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Accessibility To Maps
This is a discussion that may not have any easy answers, but a thought I wanted to introduce into the wild in a place where the issue could be explored.

One crime in single player Quake is the sheer pain a new player has in learning how to load a custom map.

First, the player must find out where to put the map. Second, the player has to type the name in the console like "map ac2" to load the map. The *only* engine that has a built-in maps menu to take that pain out is JoeQuake, and I might add it even finds maps in pak files and displays them separately.

The user-unfriendliness is a killer.

Here is a possible solution I want to introduce into the wild.

There is a mod called RuneQuake. The source is available and it is actively maintained by Slot Zero at http://www.runequake.com and http://forums.runecentral.com

It is available in both Quake and Quakeworld varieties.

It has been run on multiplayer servers for ages and is very powerful, easy to use and user friendly.

1. It can be run in cooperative mode with monsters.
2. It has an amazing "vote-map" capability with support for up to 200+ maps.
3. On maps without a sufficient number of spawn points, it will spawn a player somewhere else.

To see it in action, a recommended servers to check out are:

QW: hoh.dtdns.net:27500
quake.msmcs.net:27500

NQ: quake.shmack.net

Type "custom" in the console and it lists the maps available. Type the map name in and it will initiate a vote for that map.

vb pointed out to me a list of Quakeworld servers at quakeservers.net and there are a grand total of 3 servers running coop in the whole world listed there.

It seems to me that something that would be very logical would be a Quakeworld server running various custom single player maps in coop mode (that don't require a progs, of course, that would throw a huge wrench into things).

I think it would be a great way to expose players to single player maps without them having to do anything/learn anything.

It would be a totally lazy way for players to experience single player maps and they could "vote" for the map they wanted to play on the server.

There are a million server hosts out there, one server host that is known to do a great job and has a lot of experience with Quake/Quakeworld is Essentrix.net and, for the sake of thoroughness, the contact email address there is chris ---at--- essentrix.net. There are many good hosting companies, but I'm a thorough guy and wanted to provide at least one name for research purposes.

Anyway, I don't know if anything will ever come of this, but I wanted to introduce this thought into the wild somewhere that cares about such a thing.

If such a thing existed, I'd make sure a lot of players know about it. I've seen a post about coop servers at quakeworld.us and basically, there aren't any.
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... 
I might add, over at QuakeOne.com, me and others have been seriously discussing what is wrong with Quake for over a year and coming up with ideas.

Admittedly, this more focused on multiplayer, at first but then I discovered single player.

There is actually a Doom II community with 3600+ members and I've always felt that is embarassing considering how much better Quake is than Doom II. I've always used this as a compare and contrast to demonstrate how poorly Quake 1 is managed overall.

Quake is outstanding, especially the single player part which for far too few is actually something they've tried ...

(Btw ... FitzQuake lacks a vital small code fix that is, if i recall, only a few lines long, fix that DarkPlaces, JoeQuake and a couple of other clients have. If you were to try to connect to a server with FitzQuake and use a router or a cable/dsl modem with routing capability, it will have problems connecting to the server and just sit there and say "Connection Accepted" with the cursor blinking)

[/rant] 
Eh...? 
Doom2 is a great game, and that is why there are still lots of people playing it (not to mention making good custom wads).
I don't see the problem with how quake is "managed". 
Baker 
OTOH last DarkPlace engine is crashing when playing big maps in SP mode (e.g CDA...) when FitzQuake does not... Does it mean DarkPlace has only been developped to support multiplayer/coop mode ? What about single player then ? Come on... And don't flame FitzQuake here: this is THE engine... doh ! 
Bal 
Well ...

1. There isn't a good coop server anywhere? You'd think with 300 Quake/Quakeworld servers, most of which are empty 24 hours a day, that there would be 1 good coop server running custom maps ;)

Or ...

2. Why isn't there a distribution of greatest maps all in a single zip file that the authors have collectively agreed to assemble?

3. This thread, the interest in a launcher has been discussed, but players have long been complaining there isn't a good map/mod manager.

4. DarkPlaces, the most advanced engine, doesn't have a maps menu in it like JoeQuake does. Anyone who has ever used the JoeQuake maps menu knows how great that is.

