits can heal the player by 15 or 25 health points, up to the starting maximum of 100.
• Megahealth provides an additional 100 health. Health above 100 gradually ticks down until it reaches 100 again. If two megahealths are picked up at the same time, the maximum health is 250, and health ticks down faster than with one.
• Armor comes in three types: green, yellow and red, from weakest to most powerful. These reduce the number of health points of damage the player suffers. Green absorbs 30% of damage and gives the player 100% armor, yellow absorbs 60% damage and gives the player 150% armor, and red absorbs 80% damage and gives the player 200% armor.

In multiplayer games, these respawn 20 seconds after being picked up.

Powerups

• Biosuit allows the player to swim in radioactive slime without any damage. Does not protect from lava. It expires 30 seconds after being picked up, and in multiplayer games normally respawns 60 seconds after from when it was picked up.
• Quad damage causes the player's weapons to do four times their normal damage. It expires 30 seconds after being picked up, and in multiplayer games normally respawns 60 seconds after from when it was picked up.
• Pentagram of Protection makes the player invulnerable to damage for 30 seconds. In multiplayer games, it respawns every five minutes. It also puts a 666 in the armor counter.
• Ring of Shadows makes the player invisible except for their eyes, for 30 seconds. In multiplayer games, it respawns every five minutes. (Often referred to as simply "eyes".)

Episodes and levels

Multiplayer

In multiplayer mode, players on several computers connect to a server (which may be a dedicated machine or on one of the player's computers), where they can play against each other. Typically in multiplayer mode, when a player dies he can immediately respawn, but loses any items he has collected and so must start collecting them again. Similarly, items that have been picked up previously respawn after some time, and may be picked up again.

The single-player campaign can be played in co-op mode.

The most popular multiplayer modes are all forms of deathmatch. Deathmatch modes typically consist of either free-for-all (no organization or teams involved), one-on-one duels, or organized teamplay with two or more players per team (or clan). Teamplay is also frequently played with one or another mod. Typically, no monsters are normally present, as they serve no purpose other than to get in the way and give away the player.

The gameplay in Quake was considered unique for its time because of the different ways the player can maneuver through the game. For example: bunny hopping or strafe jumping can be used to move faster than normal, while rocket jumping enables the player to reach otherwise-inaccessible areas (or just move faster), at the cost of some self-damage. The player can start and stop moving suddenly, jump unnaturally high, and change direction while moving through the air. Many of these non-realistic behaviors contribute to Quake's appeal. The nature of the gameplay is often fast and frenzied, and has become considerably faster over the years as players mastered advanced movement techniques.

There is obvious skill needed to react quickly, aim precisely, dodge other players' shots, and jump across tricky spaces. As Quake did not include any automap, it also requires considerable knowledge of the sometimes confusingly-contorted maps (made more complex by the frequent use of teleporters) as well as careful planning in order to collect needed items and conserve health and ammunition. Strategies include regularly picking up items to prevent one's opponent from having access to them and controlling certain critical areas of each level. Duels often take place with opponents mostly out of sight of each other, jockeying for position and carefully stocking up on items, with sudden changes in speed of play when one player or the other gains an advantage. Sound also plays a central role in keeping track of other players and even items in the game, so many players use headphones to give the clearest sound and directionality. Teamplay adds even more tactical layers, with different ways to communicate and cooperate.

Multiplayer Quake was one of the first games that people singled out as a form of electronic sport. Most notable was Dennis "Thresh" Fong who won John Carmack's Ferrari 308 at the Microsoft-sponsored Red Annihilation tournament in 1997.

Online Quake play is also a significant social activity, with players chatting during gameplay, or even just talking while connected through the server without actually playing the game at all. Many players have built enduring friendships with people they met online while playing Quake.

Story

The player takes the role of an unnamed soldier (later known as Ranger in Quake III Arena) sent into a portal to stop an enemy, code-named "Quake". The government has been experimenting with teleportation technology, and created a working prototype called a "Slipgate". Unfortunately, a portal to an unknown dimension has been opened, and death squads begin to emerge, killing and robbing as much as they can before returning through the gate. Once sent through the portal, the player's main objective is to survive and locate the exit which will take him to the next level, not unlike that of id Software's previous hit, Doom.

