“You can just imagine the wind whistling in your ears...”
June 23, 2016 8:29 PM   Subscribe

Happy 20th Birthday, Quake by John Romero [rome.ro] “Twenty years. Wow. Where has all the time gone? We've all had many adventures during those years and Quake spawned many a game franchise and/or game company whether directly or through its influence. For this 20th I'm going to share a document created by Joost Shuur called QUAKETALK 95. This Quake FAQ was created on 10/22/1995 to keep people up to date on everything that had been posted about Quake up to that point. People wanted to know what the game was about and information was spread thin all over the place: magazine articles, IRC logs, even in hint books.” [You can download QUAKETALK 95 here.]

- 'Quake' marks its 20th anniversary. [Endgadget]
Attention gamers of a certain age: you're about to feel very, very old. June 22nd, 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the original Quake, id Software's classic first-person shooter. It may not be quite as genre-defining as the Doom games that preceded it, but it was still considered revolutionary. For a start, it was presented entirely in 3D (with semi-realistic lighting, no less) at a time when most shooters had to make do with '2.5D' engines -- even the zero-gravity title Descent had some 2D. Quake was also one of the first games of its kind to be built with internet multiplayer in mind, not just local networks. And who can forget the eerie soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor?
- Quake Champions Announced: PC Only, Multiplayer Arena Combat [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
Bethesda started big. When the lights and music dropped, the giant screen at the E3 showcase showed a DOS prompt. After fiddling around directories for a moment, the unseen user typed one small word: QUAKE. The game is Quake Champions, an arena-based shooter pitting “diverse warriors with unique attributes and abilities” against one another. It has been designed for “world class esports play at every level” and contains big Stroggy bastards and a blue-haired lady.
posted by Fizz (40 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I remember loading it on my dad's green Acer Aspire and loving the NIN soundtrack. Good memories.
posted by resurrexit at 8:38 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Also, QuakeCon in Mesquite, Texas.
posted by resurrexit at 8:40 PM on June 23, 2016


Wasn't Descent released well after Doom?
posted by mwhybark at 8:41 PM on June 23, 2016


I can recall those first few moments, that industrial soundtrack blaring out of my two tiny desktop speakers. The sound of the menu, the sound of demons yelling just before they died, the darkness, the secrets, the cheat codes, etc. Such fond video-game memories. Hard to believe that it's been twenty years!
posted by Fizz at 8:42 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Ah, yes, loading the shareware version onto a computer at work, wishing I could talk the then-wife into getting a PC--good times, good times. Still not John Romero's bitch, though.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:47 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I’ll never forget that ogre turning around with a roar and swinging his chainsaw at me at the beginning of the second level. Best jump scare in a video game until Half-Life’s headcrabs came along.
posted by straight at 8:50 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yeah, descent was after doom, but before quake, iirc.

Also, Descent was pretty much my favorite game. Keyboard and joystick at the same time, doing crazy flips while clearing out a room was the best. And the level design was amazing, and occasionally mind bending.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:04 PM on June 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


Things I have trouble forgiving John Romero for:

1) Panning down to his girlfriend/level-designers breasts in the middle of a video about Daikatana level design.

2) Effectively Killing Looking Glass Studios.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:33 PM on June 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Descent is, to this day, the only game to ever give me motion sickness.

Quake was the first game I ever bought "digitally", kind of sort of. They sold CDs of Quake for 1 cent (making it the cheapest NIN album ever!) that had the shareware version plus an encrypted copy of the full game. You called a number and gave them your credit card and they gave you an unlock code. Every other id game was encrypted on there too (and uh, eventually someone wrote a crack for it, because of course).

In retrospect, Quake had a lot going for it beyond technical innovation. The distinctive Reznor sound effects, the motley cast of monsters, the medieval levels full of little nooks and grottos and secrets -- it had a nice weird flavor to it, even if the palette was too brown and the single-player action was weaksauce compared to Doom.
posted by neckro23 at 9:48 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Descent was the first shooter I got as a kid - I had wanted that game so bad. And it's pretty awesome except the entire idea of keycard-hunting with six degrees of freedom is such a bad one! I never made it through Descent I or II without cheating because in both games I reached a level where I couldn't figure out how to proceed.
posted by atoxyl at 9:54 PM on June 23, 2016


(making it the cheapest NIN album ever!)

