Quake III Arena
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| Quake III Arena {{#if:{{{image|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image|}}} | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | id Software {{#if:{{{publisher|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher|}}} |
| Release date(s) | December 2, 1999 (NA) |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer {{#if:{{{ratings|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings|}}} |
| Platform(s) | Dreamcast, Macintosh, PC (Linux/Windows), PlayStation 2 {{#if:{{{media|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media|}}} |
Quake III Arena (also known as Trinity (working title), Quake 3, abbreviated as Q3A or Q3) is a multiplayer first-person shooter released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly. Quake III Arena is the third title in the series and differs from the previous quakes in that it excludes the normal single-player element, instead focusing upon multiplayer action. The solo experience in Q3 is arena combat versus AI opponents, in a similar style to Unreal Tournament.
As with most multiplayer first-person shooters, the aim of Q3A is to move throughout the arena fragging enemy players and scoring points based on the objective of the game mode. When a player’s health points reach zero, the avatar of that player is fragged (they "die"), soon after the player can then respawn and continue playing with their health points full again but without any weapons or power-ups previously gathered. The game ends when a player or team reaches a specified score, or when the time limit has been reached. The single player mode of the game consists of the same thing against computer controlled bots. The game modes were deathmatch, Team deathmatch, Capture the flag, and tournament, in which players test their skills against eachother in one-on-one battles, and an elimination ladder.
An expansion pack named Quake III: Team Arena was released in December 2000 by id Software. It focused on introducing team gameplay through new game modes and also included new weapons, items, and player models. However, Team Arena was criticized because its additions were long overdue and had been already been implemented by fan modifications. A few years later Quake 3: Arena Gold was released which composed of the original Quake III Arena and the Team Arena expansion pack bundled together as one game.
On August 19, 2005, id Software released the complete source code for Quake III Arena under the GNU General Public License, as they have done for their earlier Wolf 3d engine, Doom engine, Quake engine and Quake II engine. This does not make the entire game GPL, however, as the textures and other data were not released.
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Comparison with Unreal Tournament
Quake III Arena was the direct competitor to Epic Games's Unreal Tournament which was released 10 days earlier. Both games were multiplayer-focused sequels to successful singleplayer games. As such, frequent comparisons are made between the two games. While Unreal Tournament had superior bot AI and more varied weapons and multiplayer modes, Quake III Arena was lauded for its streamlined gameplay and superior graphics. Both games, UT and Q3A, had a number of mods created for them.
Other Versions
Dreamcast
Quake III Arena was released for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000 and featured 4 player online play versus Dreamcast and PC gamers. It is considered one of the best console ports of a PC first-person shooter because of its smooth frame-rate and online play. Before Activision could release the "official" Dreamcast Map Pack, a "hacked" copy of all the Dreamcast maps was released. This map pack included the maps specially created for Dreamcast split-screen play, which were never meant to be released. Once the "official" map pack was released, the other map pack became harder to find. PC Players were required to downgrade their installations to point release 1.16n to play alongside Dreamcast players, but the maps would work on the final 1.32 point release.
PlayStation 2
Quake III Revolution was released for the Sony PlayStation 2 in 2001 and featured several elements adopted from Team Arena. It was not as successful as its Dreamcast counterpart due to its lack of online play and because the PlayStation 2 hardware could not handle the intense combat smoothly.
Gameplay
Modes
Q3A comes with several classic gameplay modes. They are:
- Free For All (Deathmatch)
- Team Deathmatch
- Tourney (1v1)
- Capture the Flag
Since its release, many more modes have been created (see mods).
Single player
Unlike its predecessors, Q3A does not have a plot-based single-player campaign. Instead, it simulates the multiplayer experience by using computer controlled players, called "bots". In the manual, 'How to Play' is reduced to the single instruction: "Frag Everything That Isn’t You."