The game consists of around 28 separate "levels" or "maps", grouped into 4 episodes. Each episode represents individual dimensions that the player can access through magical portals (as opposed to the technological Slipgate) that are discovered over the course of the game. At the start of each episode, the player is deployed in a futuristic military base and he has to find a slipgate that will take him to the alternate realm. The various realms consist of a number of gothic, medieval, as well as "fire and brimstone"-style caves and dungeons with a recurring theme of hellish and satanic imagery reminiscent of Doom. The latter is inspired by several dark fantasy influences, notably that of H.P. Lovecraft; most notably, the end game boss is named Shub-Niggurath and the end boss of the first episode is named Chthon, although there is little resemblance between the game's portrayal and the original literary description. Originally, the game was supposed to include more Lovecraftian bosses, but this concept was scrapped due to time constraints. It is debatable whether the four dimensions under Shub-Niggurath's rule are truly the spiritual Hell or whether they are simply other physical realms, with the Hell theme used merely for horrific effect.

Although the moniker "Quake" originally applied to the protagonist, the final story describes Quake as simply being "the enemy". It has been implied by other sources that Quake is a master antagonist, possibly leaving open the option for a direct sequel in which this person or creature is a boss character. This has neither been confirmed nor denied by John Romero or id Software.

It should be noted, however, that by the time the game was released the specifics of the story had become relatively unimportant and somewhat disorganized. This is mainly due to a last-minute mix of two different game designs: lead level designer John Romero wanted to make a dark fantasy hand to hand combat/RPG hybrid game, while level designers Tim Willits and American McGee wanted to make a more futuristic, Doom-like game. Ultimately the Doom-like mechanics were implemented and many of the dark fantasy design elements were incorporated into the graphics and visual effects of the game.

Partly due to the internal power struggle surrounding the game design, Romero resigned from id Software soon after the game was released. He went on to co-found the ill-fated development company Ion Storm. Half of id Software's staff left the company in the six months following Romero's departure, including Jay Wilbur (CEO), Sandy Petersen, Mike Wilson, Shawn Green and Michael Abrash.

"Sequels"

The unnamed hero of Quake reappears as one of the selectable characters in Quake III Arena, where he is known as "Ranger". There is also another playable character from the Quake universe who is named "Wrack", who has a beard but otherwise is similar to "Ranger".

However, Quake is one of the only modern id games not to have a true sequel: after the departure of Romero, the remaining id employees chose to change the thematic direction substantially for Quake II, making the design more technological and futuristic rather than dark fantasy; Quake 4 followed the design themes of Quake II, whereas Quake III Arena lacked a standard single-player campaign entirely as this episode was meant for multiplay only. PCGamer, in its recap of the mixed settings throughout the Quake series in its fall 2004 preview of Quake 4, stated that Quake II actually began as a totally separate product line. Unfortunately, due to the failure to gain rights to the title they wanted, id designers were forced to fall back on the project's nickname of "Quake II." Since any sequel to the original "Quake" had already been refused, it became a viable way of continuing the series without actually continuing the storyline or setting of the first game.

Quake engine

Main article: Quake engine

Quake popularized several major advances in the 3D game genre: it uses 3-dimensional models for players and monsters instead of 2-dimensional sprites; and the world in which play takes place is created as a true 3-dimensional space, rather than a 2-dimensional map with height information which is then rendered to 3D. Some previous 3D games, such as Duke Nukem 3D, Doom and Wolfenstein 3D (sometimes called 2.5D games) used a restricted-view mathematical trick when rendering their 3-dimensional view. This allowed a true 3D view, but only when looking straight-ahead (you can tell the difference by tilting up and down in Duke Nukem 3D, which is achieved by distorting the straight-ahead view rather than really rotating the view.)

