Quake the one

07 June 2024
The only computer game I play these days is Doom 2 and even then it is always with at least a 32-level addon pack, but today I installed vkQuake which is a source port of the original Quake. While I do have the CD-ROM with files for the full version on it there is no CD drive to hand, so I am limited to just the single-episode shareware game files, but from what I have seen today it is doubtful that I will bother installing the other game files. In short there was the nostalgia but Quake 1 is not what I want out of a game these days.

Quake CD

Going for open-source

Until John Carmack resigned from id software the source code for obsolete game engines would eventually be released, with all engines from id Tech 1 (Doom) to id Tech 5 (Doom 3) now all available under some form of the GPL. As a result source ports became available which in additional to game-play enhancements had been updated to avoid bit-rot. Since these days I am not only Linux-only but also use a distribution away from the main-stream RedHat & Ubuntu based lineage I won't mess around with anything I cannot grab off SlackBuilds. In any case my current workstations are not built with modern computer gaming in mind.

The mission packs

What kept Doom going for me is the wide collection of 32-level (i.e. full game) mission packs, including some like 30 years with Doom which were released only last year, but looking on the idgames2 archive which is the Quake compliment the Doom-orientated idgames archive, there is pretty much nothing released after about the turn of the century. Also whereas the Doom Wiki is very active the Quake Wiki is to put it diplomatically “disappointing” and notably is hosted by an outfit that the Doom Wiki abandoned in 2011. A wide selection of fan-made addons is what keeps Doom going after thirty years, but at least on the single-player side there is nothing supporting Quake's replay value. Part of the problem is how much more involved the process of making a level is with ‘true’ 3d engines. The extra flexibility shifts the balance of the level design process towards finer-details such as architectural decoration and lighting, which is at the expense of effort towards overall topology. A Doom level made in a week would take a month or two in Quake.

Quake screenshot

Even Quake levels are often horizontal floors & ceiling with vertical walls, and in practice people generally think of things spreading outwards rather than vertically — Doom needs a bit of imagination to get round limitations but it can still result in very good looking levels that would probably not be vastly topologically different if made for Quake. A combination of fancy tricks and extra features added to some modern source ports close the gap — rhe level pack Requiem includes Doorway to Doom which is a recreation of Doorway to Chthon.

The game-play

Quake is essentially a multi-player game with most of even the single-player levels being converted from death-match, with the series as a whole making this much more explicit with Quake 3 Arena. And I certainly played a lot of capture-the-flag tournaments in the past. However as a result apart from some commercial mission packs I am not aware of much if anything in terms of single-player gaming, and these days off-line gaming is where my interests are. Quake's replay appeal will be down to one pass-thru of the game which I see little point in bothering with, and when it comes to gameplay I am not even sure if any game released in the last decade or two is worth the investment.

What went wrong

Back in the 1990s it was possible for a team of half a dozen or less to make a commercial success in under a year, but these days the computer game industry has become bigger than the film industry and now has much of the same problems. A typical game now involves more like fifty people and they all seems to be about tried-and-tested formulae but with better appearances. I stopped even trying to keep track of the mergers and takeovers ever since Activision-Blizzard formed, although I am told there are some independents who have not been completely squeezed out. No doubt the whole culture of online computer gaming has moved on from what I remember and what I little I have seen of it is not something I would go back to.