While the story of the game is thin at best (the greatest warriors of all time fight for the amusement of the Arena Masters in the Arena Eternal), continuity with prior games in the Quake series and even Doom is maintained by the inclusion of player models related to those earlier games as well as some biographical information included on each contestant in the manual, a familiar mixture of gothic and technological map architecture, and specific equipment; for example, the Quad Damage power-up, the widely used rocket launcher, and the powerful BFG.
Multiplayer
Quake III Arena was specifically designed for multiplayer. This means that the game allows players, whose computers are connected by a network or to the internet, to play against each other in real time. It uses a client-server architecture, that requires all players' clients to connect to a single server. Q3A’s focus on multiplayer gameplay spawned a vivid community similar to Quakeworld, that is still active to this day.
Items
Weapons
In Quake III, the weapons are designed such that there is no longer a completely "dominant" weapon. The right weapons balance was achieved by examining earlier games in the series, namely Quake and Quake II. For instance, the original Quake's Rocket Launcher was so effective such that it dominated entire deathmatches and Quake II's Rocket Launcher was toned down so much that it was passed over for other weapons; Quake III's Rocket Launcher is fun and effective to use but it isn't overpowered, allowing it to be countered in many situations.
Weapons start off as items. They spawn at regular intervals at specified places on the map, depending on the value for g_weaponrespawn (default=5). When you pick one up, you also have your ammo supply for the weapon set to a fixed number. However if you have more than the fixed number perhaps from already having picked up the weapon or enough ammo packs, only one more round is added. When you die, you drop your currently selected weapon with the exception of the machinegun and gauntlet.
The fixed number of ammo for each weapon pickup:
- Shotgun - 10 Shells
- Grenade Launcher - 10 Grenades
- Rocket Launcher - 10 Rockets
- Lightning Gun - 100 Lightning
- Railgun - 10 Slugs
- Plasma Gun - 50 Cells
- BFG10K - 20 Bfg Ammo
- Gauntlet
- The gauntlet is one of the two weapons with which a player typically spawns. It is a mêlée weapon used for close combat only, and one hit inflicts 50 damage. When a gauntlet kill is achieved, the killer earns a gauntlet medal and the victim receives a "humiliation". It is normally a last-resort weapon.
- Machinegun
- The machinegun is the other weapon that the player starts out with. It is a hitscan weapon that can rapidly inflict small amounts of damage (7hp per bullet) and has a small degree of spread (approx. 2 degrees), making it useful for finishing off opponents with low health.
- Shotgun
- The shotgun is primarily used for close range combat since its large spray diminishes with distance. The shotgun shoots 11 pellets that deal 10 damage each, so a concentrated spread can kill an unarmoured player. Like the machine gun, it is an instant impact weapon. The shotgun is found on almost every stock map.
- Grenade Launcher
- This weapon fires grenades that detonate either on contact with another player or 2.5 seconds after being launched. Grenades will not detonate as a result of contact by the one who launched it or be obstructed by him/her. In comparison to the rocket launcher, it releases projectiles faster although more ordnance is required to inflict similar damage due to the grenade’s inaccurate short-range arc and bounce unpredictability (making it hard to score a direct hit). Grenades are affected by gravity, unlike rockets and blasts from the plasma gun and the BFG10K, which always travel at a fixed speed on a linear path.
- Rocket Launcher
- The rocket launcher is one of the most widely used weapons in the game because it is easy to use and can inflict a lot of damage with little aim as the rocket impacts cause a lot of splash damage. Because of its wide blast radius, players are encouraged to "shoot the ground" rather than aim for the opponent directly. This however becomes a double-edged sword at closer ranges; at point blank range the player could significantly harm or kill himself if he is careless. This weapon can also be used to rocketjump, taking advantage of the player’s own blast to reach even higher heights than regular jumping. A direct hit on an opponent deals 100 damage, but splash damage cannot be added to the victim. The rocket launcher is found on almost every stock map.
