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Notes from The Cutting Edge of Personal Computing
March 30, 1997
Issue 71
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Managing Editor: Patrick Grote -- mailto:pgrote@inlink.com
Assistant Editor: Writer Liaison: Doug Reed-- 
mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
Graphics Editor, Webmaster: Judy Litt mailto:jlitt@aol.com
Archives: ftp://ftp.uu.net/published/compunotes/
LOOK NEW WEBSITE!!!!!
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voice: (314) 909-1662
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CONTENTS
My Notes:
1=> Link to Us!
3=> This Week's Winner!

Reviews:
3=> Product: Quake, Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
4=> Product: Scourge of Armagon - Quake Mission Pack #1
Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com

Web Site Review:
5=> Site:  Stomped.com <http://www.stomped.com>, Reviewed By: Doug 
Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com

Quake Experience:
6=> Quake Multiplayer Review
Review by John Krutke

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Patrick's Notes
1=> Link to Us!
Well, we have a new website up and running! Please come visit us! We 
have a complete archive of all CompuNotes sites up and about 30% of 
the reviews we have done!

Our page: http://www.geocities.com/~compunotes

We would also like to offer a link on our LINKS page to you! All it 
takes is you putting a link of us on your page! We'll then add you to 
the list of CompuNotes supporters who have their own page! We even 
have a neat graphic for your to use if you would like!

Send the details of your page to Patrick Grote. 
mailto:pgrote@inlink.com.

2=> Winner!
This week's winner is mailto:dpinkard@concentric.net! Send them a 
congrats message mailto:dpinkard@concentric.net!

3=> Product: Quake
Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
Requires: Pentium, 8 MB RAM
Reviewed on: Pentium-120, 16MB RAM
MSRP: $45 (registered), $10 (shareware, free if downloaded from 
Internet)

Quake is the newest first-person action game from id software, the 
master's of the genre who brought us Wolfenstein 3-D and, of course, 
Doom. When Quake was originally announced, excitement about Quake a 
frenzy of hype built Quake into the game that would be end-all, be-all 
of computer games. Many thought it would be impossible for Quake to 
live up to this prediction, and Quake's release was delayed several 
times. Quake was finally released late last year, and its success has 
stunned even the most ardent id fans. Is Quake the greatest computer 
game ever made? You had better believe it. Quake is a blast to play, 
combining the most immersive environment ever created as well as 
incredible multi-player capabilities. You haven't truly experienced 
the power of this game until you play with 15 of your friends over the 
Internet. 

For the longest time I was a big fan of strategy and simulations 
games, almost looking down upon action games (also called arcade 
games) as games simply for those with quick reflexes with little or no 
thought involved. Doom converted me, mainly because it was an 
immersive environment that suspended disbelief just enough while 
providing a real kick in the rock 'em, sock 'em, blast 'em department. 
I was surprised to find in myself a deep, dark side that enjoyed 
running around blowing creatures and other Space Marines into tiny 
little bits. More than anything, it was a great way to vent after bad 
days or to simply relax. Crawling around castles, peering around 
corners for bad guys, these are the things that made Doom so enjoyable 
to me. The ability to play against other people was icing on the cake; 
nothing beats going one-on-one against a live, human opponent. When I 
got Quake, I knew that for Quake to succeed, it had to live up to Doom 
and go beyond. And it does. 

My first impression upon starting Quake was - gee, its Doom on 
steroids! The first few monsters you run into are very similar to the 
ones from Doom, and the mood and atmosphere are virtually carbon copy. 
It takes a while to begin to realize that there really are 
differences, and they are more than simply better looking graphics 
(although the graphics are much better looking, to be sure). For one 
thing, Quake is the first true 3- dimensional world. Everything 
previous to Quake was 2-D made to look 3-D. Nothing makes this more 
obvious than the first time you go up against a monster. Doom had 
great 3-D effects until you confronted a monster up close: the 
monsters had an almost flat, 2-D look to them. The monsters in Quake 
(and the players) are fully three- dimensional constructs. When you 
look up or down, the environment doesn't twist or alter - your 
perspective remains the same. Friction applies, as does inertia, and 
gravity - just like it would in the real world (and there are some 
levels where these physical constants are altered - leading to some 
very interesting results). Probably the most impressive thing about 
the world of Quake is the light-sourcing. Fire off a grenade and 
you'll see what I mean. You hear the distinctive noise of it bouncing 
around followed by a burst of light and a shower of sparks from the 
explosion. Fire a rocket down a long hallway and watch the light 
follow the rocket down the hallway. Fire your shotgun into a nearby 
wall and see sparks fly and a brief burst of light. You get the idea. 
The amount of light from your weapons, or torches, or whatever, is 
dependent upon the ambient light in the room. The backdrops look 
gorgeous - a kind of techno/medieval look, reminiscent of Doom but 
with an improved look. The monsters are amazing; the standard soldiers 
aren't so impressive, but wait until you run into the Ogre, the Scrag, 
the Fiend, and, of course, the Shambler (if you've seen any screen 
shots at all, it's probably of this guy). I myself find the Fiends to 
be the most horrifying, with their incredible leaps and quick claws. 
They also appear to be considerably more intelligent than the other 
monsters. Better be quick on the draw! 

