Editing Quake

'''Quake''' is the first game in the Quake series. In the game, the player is cast as a [[slipgate]] explorer, travelling between different dimensions, battling hordes of zombies, demons and various [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_P_Lovecraft Lovecraftian] monsters in order to save mankind from [[Shub-Niggurath]], the final boss of the game.

Quake is notable as one of the first fully 3D games with lighting and texturing, made possible by the technical mastery of the [[id Software]] programmers. The Quake game engine was later updated to take advantage of OpenGL accelerator cards when id released [[GLQuake]], which allowed players with supported cards to run the game with more visual effects and at smoother frame-rates than when using the software renderer.

As with id Software's previous series, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(video_game) Doom], Quake featured a networked multiplayer [[Deathmatch|deathmatch]] mode, which was subsequently improved to run more smoothly over the internet with [[QuakeWorld]]. Online play became immensely popular, and many [[Mod|mods]] were released that changed the gameplay significantly, often focussing on [[Teamplay|teamplay]], such as the popular [[Team Fortress]] and [[Capture the Flag]] mods.

The game received much acclaim on release and its commercial success led to several sequels, starting with [[Quake II]], which abandoned the Gothic styling of the original for a science fiction theme. Quake has since been recognized as one of the greatest achievements of the video game industry, influencing games that came after it, as well as helping to popularise user made content such as custom levels, mods and [[Machinima|machinima]].

==History and Development==
A preview included with [[id Software|id]]'s very first release, 1990's ''Commander Keen'', advertised a game entitled ''The Fight for Justice'' as a follow-up to the ''Commander Keen'' trilogy. It would feature a character named Quake, "the strongest, most dangerous person on the continent", armed with thunderbolts and a "Ring of Regeneration". Conceived as a VGA full-color side-scrolling role-playing game, ''The Fight for Justice'' was never released.

Lead designer and director, [[John Romero]], later conceived of ''Quake'' as an action game taking place in a fully 3D world, inspired by Sega AM2's 3D fighting game ''Virtua Fighter''. ''Quake'' was also intended to feature ''Virtua Fighter'' influenced third-person melee combat. However, id Software considered it to be risky. Because the project was taking too long, the third-person melee was eventually dropped. This led to creative differences between Romero and id Software, and eventually his departure from the company after ''Quake'' was released.

''Quake'' was given as a title to the game that id Software was working on shortly after the release of ''Doom II''. The earliest information released described ''Quake'' as focusing on a Thor-like character who wields a giant hammer, and is able to knock away enemies by throwing the hammer (complete with real-time inverse kinematics). Initially, the levels were supposed to be designed in an Aztec style, but the choice was dropped some months into the project. Early screenshots then showed medieval environments and dragons. The plan was for the game to have more RPG-style elements. However, work was very slow on the engine, since John Carmack, the main programmer of ''Quake'', was not only developing a fully 3D engine, but also a TCP/IP networking model (Carmack later said that he should have done two separate projects which developed those things).

Eventually, the whole id Software team began to think that the original concept may not have been as wise a choice as they first believed. Thus, the final game was very stripped down from its original intentions, and instead featured gameplay similar to ''Doom'' and its sequel, although the levels and enemies were closer to medieval RPG style rather than science-fiction. In a December 1, 1994 post to an online bulletin board, John Romero wrote, "Okay, people. It seems that everyone is speculating on whether Quake is going to be a slow, RPG-style light-action game. Wrong! What does id do best and dominate at? Can you say "action"? I knew you could. Quake will be constant, hectic action throughout – probably more so than Doom."
''Quake'' was programmed by John Carmack, Michael Abrash, and John Cash. The levels and scenarios were designed by American McGee, [[Sandy Petersen]], [[John Romero]], and [[Tim Willits]], and the graphics were designed by [[Adrian Carmack]], Kevin Cloud and Paul Steed. Cloud created the monster and player graphics using Alias.

