RANGER/QUAKE LORE

[Anonymous No.6441363]

Why doesn't Quake 1 have more lore? The setting and use of Cthulu mythos which was the idea of Sandy Petersen is ripe for it, but even fucking Doom has more established lore than Quake.

[Anonymous No.6441384]

>>6441363
Carmack no like lore

[Anonymous No.6441391]

>>6441384
Well he sure the fuck fooled me with Doom 3 and Rage

[Anonymous No.6441439]

>>6441363
I asked myself the same thing. I really love the world Quake plays in, and it's a huge part of why I prefer it to Doom in regards to singleplayer. But perhaps the fact that there's so little the game tells you about it just makes it even more effective.

[Anonymous No.6441454]

>>6441439
I agree to a certain extent, the whole unknowable unfathomable evil thing is intergral to Cthulu lore and I see the appeal of it being so mysterious but there should really be a pay off, some kind of at least conciliatory lore for players who want it.

There was a pretty cool comic book made for Quake Champions that got cancelled after 3 issues, but the first was about Ranger. Recommended, as we have to take what we can get in regards to Quake lore

Full comic can be read here:
https://imgur.com/gallery/SnmnG

[Anonymous No.6441514]

>>6441363
Because the game that became Quake was kind of a hurried compromise after a protracted time of stunted development. It was going to be an open world fantasy RPG, which barely got anywhere aside from graphical assets (hence a lot of the medieval fantasy looking stuff), they just wanted to get a game out the door and be done with the project already, so they said "Oh fuck it! Let's just make a shooter like Doom again and move on!"

These were unhappy times at the iD office in Dallas, people were not getting along, and Romero, who wanted to do the medieval fantasy RPG thing, felt creatively stifled and repressed. Partially this was because Romero himself was stalling and underperforming as a project lead (so others felt like they were just spinning their wheels doing little to nothing), however, a big part of this was also because Carmack was tearing his hair out trying to make the software 3D engine function like it should, it took much more time than Doom's rendering did.

Effectively, nobody gave the lore much thought at all, and wanted to move on as quick as they could, there was no thoughts about promotional comics or novelizations like there was with Doom.
That we got a really fun game out of it I think has to do with the creative talents of all the people involved in making it, in spite of hurriedly hammering this big compromise together out of obligation, and the reason it's so weird and cool in its setting and presentation I think is because of its fractured and troubled development cycle.

[Anonymous No.6441520]

>>6441363
sometimes less is more. quake 1 is evocative because it is cryptic. massive lore dumps kill the mystery

[Anonymous No.6441527]

>>6441363
Quake 1 was a tech demo. id took so long getting the engine perfected that they had like 2 weeks left at the end to slap a game together around it. They couldn't even afford to take the time to properly UVmap textures onto most of the enemies, it was just all "shit shit shit, just draw a dog in 3/4ths perspective and flat project it onto a dog model we aint got time for any of this we gotta ship YESTERDAY". The guns in Quake suck, and if they didn't have the time to get the GUNS in an FPS right then they damn sure didn't have time to come up with no fuckin lore.

[Anonymous No.6441531]

>>6441391
Those are Tim Willits games, not John Carmack games.

[Anonymous No.6441532]

>>6441520
I agree, actually. There should be some lore, to tease your imagination and get it going, but there should only be a little, so that you're not left with complete answers or pictures.

[Anonymous No.6441549]

>>6441391
John Carmack never had all that much to do with the creative side of things of game development. I don't know if it's true, but I've heard it said that he vetoed the original Call Of Duty-like build of Doom 4, which eventually (after he left) was butchered for some assets to be used in the actual Doom 4 that we got. Supposedly saying something along the lines of "Doom is supposed to be about shotguns and demons."

This is hearsay, mind.

[Anonymous No.6441565]

>>6441454
Cool stuff, thanks for sharing

[Anonymous No.6442259]

>>6441565
No problem, yeah it is cool as fuck. I think there just wasn't interest in the other characters in a comic that was already a niche video game tie in, the best selling issue was this one and it wasn't great either, by issue 3 it was cancelled and the story for issue 4 was combined with 3.

[Anonymous No.6442279]

>>6441549
I could see him shooting it down, but the robot Carmack that is devoid of emotion and interest in anything but code is a meme, as the original Quake was an NPC played by Carmack, he was the DM of the guys Dungeons and Dragons campaign (the same one that ended up invaded by demons which became an inspiration for Doom), he was this ultra bas ass Thor type super high level with a giant hammer that would show up very rarely to help the player characters out. He was part of some mercenary group that worked for a group called Justice, and that was the original plan for Quake: The Quest for Justice. Obviously that didn't happen but Carmack was into metal and D&D and horror movies and Nintendo and all the shit the other iD guys were. He was quite callous to others when he was younger and hard to deal with and he has acknowledged that and chilled out alot since then.