Probably the one area that most Doom fans will hate Quake is the 
weapons. There is no BFG in Quake; it has been replaced with the 
Thunderbolt, an impressive weapon that fires a straight electrical 
charge that will zap an enemy (but no wide area effect like the BFG). 
The newest weapons are the wickedly nasty nailgun and supernailgun. 
The nailguns fire nails, of course, which you can find boxes and boxes 
of lying around. You'll need them, because even the nailgun has a very 
rapid rate of fire and goes through nails like water. Of course, 
watching the bad guys receiving that punishment is where all the fun 
is! Without a doubt, this is my favorite weapon in Quake. Laugh while 
you make that Ogre dance to the nailgun hop! The effect of your 
weapons on your opponents (human or monster) is incredible; monsters 
will visibly sag and fall down, then get back up, only to be knocked 
down again while the blood flies. Of course, the same applies to you. 
In simple terms of action and graphics, Quake is by far an incredible 
feast whether playing a single player game or a multi- player game. 

Unlike Doom, Quake was designed from the very beginning for 
multiplayer play. Up to 16 different players can play at any given 
time. Using one computer as a dedicated server, action is smooth even 
over the Internet (a 28.8K modem connection or better required). Both 
the retail and shareware versions of Quake include everything needed 
to play Quake over the Internet: an incredible offering from id. 
Cormack and Co. deserve some real credit here for recognizing that 
people wanted to play against one another and designing Quake with 
that goal primarily in mind. Quake really shines as a multiplayer 
game. Read John Krutke's excellent article in this issue for how to 
best play Quake against human opponents. 

All of id's games have also offered lots in the way of customization 
and replayability. Quake continues and refines this tradition. John 
Carmack and the others at id have developed a special language, called 
QuakeC, especially for modifying the look & behavior of the monsters, 
weapons, and even the environment of Quake. Quakers have responded 
enthusiastically; any Quake website is loaded with custom monsters, 
weapons, levels, ad infinitum. You can find files for creating flame 
throwers, or grappling hooks for climbing, or commands to allow you to 
do new things like duck ( a very handy skill!). In short, just about 
anything and everything about Quake can be altered and changed by the 
gamer (except for the core engine). This one aspect alone is going to 
insure that Quake is going to be around for a very long time. Id has 
also included a "console" that acts as a command line user interface, 
allowing you to do things like change audio CDs or bind certain 
actions to commands that you can easily enter during the heat of 
battle. The ultimate example of the ability to customize Quake is the 
Quake Mission Pack #1 from Activision/Hipnotic, which is also reviewed 
in this issue. 

In summary, Quake is the preeminent first person action game around. 
It has an incredibly immersive environment, fantastic new weapons and 
monsters, a great soundtrack and new sound effects, all built into a 
customizable 3- dimensional world that can literally suck you in and 
keep you there, hour after hour. Without a doubt, this is the best 
game of 1996/7, possibly even the best game of this decade. 