Reducing 3D complexity to increase speed

Process of reducing 3D complexity in Quake explained in 4 simple steps

Quake was the first true-3D game to use a special map design system that preprocessed and pre-rendered the 3D environment, to reduce the load when playing the game on the 50-75 MHz CPUs of the time. The 3D environment in which the game takes place is referred to as a map -- even though it is three-dimensional in nature rather than a flat 2D space. The map editor program uses a number of simple convex 3D geometric objects known as brushes that are sized and rotated to build the environment. The brushes are overlapped in order to create an enclosed, empty, volumetric space, and when the design is complete the map is run through the rendering preprocessor. The preprocessor is used to locate two types of empty space in the map, the empty space enclosed by brushes where the game will be played, and the other empty space outside the brushes that the player will never see. The preprocessor then strips away the back-faces of the individual brushes which are outside the game-space, leaving only the few polygons that define the outer perimeter of the enclosed game space.

Generally once a map has been preprocessed it cannot be re-edited in a normal fashion because the original brushes have been cut into small pieces. Instead the original map editor data with the brushes is retained and used to create new versions the map. But it is possible to edit a processed map by opening it in a special vertex editor and editing the raw vertex data, or to add or remove individual triangle faces. Though difficult, this technique was occasionally used by cheaters to create windows in walls, to see normally hidden enemies approaching from behind doors and walls, and resulted in an anti-cheat mechanism used in recent 3D games that calculates a checksum for each file used in the game, to detect players using potentially hacked map files.

Once the map had been pruned of excess faces that the player inside will never see anyway, the polygon count can be reduced by 50% to 80% compared to an original unprocessed map. On the 50-75 MHz PCs of the time, it was common for this pruning step to take many hours to complete on a map, often running overnight if the map design was extremely complex. This preprocessing step can not work if there are any small holes or leaks that interconnect the interior game space with the exterior unrendered space, and it was common for complex map-building projects to be abandoned because the map designer could not locate where a leak existed in their map. The open cloudy sky in Quake maps is in fact not open, but is covered over and enclosed with large brushes, and textured with a special skybox texture that always looks the same from any viewing position.

Precalculating lighting and shadows

Quake also incorporated the use of lightmaps and 3D light sources, as opposed to the sector-based static lighting used in games of the past. id Software's innovation has been used for many 3D games released since, particularly first-person shooters, though id Software switched to a Unified lighting and shadowing model for Doom 3. After a map had been pruned of excess polygons, a second preprocessing system was used to precalculate and bake the lightmaps into the game map, to further reduce load on the CPU when playing the game. However, full light processing could take an extremely long time, so for the initial map design process, lesser-quality light processing could be done, but at the cost of creating a jagged stair-step lightcast around lights.

Simulation of fire for lighting and decorative purposes is a small issue of controversy. The animated polygonal flames used in Quake were the first of their kind, but do not look sufficiently realistic since flames are diffuse rather than solid and blobby. The later innovative 3D game Unreal uses a different technique of blurred animated transparent bitmaps arranged in a starburst pattern, so that the animation can be viewed from any angle. This bitmapped flame looks acceptable only directly from the side, or from slightly above or below. Viewing from directly above or below reveals the illusion of the paper-thin bitmaps arranged in a starburst to the player. The most recent efforts to simulate fire use fog and particle effects to create a more dynamic, smoky, and truly three-dimensional effect.

Sectioning the map to increase speed

To further decrease 3D rendering, a mechanism was developed to section off large regions of the map that are currently not visible to the player, and to not render those unseen spaces. A 3D rendering engine without any such optimizations would draw every part of the world and then attempt to determine which polygons are the closest; then hide all the other polygons behind the closest polygons (a technique known as Z-buffering); just because a polygon is not visible does not mean it is not part of the scene calculations. With this Quake 3D engine optimization, if the player could not see into a nearby region, the 3D engine could be told ahead of time to not include any of the objects in that space in the rendering calculations, greatly reducing the rendering load on the CPU. This effect can be noticed in the game as small tunnels with sharp 90-degree bends leading from one large space into the next large space. The small tunnel is used to block view into the adjoining unrendered space, and a special type of transparent brush is used to define the edge of where the engine should stop rendering the adjoining space. It is uncommon in the original Quake to be able to see across the entire length of a map, and outdoor spaces are often very tall and narrow, primarily utilizing distance above and below into open sky or lava, to create a low-polygonal illusion of expanse.

