Quake Wars Hands-on and Screens at Gamespot

[Varsity]

Quake Wars is the commercial sequel to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, changing setting from WWII to sci-fi but keeping the same gameplay principles. Gamespot has managed to arrange a hands-on preview with the devs, and the results are good:

Whereas in Wolfenstein, one team would work together to complete stepwise objectives (like using a bomb to blow up a defensive wall, then infiltrating a barricaded office to retrieve stolen documents, and then heading to a drop zone) while the other team attempted to prevent them, in Quake Wars, players will also work together to complete objectives, but once they're successful, they'll also control the surrounding territory. Having control of the territory will give players a forward base of operations and let them resupply (and respawn if killed off) closer and closer to the enemy's base of operations.
Source and full details: Gamespot preview (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/enemyterritoryquakewars/news.html?sid=6142367)

I don't believe it. They've finally made a game on the Doom 3 engine that is not only nice to look at, but sounds entertaining and intelligent. I remove my hat to the good folks at Splash Damage.

[Nite_Moogle]

Wolf ET was one of the best multiplayer games I ever played, so I have pretty high hopes for this title.

[Blade]

Basically it's the spiritual successor to both RTCW and RTCW:ET but in the Quake 4 universe. Amen.

[Steve_Erhardt]

Going ONLY by that snippet above and a quick scan of the actual article, pretty much sounds like UT to me. The classes sound nice though. Dunno if that's gonna be enough to offset the MOTS aspect, but maybe.

[Draft]

This game is going to be the shit.

Also DOOM 3 and Quake IV were fun and pretty to boot, so there.

[Schnoogs]

Sounds like the Far Cry Assault mode.

Each map had 2-3 objectives and once you captured one it became your new spawnpoint and it can never be taken back by the enemy.

Cool idea...

These screenshots are SICK!! Can't wait.

[Sion]

I heard that Carmak made something for the D3 engion called Massive Texture or something like that that after D3 and Q4 were made that basicly lets the D3 engion have great outdoors. I know thats a little rough around the edges but im to lazy to look it up.

So anyway, SD doesnt get all the cred.

[Draft]

Carmack invented megatextures.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62456&page=2

The key technical change, of which much has been made in the game's early press, is the addition of the "megatexture", something John Carmack - who else? - came up with. It's basically the idea of covering the entire 32,000 pixels-square in one texture. Entirely unique landscape from start to end. Instead of painting textures onto polygons, designers specify what certain areas should be by proxy, so environmentally you can order the map to display weathered grey rock or churned mud near a river, moss below a certain height, and so on. "They start off about eight gigabytes," Wedgwood says, somewhat wince-inducingly, "but we scale that down until it takes up about 8MB of your video memory." Oh. When you zoom out, there's very little loss in texture quality; when you peer down a road, it looks different all the way along.I mean, RWAR ID SUCKS DOOM SUCKS BLARGLE BWAR!

[Zombosis]

Draft, I don't think the technological innovation of Id has ever been in question; what is very much panned (and rightfully so) is the staggeringly bland play their games have offered since Romero left. (Not that Monkeystones boy-wonder has done that well for himself either, but I digress...)

Those are I think the best screens I've yet seen of a game built on the Doom 3 engine though.

[Draft]

Draft, I don't think the technological innovation of Id has ever been in questionYou should read more DOOM 3 threads.what is very much panned (and rightfully so) is the staggeringly bland play their games have offered since Romero left. (Not that Monkeystones boy-wonder has done that well for himself either, but I digress...)Oh whatever. Quake 2 was the shit and you know it, online and off. Quake 3 is still the defacto deathmatch game. Wolfenstein was a solid FPS, and the only thing staggering about DOOM 3 was how many internet nerds had spazz attacks when it was only a good game, and not the OMGHOLYSHITBESTGAMEEVER.

[ElectricMonk]

quake wars looks pretty neat. would be interested to know how that megatexture thing works.

[Achilles]

Splash Damage is a brilliant developer. I can’t say enough good things about their game design. I look forward to playing Quake Wars more than any other announced multiplayer title.