Quake is available as shareware, download it at 
http://www.idsoftware.com/dlquake.html 

id software
18601 LBJ Freeway, Suite 666
Mesquite, TX 75150
1-800-id-games
<http://www.idsoftware.com>

Installation/Ease of Use: Gold Medal
User-Friendliness: Gold Medal
Quality: Gold Medal
Audience: All

4=> Product: Scourge of Armagon - Quake Mission Pack #1
Reviewed By: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
Requirements: Pentium, 16MB RAM, 2x CDROM, Quake (registered)

Scourge of Armagon is the first in a series of add-ons to Quake being 
marketed by Activision (and authorized by id). Activision hired 
Hipnotic Interactive to do the job on this first episode, with Rogue 
hired to do a second mission pack titled "Dissolution of Eternity" 
that should be in stores by the time this review hits the web. These 
mission packs are more than just new levels for Quake: they add new 
weapons, new traps, and new monsters in addition to the new levels to 
explore. If Scourge of Armagon is indicative of the series, this will 
keep people playing Quake for a long, long time. 

There are tons of new levels - three episodes with a total of 15 
missions, plus an all-new deathmatch episode designed solely for 
multiplayer games. In addition, the individual missions are incredibly 
long - more like the levels from Dark Forces than anything else I've 
seen in first-person action games. Unlike Quake, however, the episodes 
can only be played in linear order - no jumping to the second or third 
episodes! That's okay, though, because you will find that even the 
initial levels are VERY tough and a great challenge to probably all 
but the best Quake players (and maybe to them as well). Anytime you 
open a door, reveal a secret, or find a weapon, be prepared: you've 
just set off a trap that has released a horder of monsters somewhere 
very close (usually behind you it seems). Then there is the deathmatch 
level - Edge of Oblivion - that puts you in a space station in orbit. 
Don't go over the edge unless you would like to experience the thrills 
of re-entry without a space suit! 

There are three new weapons and two new powerups in Scourge. Proximity 
mines are launched from the grenade launcher and can stick to walls, 
floors, and ceilings. While this is a great weapon against monsters it 
is a ton of fun against human opponents - just remember where you left 
them because they don't care who walks past! Also new is the Laser 
Cannon, a very powerful weapon that can often kill even tough monsters 
in a few shots. What makes the Laser Cannon my favorite new weapon is 
that it is reflective - it will bounce once off of any inanimate 
object, making it easy to bounce shots around corners and kill lurking 
bad guys. Slick. You can also find Mjolnir, a.k.a. Thor's Hammer, 
which when slammed into the ground sends out electrical shocks that 
will fry any opponent in range. A wetsuit is also available that 
allows you to fire Mjolnir in the water without killing yourself in 
the process. The two new power-ups consist of the Horn on Conjuring 
which summons a monster to fight for you and the Empathy Shield, which 
lets attacking monsters "feel your pain" (Gee, I wonder who inspired 
that one :^) ). 

In addition to all the monsters from the original Quake, Scourge 
includes two new baddies and a new boss. Centroids are large metallic 
scorpions with nailguns for claws and an electrical shocker for a 
stinger. Centroids are plenty nasty, but you'll also have to watch out 
for Gremlins. Gremlins travel in packs and will steal whatever weapon 
you are currently using (unless it is the axe or shotgun) and use it 
against you! Nasty, nasty creatures. The new boss is Armagon, a half-
biological, half- mechanical construct that is just plain nasty! I 
haven't gotten to Armagon yet, but I'm looking forward to it! 

There are lots of traps in Scourge, not just of the kind mentioned 
above but of the mechanical kind as well. Falling floors, lighting 
traps, and floating spike mines that attack when they come near you. 
In addition, the level designs are intricate, devious, and very well 
thought out. That combined with the new monsters and weapons makes for 
a slam-bang good time, one that improves and expands on the original 
Quake and is well worth the cost of admission. 

A few notes about installing Scourge. Scourge comes with install files 
for both DOS and Windows 95, but I could not find out if Scourge will 
work with the recently released WinQuake (WinQuake allows you to play 
Quake from Windows 95 without using a DOS box). The installation does 
update Quake to version 1.07 but is loaded from its own command line 
(you type in Armagon instead of Quake, which loads a bat file that 
tells Quake what to do). For single players games you will see a new 
scene wherein you can choose the difficulty level but not the episode 
(see above). If you load Quake instead it appears to work fine however 
it crashed when I tried to reload a saved game - possibly because of 
the update (although no mention of that is made on the readme file). 
Otherwise both Scourge and Quake continued to run just fine. I haven't 
tried any of my favorite QuakeC files on Armagon yet, so I'm not sure 
whether they will continue to work or not. But there is no reason to 
assume that they would not. 