- Lightning Gun
- The lightning gun is much like the machinegun, except that it fires as a beam with limited range, and deals more damage, especially to armour. In close combat, it can kill a healthy opponent in seconds with no risk to the user. Similar to the Thunderbolt of the original Quake, although you *can* use the lightning gun underwater.
- Railgun
- The railgun is primarily used for long range combat or sniping. It is 100% accurate, inflicts 100 damage but has a low fire rate (1.5 seconds) and requires good aiming. Found on many large maps with wide open spaces.
- Plasma Gun
- The plasma gun is an effective weapon for close to medium range combat. It rapidly fires a stream of deadly pulses which inflict significantly more damage (20hp per orb) than the machinegun. The fast-traveling bursts however are not instant impact like the machine gun. The plasma also inflicts minor splash damage, which can actually be used to plasmaclimb. But, because the power of the splash damage is small, plasmaclimbing is slower than rocketjumping, cannot gain as much height, and requires more skill. More details about plasmaclimbing are under the Techniques section. Q3A's plasma gun is similar to the plasma gun/rifle found in Doom. Found on most maps.
- BFG10K
- BFG10K is considered the ultimate weapon. A rapid-fire weapon, firing out bursts of fast-moving plasma at a rate of about 5 shots per second, which inflict damage and splash damage comparable to that of the rocket launcher. In effect, Quake III's BFG is a rapid-fire Rocket Launcher with faster projectiles and other than the name it shares little in common with the other BFG weapons in previous id Software games.
Ammo
Ammo boxes are located throughout the map. One ammo box contains a certain amount of one type of ammo. They are usually in easy-to-find places, but oftentimes ammo boxes will be hidden. Ammo boxes give you a standard amount of ammo that simply gets added to your current supply. When you first enter an arena, you start off with a certain amount of ammo (typically 100 machinegun bullets) and every time you die, your ammo supply resets to that amount.
Ammo box amounts:
- Machinegun ammo box - 50 Bullets
- Shotgun - 10 Shells
- Grenade Launcher - 5 Grenades
- Rocket Launcher - 5 Rockets
- Lightning Gun - 60 Lightning
- Railgun - 10 Slugs
- Plasma Gun - 30 Cells
- BFG10K - 15 Bfg Ammo
Health
Like in most games, health is the essential life of the player. Once the health points drop to 0, the player dies. In Q3A, the player starts with 125 health points. There are two limits to the number of health points you can accumulate. The first limit is at 100, and the second, impassable limit is at 200. Only certain health items can be picked up to pass the 100 health limit. When the player's health is above 100, it drops by 1 each second. The number of health points is displayed in the bottom-center of the screen, normally in orange but changes to white when above 100.
Health comes in four types of items:
- Green Health - Adds 5 health points and can pass 100 health.
- Yellow Health - Adds 25 health points
- Orange (Gold) Health - Adds 50 health points
- Mega Health - Adds 100 health points and can pass 100 health. Mega Health is also considered as a power-up.
Armor
Armor decreases the amount of damage you take when you get hit because 2/3 of damage is distributed to armor, hence of course health only receives 1/3. Armor can go over 100 points, but as with health, it starts ticking back to 100.
Armor comes in three different items:
- Armor Shard - 5 armor points.
- Armor - 50 armor points. Seen as yellow armor and is often called such, abbreviated by YA.
- Heavy Armor - 100 armor points. Seen as red armor and is often called such, abbreviated by RA.
Power-ups
- Quad damage
- Despite the name in Quake III the Quad damage power-up only triples the amount of damage done by the weapon you have (the name comes from previous titles in the series where it actually did have the effect of quadrupling damage). Quad damage is very effective when using rapid-fire guns (machine gun, plasma gun). Extreme caution must be taken with guns that have splash damage (such as the rocket launcher and BFG10K), since the splash damage is multiplied just as much as the direct impact. Quad damage in the hands of a good aiming player can make almost Insta-Gib type of shooting with the railgun, killing the target whose sum of health and armour does not pass 300. Quad damage lasts for 30 seconds.
