The first beta of the anticipated Rocket Arena 4 modification for the Raven Software-developed Quake 4 was released over the weekend.

* Classic Rocket Arena and Clan Arena gameplay
* Support for multi-arena maps
* Enhanced menus with arena selection, team selection, arena voting and new settings menu.
* Force your enemies and teammates models to make them easier to spot.
* Set highly visible custom colors for both team and enemy models.
* Make custom scoreboards and HUDs to completely customize your gaming experience.
* Modified script interpreter for server settings scripts, and map settings.
* Performance tweaks, including the ability to turn off rocket and grenade trails and a new lighting mode.
* 2 Custom beta maps, plus support for all standard Q4 DM and CTF maps

Still significantly less popular than Quake 3, it probably is a little too late to save this one, despite regular beta patches which are adding much-needed new features and fixing bugs.

played it...unless iD can fix the fundemental gameplay and technical flaws in q4base, the quake franchise is truly dead...

bad move to get raven to create quake 4. looks like they spent 80% of their time on the single player aspect (which has short term longevity) and 20% on multiplayer.

played it...unless iD can fix the fundemental gameplay and technical flaws in q4base, the quake franchise is truly dead...

Why should id fix it

last edited by trog at 11:06:56 27/Feb/06

it appears iD are stepping in and helping out with the next point release (1.1)...one reason could be they dont want to lose the quake series player base, since its still a lucrative market.

see here: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1021520

looks like they spent 80% of their time on the single player aspect (which has short term longevity) and 20% on multiplayer

Ignoring Quake3, 20% is more than id themselves put into their previous games. If I recall correctly, they released many MP maps in patches. That didn't stop their games from being fun at LANs and on the net.

I wasn't too much of a fan of Q4 MP. Sure it looked great, but it wasn't different enough from Quake3 (which I played to death) to warrant playing it again. When they said "Quake3-style multiplayer", they weren't kidding!

ET:QW seems like a breath of fresh air (from them).

(Edit: Quote issues)

last edited by parabol at 11:15:08 27/Feb/06

Significantly less popular due to it's significant suckiness.

Ignoring Quake3, 20% is more than id themselves put into their previous games. If I recall correctly, they released many MP maps in patches.

heh i was talking about raven :) though i wish iD had put more effort in helping raven making the mp more fun.


im really looking forward to ET:QW though. new type of team gameplay for the quake universe. i have a lot more confidence in splash damage to get the multiplayer aspect right then raven :P

Quake 4, like Doom 3, was always going to be primarily a single player game. The multiplayer, like most FPS games that aren't purely focused around multiplayer, seemed to be just tacked on and left for patching (a la Quake 2!)

I'm impressed that they have put in so many new features (like voice chat in the last release, which I bet is something from the ET:QW development that Quake 4 has "inherited") since the release, but I think gamers have had enough of bad multiplayer out of the box. If it doesn't get better REALLY QUICKLY, these games really tend to die quickly.

New FPS games have a lot of competition though; a lot of the oldschool FPS gamers I know have gone to the next world (gamer heaven or hell, depending on your point of view - World of Warcraft) and the "new school" aren't into sci-fi shooters. Pretty much since Counter-Strike, if it doesn't have an mp5 its really hard to get their attention.

ET:QW will probably do well, at least initially:

- it's the (potentially perverted?) joining of two big brands
- it's got a strong multiplayer focus
- Splash Damage are awesome, despite what RTCW players will tell you
- new badass id technology

My only concern is that the specs will be out of the reach of the mass market and there won't be as many people playing it, but BF2 had a fairly decent upgrade curve - plus Quake engines have always been pretty scalable so hopefully it can be cut back enough for low end systems to enjoy as well.

nice post trog...

about the upgrade path, i think a lot of people have upgraded to current game gen class cards now. when q4 came out, people were sitting on the fence, but now a lot of new games need faster hardware. et:qw will see a lot more success than q4 will imo.

Well I mean, what is the point in playing Q4 over Q3? The players who've spent stacks of time playing Q3 to death - why would they spend money on the game itself, then possibly on new hardware to run it smoothly, and still find it not as polished as Q3? Q3 works a charm, and all the good players are running highly tweaked configs anyhow; the upgraded graphics of Q4 make no difference when you're tweaking it right down for maximum FPS and visibility. And Q4 adds nothing else that wasn't in Q3 except slightly different weapons.

There's just no real incentive I can see for people to change over to Q4.

Add to that I don't think people are really into pure DM-style deathmatch anymore. 'Realistic' team games with vehicles are the rage these days, and for the DM'ers who want new stuff, the UT games are better out of the box than D3/Q4.

last edited by orbitor at 12:00:07 27/Feb/06

heh i was talking about raven :) though i wish iD had put more effort in helping raven making the mp more fun.

so true... although Q4 Instagib went off at the lan I went to on the weekend. Props to Hermitech for running such a sweet network

what is the point in playing Q4 over Q3?

because it's not CS :P

the UT games are better out of the box than D3/Q4

Yes but that's because each UT game is pretty much the same as the previous, apart from cosmetic upgrades.

I find the current UT feels and plays the same as the original Unreal that came out in 1998. Many of the same weapons that feel the same, so yeah .. pretty boring stuff really. The graphics engine looks nice though.

ya reckon? Now we have Assault modes, Domination, Instagib, DM, CTF, various mutators, voice, all out of the box.