Hardware 3D acceleration

Quake was also one of the first games to support 3d hardware acceleration. While initially released with only software rendering, John Carmack created a version of the Quake executable that took advantage of Rendition's Vérité 1000 graphics chip (see VQuake below). OpenGL support was soon added in the form of the GLQuake executable for Windows 95 and higher. Many believe that this kick-started the independent 3D graphics card revolution, "GLQuake" being the first application to truly demonstrate the capabilities of the 3dfx "Voodoo" chipset at the time. The only two other cards capable of rendering GLQuake were a professional (very expensive) Integraph 3D OpenGL card, and, later, the PowerVR cards.

Impact on modern game design

Nearly all games created after Quake have used this 3D preprocessing optimization, to enhance the speed of the game on the home-user's personal computer or gaming console. 3D games are therefore able to push the limits of visual styles and effects because so much excess modeling data was stripped out before the end-user ever saw the game.

In this way most games are significantly different from professional 3D CAD and design problems, where there is no time available to do preprocessing between an engineer making a change and seeing it on the screen. Nothing can be thrown away to increase rendering speed of a 3D engineering model, since any part of the design can change at any moment. For this reason, professional 3D graphics cards are significantly more expensive and powerful than the 3D cards used in home computers simply for playing games, because the professional 3D card needs far greater processing power to deal with the full complexity of an un-preprocessed 3D renderspace.

One of the very few modern consumer-oriented programs to not do preprocess vertex pruning and light baking is the virtual world Second Life, since as with a CAD design any object in the Second Life world can be changed at any moment by the people creating the objects. As with a CAD design, the Second Life world requires a significantly more powerful 3D graphics card than more typical consumers use, and so the environment lighting and shadow effects are much less sophisticated than in a typical preprocessed 3D game.

Because Quake was one of the first true-3D games of its kind, it had to be able to work in a machine that did not have any 3D hardware acceleration. At the time 3D acceleration was a new and untested consumer market, and there was uncertainty if there would be enough interest that people would purchase a dedicated 3D rendering device. Now, over a decade later, 3D acceleration is a well-established market and a nearly essential component of any new computer. Many modern 3D games cannot run at all if hardware 3D acceleration is not available.

Player movement

Quake by default used the keyboard to turn left and right and move forward and backward, using the mouse, like Doom, to do the same movements. This produced awkward movements, and required settings like "auto-level" that would move the viewpoint back to straight forward as you moved and "auto vertical aim" that would automatically shoot things above and below you. Probably because of this, the level design in Quake was more suited to the 2.5D environment of Doom. Only in a few spots in the game was the monster that was shooting you above or below you. Quake did have the option of using the mouse to look/aim/orient ("mouselook") and the keyboard to move forward, backward and sideways, but it was not the default until Quake III was released. However, nearly all skilled players in single-player and deathmatch alike used the mouselook option, which granted a greater degree of control, allowing for a variable turn rate. In fact, it was common for the more advanced players to openly mock beginners for not using the mouselook option, and the mouse and keyboard combination has since become a de facto standard in many PC shooters.

Network play

Quake includes cooperative and deathmatch multiplayer modes over LAN or the Internet. Additional multi-player modes were later added using "mods".

Quake uses the client-server model, where a server has control of all game events. All players connect to this server in order to participate, with the server telling the clients what is happening in the game. The server may either be a dedicated server or a listen server. Even in the latter situation, Quake still uses the client-server model, as opposed to the peer-to-peer networking used by some other games. Quake thus cannot suffer from de-synchronized network games that could occur from different clients disagreeing with each other, since the server is always the final authority.

Depending on the client's specific route to the server, different clients will get different ping times. The lower a player's latency (ping time) is, the smoother his or her in-game motions are, which makes it easier to aim, move, and score. Someone playing at the PC or within the same LAN as the server gets a substantial advantage due to essentially no lag. This created a class structure of have and have not, spawning the phrases, Low Ping Bastards or LPBs and High Ping Bastards or HPBs.