- Haste
- Haste doubles your firing/movement speed for 30 seconds. When used with strafe jumping, you can move at an astounding speed. Haste will cause you to deplete your ammo faster if you are careless.
- Regeneration
- For 30 seconds, Regeneration replenishes your health up to 200 for a period of time. It adds health each second. The amount of health added depends on your current amount of health – 15 health is added when your current health is below 100 and 5 health is added when your current health is 100 or above.
- Flight
- Flight is an extremely rare 60 second power-up that shows up in only one stock Q3A map, Q3DM19. When active, it allows you to fly around at normal speed. Jump becomes ascend and crouch becomes descend.
- Battle Suit
- Wearing a Battle Suit nullifies any splash damage (damage done to self, e.g. rocket/grenade jumping), environmental hazards, and halves all other damage. Lasts 30 seconds.
- Invisibility
- This power-up makes the player and his/her weapon transparent and only visible as a slight distortion for 30 seconds. Note that in Capture The Flag mode, the flag is not affected by Invisibility.
Carried Items
These items must be activated in order to take effect. Only one can be carried at a time, and cannot be dropped. Carried items are uncommon in arenas and are typically found in places which catch little attention.
- Medkit
- The medkit, which appears as a syringe containing red fluid, instantly heals the user's health to 125 in the latest patches. In old patches, medkits only heal to 100 points.
- Personal Teleporter
- The personal teleporter teleports the user to a random spawn point on the map.
Techniques
Quake III Arena is a game which requires many different skills to play well. See Trickjumping for details. Some of the techniques which must be mastered are:
- Aiming
- Aiming in Quake is simple - point and shoot. There are no dynamic sprays and movement does not affect the spray of your weapons. With hitscan weapons such as the gauntlet, machine gun, shotgun, lightning gun and rail gun, simply aim directly at your opponent and fire. Weapons like the rocket launcher, grenade launcher, plasma gun, and BFG require a bit more practice to master, as they require you to lead your target or shoot on the nearby ground to inflict splash damage.
- Movement
- For the most part, movement is simple. You can run, walk, crouch or jump. Running is always on by default, though running everywhere isn’t smart. Walking is useful as you make no noise when you walk, allowing you to sneak up on an opponent, crouching also deadens the noise you make when moving in exchange for decreased speed. Another advantage of crouching is that it puts you lower to the ground and therefore makes you a smaller target, which can be useful if your enemy is using the railgun. Others may argue because the decreased speed makes you more prone to attacks. A slow target is also easier to lead.
- Strafe-jumping
- Strafe-jumping (abbreviated as SJ) is one of the most important skills to master in Quake III. It accelerates the user to an incredible degree if used correctly. While moving forward, strafe in either direction, hold forward, jump and move your crosshair in the same direction. The best thing to do when learning to strafe jump is to move your cursor very gently left and right, alternating strafe keys between jumps. That is, hold forward strafe right, move the cursor right, jump, strafe left, move the cursor left, jump, etc. You shouldn’t be moving your crosshair more than a few inches. The best way to get a feel for how to do this is watch demos of professionals - they strafe jump constantly. In order to achieve maximum strafe-jumping capabilities a constant 120 fps must be maintained. This is done by the command 'com_maxfps 120'. It is important to note that Strafe-jumping and bunny-hopping are by no means the same, however; bunnyhopping is used moreso by newer players, which because of the fact that they are always jumping, makes them more difficult to hit, but does in no way accelerate them.
- Rocket Jumping
- Rocket jumping (abbreviated as RJ) is jumping using the knock-back effect of a rocket to propel yourself further. What you do is jump immediately before firing a rocket at the ground. This can increase the height of your jump drastically. If done incorrectly, it will damage you and not help your jump at all. For starters, it is easier to jump and fire the rocket at the same time. The effect is almost the same. The closer the rocket is fired after the jump, the higher the jump. While the damage to yourself cannot be avoided, it can be reduced greatly by collecting armor prior to rocket jumping. This way, it’s your armor that will take most of the damage instead of you. When doing a rocket jump on a jump-pad, you can make huge jumps, bringing you to high and otherwise unreachable places.
