I have to say, these ideas come straight out of my ass errr brain, I am just making this stuff up as it inspires me - but it is about inspiration. Some of it might be inapplicable, some of it might be impossible, some of it might be bollox. I haven't thought it through enough, I'm just doing the brainstorming thang.

But I'm also bearing in mind what I wrote earlier - it's essential to keep what makes Quake Quake, but also it's not essential to keep aspects that DON'T define Quake - they can be changed/improved without de-Quaking it.

w3rd. 

these ideas of adding ai customizability sounds good, heck, some of that is already possible in quake, but it needs to be used very sparingly.
kinn said it perfectly: Monsters should have one goal only - to kill you as quickly and as brutally as possible, and they should never lose that focus.
i suppose having some scripted events where some knights get into a brawl or something which leads up to a fight against the player but any infighting that is not the result of retaliation should immediatly be dropped as soon as the player is seen.
ie: an hknight starts to fight a fiend or whatever because the fiend was in it's way or something like that. while they fight, both monsters should still be actively searching for the player as if they were standing still and if they see the player, both should become angry at him, and not at eachother anymore.
for normal infighting where one monster retaliates against another, the original quake behaviour of kicking it's ass until it's dead is good and should stay.

another problem with the degree of randomness is that monsters may end up clearing the way for you. there are some articles of interviews for stalker in which on one occasion, some random animal managed to kill a rival stalker you were supposed to kill. this is kind of neat and adds replay value, but from quake's point of view, is totally wrong. monsters should never make the way easier for you unless provoked actively. 

i'm not flaming or anything. i like some of the ideas you are talking about and perhaps some monsters could use a bit more 'attitude' than they do atm.
also, i like the idea of, in your example, being able to control how much it will move around or what the likely hood of firing grenades is. but i think the level of customizability should be minimal so that, in game, the effects *are* noticeable, but can't be changed so much so that the monster can behave completly differently. 

I agree with czg's comments, especially in terms of the enhanced AI. Some of the comments he wrote about that or what I would expect in a more upto date quake rather than what Shambler is suggesting. 

Some neat ideas, here. I think the base monsters should still be used, seeing as how the places the player visits are the nefarious Quake's interdimensional ports of call, with some leftover henchmen to keep an eye on things. Infighting could be cool in some cases, where one could have the watchmen get entangled with the natives, causing a diversion for the player who might otherwise get swamped by both forces. In any case, I think the whole "frontier" type setting would be really cool -- a base-themed technology infringing on ancient gothicness. Mebbe its a converted ruin being used as a waystation, or mebbe the base has been overrun with ogres and dread knights, leaving a good bit of tech around for the player to use... 

That's sorta what I'm meaning, adding a bit more PHLAVA without changing the monster behaviour to something out of character.

Maybe the idea for E2 is a bit OTT but I still tihnk it could have a good atmosphere. 

I quite like the idea of death knights being sergeants of the ordinary knights. So you'd often encounter squads of 1 dk and 4 or 5 knights, and while the knights were still alive the dk would hang back a bit and direct things and, yes, maybe even throw knights into the fray.

Extending further, you could have some kind of monster clan-system, so monsters would be more likely to attack monsters from another clan, slightly less their own.

Or maybe this would just be fluff that would distract from the process of creating heaps of gibs, I don't know. Certainly a lot of the ideas in this thread could be done really cheesily... 

Cheese yes, I think a lot of the ideas are open to cheesy abuse but as long as they remain in this community they will be safe.

My idea with the knights was to....give a more brutal vibe, like I'm imagining if some knights are not running towards the player quick enough, a DK roars in contempt and hurls one at the player before charging in to finish the business off himself. I want to enhance the vibe that these monsters are psychotic. But the effect on the gameplay wouldn't change it much, just make it more atmospheric.

Should be GENERATED behaviour not scripted of course.

Oh, more about my E2 ideas, I imagine a few scene-setting things. For example, in some parts you might come across a map that has more monsters than humanoid monsters, a pile of humanoid monster gibs lying around. Or elsewhere you might encounter a more organised "army" of knights - like in Kinn's map where they pour of the castle. Or at some point you might look out a window and see some fighting going on in the distance. So, like, you'd have the standard Quakey gameplay, which would be great, and that wouldn't be changed, but you'd have a few extra things to enhance themes and atmosphere, to make the Quake world seem more alive. 