While gamers had been deathmatching each other via IPX LAN connections, serial cable connections, and modems in the Doom, Heretic, and Hexen series of games, it was not until Quake that the Internet deathmatch community really began.

Modification

The game itself can be heavily modified by altering the sounds, graphics, or scripting in QuakeC and due to its popularity, has been the focus of many fan "mods". The first mods were small gameplay fixes and patches initiated by the community, usually enhancements to weapons or gameplay with some new foes. Later mods were more ambitious and resulted in Quake fans creating versions of the game that were drastically different from id Software's original release.

The first major Quake mod was Team Fortress. [3][4] This mod consists of Capture the Flag gameplay, but with a class system for the players. Players choose a class, which creates various restrictions on weapons and armor types available to that player, and also grants special abilities. For example, the bread-and-butter Soldier class has medium armor, medium speed, and a well-rounded selection of weapons and grenades, while the Scout class is lightly armored, very fast, has a scanner that detects nearby enemies, but has very weak offensive weapons. One of the other differences with CTF is the fact that the flag is not returned automatically when a player drops it: running over one's flag in Threewave CTF would return the flag to the base, and in TF the flag remains in the same spot for preconfigured time and it has to be defended on remote locations. This caused a shift in defensive tactics compared to Threewave CTF. Team Fortress maintained its standing as the most-played online modification of Quake for many years.

Another extremely popular mod was Threewave Capture the Flag (CTF), primarily authored by Dave 'Zoid' Kirsch. Threewave CTF is a partial conversion consisting of new maps, a new weapon (a grappling hook), runes (power-ups that stayed with you until you die...Black Magic (double damage, 8x damage when combined with quad), Hell Magic (1.5x rate of fire), Earth Magic (resistance), and Elder Magic (regeneration)), some new textures and new rules of game play. Typically, two teams (red and blue) would compete in a game of Capture the flag, though a few maps with up to four teams (red, blue, green, and yellow) were created. Capture the Flag has become a standard game mode included in most popular multiplayer games released after Quake, in addition to Deathmatch first introduced in Doom. The mod was vastly popular and as of 2005 there is still a community of players who play the Quake CTF mod. The popularity of the specific Quake Threewave CTF mod stems from the speed of the game and the grappling hook. In most cases, a player has the ability to travel from one base to another base in a matter of seconds. The grappling hook acts as a slingshot, where advanced players can maneuver themselves in the air by using the strafe keys. Players would master flying around and shooting rockets with precise aim. The Threewave CTF Quake mod was converted into a ClanRing modification coded by J.P. Grossman and Paul Baker, geared towards match play. Quake CTF Clans used this mod to play 20 minute private matches. This same ClanRing modification would later be upgraded by pulsewidth and rook. This was widely used for team deathmatch tournaments. As of late 2005, two CTF servers still get active gameplay, nearly 10 years after the game's initial release. In 2005, woods released a new ctf textures for the Threewave CTF maps for use with the new engines. There have also been variations to the basic CTF mod that extended it. One such variation was Creeper CTF, which was most well known for its extensive runes. Some notable runes and changes: Hell Magic (also called haste) increases run and grapple speed as well (grapple instant-hits, allowing you to truly fly), Vampire (leech hit points as you damage your victims...once you've killed, though, you have to kill more because your health will slowly diminish), and Monk (cannot be damaged when standing still), Witch (causes players to uncontrollably jump and shoot when shot...the only cure for Monk), and Ally (cannot be killed when teammates are nearby, and shares powerups with nearby teammates, including quad damage).

Rocket Arena provides the ability for players to face each other in small, open arenas with changes in the gameplay rules so that item collection and detailed level knowledge are no longer factors. A series of short rounds, with the surviving player in each round gaining a point, instead tests the player's aiming and dodging skills and reflexes. Clan Arena is a further modification that provides teamplay using Rocket Arena rules. Such game modes are commonly found in later games under names like Last Man Standing.

