If Quake 2 were re-done......

[ReCycled]

What would you change? Quake 2 is a very well thought-out and balanced game but after playing it forever I would tweak some things a bit different if a software company re-issued it completely, still keeping the core of the game faithful.

1) Update player models to more contemporary specs and get rid of all blockiness.
2) Go to at least 16 bit color so all textures and skies would improve.
3) Lower quad damage to 3X
4) Eliminate BFG
5) Speed up grenade throw still using same damage parameters
6) Allow slightly faster movement through water
7) Speed up repeat of railgun shot
8- Add some kind of jump rune that would double your jump power temporarily
9) Put in 1 or 2 new weapons

Just some ideas....

[metaL]

i agree with some of those.  I'm directly opposed to 5, 6, 7, and 8 though.  Maybe a tad faster weapon switching in tdm.. not much though.

[X'tyfe]

3) Lower quad damage to 3X

one thing i didnt understand with quake3, why still call it quad damage when its tri-damage

[peewee_RotA]

3) Lower quad damage to 3X

That would make it a trike and those are illegal in my state.


Here's probably what you're looking for:
http://meanarena.planetquake.gamespy.com/quake2_lostmarine/

Only problem with the project is that the team working on it have just started releasing real retail games... meaning they have to concentrate on making money now. Their real retail games actually look nice too. Like a mix between Chasm: The Rift and Pain Killer.


Anyway as much as I dislike certain aspects of quake 2 deathmatch, it's still my favorite. I liked Duke3d dukematch better, however it wasn't very well supported for internet games. (other than Mplayer) Classic Half-Life deathmatch was dukematch flavored so it was fun but not great.

Quake 1 was fun, however I never could get into it as much as I did when quake 2 came out. Quake 3 was a joke. And with Quake 4 Raven had countless nostalgic and classic ID and Raven games to feed off of for inspiration..and they made a complete and total quake 3 clone. They didn't even shoot for a doom 3 deathmatch clone oddly enough actually was better.


Anyway I'm not sure there's anyway to fix quake 2, if it's not already broken. I.E. warsow is really fun but no where near as great as regular quake 2. Updated graphics is cool, like jdoom and jhexen, but I wouldn't go any further than that.

[[BTF]Gator]

the physics pwns.  Only graphics updates to something like FEAR would be nice.

[ReCycled]

I just figure if you're going to get the models and colors up to current standards, why not freshen up the game too and change or add some parameters. If some company got the license from Id and did that, I'd play it. Speaking of tweaks I'd also:

1 - Increase the communication capability between players - maybe live voice and enhanced team chat
2 - Enhance weapon appearance and make them visible at FOV's above 90.
3 - Enhance the map structures to render more curved surfaces.
4 - Enhance water appearance with waves, aquamarine tones, better appearing waterfalls
5 - Better appearance with explosions and person damage
6 - Nice looking female models
7 - Skies with moving clouds

 

 

[[BTF]Sigma]

the physics pwns.  Only graphics updates to something like FEAR would be nice.

Yeah I would love to see the railtrail redone to look something like the tracer effect in FEAR durin the reflex mode or the Combine assault gun in HL2.....OMG Quake 2 Source

[Bullz]

Q3 weapons + q3 graphics (enough) + q2 physics = the best Quake

[jägermonsta]

Keep it all the same but upgrade the graphics. Oh and add in "shit talk" and "whine" detection. When people do either, they get silenced.

[[BTF]Sigma]

I can see shit talk and whine detection on the tourney servers (also on jump and ra2) where the game can really be disrupted by individuals bickering and arguing over who killed who. I have found through my experiences that there is barely enough of that happening on the FFA servers. Are we talking about redoing q2 completely as in CLIENT and SERVER overhaul? Or are we discussing just an updated client in order to preserve the physics and weapons balancing?

As we all know the host can program in the silencing/filter but to see it happen on a client base would be pretty funny.

Code: [Select]

Player was told to STFU and play by his own Client

[naymlis]

you guys should check out quake2world.. seems like a good change for q2 even tho I don't know why they took out hand grenades.. really ruins it for me

http://jdolan.dyndns.org/quake2world/

[peewee_RotA]

I don't know why they took out hand

Same reason why they thought it was appropriate to remove water, slime, and lava in all new games. (upgrading games by removing features... wow good thinking guys!)