The music and sound design was done by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, using ambient soundscapes and synthesized drones to create atmospheric tracks. In an interview, Reznor remarked that the ''Quake'' soundtrack "is not music, it's textures and ambiances and whirling machine noises and stuff. We tried to make the most sinister, depressive, scary, frightening kind of thing... It's been fun." The game also has some ammo boxes decorated with the Nine Inch Nails logo.

The game engine developed for ''Quake'', the ''Quake'' engine, popularized several major advances in the first-person shooter genre: polygonal models instead of prerendered]] sprites; full 3D level design instead of a 2.5D map; prerendered lightmaps; and allowing end users to partially program the game (in this case with [[QuakeC]]), which popularized fan-created modifications (mods).

Before the release of the full game or the shareware version of ''Quake'', id Software released ''QTest'' on February 24, 1996. It was described as a technology demo and was limited to three multiplayer maps. There was no single-player support and some of the gameplay and graphics were unfinished or different from their final versions. ''QTest'' gave gamers their first peek into the filesystem and modifiability of the ''Quake'' engine, and many entity mods (that placed monsters in the otherwise empty multiplayer maps) and custom player skins began appearing online before the full game was even released.

Initially, the game was designed so that when the player ran out of ammunition, the player character would hit enemies with a gun-butt. Shortly before release this was replaced with an [[Axe]].
===Ports===
The first ports to be completed were the Linux and SPARC Solaris ports by id Software employee Dave D. Taylor in 1996. The first commercially released port was the 1997 port to Mac OS, done by MacSoft. ClickBOOM announced version for Amiga-computers in 1998. Finally in 1999, a retail version of the Linux port was distributed by Macmillan Digital Publishing USA in a bundle with the three add-ons as ''Quake: The Offering''.

''Quake'' was also ported to home console systems. On October 31, 1997, the game was ported to the Sega Saturn by Lobotomy Software. The Sega Saturn port used Lobotomy Software's own 3D game engine, SlaveDriver (the same game engine that powered the Sega Saturn versions of ''PowerSlave'' and ''Duke Nukem 3D''), instead of the original ''Quake engine''. It is the only version of Quake that is rated "T" for Teen instead of "M" for Mature. ''Quake'' had also been ported to the Sony PlayStation by Lobotomy Software, but the port was cancelled due to the lack of being able to find a publisher. On March 24, 1998, the game was ported to the Nintendo 64 by Midway Games. Both console ports required compromises because of the limited CPU power and ROM storage space for levels. The Sega Saturn version includes 28 of the 32 single-player levels from the original PC version of the game, though the secret levels, Ziggurat Vertigo (E1M8), The Underearth (E2M7), The Haunted Halls (E3M7), and The Nameless City (E4M8), were removed. Instead, it has four exclusive secret levels: Purgatorium, Hell's Aerie, The Coliseum, and Watery Grave. It also contains an exclusive unlockable, "Dank & Scuz", which is a story set in the Quake milieu and presented in the form of a slide show with voice acting. There are no multiplayer modes in the Sega Saturn version; as a result of this, all of the deathmatch maps from the PC version were removed from the Sega Saturn port. The Nintendo 64 version includes 25 single-player levels from the PC version, though it is missing The Grisly Grotto (E1M4), The Installation (E2M1), The Ebon Fortress (E2M4), The Wind Tunnels (E3M5), The Sewage System (E4M1), and Hell's Atrium (E4M5) levels. It also does not use the hub "START" map where the player chooses a difficulty level and an episode; the difficulty level is chosen from a menu when starting the game, and all of the levels are played in sequential order from The Slipgate Complex (E1M1) to Shub Niggurath's Pit (END). The Nintendo 64 version, while lacking the cooperative multiplayer mode, includes two player deathmatch. All six of the deathmatch maps from the PC version are in the Nintendo 64 port, and an exclusive deathmatch level, The Court of Death, is also included.

Two ports of ''Quake'' for the Nintendo DS exist, ''QuakeDS'' and ''CQuake''. Both run well, however, multiplayer does not work on ''QuakeDS''. Since the source code for ''Quake'' was released, a number of unofficial ports have been made available for PDAs and mobile phones, such as ''PocketQuake'', as well as versions for the Symbian S60 series of mobile phones and Android mobile phones.