[Anonymous No.6442286]

>>6442279
Yeah, he's not a sociopath, he's just autistic.
Would have been really cool to have been a fly on the wall during their D&D sessions.

[Anonymous No.6442314]

>>6442286
Oh I bet they were awesome - he has always said creating virtual worlds was his goal and it is no surprise he was always DM, just like the code he would write was effectively DM of the games

[Anonymous No.6442434]

Based Ranger

[Anonymous No.6442447]

If you haven't heard Nightmare, Ranger's theme, you should because its fucking bad ass and captures the character perfectly:

https://youtu.be/2WTyyCfT2VI

[Anonymous No.6442470]

Quake Champions included lore items and there was a 10 part bio on him that is official and canon

You can read all the entries here:
http://churchofquake.com/lore/ranger-lore/

[Anonymous No.6443117]

I think it's autism, but I just really love Quake 1, I don't even like any other Quake games since they're either online only or focus on the Strogg shit, and I even prefer it to DOOM 1&2 depsite it being objectively inferior. I just like the bhopping, the level design, the enemies, i dunno whats wrong with me bros

[Anonymous No.6443129]

>>6443117
>objectively inferior to DOOM 1 & 2
Is this the consensus? I always preferred Quake's mechanics but I figured Doom had such enduring popularity due to it's WAD scene moreso than it being better than Quake.

[Anonymous No.6443141]

>>6443129
shooting things in DOOM just feels better because enemies aren't spongy, even the SSG in Quake doesn't feel powerful to shoot
I think Quake should've gotten the DOOM 2 treatment which is basically the same game but rectifies the issues present in the first game and adds more content, but we got that 20 years later with Arcane Dimensions so eh

[Anonymous No.6443215]

>>6441454
Interesting read, thanks for the link.

>>6442447
Pretty cool track; made good use of the original motifs, especially for being such a genre swap.

>>6443129
I think the Doom games also have an advantage in their enemy rosters. Doom enemies can be combined in interesting ways, yielding varied and complex combat scenarios at short to long ranges. The enemies in quake mostly only work well around short range, are harder to combine in amounts more than a handful, and don't necessarily combine well.

The art styles in both are pretty cool, but Doom also has the advantage in that it has both bright and dark tile sets, whereas I seem to recall Quake pretty much only having dark ones, which can feel repetitive. I know it has a few bright tiles, but not nearly enough to make varied maps from.

[Anonymous No.6443316]

>>6441363
Because it didn't need it and no one really cared. Which is a shame because I LOVE Quake 1's aesthetics way more than 2

[Anonymous No.6443412]

>>6441363
If I'd today tried to fill out the lore of Q1, I'd probably hate it. I already hate what they've done with doomguy's lore and I can't imagine them being any better with Quake.

[Anonymous No.6443423]

>>6443412
I can tolerate Doom 4's lore if I just assume that it's a completely different continuity. Not that Doom was ever very heavy on the lore, but you were basically always Just A Guy (a Doomguy) who happens to be mankind's best warrior, rather than whatever kind of ageless Heracles entity that is Doomslayer.

Haven't played Eternal yet, but I've heard some pretty mixed things.

[Anonymous No.6443452]

>>6443423
I think its implied in Eternal that Slayer is the same doomguy in the other games, not just 2016..

Eternal kind of doubles down on the whole divine, god of war like Kratos explanation for doomguy. In some cut dialogue there's implications he got his "powers" from some alien angel-like creatures or some shit, and there's cutscenes where some ghost king who talks about his prophecy or some shit that I honestly felt was written for 14 year olds on Xbox. The further along they take it the more they take it from the "just a guy" to whatever he is now.

[Anonymous No.6443464]

>>6443452
>I think its implied in Eternal that Slayer is the same doomguy in the other games
I know, but I don't like that idea.

>Eternal kind of doubles down on the whole divine, god of war like Kratos explanation for doomguy. In some cut dialogue there's implications he got his "powers" from some alien angel-like creatures or some shit, and there's cutscenes where some ghost king who talks about his prophecy or some shit that I honestly felt was written for 14 year olds on Xbox.
That's kind of the impression I get, and what I kind of rue, even though the story doesn't matter much. It'd have been better if they'd just have left that at where it was in 2016 and let the people who really like that crap fill it in with their own imagination.

