Shamblers and bigger monsters are powerful but probably surprised you dare confront them, and even more surprised if you hurt them. Then they get pissed...

Indeed! Shamblers merely note your presence until you fire on them or try to get past them or unless some 'overlord' orders them to attack.

Kinn: I gotta go with scraggy on E3 especially since I'm working on a level that attempts an E3/heavy industrial mix (replacing molten metal with blood). Your idea sounds better suited to the 'wierdness' that is - could be - E4.

This is all hypothetical, but I still can't help but get excited. 

I really like Shambler's idea of a Zerstorer style E5. I love the atmosphere of that mod, the way it just feels like Quake with a twist.

One idea I had was to have slightly different physics in different episodes or levels, e.g. the lowered gravity in E1M8. Since many levels are on different planes of existance etc, why should the physics be identical to here? perhaps on one level there could be less friction or something. I dunno, just an idea.

I love the idea of Hell Knights throwing Knights aside to get to the player, that'd be awesome.

I think bringing in some more Lovecraftian elements could be awesome too, especially in the later episodes. Crazy tentacled stuff and mishapen monsters is just sooooo Quake.

The most important thing is to keep it dirty, rusty and decayed. Quake ain't supposed to be pretty. 

FFS keeping my up last night with ideas pouring outta my ass.

Some episode "vibe" ideas. This sorta goes along with Quake being some entity (living? undead? sentient? machine?) that has some control or prescence (but not a physical one) in it's domains.

E1 - this is just a wild tour through the domains. Imagine an extended and playable version of the Resonance Cascade in HL1 - thrown from place to place and zapped randomly to the next place (in fact, you wouldn't have exits as such, you'd just be zapped elsewhere....so you could SEE other things in the distance, which you'd actually revisit later on. Make no mistake this would still be packed full of Quakey goodness though.

E2 - Quake in CONFLICT. As I said before, I think some sort of war-like background would enhance the medieval settings and make them more....tense. Maybe having more conflict between knights and their ilk and Quake monsters in this episode. Not out and out "oh look at all these scripted scenes presented to you" conflict, but more of a chance of infighting between more distinct sides. Oh and fighting you of course. At the same time lots of dank, hidden areas that the player skulks around. A stronger prescence of insidious monsters too, fish and scrags and stuff.

E3 - Quake INDUSTRY. No, not OTT industrial stuff, not obvious, not like Quake2 or anything. But subtle, incomprehensible industry. Basically a cross between Bals and Kinns and CZGs ideas, a metal city with monolithic abstract designs, mechanisms that do things, stuff going on but none of it makes much sense. Living things are aliens here, intruders. The city has it's own purpose, some of it grinds away, some of it moves, some of it sits there. Some of the vibes of the Combine buildings in HL2 really fit here, when they are just crushing through the city, no sense to it, no reason. All in E3 stylee of course. More OGRES and monsters that use mechanical things than most.

E4 - Quake WASTELAND. A sense of desolation, of ancient destruction, of forgotten conflicts, of meaningless repopulation by ravening hordes of monsters. Designs that are twisted beyond their original form, places that once had purpose but are now warped by insidious tendrils of Quake's power, leaving behind altars, artifacts, animosity. A bestiary of powerful, vicious monsters who bear no relation to anything Earth-like. A realm where you must succumb fully to the brutality of life in Quake's realm.

E5 - Quake's HEARTLAND. A home, a source of power, a location high up the hierarchy of Quake's rule, a place from which the evil and violence spreads outwards. Getting close to the centre of the seething nest of monsters and madness (a centre you will never reach, a centre that only exists in abstract concepts not in physical reality). Evil and terrifying, suffused with torment and darkness, organic matter blending with brutal designs of rock and metal....the latter being at least as "living" as the organisms within. The full bestiary is here, this is their domain, they are in control, in uneasy truce with their surroundings.

......please note that these ideas are not to change the vibes of each Episode, but to enhance them, take what is already strong about them, and make it stronger, more convincing, more atmospheric, and hopefully more fantastic - yes they will be less ARBITRARY places, but equally as detached from reality and as unrelated to earth as ever.

Further:

Scenes from Quake....I think there are quite a lot of more prominent scenes that should be kept, obviously enhanced a lot with cutting edge graphics, but kept recognisable. Particular designs and settings and scenes. For example, in E1:

E1M1 - outside area with river, inside spiral stair room with lights.
E1M2 - start area with slight bleedover from base, room where Fiend is unleashed.
E1M3 - whole of GK area, lift up to top area.
E1M4 - big underwater area, castle front.
E1M5 - starting area, room where Smabler first attacks.
E1M6 - crushing trap scene.
E1M8 - low G and pyramids.