[Liquidize105]

There's nothing inventive about megatexture, it's convenient and that's a good thing, but it's not praiseworthy. I agree with varsity, it's about time.

Splash D's been doing well, it's too bad their buddy studio Silicon Ice hasn't made it to the bigtime yet. Urban Terror was ahead of its time.

[Draft]

There's nothing inventive about megatexture, it's convenient and that's a good thing, but it's not praiseworthy. I agree with varsity, it's about time.ok.

edit: seriously, what? Please qualify the statement, "there is nothing inventive about megatextures." Be sure to include examples of similar technology that's been in use long enough that it can no longer be referred to as inventive.

Splash D's been doing well, it's too bad their buddy studio Silicon Ice hasn't made it to the bigtime yet. Urban Terror was ahead of its time.you mean urban terror the CS clone with bandaging?

[Voodoo]

I believe this game will outright RULE!!! It's too bad they didn't go totally apeshit and do the Demons from Doom 3 as a third team. LOL!

[Draft]

I believe this game will outright RULE!!! It's too bad they didn't go totally apeshit and do the Demons from Doom 3 as a third team. LOL!I have heard that the idea is to turn Enemy Territories into a franchise, and that the idea of "space marines vs. demons" ET game is not too far from where Id would like the franchise to head.

[ElectricMonk]

I have heard that the idea is to turn Enemy Territories into a franchise, and that the idea of "space marines vs. demons" ET game is not too far from where Id would like the franchise to head.

it would be sweet to play as a demon

maybe their concept could be you are a 'soul' (like the flaming head thing) and can possess bodies (vehicles) so you could run around as a cyberdemon

[Beelzebud]

This is looking like a must-buy to me.

[Averic]

I cant believe my eyes! I see trees and foliage on the Doom 3 engine!

[Mr.Green]

There's nothing inventive about megatexture, it's convenient and that's a good thing, but it's not praiseworthy. I agree with varsity, it's about time.

Splash D's been doing well, it's too bad their buddy studio Silicon Ice hasn't made it to the bigtime yet. Urban Terror was ahead of its time.
I played Urban Terror quite a bit and it was a lot of fun but I wouldn't say it was ahead of anything. It's a well done CS clone with some refined gameplay mechanics but nothing more.

Also, two of those guys were hired by Raven to make the excellent multiplayer part of Soldier of Fortune 2. I'd call that bigtime.

[Liquidize105]

I played Urban Terror quite a bit and it was a lot of fun but I wouldn't say it was ahead of anything. It's a well done CS clone with some refined gameplay mechanics but nothing more.

Also, two of those guys were hired by Raven to make the excellent multiplayer part of Soldier of Fortune 2. I'd call that bigtime.
Urban Terror is similar to CS only in the fact that they're both shooters. Bandaging and more importantly, climbing, are big creative design differences. Climbing most of all, changes the way the maps are built by creating true 3-dimensional gameplay like Pandora Tomorrow did. CS and the ikes have people running around on a 2D plane and the only accessible spaces are those that you walk on. PT changed that, but urban terror did something comparable a lot earlier. For the first time, I could scale the obtrusive decor of a building, latch onto the side of the bacony, and at the opportune time pull myself up and upload my rounds into the back of an unsuspecting enemy.

That, and not to mention "stamina" system (which wasn't prevalent at all at the time) for sprinting, realistic damage with accurate locational hit-detection, which results in bleeding and bandaging, listen for approaching footsteps sfx as part of the gameplay, etc. Urban Terror didn't have a buy system either, but a set stock of primary, 2ndary, and sidearms to choose before each round regardless of score.

Only later did they add bomb & defuse (baffling), which is entirely a CS original. By that time the community was in decline and I had quit playing.

BTW, mod teams by convention have team members brought onto professional teams, but SI itself as a group never made it to the bigtimes like Splash D did.

[trip1eX]

Sweet looking game. And a couple years after it's released most of us will finally have the hardware to run it smoothly.

[Schnoogs]

Sweet looking game. And a couple years after it's released most of us will finally have the hardware to run it smoothly.