In 2005, id Software signed a deal with publisher Pulse Interactive to release a version of ''Quake'' for mobile phones. The game was engineered by Californian company Bear Naked Productions. Initially due to be released on only two mobile phones, the Samsung Nexus (for which it was to be an embedded game) and the LG VX360. ''Quake mobile'' was reviewed by GameSpot on the Samsung Nexus and they cited its US release as October 2005; they also gave it a Best Mobile Game" in their E3 2005 Editor's Choice Awards. It is unclear as to whether the game actually did ship with the Samsung Nexus. The game is only available for the DELL x50v and x51v both of which are PDAs not mobile phones. ''Quake Mobile'' does not feature the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack due to space constraints. ''Quake Mobile'' runs the most recent version of GL Quake (Quake v.1.09 GL 1.00) at 800x600 resolution and 25 fps. The most recent version of ''Quake Mobile'' is v.1.20 which has stylus support. There was an earlier version v.1.19 which lacked stylus support. The two ''Quake'' expansion packs, ''[[Scourge of Armagon]]'' and ''[[Dissolution of Eternity]]'', are also available for ''Quake Mobile''.

A Flash-based version of the game by Michael Rennie runs ''Quake'' at full speed in any Flash-enabled web browser. Based on the shareware version of the game, it includes only the first episode and is available for free on the web

==Plot==
:''Main article: [[Quake story]]''

==Gameplay==
In ''Quake'''s single-player mode, players explore and navigate to the exit of each Gothic and dark level, facing monsters and finding secret areas along the way. Usually there are switches to activate or keys to collect in order to open doors before the exit can be reached. Reaching the exit takes the player to the next level. Before accessing an episode, there is a set of three pathways with easy, medium, and hard skill levels. The fourth skill level, "Nightmare", was "so bad that it was hidden, so people won't wander in by accident";<ref>ID Software. <cite>Quake (game manual)</cite>, page 3. ID Software, 1996.</ref> the player must drop through water before the episode four entrance and go into a secret passage to access it.

''Quake'''s single-player campaign is organized into four individual episodes with seven to eight levels in each (including one secret level per episode, one of which is a "low gravity" level that challenges the player's abilities in a different way). As items are collected, they are carried to the next level, each usually more challenging than the last. If the player's character dies, he must restart at the beginning of the level. The game may be saved at any time. Upon completing an episode, the player is returned to the hub "START" level, where another episode can be chosen. Each episode starts the player from scratch, without any previously collected items. Episode one (which formed the shareware or downloadable demo version of ''Quake'') has the most traditional ideology of a boss in the last level. The ultimate objective at the end of each episode is to recover a magic rune. After all of the runes are collected, the floor of the hub level opens up to reveal an entrance to the "END" level which contains the final boss of the game.

===Multiplayer===
In multiplayer mode, players on several computers connect to a server (which may be a dedicated machine or on one of the player's computers), where they can either play the single-player campaign together in co-op mode, or play against each other in multiplayer. When players die in multiplayer mode, they can immediately respawn, but will lose any items that were collected. Similarly, items that have been picked up previously respawn after some time, and may be picked up again. The most popular multiplayer modes are all forms of [[deathmatch]]. Deathmatch modes typically consist of either ''free-for-all'' (no organization or teams involved), one-on-one ''duels'', or organized ''teamplay'' with two or more players per team (or clan). Teamplay is also frequently played with one or another mod. Monsters are not normally present in teamplay, as they serve no purpose other than to get in the way and reveal the positions of the players.

