and a little anecdote
with a friend we discused who whas the most powerful superhero. but between the doom marine and the quake ranger. in 1998. obviously i defended the quake guy and my friend defended the doom guy. i don't know.. if someone who falls to lava manage to get out, he has to win.

remembering that always brings a smile 

 

lava doesn't even hurt Superman... ;) 

Merry Christmas ;-)

Back in March, someone asked me who I thought would emerge as "someone new who does stuff".

I said "Shamblernaut".

Even though your first map looked like a un-lit boxmap, I have been proven right 3 times over ;-) 

@Baker
Thanks for all the help you've given me this year man. I'm slow and I'm still learning heaps. I love this community, even with all it's idiosyncrasies.

This community wouldn't be the same without its trolls and its users who take their bait.

It wouldn't be the same without the people who spruik insane ideas or make maps with the same quality as mine >_>

We were blessed with AD this year. The mod was great, the maps were AMAZING. We also had amazing jams and individual releases, all of which showed your fondness for this game and love for crafting interesting worlds.

Thank you to all who've offered help, provided assets, offered opinions, given critiques and shitposed. Thanks for the random song and random porn postings on func. Thanks for the inspiration thread, and thanks for the help threads.

Thanks for the guys that worked on editors and tools, you make our lives so much easier and you add polish to our maps that never would have been there otherwise.

You guys rock. You've helped change what has been a difficult year for me into a bearable one.

I hope you all have a wonderful christmas.
<3 Shamblernaut (Ben) 

Shambs here said it all. Thank all of you for making Quake what it is today. Though I've been playing Quake on and off for the past 20 years, I was always restricted to the base game, the 2 mission packs and Aftershock.

I first stepped into the community only a few months ago and I never imagined how rich it could be. Something like AD is incredible and I hope a lot of you guys will use the devkit to make even more great things for the next 20 years.

Sock, you did an outstanding thing here, gathering all these great people and pushing them into making one of, if not the best Quake mod ever. And if you sometimes feel like the criticism outweighs the praise, maybe it's because we feel like the praise goes without saying and we're not saying it enough. Thank you. Merry Christmas. 

and by func in this sentence: Thanks for the random song and random porn postings on func. I of course meant to say terrafusion. 

 

Porn On #tf Is Never Random

Indeed. It's very, very targeted. 

Less active these days, but still following all the releases and ogling screenshots, which I then send around to co-workers who always say some variant of "damn, that's Quake?!"

Keep it up in 2017! 

Been a great year in gaming (will Doom4 start a reboot of proper FPS action??), and a great year in Quaking (welcome aboard all the newish mappers). 

Go map Scampie! 

yeh there's my xmass crate!

I keep promoting, a legendary year for quake2016! 

Doom 3 BFG edition is on sale. However, it's an absolute shitshow and I do not recommend even entertaining the idea of purchasing it (just in case anyone here was in danger of doing such a thing).

Installing the original and spending 10 minutes properly configuring it might be worth your time, though. Finally, 12 years later, I have a PC that can run D3 with a fixed tic. No stutter! Also, nvidia's fastsync really shines with this title. 

What's wrong with the BFG edition? I've never heard anything bad about it, except that some people dislike being able to have a gun and torch at the same time like in that mod. 

I'll just quote a post I wrote a while ago:


Finally got around to buying this (the BFG Edition, that is), mainly because it comes with a new 8-map single-player campaign, which I wanted to check out.

First off, the new flashlight behaviour is just id caving in to all the people who whinged about the old system. I wasn't one of those people, but I wouldn't have minded the change if it wasn't for the fact that you do not have the option to change back to the old system. (FFS Why???)

Also, the new flashlight behaviour just looks like an zero-effort amateur mod - they didn't even bother to add a sound effect when you turn it on, and when you look in a mirror, you can see the original handheld flashlight model just laughably sticking out of the character's shoulder.

So, with the smell of turd already tickling my nostrils, I started up the new "Lost Mission" levels...

And what a load of lazy, inexcusable shite they are.

The PR bollocks about these levels being "cut from the original game" is total crap because I can say absolutely unequivocally that these levels are just made entirely from a bunch of existing rooms and corridors copied from the original game and stitched together in a different way to make a series of small and boring boxy maps with nothing unique or interesting about them whatsoever.

The only exception to this is the final Hell level, which actually seems to contain mostly (and perhaps entirely) original level geometry. It looks a bit rough though, with some fairly subpar lighting and the architecture is roughly on a par with the stock Quake 3 gothic maps in terms of sophistication, but it was mildly interesting to see a Hell level with some attempt at architecture, instead of just a collection of haphazardly stacked bricks, like the original Doom3 Hell. However, the layout and gameplay of this new map is just as boring as the ones that came before it.

Bottom line: don't buy this, it's pretty much a complete waste of money.


In addition, a few points I left out: they narrowed the FOV (like wtf?) and also made it shit-tons easier with more ammo everywhere (again, WTF? It's not like the original was known for being hard in any way). Also I heard they might have added more lights to the maps to brighten them up but I'm not sure - I can't be shitted to verify that myself. 

I wish I saw this post sooner :/

I agree with kinn, let me add a bit more:

Technically
It's a stuttering mess.