[Anonymous No.6443850]

>>6443412
Have you read the Quake Champions comic? Because that's pretty much what it does.

[Anonymous No.6443971]

>>6443129
Doom has more appeal and quickly became classic a few short years after release. The aesthetics, gameplay, monster design and soundtrack are the best of the best. The only soundtrack that rivals it in terms of absolute bangers is Quake 2.

Quake 1, while I personally am very fond of it not in small part due to my history with it, just doesn't have the same appeal. I also hate Reznors ambienshit soundtrack, I just don't like it.

As a side note, the guy who did the soundtrack for Quake 2, Sonic Mayhem, also did an alternate soundtrack for Quake 1. It was sending this in to Romero in 96 that got him the job doing Quake 2s soundtrack. It's called Methods of Destruction and only bits and pieces leaked for years and he was reluctant to talk about or release it because it was his first project and he was embarassed by it (it actually kicks ass but many artists are like this with early work). It eventually leaked, thanks to Romero who had a friend who still had a copy, and Sonic Mayhem eventually relented after the fact and said he was cool with it being out there.

Playing Quake 1 feels so much better to me using this soundtrack and is more the style one would expect from iD.

You can download it here:
http://p-l-m.blogspot.com/2012/04/sonic-mayhem-methods-of-destruction.html

Or the whole thing is on YouTube, this is the first track. (It's the only one that has voice samples like this also but I think it works):
https://youtu.be/Qxrf0mF7J78

[Anonymous No.6443973]

>>6443850
There were only 3 issues but I linked to the Ranger issue here: >>6441454

[Anonymous No.6443997]

>>6443215
Glad you liked the song... Funnily enough I was so impressed by it I thought it was official from Quake Champions for awhile... I have an mp3 of it labeled as such. I don't play QC so I didn't know. Only when I downloaded the actual QC ost and noticed it wasn't there did I go back and realize it was an original theme this guy made. I don't think id would go wrong hiring this dude and Andrew Hulshult since their relationship with Mick Gordan shit the bed very publically recently over the Eternal ost

[Anonymous No.6443998]

Because Carmack has always crippled everything he's ever laid his hands on.

[Anonymous No.6444009]

>>6443998
>Because Carmack has always crippled everything he's ever laid his hands on.
Seeth, Sweeney.

[Anonymous No.6444030]

>>6444009
Do you really think I'm Tim Sweeney, Anon?

[Anonymous No.6444032]

>>6444030
Are you?

[Anonymous No.6444035]

>>6444032
It's Ken Silverman

[Anonymous No.6444046]

>>6444032
Why would you think a man worth roughly 7.2 billion dollars would waste his time on /vr/?

[Anonymous No.6444054]

>>6444046
It was a joke friend, calm your autism.

And you could still be him, how the fuck do I know?

[Anonymous No.6444120]

>>6444054
>And you could still be him, how the fuck do I know?
Do you routinely accuse random anons of being Shigeru Miyamoto too?

[Anonymous No.6444131]

>>6444120
You could be Gary Glitter for all I know

[Anonymous No.6444701]

>>6443117
>>6443129
Quake feels pretty different in many significant regards, Doom is my all time favorite, but Quake isn't Doom, and that's one of the reasons I love it.

>>6443971
A big part of Doom's lasting appeal is how gradually the system requirements have become basically nothing, and for the fact that it's pretty damn easy to mod and map for it (and of course the inherently solid core gameplay).
Wasn't too easy to mod for it at first, and it actually took some blood, sweat, and tears to make good maps with the early tools available, but the source code was released in like 97' or 99', and modding exploded from there, you would also have much superior mapping tools by then and people were really starting to make some amazing stuff.

[Anonymous No.6444745]

>>6444701
>but Quake isn't Doom, and that's one of the reasons I love it.
Quake isn't even a finished game, how could you?

[Anonymous No.6444770]

>>6444745
Because even if it's still a little raw on the left side, fundamentally it's still a very fun game with fun levels and very cool visuals and themes.

[Anonymous No.6444802]

>>6444770
This iD software we're talking about: I expected more than that for my time (and the levels of endless hype).

[Anonymous No.6444819]

>>6444802
See >>6441514
It's a miracle that a good game came out of it.

[Anonymous No.6444870]

>>6444701
>A big part of Doom's lasting appeal is how gradually the system requirements have become basically nothing
*Laughs in GZDoom*

[Anonymous No.6444872]

>>6444819
>It's a miracle that a good game came out of it.
Is it good if it's only 2/3s finished, Anon?