The gameplay in ''Quake'' was considered unique for its time because of the different ways the player can maneuver through the game. For example: bunny hopping or strafe jumping can be used to move faster than normal, while rocket jumping enables the player to reach otherwise-inaccessible areas at the cost of some self-damage. The player can start and stop moving suddenly, jump unnaturally high, and change direction while moving through the air. Many of these non-realistic behaviors contribute to ''Quake'''s appeal. Multiplayer ''Quake'' was one of the first games singled out as a form of electronic sport. A notable participant was Dennis Fong who won John Carmack's Ferrari 328 at the Microsoft-sponsored Red Annihilation tournament in 1997.
==Community==

===Modifications===
:''Main article: [[Modifications]]''

===Custom levels===
:''Main article: [[Custom levels]]''

Shortly after the release of Quake, id Software released [[QuakeEd]], the tool that they used to make Quake's levels with. Although QuakeEd was not useful to most people as it was released, since it was made for the powerful [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT NeXT] workstations that id used to develop the game on, it wasn't long before other editors that ran on Windows were released. This allowed gamers to start making their own levels and releasing them on the internet for other owners of the game to play.

Although the early levels released by amateur level designers were generally below the standard of the maps included with the game, as the tools improved and designers got more experienced and began to understand how everything worked, maps that equaled and in some cases exceeded the standards set by id became common.

Quake levels released today are often far more complex than anything id could have ever made, due to more powerful computers for compiling and playing the levels, much improved tools, better engines and the hindsight and experience having the game for over 20 years brings.

===Speedrunning===
:''Main article: [[Speedrunning]]''

==Release and sales==

==Critical Reception==
Quake was critically acclaimed on the PC. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the original PC version 93.22% and 94/100, the Nintendo 64 port 76.14% and 74/100, and the Sega Saturn version 64.50%.

Less than a month after Quake was released (and a month before they actually reviewed the game), Next Generation listed it as number 9 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", saying that it is similar to Doom but supports a maximum of eight players instead of four. In 1996, Computer Gaming World listed "telefragged" as #1 on its list of "the 15 best ways to die in computer gaming". In 1997, the Game Developers Choice Awards gave Quake three spotlight awards for Best Sound Effects, Best Music or Soundtrack and Best On-Line/Internet Game.

==Legacy==
The source code of the ''Quake'' and ''[[QuakeWorld]]'' engines was licensed under the GPL on December 21, 1999. The id Software maps, objects, textures, sounds, and other creative works remain under their original proprietary license. The shareware distribution of ''Quake'' is still freely redistributable and usable with the GPLed engine code. One must purchase a copy of ''Quake'' in order to receive the registered version of the game which includes more single-player episodes and the [[deathmatch]] maps. Based on the success of the first ''Quake'' game, and later published ''[[Quake II]]'' and ''Quake III Arena''; ''Quake 4'' was released in October 2005, developed by Raven Software using the ''Doom 3'' engine.

''Quake'' was the game primarily responsible for the emergence of the machinima art form of films made in game engines, thanks to edited ''Quake'' demos such as ''Ranger Gone Bad'' and ''Blahbalicious'', the in-game film ''The Devil's Covenant'', and the in-game-rendered, four-hour epic film ''The Seal of Nehahra''. On June 22, 2006, it had been 10 years since the original uploading of the game to cdrom.com archives. Many Internet forums had topics about it, and it was a front-page story on Slashdot. On October 11, 2006, [[John Romero]] released the original map files for all of the levels in ''Quake'' under the GPL.

''Quake'' has four sequels, ''Quake II'', ''Quake III Arena'', ''Quake 4'', and ''Enemy Territory: Quake Wars''. In 2002, a version of ''Quake'' was produced for mobile phones. A copy of ''Quake'' was also released as a compilation in 2001, labeled ''Ultimate Quake'', which included the original ''Quake'', ''Quake II'', and ''Quake III Arena'' which was published by Activision. In 2008, ''Quake'' was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the art form of user modifiable games. John Carmack accepted the award. Years after its original release, ''Quake'' is still regarded by many critics as one of the greatest and most influential games ever made.
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Contents [hide]
1 History and development
2 Story
3 Gameplay
4 Release and sales
5 Extensibility
6 Negative reaction
7 Legal issues in Germany
8 Legacy
9 Episodes
10 Weapons
11 Monsters
12 See also
13 Sources
14 References
15 External links
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''This article is currently pending a significant rewrite due to its importance for the wiki, expect the current page to change drastically.''

[[Category:Games]]