It's being replaced with "Steam Direct" though, which means devs can put whatever they want on steam for a fee

so don't expect anything to change 

I don't expect anything to change. 

For a while I've been imagining a quake-like game of my own that technically look like the stuff we're doing here (see the HD shambler model and remodelling of the grunt, dog and knight monsters while still keeping the same texture feel of 90's shooters + the detailed mapping here coupled with good lighting and detailed skyboxes). And while I want to keep the thinking on game design for later, I'd like to know where I should go in terms of engine first.

What I'm looking for are the following, considering idTech2 a basis: skeletal animation, ragdoll physics (I intend to take the Metroid Prime route, where enemies make a dying animation before the ragdoll kicks in) and alpha textures/models (and modding of course).
AFAIK, my options are thus:

1-Go for idTech2 and boost it. This also means I'll be able to use TB2 for mapping, but I'm not sure if it'll be able to support skeletal animations and ragdoll physics. On top of that the controls are horrendous. Even if Daikatana managed to get something closer to Q1, it still feels off so I feel like I won't be able to replicate Q1's player physics (minus the bunnyhop as I intend for the player to use an alternative)

2-Use Darkplaces, but the graphic settings for anything that's below 6th gen tends to make them look muddy and the player physics are closer to Q3 than Q1.

3-Use Unity/Unreal4. For Unity's case I've heard it's been used badly a lot so I don't know how reliable it is, and Unreal4 I feel it's like using a bazooka to kill a fly.

4-Use Construct 2 with the Babylon3D plugin (https://www.scirra.com/forum/babylon3d-standard-edition_t183234). I already have experience with this HTLM5 game dev software, and is able to handle online play but I'm not sure if the games you make can be moddable, or what to do if it's possible. 

My two cents:

Think of game design now. Figure out the gameplay and mechanics, write a gdd, maybe pump out a few tests. You want gameplay to inform your visuals/tech, not the other way around. There will be a lot of back-and-forth and iteration. You might be surprised how easy it is to make pixel art look like shit and how a cool mechanic might be awful in context.

Engine-wise, I'd opt for FTE/DP + IQM over unity/unreal. I am by no means an expert, so take my advice with a grain of salt. 

I use Unity day in / day out, so speaking from experience:

Do not use Unity to make something quake-like. You will spend literally all your time writing systems just to try to get Unity looking and kinda behaving like a quake-like engine, when you can just use something like Darkplaces and have all that shit working straight away from day one.

Besides, brush-based mapping is a million times quicker and more fun than mesh modelling. 

It's brushbased, and it has some of the other stuff you had in mind. You would have to somehow put Quake player-physics in there. If you look on Wikipedia you can see that Source2 is going to be free of licencing-fee.... ,Valve's only condition is that you have to publish on steam. Teeeheeeheee :D 

Unity makes sense if you want to release your game to more platforms than just desktop.
As Kinn said, all modern engines will force you to downgrade available "tech", if you want to have 1:1 look/feel with Quake...
...but you can save time on:
- AI
- path finding
- sound/music management
- networking 

Unity's C# API is wonderful and of course much more powerful and nicer to use than QuakeC.

You can use any C# feature that's supported by Mono, which is basically a cross-platform version of .NET 

 

Knave jam around that time? 

we need to get Kell back here 

but rather something that's close to it (e.g I want the movement flow to be as fluid as Q1, if not as close, without strafe jump and bunnyhopping, as I want to implement stuff like sliding, wallrun and slide boosting [this game's equivalent to strafe jumping, for now, where you jump off a slide and you keep momentum]). If Darkplaces can deal with skeletal animation and ragdoll physics and alpha textures, as well as replicating quakespasm's texture filtering (I swear it has the best for low-res textures, then maybe it has something to do with the new compilers) AND on top of being usable by TB2, I'll be all over it. Though also if the HUD can be customized, because being forced on using the Q1 one as a hard-coded basis would be troublesome.

Now if Unity can make brush-based mapping (I remember a prototyping tool that seemed to have grid-based brushes) I could look more into it, considering what you guys are telling in terms of coding. Then again there's this Dusk game that's using Unity so I might look into it, although from what I've seen the details are on par with Q1 rather than Quakespasm stuff.

Still, this brings me hope, but now I'm on the fence on two softwares. DP is rooted in Quake technology, but this also comes with limitations, while Unity 

announce it early, so people can make really ambitous maps that hold true to knave standards?
Why not?

The theme is best quake imo. 

Discarded, try again with a name. 

Im up for a knave jam.

Arcane Dimensions or at the very least, Quoth, please. 

If it's going to be a celebration of the Contract Revoked themes then Quoth is the only option. 

who else could trigger you so bad, heh? 

Now if Unity can make brush-based mapping (I remember a prototyping tool that seemed to have grid-based brushes)

If you are set on using Unity you'll be far better off doing it properly and learning actual mesh-based modelling, rather than using some "brush" tool someone wrote for Unity that will just be generating highly unoptimised meshes anyway. 

Lost Chapters source code | Lost Chapters Source Release Post

Lost Chapters being the sequel to Contract Revoked.

Completely possible to do a faithful to the original Contract Revoked theme map, since Lost Chapters was open sourced. 

I thought that was lost forever when the 2005 expo went down!

Thanks Baker. 

But then how is the Dusk guy doing it?

I'd like to emphasize this for DP, can the HUD be entirely customizable? Last time I looked at a DP-based game the layout was the exact same as Quake, making me fear the HUD being hardcoded carries over DP. 

here are some games using DP:

SteelStorm

Blood Omnicide

Xonotic

Warsow

there are more out there including a bunch of smaller projects. 

Do the Warsow developers know they are using DarkPlaces?

That would be an interesting conversation. 

here:

http://www.moddb.com/engines/darkplaces-engine/games 

My mistake, it's qfusion. I could've sworn they were using DP at one point.