A penny more than The Slip, actually.
posted by aaronetc at 9:56 PM on June 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


In my head the soundtrack to Quake is the Mechwarrior II soundtrack because it would just play it if the CD was in the tray, which it almost always was on my PC. It fit really well.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:18 PM on June 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


I was just talking about Descent this morning! I found the demo in a DOS launcher and didn't know what it was. I spun around helplessly in the starting cubbyhole before I found the thrust button. It was an exciting moment.
posted by michaelh at 10:40 PM on June 23, 2016


Yeah, descent was after doom, but before quake, iirc.

Far, far out. My mind absolutely global-replaced the word "Quake" with "Doom" in the main post. Talk about feeling old!
posted by mwhybark at 11:13 PM on June 23, 2016


I remember getting that copy of PC Unlimited which still pretended it was a general pc mag, not just a games zine and having a cover cd with not just Quake_Test on it, but also Tomb Raider.

Also playing to well into the night on the uni's computers and getting motion sickness after a particular intense battle.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:44 PM on June 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Only found out recently he lives in Ireland now.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:33 AM on June 24, 2016


I remember loading it on my dad's green Acer Aspire and loving the NIN soundtrack. Good memories.

Me too, and on the same computer. Seeing Quake in openGL mode a year or so really made me covet a Voodoo2 card.
posted by timshel at 4:11 AM on June 24, 2016


In retrospect, Quake had a lot going for it beyond technical innovation. The distinctive Reznor sound effects, the motley cast of monsters, the medieval levels full of little nooks and grottos and secrets -- it had a nice weird flavor to it, even if the palette was too brown and the single-player action was weaksauce compared to Doom.

The weird, brown, Lovecraftian darkness was hugely appealing to me. I remember feeling disorientated & disappointed by Q2's shift to Doom-style Space Outpost environs.
posted by timshel at 4:17 AM on June 24, 2016


I have this very clear memory of playing Quake in a computer store that rented out a four PC LAN by the hour. The idea of playing seamless multiplayer was amazing but I kept getting my ass kicked. Finally a friend took pity on me.

"Here, try this" he said and pulled down the console to type +mlook. After a moment of sheer bewilderment, I knew this was the control scheme I'd waited my whole life for.
posted by selfnoise at 4:44 AM on June 24, 2016 [5 favorites]


And let's not forget its customizability and programmability. How many game developers and designers cut their teeth on the almost comical variety of Quake mods? The variety and inventiveness and "oh why the heck not" of Quake hacks is a pretty direct ancestor of today's indie gaming scene.
posted by Tomorrowful at 6:04 AM on June 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


And let's not forget its customizability and programmability. How many game developers and designers cut their teeth on the almost comical variety of Quake mods? The variety and inventiveness and "oh why the heck not" of Quake hacks is a pretty direct ancestor of today's indie gaming scene.

I didn't get into game development, but modifying Doom and then Quake (QuakeC!) is what got me into programming period. Computers were black magical boxes until I learned I could make my own game modifications. Then I realized they were in fact servants at my beck and call.
posted by dis_integration at 6:16 AM on June 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


A friend I went to college with and used to live with has a small games company and had dinner with John Romero last year. Apparently he's obsessed with Disneyland - he thinks the rides are the nearest real-life equivalent to level design.