[Anonymous No.6444948]

>>6444870
GzDoom has built up to far more advanced features and to allow some modern graphical features.
There's a lighter weight fork of it available, however.

Also it's 2020, how old is your computer that it can't handle GzDoom on low settings? Having an old computer for old games is one thing, but advanced sourceports like these are kind of transcending that part.

[Anonymous No.6444951]

>>6444872
Yes.

[Anonymous No.6444968]

>>6444951
Then we'll just have to agree to disagree, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.6444986]

>>6444948
Nigga, GZDoom can't run on old computers because the main developer is a bitch with low spec people, i mean it's really necesary OpenGL 3.0 + a 3.0GHz cpu to run a old ass game?

[Anonymous No.6445004]

>>6444986
Not to mention they constantly break shit in vanilla. It is a great irony that if I just wanted to play some motherfucking Doom, GZDoom is the worst sourceport to do it in.

[Anonymous No.6445015]

>>6445004
>advanced sourceport which totes being able to do advanced scripting and modern graphical features along with modifying almost whatever you want
>wtf why isn't it focused on an authentic vanilla experience???!
You want Chocolate Doom or Crispy Doom.

[Anonymous No.6445027]

>>6444872
The only things I really find wanting in Quake, besides the soundtrack of course - are the lack of lore, alot of the miniscule amount we even have today was filled in years after the fact. Ranger didn't even have an official name until Q3A. The other thing, though minor, is the weapon models and animations. I hate that style that shows no hands and no cocking/reloading animation for shotguns. I think it was because the arm part of the models looked wonky at that early stage in the game (they sort of do even in Quake 2) but that is just a guess. Doom 64 also has this style and I fucking hate it, though it is good overall.

[Anonymous No.6445036]

>>6445004
> It is a great irony that if I just wanted to play some motherfucking Doom, GZDoom is the worst sourceport to do it in.
?????????????
>iss iwonic dat yuuuzin a pawt mayde moastlee 4 yuuzin advansud scwiptin tekneeks dat downt exest in da origunul gayme dont play like origunul
>durr me want play doom in vanilla way, do me pick chocolate doom? no, me pick geezee
>eats own shit
this is you

[Anonymous No.6445038]

>>6445015
>You want Chocolate Doom or Crispy Doom.
It was originally touted as the successor to ZDoom. And if it weren't run by a hack, they could cover both use-cases well enough.

[Anonymous No.6445056]

>>6445038
>zdoom, a port explicitly designed to break the limits of doom and not for vanilla playthroughs
>?????????? Y SUCCESOR NOT VANILE???

[Anonymous No.6445085]

>>6445004
Ironically, DarkPlaces takes the same road as GZDoom, and can run on REALLY low end hardware I have a Intel Atom based netbook, and Darkplaces with Quake Nehahra runs butter-smooth in it

[Anonymous No.6445103]

>>6445056
>>6445036
You sound completely deranged. Are YOU the developer, by any chance? If so you've done a terrible job of upholding the ZDoom legacy.

[Anonymous No.6445128]

>>6445038
>It was originally touted as the successor to ZDoom
Because ZDoom ended development, and GzDoom kept developing and becoming more advanced. People were always mainly interested in ZDoom and GzDoom for advanced features like true scripting.

Go get LZDoom, that is what you want, it has lower system specs.

[Anonymous No.6445130]

>>6445004
What did they break?

>>6443998
He's the reason Doom and Quake were at all possible on the technical side.

[Anonymous No.6445143]

>>6445130
>He's the reason Doom and Quake were at all possible on the technical side.
And both sound so much more interesting before he takes his fucking hatchet to them.

[Anonymous No.6445147]

>>6445128
>Go get LZDoom, that is what you want, it has lower system specs.
I'm good, I only play Heretic/Hexen.

[Anonymous No.6445151]

>>6445143
Takes his hatchet on them? What the fuck did he hatchet out of Doom that was of substance? It sure as fuck wasn't Carmack alone who vetoed Tom's ideas, more than anything it was Romero who pushed for change in direction (and his insistence would lead to the need for implementing BSP, which would enable the game to have the advanced geometry that it did at the time).
For Quake, it was just as much Romero's fault as it was Carmack's.

[Anonymous No.6445152]

>>6445147
Oh, my condolences.

[Anonymous No.6445172]

>>6445151
None of that is strictly true. Next time you could at least provide some basic sources to back your shit up.