More extreme mods have included AirQuake (a primitive jet fighter simulation), Quake Rally (an off-road car racing game) and Quake Chess. These, however, were stretching the engine's capabilities to the limit, and were more curiosities than particularly playable games, although various clans were created for playing them.

One interesting category of mod is the bot. These were introduced to provide surrogate players in multiplayer mode, and are a particular challenge of artificial intelligence behavior implemented with the limited scripting system of QuakeC. Botblasts were for a time popular contests to see who could perform the best against one or more bots under specified conditions. Like speedruns, each player would record a demo (film) of his matches and use the best performance as his entry. Prominent Quake bots included the Zeus Bot, Reaper Bot, Omicron Bot, Oak Bot, FrikBot and Frog Bot.

Custom maps

It is also worth noting the huge number of custom maps that have been made by users and fans of the game. Also that these maps are continuing to be made today, over ten years since the game's release. Custom maps are completely new and original maps that are playable by simply loading them into the original game. Custom maps of all gameplay types have been made, but the most custom maps for Quake have been in the single-player and deathmatch genres.

There have been thousands of third-party single-player and deathmatch maps made for Quake. They vary in quality enormously, but the best custom maps are generally accepted to be better than the id Software maps in the original game. Some of the best and most ambitious single-player custom maps are episodes like Nehahra, Insomnia, Zerstorer, IKSPQ by Iikka 'Fingers' Keränen, and Beyond Belief by Matthias Worch, and single maps like Marcher Fortress, Cassandra Calamity and Bestial Devastation. Two of the most popular multiplayer maps are Aerowalk by Preacher (popular strategy guide here) and Blood Run (ztndm3) by Sten 'ztn' Uusvali.

Speedruns

Peter Horvath doing a grenade jump on a Spawn in E4M3 [1] (The Elder God Shrine) in order to jump over a large lava pit for the upcoming Quake done Quick with a Vengeance Part II

Main article: Speedrun

As an example of the dedication that Quake has inspired in its fan community, a group of expert players recorded speedrun demos (replayable recordings of the player's movement) of Quake levels completed in record time on the "Nightmare" skill level. The footage was edited into one continuous 19 minutes, 49 seconds demo called Quake done Quick (QdQ) and released on 10 June, 1997. Owners of the game could replay this demo in the game engine, watching the run unfold as if they were playing it themselves.

This involved a number of players recording run-throughs of individual levels, using every trick and shortcut they could discover in order to minimize the time it took to complete, usually to a degree that even the original level designers found difficult to comprehend, and in a manner that often bypassed large areas of the level. Stitching a series of the fastest runs together into a coherent whole created an amazing demonstration of the game played in a way that most players could never have imagined. Recamming is also used with speedruns in order to make the experience more movie-like, with arbitrary control of camera angles, editing, and sound that can be applied with editing software after the runs are first recorded. It should also be noted that the fastest possible time for a given level is not necessarily the fastest time used to contribute to "running" the entire game. One good example is grabbing the grenade launcher in an early level, an act that actually slows down the time for that level over the best possible, but actually speeds up the overall game time by allowing the runner to bypass a big chunk of a map in a later level that they could not otherwise do but for the launcher.

A second attempt, Quake done Quicker (QdQr), reduced the complete time to 16 minutes, 35 seconds (a reduction of 3 minutes, 14 seconds). QdQr was released 13 September, 1997. One of the levels included was the result of an online competition to see who could get the fastest time.

The culmination of this process of improvement was the unbelievable Quake done Quick with a Vengeance (QdQwav). Released three years to the day after QdQr, this pared down the time taken to complete all four episodes, on Nightmare (hardest) difficulty, to 12 minutes, 23 seconds (a further reduction of 4 minutes, 12 seconds), partly by using techniques that had formerly been shunned in such films as being less aesthetically pleasing. This run was recorded as an in-game demo but interest was such that an .avi video clip was created to allow those without the game to see the run.