I will steal all your good ideas and blantantly use them in my game
so please, try a little harder
and try to not get stuck in `96 

Of course the monster AI would be better than Quake; that's kind of implied in the idea of doing a Quake remake with modern tech, so I think it's a given that the monsters would have more sophisticated behaviour and appear less predictable and robotic. That said, I think part of what makes Quake "Quakey" is it's simplicity of gameplay, so I don't think we want to concern ourselves too much with the minutiae of monster behaviour. After all, in those fleeting few seconds between alerting a monster, and reducing it to chunky gibbles, you wouldn't get much of an opportunity to observe the subtleties of a knight leadership hierarchy, or to contemplate the multi-faceted nature of an ogre's personality.

Painkiller sticks to *very* oldskool gameplay, but its levels are little more than static backdrops to the action, almost as if the design lead got a bunch of Maya-trained architects together and said "ok chaps - you model a bunch of interesting locations and then we'll build a game on top of that!"

I think in Quake V, the environment should be just as much an enemy as the monsters within it - traps, platformy-stuff, ambushes, etc. This sort of stuff has already been done extremely well in the original, and custom levels. Makes the place seem more alive, and the player more unwelcome.

So yeah, in conclusion, Quake with uber-l33t graphics, and some in-game scripted stuff - where do I sign up? ^__^ 

In Quake I always believed that Shub was the the Queen of that universe, using her mind control to direct all of the monsters lower than her on the totem pole. Hellknights do her bidding and direct the lesser Knights who direct, say, Rottweilers. Likewise, Enforcers lead Grunts who also control Rottweilers. While I believe Ogres would be somewhat "commandable", there would have to be a chance (like Shambler's suggestion) that they would take matter into their own hands. The other, more cosmic creatures (Shambler, Vore, Fiend, etc.) would behave more like the archdukes of Hell: their arrogance would make them least likely to take orders and, perhaps, equally unlikely to give them. The other monsters (Zombies, Spawn, Rotfish, etc.) would just do their own things no matter what. Right? 

Anyway, a big part of Quake V would be a spectacular remake of the platform/pillar room in E4M4. 

"ok chaps - you model a bunch of interesting locations and then we'll build a game on top of that!"

That's what my maps tend to become. :( 

yeah spot on Kinn
painkiller got no leveldesign gameplay-wise
same for Sam 

I simply can't believe the PK devs made a deliberate decision to remove any possibility of flow from their game.

"Hey, I've got a great idea for our game - let's lock the player inside each room till everything is dead! There'll only be one possible way to finish a map!"

There's lots of nice things about PK, but it still gets a solid "Pfft" from me. 

I like it, I had fun playing it, and I think a lot of the levels are cool, but yeah the gameflow and artificiality of it all are bollox, feels more like a series of connected arenas than an actual world you are exploring.

PK is perhaps a good example of how to make something vaguely Quakey (fantasy/gothic worlds, monsters, fast action, easy controls) actually quite UN-Quakey in the way it's executed, and something useful to learn from to avoid that. 

i think the player physics, fast movement, easy controls are almost exactly what Quake V could have. The gameworld is incredibly unconvincing though, and didn't make me feel for a second that I was looking through my monitor into an actual place.

I really disagree with the usage of a "here's the story" section tagged onto the beginning too. Sure, maybe it's an idea if you've already decided your game has no atmosphere or plot, but personally, Quake V would be all about the atmosphere.

Oh and when we make Quake V, lets just use the ending sequence from Painkiller. Perfect. Hope you noticed the sarcasm; i'm sure i've complained about it before ;) 

I think you have a good discussion going here, and my thoughts for the moment -- put as succinctly as possible without too much elaboration as I'm notorious for (take this interjecting clause for instance) -- are as follows:

1. ENGINE

If you want to approach it like a poly-whore, fine, but keep the Quake vibe. The greens and browns included. And if you're gonna have colored ambient lighting, for crissake, make it very subtle.

2. TECH VERSUS MEDIEVAL

Keep the balance. The tech aspect of Quake was outsized by the medieval almost 10 to 1.

3. MONSTERS

I'm with Shambler. Any monsters you add to the line-up... beeee careful. They have to fit.

4. WEAPONS

The sprocket/stakegun thing would be cool. I always wanted one (probably why I made it). Chainsaw: definitely. As for the nailguns, I liked being able to choose .. but whether they really should take up two weapon slots is a matter open to debate. If they do, you have one weapon slot left as I see it (key 9).. if not, you have two. Whatever the added weapons are, stick to the KISS rule. Keep it simple, stupid.