- Grenade Jumping
- Grenade jumping is one of the most difficult skills to master in Quake III, since it requires the exact timing and placement of the grenades. "Simply" fire a grenade, be over it and jump when it goes off. This can be used in conjunction with rocket jumping, but usually this results in massive damage to the player and has a low success rate.
- Plasma Climbing
- Plasma climbing is using the knock-back from the shot from the plasma gun to climb up walls. To do it, just get right next to a wall, aim low on the wall (about an inch or two from the floor), jump, and fire continuously whilst pushing forward toward the wall. This technique can be extremely effective when used with grenade jumping. Drop a grenade, aim at the floor, and right before the grenade goes off, jump, and start firing your plasma gun.
- Timing and map control
- Having control over the items of a map is equally important as aiming, movement and tactical skills are to winning a match. Since items reappear over specific periods of time it is possible to snatch items away from the opponent, just as they appear. By memorizing the time an item was last picked up you can keep important items like armor and megahealth away from the enemy and gain a significant hit point advantage.
- Bunny-hopping
- Bunny hopping (abbreviated as BH) allows the player to fully control their trajectory while in the air. It is utilised to make 90° or more turns, to gain speed, or to zigzag when hopping. BH is available in CPMA and OSP mods, in QuakeWorld and Quake II, and in other skill First-person shooters (like Team Fortress Classic), and is very hard to master.
Mods
Like its predecessors, Quake and Quake II, Quake III Arena can be heavily modified to support other gaming styles. They can use (like Quake II) native shared libraries to store the game code but the preferred method is to program all modifications in pure C language and compile them with a special version of the free C language compiler Little C compiler into machine-independent byte code, which will be interpreted by an in-game virtual machine. The virtual machine in Quake III Arena even uses "just-in-time" techniques like modern Java enabled virtual machines.
The most popular mods for Quake are Rocket Arena 3 (RA3), Urban Terror, Orange Smoothie Productions (OSP) and Challenge ProMode Arena (CPMA). RA3 is a tournament focused mod, allowing players to play on the same server in 4 virtual arenas. The players rockets inflict no damage to himself, allowing intensive usage of the rocket jumping technique. Unlike regular Quake, when a player dies, he is dead until his entire team is eliminated. OSP is a mod meant for tournament play. It gives the player more interface options and modifications. One can effectively change everything in the interface so that it fits their whims. There are also added parts to the multiplayer that make it easier than standard Quake for tournament play. Such improvements include only allowing players to start a match after each had declared their readiness, additional stats such as weapon accuracies on the score window, voting for a map or to kick someone, timeout calls, and much more. CPMA includes vastly modified physics, with features adapted from Quake and Quake II such as bunny hopping, double-jumping and fast weapon switching.
The other popular mods include:
- Excessive Plus - All weapons mods excessive, turning each game into a crazy fragfest, including advanced new visual layouts, new gametypes and a new name code system. Although originally based on Mr. Pants' Excessive Overkill it now features a complex configuration syntax and a bigger standalone community.
- Loki's Revenge CTF - A team-based capture the flag all-weapons modification and tribute to the popular Quake II modification Loki's Minions CTF.
- CorkScrew - The players start with a choice of weapons and unlimited ammo. The main concept is to kill with one shot. It requires a lot of skill since the reload time is large and one has to be extremely accurate. The mod also includes an offhand grappling hook.
- Gmod - The players start the game with a specified amount of ammo and armor. Extra ammo, health, armor are not available on the map. All the ammo and health get restored when the player frags another person or when he is killed and respawns.
- Jailbreak - This is a 2-team game. On getting fragged, the player is sent to the opposite team’s jail. They can be freed only when someone from their team presses a button which is located in front of the jail. In some arenas, the players can also escape from the jail by climbing on top of one another and going into a duct. A team scores when all the players of the opposite team have been jailed.