Most full-game speedruns are a collaborative effort by a number of runners (though some have been done by single runners on their own). Although each particular level is credited to one runner, the ideas and techniques used are iterative and collaborative in nature, with each runner picking up tips and ideas from the others, so that speeds keep improving beyond what was thought possible as the runs are further optimized and new tricks or routes are discovered.

Further time improvements of the continuous whole game run were achieved into the 21st century. In addition, many thousands of individual level runs are kept at Speed Demos Archive's Quake section, including many on custom maps.

Speedrunning is a counterpart to multiplayer modes in making Quake one of the first games promoted as a virtual "sport".

Further information: Quake done Quick

Soundtrack

This is based on the PC version of the game.^[3] The soundtrack was written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

There are in fact no official names to these tracks. They are usually referred to either by the level they are initially played to, or by one of two fan created track listings. They can also be referred to by their track number, however, the first audio track being placed on the CD's second track (the first being reserved for the actual game data), this usually leads to confusion.

History

A preview included with id's very first release, 1990's Commander Keen, advertised a game entitled The Fight for Justice as a follow-up to the Keen trilogy. It would feature a character named Quake, "the strongest, most dangerous person on the continent", armed with thunderbolts and a "Ring of Regeneration." Conceived as a VGA full-color side-scrolling RPG, The Fight for Justice was never released.

Pre-release and QTest

Quake was given as a title to the game that id Software was working on shortly after the release of Doom II. The earliest information released described Quake as focusing on a Thor-like character who wields a giant hammer, and is able to knock away enemies by throwing the hammer (complete with real-time inverse kinematics). At the start, the levels were supposed to be designed in an Aztec style, but the choice was dropped some months into the project. Early screenshots then showed medieval environments and dragons. The plan was for the game to have more RPG-style elements. However, work was very slow on the engine, since Carmack not only was developing a fully 3D engine, but also a TCP/IP networking model (Carmack later said that he should have done two separate projects which developed those things). Eventually, the whole id team began to think that the original concept may not have been as wise a choice as they first believed. Thus, the final game was very stripped down from its original intentions, and instead featured gameplay similar to Doom and its sequel, although levels and enemies were closer to medieval RPG style rather than science-fiction. Praised throughout the gaming community, it quickly dethroned previous FPS titles and revolutionized the way multiplayer games were developed.

Before the release of the game or the demo of the game, id software released "QTest" on February 24, 1996. It was described as a technology demo and was limited to three multiplayer maps. There was no single player support and some of the gameplay and graphics were unfinished or different from their final versions (notably the boxes of nails, then called flechettes, displayed the NIN logo). Nevertheless, the game's multiplayer support caused Quake servers to spring up everywhere overnight. QTest also gave gamers their first peek into the filesystem and modifiability of the Quake engine, and many entity mods (that placed monsters in the otherwise empty multiplayer maps) and custom player skins began appearing online before the full game was even released.

Shareware and Final release

On June 22, 1996, id Software released the shareware version of Quake. This consisted of the first episode of the game, roughly one-quarter of the single-player content. It became the downloadable demo version of the game. At that time, despite Assembly language optimizations, there were few computers that could run the game at acceptable performance levels without having to disable some of the more advanced graphical features in the game (such as lighting effects).^[4]

On July 22, 1996, id Software released the full version of Quake. Upon registration, players who already had the shareware version could unlock three additional episodes and a series of deathmatch-only maps. id supported the release of Quake with multiple patches, the mod source code (QuakeC), the tools source code, and frequent .plan updates. The shrinkwrapped retail version was distributed by GT Interactive.

VQuake

In late 1996, id Software released VQuake, a port of the Quake engine to support hardware accelerated rendering on graphics cards using Rendition Vérité chipset. Aside from the expected benefit of improved performance, VQuake offered numerous visual improvements over the original software-rendered Quake. It boasted full 16-bit color, bilinear filtering (reducing pixelation), improved dynamic lighting and even optional anti-aliasing.

As the name implied, VQuake was a proprietary port specifically for the Vérité; consumer 3D acceleration was in its infancy, and there was no standard 3D API for the consumer market. After completing VQuake, John Carmack vowed never to write a proprietary port again, citing his frustration with Rendition's Speedy3D API.