- The idea being these would be part of much bigger and more imposing maps (not purely imposing of course, a lot of sneaky areas, twisting passages, etc) but would be recognisable - they would have to be done well to do justice to the original of course.

more... 

More:

Secrets and kill scores - WOULD HAVE TO BE IN! No question =). But, to make them more convincing, you'd have a bit of an explanation about how your armour suit can track such things and keep a record (for what reason? maybe an interesting mystery there).

In fact I envisage the armour suit could be a bit more purposeful. Very little difference as far as the game goes, but there could be some hints that it's a powered suit, able to fit a carapace of other armour on top, and rack weapons on the back. No, this isn't as gay as it sounds, maybe it's not needed but maybe it would make things more convincing (see, explanations without needing REALISM).

Oh, I had an idea about supplies and stuff too. Possible idea, again, background fluff with little effect in the game. In the start map of the base, there's a warehouse section. When you explore E1M1 and things go SPAZZZZO, you end up finding ammo and armour and stuff scattered over the domain. Upon one's return to the base, the warehouse is in CHAOS, crates (yes, crates!) are scattered and open, wreckage everywhere, random flickerings of teleportation residue. The result, supplies are scattered throughout Quake's domain. And some of them end up in obscure hidden places - these are called "secrets".

Of course what you find is not all human supplies....there are other artifacts, other weapons....things that are lying around that may belong to Quake or maybe not, but whichever they are ripe for the picking and whatever use you can make of them. And some of the human weapons you discover don't make much sense - Nailguns? Stakeguns? Not very military - what is going on? (MYSTERY).

AGAIN, no change to gameplay but some more fluff to make things more immersive. None of which should detract from how alien Quake's domains would be...


P.P.S. Deathknights - steam rising out of their visor grills, nuff said. 

all linear? 

Similar to Quake itself, apart from E1 being first. Choice of 3 episodes in any order after that. Within each episode, linear progression through maps, but plenty of exploration and alternatives through the maps.

Maybe backtracking possible? I don't know. 

you dont know. ok
some one else will do gamedesign then
and you will be art director 

This is just brainstorming already.

YOU can be the toilet cleaning boy :P. 

Your ideas about E2 and the armor suit are absolutely terrible.

Don't you pay attention? Ask any mapper what the best thing about mapping for Q1 is, and one of the first things mentioned is that you can combine any of the monsters in any way you want. Warring factions/clans/monsters? That idea has ruined innumerable games since Q1 was released.

And explaining how secrets/kills are counted? That's about the stupidest thing ever. Has it occured to you that maybe some things don't need explaining? Next you're going to want to explain how the Q guy can quantify exactly what percentage of his health he's lost, or keep track of all the ammo he's carrying. 

Sorry, you don't get it. Perhaps I haven't explained it clearly - well, I haven't tried to explain it clearly.

Conflict in E2 would be more to do with hints and background fluff and a certain biased in randomly generated behaviour than factions and stuff.

As for the suit stuff. No, you're just wrong about that. It doesn't need explaining in the same way that nothing in any game needs to be made more immersive and more convincing. Making some aspects (those that relate to you) make more sense will make the Quake domains, and your playing experiences of them even more twisted and visceral. Besides, as I said, this was not to have any effect on the gameplay. Nor was I envisaging a cheesey HL2 suit at all.

I think you are perhaps better off not reading these posts as you suggested in the first place. 

...I think you have got it into your head that convincing, detailed backgrounds, enviroments and features are incompatible with simple gameplay, brutal action, fantastic locations and visceral atmospheres.

They are not. You can have both and the former can enhance the latter. 

Firstly I realise my comments are open to a lot of mis-interpretation. I really have just ranted away and have not tried to clarify much at all. There's too much I'm thinking of to do that. But hopefully people can trust me that I have the best interests of Quake at heart (you might know I'm a bit of a fan of the experience), and that I don't want anything that would dilute Quake - but I see that it's Quakiness can be enhanced.

Secondly....oh there was a second point but I forgot it. 

makes a lot of good points. I especially agree with E3 - sounds fantastic. I personally would rather see new dimensions to be explored for the other episodes, however, I'm kind of tired of medieval and elder world and whatnot, and God knows Quake can support more varied dimensions. I'd post more but I gotta go to school right now. 