I bought Quake 4 and FEAR the same week...I played them on an NVidia 6800 GT and a P4 3ghz. Quake 4 ran like butter at 1920x1200 where as FEAR was pretty rough.

My point is that the Doom 3 engine seems to scale very well and as usual is a testimant to Carmacks optimzation skills.

Maybe this wont apply to Quake Wars but considering Doom 3 was successfully run on a 8 year old Voodoo 2 card I would imagine that Quake Wars will be very hardware friendly as well.

[Roder]

..well I work at a game developer studio in Europe and we use similar technology and I dare say many outdoor engines employ something like this, probably not exactly the same, but you essentially paint your world with a selection of textures making each area unique and then export the entire texture map. It does sound like a great step forward though for an Id engine- typically indoors engine, where the mapping is very constrictive.

..anyways, like you guys, I cant wait for this game..

[Morratut]

This game looks so awesome. I also like the way the game has objectives and in order too. Desert Combat had some maps like this and it's true that it did force people to play better as a team towards the goal.

I can't wait. This is looking like a must buy title for my PC.

Do you think it will run ok on my P4 3.6ghz/1GB Ram/6800 PC?

I'm not trying to be funny because I know its a decent spec. I can just imagine that it will be a major system hog :(

I'll be able to upgrade the ram. I don't want to have to upgrade anything else mind you.

I am able to run BF2, FEAR and Quake 4 just fine in 1024x768 with all effects on nice and smooth.

If I can get the same performance out of this game then i'm happy.

[Dr Quincy]

This game is going to be the shit.

Also DOOM 3 and Quake IV were fun and pretty to boot, so there.

Hmm irony...?

[Draft]

Urban Terror is similar to CS only in the fact that they're both shooters. Bandaging and more importantly, climbing, are big creative design differences. Climbing most of all, changes the way the maps are built by creating true 3-dimensional gameplay like Pandora Tomorrow did. CS and the ikes have people running around on a 2D plane and the only accessible spaces are those that you walk on. PT changed that, but urban terror did something comparable a lot earlier. For the first time, I could scale the obtrusive decor of a building, latch onto the side of the bacony, and at the opportune time pull myself up and upload my rounds into the back of an unsuspecting enemy.Hahah. Climbing, eh? Climbing ladders is what made Urban Terror "ahead of its time?"

Don't ever change, man.

edit: By the by, Action Quake 2, the Best Mod Ever©, had bandaging and location based damage way before Urban Terror did.

[earthworm48]

From what I've heard Megatextures aren't a selection of textures, more like 1 large texture that is laid across the map. So there can be more unique things in the texture than just if you took some textures and tiled them.

These guys are in the same town as me, I always wonder where exactly as I'm sure I must have gone past it in the last year due to the amount I've been around my local area.

[[Jez]]

These guys are in the same town as me, I always wonder where exactly as I'm sure I must have gone past it in the last year due to the amount I've been around my local area.Find them, knock on the door and tell them to get a move on :)

[Thenetcase]

Hahah. Climbing, eh? Climbing ladders is what made Urban Terror "ahead of its time?"

Don't ever change, man.

edit: By the by, Action Quake 2, the Best Mod Ever©, had bandaging and location based damage way before Urban Terror did.

No, oh clueless one.. his point was that you didn't have to use a ladder to climb.


-TNC-

[Draft]

No, oh clueless one.. his point was that you didn't have to use a ladder to climb.


-TNC-ok well it's been a while since I played Urban Terror but I don't remember being able to spiderman up any wall.

[Mason]

The fanboy claims about megatextures keep changing. It used to be that the texture defined various material properties, but HL2 did that, for one. Now it's mainly a dressed-up streaming LoD system for outdoor environments. Which has been done plenty. Maybe it's a really good streaming LoD system, who knows? But still nothing the world hasn't seen.

Just because they come up with a marketing term for it doesn't mean it's really new.

In these games, do attackers ever have the option of going for multiple targets at once, or are they purely linear? Is the person capping a target stationary and defenseless?

[H.Bogard]

Those are I think the best screens I've yet seen of a game built on the Doom 3 engine though.

Heh....the gamespot page shows a comment from a user saying something like "graphics not as good as doom 3"