You don't change stuff that ain't broken, you build upon it, and that's what I feel the UT series has down, while the Quake series has done nothing of the sort, solely relying on the modding community to pick up the slack.

ya reckon? Now we have Assault modes, Domination, Instagib, DM, CTF, various mutators, voice, all out of the box.

You've had them since UT, which came out in 1999 and we've only seen marginal improvements in gameplay in the last however many years. For the most part it feels and plays the same. Unlike id's titles that all feel different (Doom3 is slower than quake for example).

You don't change stuff that ain't broken, you build upon it, and that's what I feel the UT series has down,

They've built on it to make an identical game each generation.

while the Quake series has done nothing of the sort, solely relying on the modding community to pick up the slack.

Quake4, Quake3, Quake2, and Quake are very different games. Much more different than the Unreal rehashes that seem to come out every year or two. I've bought both Unreal and Quake games since day one and I can safely say that UT games don't offer much new content, hence I don't buy them anymore.

Seriously, if you think each Unreal game is more different than each Quake game, I'm going to stop arguing with you and accept that you've got no idea what you're talking about.

Saying each unreal game is the same as the previous is as pointless as saying all first person shooters are identical. I mean, all you do is jump around and shoot stuff right?

Graphics changes, new models and maps, new game modes and mods, new weapons, the addition of vehicles... The tonnes of added s*** make it all worthwhile.

If only there were more 2k4 servers to play on in aus though... hard to find a good game going when I log on these days :( .

Oh, and by the way, each and every unreal game feels different to the last. If it didn't, they wouldn't have bothered including mutators that change physics, weapon feel etc back to ut or ut2k3 spec.

last edited by icewyrm at 13:25:19 27/Feb/06

Seriously, if you think each Unreal game is more different than each Quake game, I'm going to stop arguing with you and accept that you've got no idea what you're talking about.

I would mostly agree, except UT2004 had Onslaught mode (with vehicles) and it was really well done. UT2004 was the first UT game I even remotely enjoyed - but again, I think the days of the purely sci-fi shooter are numbered.

I think the problem with UT2004 was _too many game modes_, which is a complaint I find I'm levelling at a lot of FPS games these days. With too many modes, you just end up with too fractured a community - which means less people playing each game type, which leads to faster degradation as people drop off to play something else.

I can see why they do it - it gives a lot of flexibility for the game. But these days there is so much competition, if a multiplayer game doesn't hit that critical mass outside of the box, it is going to find it very, very, very hard to catch up, no matter how much patches and fixes and updates the developers do for it.

Counter-Strike, arguably, is popular because it is just one mode and Valve have (stubbornly but effectively) refused to put even small things in it that would cause the gameplay to dramatically alter.

Also, UT has completely s*** dedicated server software which is a total pain in the ass to work with (always has been, rant rant rant).

Develop an insane single player game and then ADD CO-OP

Edit:

Also, glad you enjoyed the LAN dude. Always a pleasure to add fresh meat to the grinder ;P

last edited by HERMITech at 14:39:57 27/Feb/06

and Valve have (stubbornly but effectively) refused to put even small things in it that would cause the gameplay to dramatically alter.

The one thing they did attempt to add failed very, very miserably. Who the bloody hell would code in an inpenetrable riot-shield into the game, buyable by only one team? Luckily they removed it, but they should really leave multiplayer games to other companies/mod-teams. Even the two "AWP-spawning" maps they released (port and compound) in Source seem to hardly be played on many servers.

Saying each unreal game is the same as the previous is as pointless as saying all first person shooters are identical. I mean, all you do is jump around and shoot stuff right?

Don't get me wrong, the Unreal engine is a great piece of technology and I respect Epic for the amount of talent they have at the company. Those guys really know what they're doing in terms of making a licensable engine.

But their multiplayer-only rehashes get a bit tiring over time. Imagine if id software 'refined' Quake 3 for several consecutive titles (ie: multiplayer only and bots). It would be just as uninspiring.

"Don't get me wrong, the Unreal engine is a great piece of technology and I respect Epic for the amount of talent they have at the company. Those guys really know what they're doing in terms of making a licensable engine"

Does anybody remember heat.net?
Particularly to the veterans of quake and those who were lucky enough to be around in the glory days of AQ2, when id seemed to be godlike and the only way you could get your ping below 200 was to have a lan in someones garage using good ole coax, we've been let down since the release Quake2. Lets face it q3 set the par for DM from then on but how much improved from q2 dm? While all the while the UT team were making leaps and bounds with their product.- Discernable differences in physics etc from one game to the next. Leaving Q4 to raven was a mistake, but i think it comes from id desperately trying to improve on perfect in a genre that is forever changing. When q2 was released UT wasnt all that popular and there was no such thing as Halflife. But when it did hit the shelves, it looked stunning and there was No straif jumping required. heck you barely had to touch the space bar. Sure this spawned an army of unskilled, scripting n00bs with the dawn of cs, but it was id's 'server side' simplicity which kept the franchise going and the DM hungry players happy with Q3 - Completely multiplayer, with a small singleplayer element. You could argue that from a marketing perspective q2 was released in a completely different climate, but this is where id have failed to evolve like UT, and now are faced with taking on an entire new generation of game developers

I enjoyed Q4 simply because im a Quake vet. For a moment I was taken back to the mid 90's. But a choice of different box colours wont make the game any better. If we had the same hardware avaiilable to us back then, this game would be no different today. My hope is that id have their sights set on serving up a treat with QW. ET aint bad, but its now 2006.