The book Masters of Doom is really good - I think anyone who's spent time in a nerdy field will recognise the two archetypes - the brash, outspoken self-confident/arrogant nerd, and the extremely intelligent, extremely introverted one.
posted by kersplunk at 6:20 AM on June 24, 2016 [3 favorites]


I just remember being very sad my 33Mhz 486 couldn't handle it. It played Duke Nukem 3D at friggin' 12 FPS
posted by SansPoint at 6:30 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


I remember downloading QTEST1 and going holy shit, I need a new computer, and I might as well give up my lousy texture-mapping portal-rendering experiments because obviously I don't stand a chance against these guys.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:14 AM on June 24, 2016


I also recommend Masters of Doom. It's worth re-reading. I'm glad both of them have grown up a bit since.
posted by michaelh at 7:18 AM on June 24, 2016


Space Coyote:
"In my head the soundtrack to Quake is the Mechwarrior II soundtrack because it would just play it if the CD was in the tray, which it almost always was on my PC. It fit really well."
For me it was "Songs in the Key of X". Whenever I hear something from that album I think back to Quake.

Also, I wish I had managed to keep those mods I had created for my friends and I. Some of them were pretty frickin' awesome, IMHO. Like the deathmatch mod where you could play as a heavily armed solder, shapeshifter, sniper or mech. Or the "vampire hunter" team vs. player mod.
posted by charred husk at 7:37 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Descent was pretty much my favorite game. Keyboard and joystick at the same time, doing crazy flips while clearing out a room was the best.

Descent being my first fully-3D FPS is for sure the reason I prefer an inverted mouselook for those games to this day.
posted by straight at 8:32 AM on June 24, 2016


Another game worth nodding to is Terminator: Future Shock, developed by (ironically) Bethesda. It released months before Quake, had mouselook built in, and IMO a markedly superior single player campaign. But no multiplayer, which is ultimately the legacy of Quake.

One more game: Half-Life, arguably the most influential single player shooter of video game modernity, which used the original Quake engine as its development basis.
posted by selfnoise at 8:41 AM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Fun fact: John Carmack and Paul Rudd went to the same school near me, as did I believe Jason Sudeikis. As far as I know he doesn't come back for appearances or anything, or at least not to the extent of the latter who've become pretty big city benefactors and come back regularly. Which is too bad because I remember as a kid finding out THE inventor of Quake grew up next to me. Might sound insignificant but this was in the early dotcom days and everything was not happening here, and my only access to nerdiness were BASIC courses I took at a local college.

And of course this was when the idea of a programmer was a guy not showering for days doing things people didn't understand, not getting rich and taking pictures of themselves on stock option bought yachts.
posted by geoff. at 9:20 AM on June 24, 2016


Fun fact: John Carmack and Paul Rudd went to the same school near me, as did I believe Jason Sudeikis

Carmack was mostly at Raytown South, he went to SM East briefly for gifted/computer stuff, it seems like. Those other two were at SM West though, yeah. (And Rob Riggle was a SM South person.)
posted by nom de poop at 11:05 AM on June 24, 2016


Holy shit was Quake a huge part of my life back then. I found what I'd have to guess was some iteration of the quaketalk linked in the post in some random backwater of an internet I could only access in minutes-long, long-distance-billed increments, and was instantly obsessed from then until the release and for years afterwards. I used to check Blue's News and sCary's Shugashack or whatever it was called constantly.

The initial hype, or at least the version of it that I remember now, was completely over the top. It was going to be, like, a massively-multiplayer open world seamlessly spanning servers with realistic physics. What we actually got was of course nothing like that, but it got so many things right all the same. Control scheme, fluid multiplayer (that I occasionally managed to frag people on a dialup connection from rural Nebraska now strikes me as something close to miraculous - and nothing else graphical that I can think of, with the possible exception of Bolo, had ever made network play so central and easy), and the crazy extensibility. Along with a gazillion random deathmatch and CTF mods, I remember playing sidescrollers, a racing game, this thing where you could turn into a mech if you got the quad damage, and chess.

I haven't played games more than occasionally (and badly) for a long time, but I still think of Quake as a fundamental touchstone for my idea of good software, and a lot of the core id people have long been among my programmer/nerd heroes.

(It's probably also kind of an important moment in the evolution of a gamer culture I find somewhere between irritating and repulsive, and I really wish I'd stayed ignorant of Carmack's political outlook, but I'm electing not to think about these things right now.)
posted by brennen at 11:10 AM on June 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


John Carmack broke into one of his schools (or maybe just another school in town?) with thermite (!) to steal Apple IIs (!!). He actually got sent to juvie because he told a psychologist that he probably would have done it again if he had hypothetically not been caught. So I don't know how fond his memories are of his high school days.