I highly recommend Scourge to anyone who has played Quake and enjoyed 
it, whether you are only interested in multiplayer games or (like me) 
like to complete the single player game as well. The Quake Mission 
Pack series is off to a great start. 

Happy Fragging!

Activision/Hipnotic Interactive
P.O. Box 67713
Los Angeles, Ca 90067
(310) 479-5644
CompuServe:  GO GAMEPUB in the Game Publishers Forum B  
Prodigy:  ACTI10B
Genie: ACTIVISION
American OnLine:  ACTIVISION
WWW: <http://www.activision.com>
Email: mailto:support@activision.com
Activision BBS: (310) 479-1335

Installation/Ease of Use: Gold medal
User-Friendliness: Gold medal
Quality: Gold medal
User: Quake fans

5=> Site:  Stomped.com <http://www.stomped.com>
Type of Site: Entertainment
Reviewer: Doug Reed, mailto:dr2web@sprynet.com
Browser Used: Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0
Browser Recommended by Site: Netscape Navigator 3.0
Enhancements/Plug-Ins Required: JavaScript
Internet Connection Used: 14.4
Load Time of Main Page during Peak Hours: 2 minutes or less
Load Time of Main Page during Off-Peak Hours: 1 minute or less

Prepare to be Stomped!

Finished Quake already? Looking for new challenges? Well, look no 
further than the Quake Stomping Grounds (www.stomped.com)! The Quake 
Stomping Grounds is where to find everything you need, from new levels 
to local (or not-so- local) servers running Quake. The Quake Stomping 
Grounds features a number of areas of use to any "Quaker", like the Q 
& A area which provides considerable help from fellow gamers on how to 
get Quake up and running smoothly on your system. Then there is the 
Quake FAQ, which can also answer many questions you might have, like 
the location of secret items or cheat codes (should you have to stoop 
so low to use them!). The FAQ also has a good explanation of how to 
use the console commands in Quake. But that isnt all, not by a long 
shot. The Quake Stomping Grounds also lists a very large number of 
servers up and running Quake on the Internet so that you can find a 
group to play Deathmatch against at pretty much any time of day. Most 
people looking to play other people in Quake will benefit tremendously 
from this area. The Stomping Grounds also features an ftp site laden 
with all kinds of Quake goodies, like new player- designed levels 
(both single and multi-player versions) as well as scripts written in 
QuakeC to make radical changes in the monsters, weapons, and 
environment of Quake. Level editors and QuakeC compilers are also 
posted on the site. The Quake Stomping Grounds is your one stop shop 
for anything you need for Quake. 

Reviewers Overall Spin: Gold 
Site Content: Gold
Site Presentation: Gold 
<http://www.stomped.com>

6=> Quake Multiplayer Review
Review by John Krutke

Quake from id Software is really two games in one - a single player 
game and a multiplayer game. These two forms of gameplay are so vastly 
different that a separate review of the multiplayer gameplay is 
required. Quake is not the first multiplayer game to come along, 
neither was id Software's Doom, but most would agree that Doom was the 
one that changed 3D action games forever. For some people, once they 
played a Doom "Deathmatch", there was no going back to single player 
action games. There's nothing like the challenge of a real person at 
the other end. All the same great graphics you see in a single player 
Quake game are still there, but instead of the monsters with pre-
programmed behaviors you get real unpredictable human opponents. 

Quake builds on Doom's multiplayer options. Both have modem play, but 
while Doom has a maximum of 4 players on a lan, Quake bumps that up to 
16. But the one major addition that Quake has - and this is the big 
one - is tcp/ip support. In a nutshell, Quake can be played over the 
internet with no additional programs. Some of you may be familiar with 
"Kali", a program that emulates an ipx network over the internet. 
After Doom, there were a whole load of games that allowed multiplayer 
ipx support like Descent, Mechwarrior 2, and Duke Nukem 3D just to 
name a few of the action titles. All these could use Kali to play over 
the internet with varying degrees of effectiveness. But now Quake has 
tcp/ip built in so Kali is not required. (Kali is not a free program, 
but is shareware) Quake players can connect to any of the hundreds of 
free servers on the internet. At any given time, there's probably 
hundreds of potential Quake opponents all over the world. 