Visually
They amped up the ambient lighting; everything is washed out. Everything lacks definition, every surface becomes very blurry at a short distance (this is not an anistropy issue). LOD bias seems to have no effect.

Gameplay
Too fuckin' easy. Even the original was a cakewalk. The flashlight undermines a core gameplay mechanic (whatever, if you like it you like it) but in the BFG edition flashlight is pure ass, they couldn't have implemented it any more poorly.

Rant
Doom3 wasn't much for gameplay to some, but the atmosphere is second to none and easily picked up the slack. The BFG edition destroys the expertly crafted nuanced environments of the game; it shits all over its core strengths while adding more gameplay issues and totally ignoring legitimate problems. Simply put, the BFG edition is an insult to Doom 3. It tries to make Doom 3 something it isn't to placate a group of people that didn't like the original and fails miserably to do even that.

If you want a bright corridor crawl go play Quake II. Here's an excellent source port. 

Don't know about the stuttering mess. One of the main differences is the engine that's supposed to be optimized for hardware that's newer, but not exactly very powerful (think consoles). The laptop I used to compare the two versions of the game was struggling with the 2004 release on High, while the BFG reissue was very comfortable to play with comparable quality (I'm not talking about the aesthetic changes right now).

Of course, it wasn't an entirely free achievement. Some shadows were disabled, and some geometry was simplified, especially in Resurrection of Evil, which was always slower than the main campaign. The official patch released after a lot of complaining allows restoring some of the simplified lighting effects, but I'm not sure about all of them.

There's also a feature that dynamically adjusts the rendering resolution when the system can't hold a decent framerate, which is a good innovation, but probably lead to a lot of people thinking that the game looks crappier without being able to put their finger on what exactly is wrong.

As for the flashlight, the implementation is so retarded that I had no words when I discovered how they did it. It's so aggravating that this change alone makes me not want to recommend the reissue. Even though I'm pretty sure that 90% of players will never notice the problem.

The engine coders did their jobs.

The artists kinda did their jobs providing some touched-up model skins (whether it was actually needed is another question).

The one poor hack they asked to redo the flashlight shat all over their work. I'm pretty sure that if you move the camera back far enough you'll be able to see the view model of the flashlight complete with a T-1000-style third hand. But I'm a little scared to check.

Then there are mappers, of course. Okay, exactly one level bug I can remember in the original release was fixed. All others are in their place. But hey, they swapped the floor texture in the Mars City Underground lobby!

New levels aren't exactly worth talking about. They're there, and that's about it. I'd compare them to a decent amateur episode from authors that weren't confident enough in their skills to make original geometry, so they cannibalized a bunch of stock maps instead. I've heard similar complaints about RoE, but it wasn't as bad there, and I actually liked the "rearranged" levels. At least that mission pack had some new enemies and weapons.

Brighter lighting seems like an overkill in pandering. Wasn't the new flashlight enough? Should've done one or the other. 

In the BFG edition I never played through the original campaign, I only played the new "lost levels", which is why I couldn't comment on any lighting changes to the original maps.

On hearing they royally fucked them up by yanking up the ambient, I am:

1) Not surprised in the least, given the rest of the crap they did.
2) Even more glad I didn't bother playing through them.

Some games get fantastic re-releases with all-new spanky updated art. Some game re-releases just get farmed off ultra-cheapo to a Z-team somewhere that will idly slap out something nominal for a couple of free sandwiches from the vending machine - but not the good sandwiches; I'm talking like those petrol-station-quality egg & cress sandwiches that have been sitting there for a week. 

One change I can appreciate is a slight increase of the player's running speed. The original game just felt uncomfortable in this regard, while the reissue feels about right. They also toned down the footstep sounds, which were really annoying.

It's amazing how such an important aspect of the game (you spend even more time running around and listening to your boots than you spend shooting things) can be so neglected, and how little you need to change to make it relatively not particularly horrible. 

I am yet to see a "remastered" game be better than the original with community patches and mods. D3 BFG is no exception. Sikkmod + Absolute HD are ten times better than this BFG cash grab. 

I don't think it was supposed to be a "remaster" or "HD upgrade" for the PC - The only reason it exists is because some bean-counter thought they could make a few pennies by releasing a version of Doom 3 on XBox360 and PS3, hence the retarded console-friendly changes like narrower FOV and more health/ammo everywhere. The PC edition of D3 BFG is just "there" and an utterly, utterly pointless purchase. 

For what it's worth.

But it seems that they changed the view weapon offsets somewhat to compensate for the default FOV, so some things look worse with 90. The machinegun in particular reveals more than you want to see. 

dwere - Interesting, confirms my assumptions. I played for about 6 minutes and had just assumed that there was a myriad of other issues deeper into the game. The hirez hud is nice, though.

mugwump - Sikkmod.

Ah, the ol' bloom and vaseline mod!

Kinn - The only reason it exists is because some bean-counter thought they could make a few pennies...

Painful truths! IMO, D3 is deserving of tasteful and respectful touch-up. It's a similar story with the new bioshock "remasters".

NEW RULE: If you don't give a shit about the game and/or lack basic human decency, you're not allowed to be a part of the remastering team.