I should work in game industry as a idea generator 

I should work in game industry as an idea generator 

i hate preview button, it made me a doublepost (alsmost) 

i sort of agree with rpg in that explaining how kills and secrets and such is pretty pointless... no one really cares. i don't think many people stopped to think in the original quake of how the game 'knew' how many monsters they had killed.
heh, most likely they probably thought "cool, it's not a percentage like in doom anymore so i can see exactly how many monsters there were." :P

scores and secrets and such is sort of external to the gameplay experience, and thus don't need to be justified. 

But subtle, incomprehensible industry. Basically a cross between Bals and Kinns and CZGs ideas, a metal city with monolithic abstract designs, mechanisms that do things, stuff going on but none of it makes much sense. Living things are aliens here, intruders. The city has it's own purpose, some of it grinds away, some of it moves, some of it sits there.

just... sit tight. ;) 

maintaining Quake's ambiguity while increasing the detail. 

That is far and away the most intelligent and insightful thing that has been stated in this thread. 

But I don't see it as a problem - increasing the detail doesn't have to mean removing the ambiguity, it can just make the ambiguity larger in scope and more convincingly incomprehensible. I.e. you can provide more information (but not too much, there needs to be a balance) without providing any answers. 

i really don't remember this: Nehahra stakegun?

when did nehahra have a stakegun? 

the sprocket, which Mindcrime described like so:


Sprocket Launcher(Tsemochian Sprocket)
Crossbreed a spear, a rocket, and a grenade and you might end
up with a Tsemochian sprocket. This weapon takes some getting
used to, but after a while, you'll feel nekkid without it. :)  

Keep it simple - there should be only two sides in this game - the monsters, and you. I don't like the idea of warring factions, or other things that distract the monsters from their goal of killing you (although the usual infighting is ok). Similarly I don't like the idea of "arrogant" shamblers (like someone above mentioned), or indeed giving the more primal monsters much personality at all. Monsters can be unpredictable, but will never lower their aggression. Monsters should have one goal only - to kill you as quickly and as brutally as possible, and they should never lose that focus.

As for the design, well, I would say keep it Lovecraftian - after all, that *is* the basis for Quake's original monster design. (Kell and Necros have the right idea here ^_~).

I would personally ditch all the Base stuff, except maybe the start/e1m1. I can't see much point rehashing what is fundamentally Doom's concept - that of an overrun base full of possessed zombies/humans.

Neither do I feel Quake's monsters need to infiltrate the earthly realm - maybe you can start as being one of a team of pioneering explorers venturing through the first slipgate into this unknown dimension, but then not long into the expedition, something goes horribly wrong and you end up as the lone survivor, struggling to escape this incomprehensible netherworld. 

I shouldn't have used the word "factions" should I??

How about "an increased disposition towards internal conflict in certain episodes that would provide an atmosphere of unrest and unpredictability whilst maintaining that any monster has one thing it really wants to attack - you"??


OH, that was what I want to say earlier. A lot of this goes along with my "skewable random behaviour generator" monster AI I've been thinking of. Which is as follows:

Each type of monster has various AI stats that govern it's behaviour. These will have sensible and simple default levels which in most cases it will be fine to leave the monster at. However for some circumstances these values will be tweaked to increase the chance of certain behaviour types. This will not necessarily lead the monster to act "out of it's style" but will allow for other sorts of behaviour to creep in (this will also make the game even more replayable as well as being a fantastic modding tool).

For example, you have an Ogre and it would have the following stats (with default Quake 1 values):

Attempt to attack player - 100%
Attempt to get in CC range - 100%
Negotiate obstacles - 0% (I think)
If unable to reach player, throw grenades - 100%
If far from player and in limited area, move around a bit - 100%
Attack other monsters unprovoked - 0%
Attempt to avoid damaging other monsters - 0%
If attacked by other monster, attack monster until it's dead - 100%
etc etc.

But you could tweak those to give a certain amount of varying behaviour IF it was appropriate for the gameplay and situation. Say if you wanted some internal conflict, you could up the "Attack other monsters if unprovoked a bit". If you wanted the monster to be going about it's business, you could drop the "Always attack the player a bit". As far as E2 goes, I am just imagining a slight skewing of certain attacking other monster values, along with a bit of scene setting, i.e. stuff going on in the background that the player can see (in the same way that E3 might have something happening with arcane machinery and stuff).

Whether this randomising would actually work is....well....I don't know. But I think it would have potential of making SUBTLE changes that do LITTLE to alter the base gameplay except to mostly add some UNPREDICTABILITY and allow for enhanced THEMES in some settings.

Just an idea anyway.