(Masters of DOOM came out when I was a teenager and I probably read it ten times that one summer. Had a lot to do with me becoming a programmer.)
posted by atoxyl at 11:11 AM on June 24, 2016


I remember being quite young and falling in love with the original Team Fortress. Such an exciting time for gaming. Quake is one of my all-time favorites.
posted by gucci mane at 11:20 AM on June 24, 2016


Yeah I couldn't find out what school. SME would be a likely target. Though I kinda doubt it had silent alarms on the windows.. While reading that part of Masters of DOOM on Amazon I spotted an error about what college he went to so I dunno.

I played a lot of Quake. I loved the CTF mod more than anything, though all my friends were mainly into the ClanRing 4x4 DM. We did win the first clanring tournament; yay esports.

Mmmm CTF though. Compared to it, deathmatch was boring, and TF was weird and overdone.

Eventually Q2 came along but it sucked. People kept playing QuakeWorld. I remember the Rocket Arena days when skill levels on DM3 got absurdly high. Even back then someone said, "Remember the days when you'd get knocked into the air by a rocket and NOT get killed by lightning while still in the air?"
posted by nom de poop at 12:07 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


The first documented instances of me on the internet are some USENET flame wars I got into about all the cool shit that was going to be in Quake. This would have been 1994ish and I was 13. Might have been earlier, actually. At the time I think Quake had more of a medieval theme.

Thankfully, since Dejanews bit the dust, it's hard to look that stuff up. But I do remember a discussion about in-game walkie-talkie type radios. At the time, that was super impossible, but of course we have stuff like Mumble and TeamSpeak which are exactly that.
posted by sideshow at 12:24 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have a folder on my daily-carry USB drive that is labeled "OSX Applications". Literally the only things in this folder are the Fruitz of Dojo Quake & Quake II ports.

The game play has aged pretty well, actually. I had a ton of fun with Quake II, not quite sure why people seem to dislike it. Quake III got me through some tough times in grad school (installed the demo on a lab computer, and would frag people in the arena to burn off stress).

Wow. 20 years. I do feel old now.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:32 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Multiplayer Quake on a T1 connection in 1996 was good times. I used to connect to a server in Sweden that was never crowded just because I could.

Still liked Descent better.
posted by davros42 at 2:09 PM on June 24, 2016


Descent and Descent II were a lot of fun, though I always felt like the single-player mode was kind of tedious and sterile after a while. Multiplayer, it really came alive - gliding around all stealthy-like looking for murder, punctuated by frenetic dogfighting in these vast caverns. You really needed a joystick and to turn off the crap auto-leveling feature for the full effect, though.

The first documented instances of me on the internet are some USENET flame wars I got into about all the cool shit that was going to be in Quake.

I, uh, may have written a certain amount of Quake fiction.

I had managed to forget that for years until just now.
posted by brennen at 2:33 PM on June 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


The first documented instances of me on the internet are some USENET flame wars I got into about all the cool shit that was going to be in Quake.

"Quake is FULLY 3D, but Duke Nukem is really only 2.5D! The Build engine has to use TRICKS to FAKE vertical movement."

"But Quake is just a BROWN ugly MESS. Look at the environments in Duke Nukem. You can even FLUSH the TOILETS!"

"But can you have a room ABOVE or BELOW the toilets? No. You can't."
posted by straight at 3:41 PM on June 24, 2016 [4 favorites]


The first documented instances of me on the internet are some USENET flame wars I got into about all the cool shit that was going to be in Quake. This would have been 1994ish and I was 13. Might have been earlier, actually. At the time I think Quake had more of a medieval theme.

The first documented instances of me on the internet are quakec modifications (well, unless we count doom pwads posted to compuserve, but I assume all that has bitten the dust). I was 11, and filled my .nfo with rap lyrics. It's still out there on walnut creek idgames mirrors, and I'm never showing anyone ever.
posted by dis_integration at 8:15 AM on June 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


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