On to the review. There are three ways to do a Quake multiplayer game: 
modem, lan, and internet. I was actually able to test all three of 
these. Unlike most people, I have a network in my home. Starting with 
the modem play, if I had to give this a letter grade, it would have to 
be a "D". Quake has a multiplayer code that requires a client and a 
server. In a 2 player modem game, one player has to be the client, and 
the other the server. To fully understand why this is so bad, you have 
to realize that the person who plays on the server end has a huge 
unfair advantage because the client has a delay in response. This is 
known as lag, a term you will hear quite a bit when talking about 
multiplayer Quake. The server side players have no lag, while the 
client side may have anywhere between 150 milliseconds up to a full 
second. With games that require "twitch" responses, this is 
unacceptable. Combine with the fact that the program is very picky 
about what init string you use for your modem, most people couldn't 
get this to work if they tried anyway. (I did but it took 8 hours of 
putzing around!) 

Lan play. This is by far the best way to play Quake, provided all the 
players have Pentiums. There is almost no lag and the action is 
fierce. The number of people who have access to an ipx network is far 
less than the number of modem users, but if you can play on a lan, 
don't pass it up. Even if one of the players is on the server end, the 
rest of the clients experience very little lag so it is still fair. 
Still, in almost any case, a "dedicated" server (that nobody plays on) 
is preferred because there are no graphics to process. Even a 486 will 
work for a dedicated network server, unless you want to go with a full 
16 players. In that case a pentium 90 or so might be desirable. If I 
had to give lan play a letter grade it would be an "A". By comparison, 
if Doom was just released by some other company, I think I would give 
that a "C". That is how far Quake has come. Quake has real physics 
like gravity and inertia, and it really shines in lan play. 

Internet play. This one is the hardest to review because it is so very 
different from any other form of multiplayer gaming. On the plus side 
there are thousands of opponents all over the world. (although about 
90% are in the USA) Any time of the day there's plenty of players out 
there to kill, and there will always be serious competition. "Clans" 
have formed, which are teams of quake players who go into competition 
with other clans. As of this writing there are over 300 clans, with 
anywhere from 5 members in each to 100 members forming into sub-clans. 
(I am the leader of a clan myself) Internet play has one big problem 
though. The internet by nature has lag, and lots of it at times. 
Depending on your internet provider and your type of connection, it 
may be way beyond the point where it is even playable. Hell, some of 
you can't even move when you get in games. You can forget about 
playing it on the net if you have a slow 9600 baud modem and/or a slow 
overloaded internet service provider. (ISP) Some ISPs have a tendency 
to oversell their bandwidth, meaning that their service becomes slow 
for everybody using it. On the other hand, if you have a high speed T1 
or T3 direct connection, you could likely run circles around other 
players in the game. This tends to give internet play a certain amount 
of unfairness. You can help even the odds by using a search tool like 
"Qspy" which will search the internet for the servers that are the 
fastest for you. Get this at <http://www.bluesnews.com/>, host of the 
official Qspy homepage. (Get your daily Quake news update there too, 
it's a great site) Once you get a 28.8k modem and better ISP, Quake 
games over the net can be a blast. I went through 3 providers before I 
found one that is fast enough to allow Quake internet play. Around my 
area, competition between ISPs keeps the price below $20 a month. A 
great thing about the Quake server design is that it allows people to 
enter and leave the game at will. No planning necessary. Overall, I 
give Quake internet play an "A" for it's breakthrough design, but a 
"B" for it's implementation. This could change a little when id comes 
out with "Quakeworld" which addresses some of the problems of internet 
play. The description of Quakeworld is beyond the scope of this 
article, but visit "blue's News" at the url above for more 
information. It's currently in the works and should be released soon. 
One thing about Quake that definitely deserves mention is "QuakeC". It 
is a programming language written by id that allows nearly total 
modification of the game. We've all seen the numerous add-on levels 
for doom, but what we've seen done for Quake goes way way beyond 
simple add-on levels. I'll just give one example. Quake has the usual 
barrage of weaponry - rocket launchers, shotguns, and er, nailguns. 
But due to some very cool QuakeC modifications, last night I was on a 
server that had grappling hooks for climbing up walls, heat seeking 
missiles, and (this is the great one) flame throwers that when used, 
started another player on fire and they ran around screaming until 
they died. (evil grin) 

A multiplayer gamer from the beginning, and the author of "Lag City: 
The Quake Lag Page" at 
<http://www.atw.fullfeed.com/~jkrutke/lagcity.htm>

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