Quake Online

[Baker]

and Baker is at least non-hateful to it. It does help take the edge off.

I think DarkPlaces is a fine engine and due to a few excellent changes by LordHavoc like ping in the scoreboard (the best ping parsing of any engine), more players are using DarkPlaces for online play.

There are 6 or 7 players that I talk to semi-regularly that use DarkPlaces as their only engine and that means there are others that I don't know of, which means more people are trying it and liking it.

The reality, at least for me, is that QuakeOne wants new/returning players to be able to play without any frustrations or configuration and at least for right now ProQuake is the "to-go engine" for any first-timers or a "I haven't played in 5 years" player.

Not because ProQuake is "better", but because it has almost no features so it is very easy to get setup.

After they do that they can move up to Qrack, DarkPlaces or JoeQuake if they want.

If the reverse were tried, you'd end up with some frustrated players that were just turned-off towards the game in general and got sick of trying to get things "setup good" or getting fragged left and right and just left. These new and returning players have all kinds of different computers and video cards, including not only crappy old computers but also laptops that come with those crappy Intel Integrated Media display adapters (that suck AND cannot be changed).

From a setup standpoint, I think the 3 things I most frequently hear about DarkPlaces is ...

1) Being confused by the menu. Even some that have been using it a while don't know where everything is what everything does. If it could somehow be simplified it would make a world of difference.

Maybe mirroring FitzQuake's simple menu style and adding an "Advanced Options" that takes you to all the detailed stuff. I could see the main menu having an "Effects Level" like ezQuake where you could set Faithful -> Light -> Medium -> High -> Highest w/Real Time Lightning.

2) Recording a demo (already been discussed).

3) Loc support (already been brought up). Players ask "How do I do locs with DarkPlaces" and it's like "well, right now you can't".

DarkPlaces is a fine engine and keeps getting better and we all know LordHavoc is a very busy guy. The engine itself is so much better than a year ago from the perspective of an online player.

I used to get in trouble with Yellow No. 5 (big fan of Qrack) for not pushing new players towards Qrack and I won't do that either (new players have a trillion questions and Qrack is too difficult), not because Qrack isn't a fine engine, but because it is too hard for a newbie to setup (remember, newbies don't know anything and they don't want to read docs or browse thru cmdlist or play with cvars, they just want it to work).

/Yeah this is a long post

[Lardarse]

Even some that have been using it a while don't know where everything is what everything does.

I'm not even sure LordHavoc knows what it all does...

[scar3crow]

Ironically I didnt bother with ProQuake for a long time because it seemed like it had all these new commands for identifying players and so on and so forth that just seemed complicated and I just wanted to play - so I stuck with DP.

But thankfully I dont have crappy integrated video =)

R00k seems nice, but I really dont like Qrack. No offense there... I just dont like it.

[FrikaC]

I like FrikQuake

[leileilol]

too bad you lost the source. >:(

[RenegadeC]

I only play TAoV online versus people, too bad that's only limited to me I'm more into Quake mods than the game itself nowadays.

[Dr. Shadowborg]

Whenever I go into that shmack server, nobody's ever in there. :/ Well, that and my ping averages around 250 to 350.

/me likes frikquake too

/me idly wonders why nobody has made a hexen engine that's fully compatable with quake. Especially given that doing stuff like that is all the fad with doom engines. (e.g. heretic, strife, etc support)

[leileilol]

because they really messed up the progs interpreter.

[FrikaC]

I thought it had more to do with the hard coded inventory crap

[Sajt]

You mean Hexen 2?

Doesn't spike's engine support Hexen 2?

[leileilol]

badly just like it supports 'netquake'! *RIMSHZIING*

[scar3crow]

Play Quake online! Shoot rockets at Lardarse!

[Urre]

badly just like it supports 'netquake'! *RIMSHZIING*

' not had any problems with netquake in FTEqw. It is true though, that Hexen2 doesn't work as well as one would want to. The problem I had was that the menus didn't work, it showed Quake related stuff, instead of Hexen2 stuff, but using Hexen2 graphics. Looked odd, but manually switching levels from the console worked. This was a while ago though, maybe he broke it, or maybe he even fixed the menu problem.

[Dr. Shadowborg]

You mean Hexen 2?

Doesn't spike's engine support Hexen 2?

Yeah, I meant Hexen 2. And my point wasn't that there should be an engine that supports Hexen 2. (Yurgh, who would want that?)

My point was that how come nobody's done a software engine yet (outside of the aforementioned FrikQuake) that has Hexen 2's few good points. (like transparency, etc.)

[leileilol]

My point was that how come nobody's done a software engine yet (outside of the aforementioned FrikQuake) that has Hexen 2's few good points. (like transparency, etc.)

That's because someone did, and it's my default engine