But anyway there are so many upgrades to quake 2 it would make your head spin to try all of them. Everything from Q2max for graphics, Quake 2 .NET, and even the long lost "multi-mod API" project.

The only thing I'd be interested in seeing updated in quake 2 is moving over to a Voxel engine. Voxels are 3d pixes that pretty much exist in a 3d array. Shoot a rocket at a wall? All you have to do is change about 30 values to 0 and there's now a hole in a wall.

It's an amazing engine. If anyone else in interested in them I suggest VoxLap by Ken Silverman (formerly of Apogee). I'm slowly but surely working on a game to create out of his engine. Anyway like I said before if it ain't broke don't fix it. However adding interesting features like wallkicks in warsow or a destructible-tangible environment


Now that I think about it there have been some interesting features I've been meaning to add.

#1 Destructible/movable solid BSP objects. Like a door except you could push or pick it up.

#2 Tangible solid BSP objects. For example you set a mass and content of a sword shaped object. if the player uses the "+use" command he literally grabs that object and can manipulate it from where he grabed it. Basically you would be able to pick up a sledge hammer and would have to swing and turn your body in order to move it. (similar but not quite like VSIM in Die by the Sword)

#3 Physical contact between entities and solids other than just running a touch function. For example certain solids near your feet, if you run too fast or aren't looking at it can trip you. If you touch a pointed edge at a certain speed it damages you. If you run into a wall you bounce back and probably fall. If you fall on a player they cushion your fall by absorbing your velocity (causing them damage)

There's much more but even these 3 simple features are huge on their own. I mean Half-Life 2 was originally advertised solely on the concept of picking up solids with a grabbing tool and throwing them. But imagine if the map maker designed weapons, even down to things like portable rocket launchers mapped in a way similar to the turret.



This would actually be a good addition to continue the multimod api project. That way you can turn off and on features by removing the addons from the folder. Also you could add them to existing mods too.

[Whirlingdervish]

I just figure if you're going to get the models and colors up to current standards, why not freshen up the game too and change or add some parameters. If some company got the license from Id and did that, I'd play it. Speaking of tweaks I'd also:

1 - Increase the communication capability between players - maybe live voice and enhanced team chat
2 - Enhance weapon appearance and make them visible at FOV's above 90.
3 - Enhance the map structures to render more curved surfaces.
4 - Enhance water appearance with waves, aquamarine tones, better appearing waterfalls
5 - Better appearance with explosions and person damage
6 - Nice looking female models
7 - Skies with moving clouds

 

 

all of these except for adding in a vent style microphone system would require a totally redesigned game engine.
Quake 2 has limitations on how many polygons it can effectively draw and handle due to the way it's netcode works and if you go slightly over these limits, the game starts to fall to pieces and get really choppy, even with a top of the line system.

Currently, if you have more than about 1100 polygons that make up the part of the map that you can see at any given time, you've pretty much hit the high end limit on what q2 can work with and not make your fps drop down to 30...
This doesn't include all of the projectiles flying by, and the players, and your hand/wep models, and any entities like items and ammo laying around.

the polygons of these are rendered simultaneously to the map, and too many of these will bog it down too.


This is why clients like EGL are almost impossible to come by.. It's so much work to completely re-invent the wheel and in the case of q2, if you want to add anything that will affect the rendering of the game, you will almost certainly have to update the engine heavily or re-write it from scratch. (this could easily screw the pooch on the physics..)

[quadz]

I don't know why they took out hand grenades.. really ruins it for me

I try to take every possible opportunity to give jdolan grief about that.

[deft]

- Faster weapon switch in TDM.
- Teleporters keep your movement speed through them, and can shoot through teleporters (q4).
- Armor counts down to 100.
- Faster rockets, more specfic splash damage based on how close you are to target(q3).
- Hit sounds.
- No .wav timers.
- More duel maps -> on a related note, able to read .pk3 (q3 maps) -> which is possible, warsow uses the q2 engine and can read them, if anyone knows how to to that with q2, would be nice.