- Weapons Factory Arena - Capture the flag mod based upon Team Fortress, although with some player class and gameplay modifications.
- Urban Terror - A reality based total conversion but with fast paced physics. Wall jumping and ledge climbing are among its notable features. During the days of Urban Terror 1.27 the game sported a Flashlight known as Teh Unlose.
- InstaUnlagged - This mod is for internet play, and as the name suggests, drastically reduces lag. Only railguns are used, due to the fact that weaponry with delayed fire increases the amount of data sent from computer to computer. Other tweaks are implemented such as faster running speed, and the weapons now have a small but powerful blast radius. While this radius is too small to do damage, it is possible to "rail jump" by firing at the ground or walls. InstaUnlagged is most commonly used in Capture the Flag.
A listing of Q3A mods can be found at Quake III Arena mods and at the Mod DB.
Bots
Bots are multiplayer opponents controlled by an Artificial Intelligence. Quake III Arena featured an (for the time advanced) AI, with difficulty levels ranging from "I can win" to "Nightmare". Although these bots are good for practicing and can be difficult for a beginner to defeat, they are not advanced enough to provide a challenge to an experienced player.
Competitive play
Image:Eswc quake3 final.png Quake III Arena’s multiplayer focused development lead to it developing a large community of competitive players and like its predecessors in the series it was used extensively in professional electronic sports tournaments.
In competitive Quake III Arena, there are two distinct disciplines, often referred to as "rulesets". The out-of-the-box Quake III Arena game is referred to as the Vanilla Quake 3 (VQ3) ruleset. It is referred to as 'vanilla' in contrast with the CPM ruleset of the CPMA mod.
Trivia
Before the official release of Quake III there was some controversy. During early March of 1999 ATI leaked the internal hardware vendor copy of the game. This consisted of a functional engine of the game and a 'level' with various interesting textures and working guns. The IHV contained all the weapons that would make it into the final game, however most were not fully modeled. The chainsaw and grappling hook were in the IHV but did not make it in the final release. It also included many of the sounds that would make it into the final version of the game.
After the IHV fiasco id Software eventually released a beta of Quake III starting with version 1.05. This beta included three levels that would all make it into the final game: dm7, dm17, and q3tourney2. They continued to update the beta up until 1.11 at which point they eventually released the official game.
In the beta it used to be that commands were not prefixed by a '/'. E.g. to set your max fps you would type 'com_maxfps 120' rather than '/com_maxfps 120'. If the command was entered correctly it would be set, otherwise if there was a typo or invalid command, it would display as chat text for everyone to see your error. The problem is that if a server admin was in the game and typing in the server password, if he messed up everyone could see the password and take control of the server. This was eventually fixed during the beta.
For a period of time in the final release of the game the gauntlet could be used to instantly kill someone by pulling up the chat dialog box and firing the gauntlet. If anyone touched you they died instantly. This was a popular method of killing someone as they exited the portal in q3tourney2- though considered very cheap by most. This was eventually fixed.
External links
- Websites
- Official game homepage
- Official game community
- PlanetQuake3.net - Quake3 news & file archive
- Planetquake.com - Daily news about Quake
- Quake3: Raytraced Raytracing engine showing Quake3
- Bosskey.net - Quake III Arena tips
- Quake 3 Wiki
- Polish Quake 3 Instagib Community - Polskie Centrum Quake 3 Instagib 1.11-1.16n
- Icculus.org/Quake3 - "De-facto" open source quake3 distribution with support for many platforms.
- Quake 3 Mods and Tutorials - at the Mod DB
- Game Archive and Review sites
- Custom Maps
- MAP-Factory
- ..::LvL Reviews and public comments of user made maps. Launched in December 1999.
- Doom Wad Station Comprehensive archive of Quake3 maps
- Leakspot
- Map Center (Not maintained as of February 2006, but forums still functional)
- Maposfera.org
- TikiDomain
- Resources
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