I am just pointing out some things here and there. CZG said it best ...

"Several conventions would have to be agreed upon, and I know the Quake community is pure shit with agreeing upon conventions." 
And Without Further Ado ... 
I was hoping just to drop up some information whether or not it got used and head back to HQ.

After I left this thread about 7 posts down, I was determined to follow the Prime Directive and not interfere with other Quake civilizations.

But when RPG asked me a question, I just couldn't not answer it because of how nice he was back when I first posted here asking map questions.

[/me exits the building again, heh] 
Hehe 
Dunno, all this stuff just goes right over my head I guess... I know how to load mods/maps/etc, and I know where to find'em. Fitzquake (and aguirre's engines for developing) are just fine for me, and if I really want to play coop I know a couple people I could pester into joining me on irc.

Problem with a coop server is that it would automatically miss out on lots of brilliant maps that use custom progs. 
You Don't Need An Excuse To Post Here. 
 
Just As A Little Note Here, (and A Sort Of Self Plug :P ) 
if anyone hasn't tried it, quoth has slightly tweaked AI so that monsters in coop won't switch back and forth between players if they are both attacking at the same time (ie: with NG) which should lead to a little more interesting fighting, instead of one monster being totally incapacitated by two player's shotguns or something. :)

they still switch, just not instantly.

if you're using netquake for coop, you could just load up normal maps with quoth instead. 
Wot Wot! 
FitzQuake lacks a vital small code fix that is, . . . it will have problems connecting to the server and just sit there and say "Connection Accepted" with the cursor blinking

I think I had that problem while attempting to play Quoth coop with Kell, Gom, Bal, et al. 
 
necros go make a QuothQ1.qrk

:p

i want to make a map for quoth! 
JPL 
I wasn't flaming FitzQuake. The QuakeOne.com site has a link to FitzQuake and I often mention it when discussing single player such as:

http://www.quakeone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202&highlight=fitzquake

I was providing information. Rather than let you guys wonder/get frustrated/not understand that aspect of FitzQuake, I wanted to make that known.

This is a coop thread, I figured I'd give you a heads-up in advance so you knew what was going on with that. 
 
This is a coop thread, I figured I'd give you a heads-up in advance so you knew what was going on with that.

oh 
Ok, Throwing In My Ideas 
I come from qw background and honestly don't know much, but think it's much smarter to base multiplayer on the qw net engine. Physics is a different question.

It would be cool if sp/coop could be added to mvdsv and ktpro (the de facto qw server and mod/progs.) Or something similar. Vb, put it in jteams please?

In ktpro, one can change map by voting, just say it's name. If there are 8 people on the server and 5 of them say "dm2" then the server changes to dm2. There's also the command "maps" that shows all the maps on the server (except the ones in paks I think).

Download should be better somehow though, sp maps are often large and that non-compressed udp transfer sucks. This has been on the working list of people making servers and clients, I don't know how much of it has been implemented yet.

A question I don't remember seeing answered to, how hard would it be to add 1 frame of drag making bunnies not accelerate much in a qw mod? Or would a server side mod even suffice? Would it fuck up prediction? Could it be remedied with an universal client that still would predict both normal qw and dragbunnyqw (like netquake) ok? 
Poll 
I've set up a poll:

http://www.quakeone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3328

And posted about it also on the SDA forum because I know they are single player fans.

After a 2 or 3 days, it will be interesting to see if there is enough interest. I think it is a great idea and I'm hoping for strong interest in the concept.

Or interest might my minimal to non-existent .. you never know for sure. 
 
Be

vb pointed out to me a list of Quakeworld servers at quakeservers.net and there are a grand total of 3 servers running coop in the whole world listed there.

No, I pointed out a search on Quakeservers.net for servers with coop in their hostname, because there isn't a specific catergory for co-op servers @ that site. There isn't a grand total of 3 SP QW servers in the world - even servers with co-op instead of coop in the hostname wouldn't have shown up in that query. Additionally, not all co-op mods are straight forward monster bashing, check this out for example:

http://www.quakeservers.net/?p=news&id=16

Do we have proper coop support in Quakeworld at all? Afaik it's still a mod that you must run in order for coop to function semi correctly.