QuakeWorld

To improve the quality of online play, id Software released QuakeWorld on December 17, 1996, a build of Quake that featured significantly revamped network code including the addition of client-side prediction. The original Quake's network code would not show the player the results of his actions until the server sent back a reply acknowledging them. For example, if the player attempted to move forward, his client would send the request to move forward to the server, and the server would determine whether the client was actually able to move forward or if he ran into an obstacle, such as a wall or another player. The server would then respond to the client, and only then would the client display movement to the player. This was fine for play on a LAN — a high bandwidth, very low latency connection. But the latency over a dial-up Internet connection is much larger than on a LAN, and this caused a noticeable delay between when a player tried to act and when that action was visible on the screen. This made gameplay much more difficult, especially since the unpredictable nature of the Internet made the amount of delay vary from moment to moment. Players would experience jerky, laggy motion that sometimes felt like ice skating, where they would slide around with seemingly no ability to stop, due to a build-up of previously-sent movement requests. John Carmack has admitted that this was a serious problem which should have been fixed before release, but it was not caught because he and other developers had high-speed Internet access at home.

With the help of client-side prediction, which allowed players to see their own movement immediately without waiting for a response from the server, QuakeWorld's network code allowed players with high-latency connections to control their character's movement almost as precisely as when playing in single-player mode. The netcode parameters could be adjusted by the user, so that QuakeWorld performed well for users with low latency (also referred to as Low Ping Bastards or LPBs) as well as high latency (sometimes called High Ping Bait (HPBs).

The tradeoff to client-side prediction was that sometimes other players or objects would no longer be quite where they had appeared to be, or, in extreme cases, that the player would be pulled back to a previous position when the client received a late reply from the server which overrode movement the client had already previewed; this was known as "warping". As a result, some serious players, particularly in the USA, still preferred to play online using the original Quake engine (commonly called NetQuake) rather than QuakeWorld. However, the majority of players, especially those on dial-up connections, preferred the newer network model, and QuakeWorld soon became the dominant form of online play. Following the success of QuakeWorld, client-side prediction has become a standard feature of nearly all real-time online games.

As with all other Quake upgrades, QuakeWorld was released as a free, unsupported add-on to the game and was updated numerous times through 1998.

GLQuake and WinQuake

On January 22, 1997, id Software released GLQuake. This was designed to use the OpenGL 3D API to access hardware 3D graphics acceleration cards to rasterize the graphics, rather than having the computer's CPU fill in every pixel. In addition to higher framerates for most players, GLQuake provided higher resolution modes and texture filtering, improving image quality. GLQuake also experimented with reflections, transparent water, and even rudimentary shadows. GLQuake came with a driver enabling the subset of OpenGL used by the game to function on the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics card, the only consumer-level card at the time capable of running GLQuake well. Previously, John Carmack had experimented with a version of Quake specifically written for the Rendition Vérité chip used in the Creative Labs PCI 3D Blaster card. This version had met with only limited success, and Carmack decided to write for generic APIs in the future rather than tailoring for specific hardware.

On March 11, 1997, id Software released WinQuake, a version of the engine designed to run under Microsoft Windows; the original Quake had been written for DOS, allowing for launch from Windows 95, but could not run under Windows NT-based operating systems. WinQuake used Win32-based APIs such as DirectDraw, DirectSound and DirectInput that were supported on Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 and later releases. Carmack caused some controversy, however, by eschewing Direct3D, opting instead to continue supporting OpenGL. Like GLQuake, WinQuake also allowed higher resolution video modes. This removed the last barrier to widespread popularity of the game.

Quake: Arcade Tournament Edition

In 1998, LBE Systems and Lazer-Tron released Quake: Arcade Tournament Edition in the arcades in limited quantities.

• KLOV.com - Quake: Arcade Tournament Edition

Ports

In 1996, there was a port of Quake to Linux. Its developer used the Quake source code without license, and patches were submitted back to id Software before it became an official port. Additionally, source code was used without license to create an early fan-created port to Mac OS. <