5. NAME & THEME

To call it Quake 5 draws attention to Quake 2, 3, and 4. Think about it this rationally. Quake 2 should have been its own game, having nothing to do with the Quake name. I won't go into a does-Quake2-suck diatribe. I'll just say that it had so very little in common with Quake 1 that it should have stood on its own, as its own entity. Quake 2 had nothing to do with Quake 1 in the ways that matter. Quake 3 merely shoplifted a few things from Quake 1. Quake 4 is based Quake 2.

If you do a sequel to Quake and involve anything from Quake 2, you will be dragged through the halls of Azathoth and fed to the fiends. In the very least, you'll burn in Hell, but not before I publicly call you lots of naughty names.

My thoughts: You might be cute and call it Quake 1.5 :P Though that's perhaps too cute. Quake One of Two? Too technical. Quake: Chapter Two. maybe. Something along these lines. Quake: Source. Whatever it is it should strongly point to Quake 1... and inadvertently take a heaping, mushy shit on those that followed (by the mere implications of coming together to make a sequel to Quake 1 ... when we're now up to Quake 4.. what does that imply? You know.:p)

6. SHUB

Why not go with Shub again? Who's to say you actually killed the bitch the first time? You know... you can only really ... truly ... kill these types of things on their home plane. I never got the feeling her pit was her home plane.

Only this time make her more active. You could really make Shub terrifying if you set your mind to it. You just have to stop thinking about her sitting on that island in the lava and wriggling her tentacles all pretty like. Imagine her taking a more active role.

As for episodes...

I wouldn't remake the Quake levels. I think the idea of starting it at E5M* is a good one. It also reinforces, in a strong voice, that this is indeed.. the continuation.

7. WASN'T NEHAHRA THE SEQUEL?

No. Nehahra was *a* sequel. Not *the* sequel. And because Id Software or Raven software are never going to make *the* proper sequel. Someone else should.

Hence, this thread rocks. Whether it will amount to anything... heh... I'll make no predictions. 

Well, there was quake. Then there was quakeworld. Then there was all this other ... stuff, that id did after that. Let's not talk about that.

Maybe now would be a time for a sequel for quake and quakeworld, now I see two ways the latter can go: quakeland or quake universum. (you know, like miss world and miss universum) Or maybe in the Commander Keen vein, quake galaxy. :)

Ok, ok, qw wasn't singleplayer like you chaps are talking, but still, they had all these glorious visions of players traversing the world through slipgates (that connect to other servers) etc etc. More to it than just banging the same deathmatch maps over and over.

Now the technology could allow them to do more stuff than back then.

Like how about adding lots of levels with the game going on and on and around the world and you could meet others and do co-operative stuff, immersed to the game all the time. (Never go back to the os to browse servers or chat etc.) The levels could be made by community guys and there would be different servers where a controlling authority would test and approve or demand improvements to submitted levels.

That would be the exact opposite of doom 3, which was a polished movie-like product, whereas the quakes have always been much more of a community process going on.

Just throwing out some ideas, unconventional and hard to think how they would exactly work.. :/ 

Thanks for those thoughts, I expected a lot more ranting for some reason ;).

BTW, non-base outweighs base 6.5 : 1 against not 10 : 1.

Agree that coloured lighting should be subtle. But it would be useful though.

I still prefer the remake idea to a sequel. 

I discussed 'sequel' because that was where this thread seemed to keep leaning. A remake is okay... if and only if you had a team with each member dedicated to the task and would absolutely positively finish their work on it(at the threat of being publicly beheaded or demasculated).

:D 

Should this graduate into a reality and move beyond the discussion stage. I'd be happy to be involved. That is, I'd be happy to help where I can. That's not a thing I say lightly because I really have to *believe* in a project to devote time to it. I think it goes without saying that I would certainly believe in a project like this. Whether I'd be of any assistance beyond being a quasi-consultant will depend on the platform and what skills I'd have to offer based on that. 

We should totally work in some Aliens IP in there too. 

What if, after gibbing Shub in the original Quake, that the remaining pieces of her slowly became sentient. You could then have several smaller versions of her trying to reunite back into her original form. Each of these Shublings(TM) could have their own set of attacks and defenses and wouldn't require being killed by some cockamamie teleportation trick.

One of them could use telekinesis to keep the player at bay (a la trigger_push) while another spawned monsters. The possibilities are endless... 

how 'bout, she does not reunite in here original form, but becomes a 640 foot tall hideously beautiful Goddess named Lilith and the form that was Shub was just her uretha spitting out daemons.