SP/co-op has been around in QW since the year dot, thanks to id releasing the game source (not engine source) from early on. SP in NQ is 'just a mod' too (progs.dat/qwprogs.dat), remember, it just comes with the game.

The only half decent netcode is in Quakeworld, and to play coop, you need a modification (right?), which means it is impossible to play mods, unless the progs are recompiled to include the coop code.

The mods just have to have a QW port is all. There's no special co-op 'mod' you have to include because it's QW. QW didn't come with co-op/SP (the community created that soon after), but not because there was reason it couldn't work.

And being from a primarily NetQuake, primarily multiplayer community myself (QuakeOne.com), I can tell you that there is no special advantage of QW if you have broadband, it is like playing on a LAN for the most part.

Incorrect. QWCL's 0ms player movement, more efficient netcode (eg: 1 net message per super shotgun shot instead of 14), NAT support, extra bandwidth control etc. aren't it's only advantages. It also has native spectator support, customizable skin support, team names/ping/pl in scoreboard, extra renderer configurability, just to name a few features. And that's just QWCL. Proxies like Qizmo added more and more functionality (like routing, 32 spectators per proxy at the cost of only 1 client slot, voice communication, team communication macros, skin/color forcing, networking configuration, extra visual configurability & more), still lacking from NQ. Then the engine source came out - making even more improvements possible.

Any spikes or lag comes from the same unavoidable ISP route issues that give lag in Quakeworld, your computer acting up or spyware.

I've never heard of this 'issue' you mention in all my years of QW. Computer problems/spyware affect most things, not specifically QW, NQ, or games.

It isn't like in Quakeworld you can connect across the Pacific and expect to not have lag.

Really? Guess they forgot to tell all the American players playing in this competition played on servers on the other side of the Pacific:

http://www.QuakeWorld.biz/Duel/?sec=BesMella

or the many QW players who've played trans-Atlantic over the years. When playing over long distances, you can expect some latency, but this is largely negated thanks to the fact that latency doesn't affect movement thanks to QW's player prediction. Lag spikes aren't something QW specific - you won't get any in QW you wouldn't get in NQ. I don't ever get any when I play in North America, and it doesn't seem the Americans who play in New Zealand don't either. 
 
Oh, and if you're that much of a noob, you probably don't have a QW client installed, either.

Not necessarily. With eQuake pimped everywhere, a lot of people who have never played Quake 1 start out with a QW engine. 
 
There are about 200 idle Quakeworld servers at any given point in time because they are mostly run the same thing.

There are more idle servers, because there are more servers (as well as more players). I disagree that they all run the same thing either. 
Dude 
You get so defensive, hah. ;) You like QW better, it's ok man!

Btw .. you agreed with everything I said. You could have slimmed your post down to "Yes" and found something better to do for an hour, heheh. 
 
It's not being defensive, it's correcting your inaccuracies. I like Quake, I just choose QW because it's the improved version of the game.

P.S I don't see how you came to the conclusion that I spent an hour detailing how I agree with you, considering my prose was 1 big, long rebuttal. 
 
1 big, long rebuttal blurted from the top of my head, I meant to say. 
Maps That Work/don't 
rpg was correct, Insomnia does work! Strange enough, some maps that do not work:

sm82 (sigh)
moonlite (no!)
rpgsp1

Plus any map with a progs.dat.

There is a permanent server that will be running custom maps in cooperative mode, I've been playing there ;) 
 
moonlite play last night :) map what a fucking great map!!! 
I Get Sick 
of this defense of NQ as something that is superior over QW for multiplayer.

Yes, ok, for singleplayer its fine and/or wonderful -- but for multiplayer, QW's netcode is vastly superior and its clients have all sorts of DELICIOUS spectating and customization features... why not take the isolationist quakeone.com community and integrate it a little more into the qw/nq hybrid community we have here at func? 
Errr ... 
I never said it was superior. In fact, about the only time the Quake v. Quakeworld seems to come up is when vb posts. 
I Might Add ... 
First my first post in the thread ...

"It seems to me that something that would be very logical would be a Quakeworld] server running various custom single player maps in coop mode (that don't require a progs, of course, that would throw a huge wrench into things)." 
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