[Anonymous No.6445191]

>>6445172
Read Masters of Doom

[Anonymous No.6445197]

>>6445172
What part isn't true?

[Anonymous No.6445386]

>>6445172
Have you read Masters of Doom, nigger? Everything here is pretty spot on.

[Anonymous No.6445406]

>>6441514
Based and informative post, anon, comfy as fuck. Thank you.

[Anonymous No.6445467]

>>6445191
>>6445197
>>6445386
>romero can't start designing the game
>carmack won't quit fucking with the 3d engine
How is that Romero being at fault again? Not to mention it was Carmack who insisted they keep the ship date, which was ridiculous at that point.
>tom comes up with doom bible
>romero pitches a shitfit
>carmack pitches a shitfit
>doom bible trashed
>carmack doesn't want to add secrets and shit like ROTT had
>didn't even want to add them for ROTT
And at this point you can see him playing a charismatic-but-clueless Romero off of Tom Hall to force Tom out of the company he co-founded.

It will never cease to amaze me the amount of excuses people make for this manipulative asshole of a man. Every game he got his hands on became more of a sterile techdemo for it.

[Anonymous No.6445626]

>>6445036
based spergposter

[Anonymous No.6445809]

>>6445467
>How is that Romero being at fault again?
Because it's an RPG at this point, and where is the story, where is the world, where are the characters, where are the locations? He had hastily scribbled down a single one-sided sheet of stuff as a design document, which gives people little to go on in terms of making the game.
What kind of levels/areas do we make?
What kind of characters do we need?
What kind of quests do we write and plan out?

It'd be unlike Doom which was pretty much just abstract levels with no linked progression or focus on story, and with no abstract objectives, you would need much more planning and execution.

>it was Carmack who insisted they keep the ship date, which was ridiculous at that point
Fair, but they also had very little of substance close to the intended release, and that's still a problem, and it means that the current goal wasn't working.

>carmack won't quit fucking with the 3d engine
Trying to make it render correctly (there were problems with planes being randomly absent), doesn't preclude experimenting with making your world meanwhile, if the specs change for what's possible once the engine is stable the levels can be altered for them.
On Doom, Romero made level geometry which the initial engine simply could not render (pic related), forcing Carmack to research and develop Binary Space Partitioning, and him pushing the boundaries of what their software could do lead to the software developing further to accommodate it.
Could a similar problem have slowed development more? Possibly, but I'll concede that the release date was needlessly rigid, however this was the result of Romero actually working with and developing for the game, which he was doing much less of with Quake.

[Anonymous No.6445867]

>>6445467
>tom comes up with doom bible
>romero pitches a shitfit
>carmack pitches a shitfit
>doom bible trashed
The bible was written under the assumption that Doom would employ a sort of hypothetical continuous hub world, which would turn out to not be technologically feasible, they instead worked for a time on separate maps linked with hubs, until on Romero's initiative they moved away from this.
Tom had stuck with his guns on realistic military bases, which in reality are boring concrete boxes, and would do little if anything to show off the engine and look too similar to Wolfenstein 3D, and Romero insisted on a change in direction for more abstract levels which would be more interesting to explore and look at.

The bible wasn't thrown out in one moment, it was gradually moved away from until it was realized by the rest of the guys that they wanted to develop the game into a different direction much removed from it.

>carmack doesn't want to add secrets and shit like ROTT had
>didn't even want to add them for ROTT
What? Do you mean Wolfenstein 3D? Yeah, he thought he couldn't make pushwalls render cleanly so he didn't want to include them, but Tom and Romero would ask him about it over and over until he realized from their insistence that it was important and devised a way to make them work.
There's multiple times of this happening too, teleporters and flying enemies in Doom came about much the same way, so clearly he's not as inflexible as you want to suggest.

For ROTT, that came out of the aborted Wolfenstein 2 developed by Apogee, where Tom moved on to, it was probably Carmack who had expanded on that engine a bit (adding all its new features) and added .wad support, but he was busy with working further on Doom. He sure wasn't objecting to implementing features which were already in the engine, or could easily be adapted from existing features of said engine.

[Anonymous No.6447440]

>>6443971
You almost read like an advertisement bot at this point.

[Anonymous No.6447462]

>>6447440
Sometimes I wonder just how much of the interaction on 4chan is genuine.

[Anonymous No.6447585]

>>6447440
Why do you say that? I wrote that post yesterday.

[Anonymous No.6447604]

>>6441363
Lore is stupid and only leads to autistic fanbase

[Anonymous No.6448571]

>>6447604
This isn't true at all, it gives the property more depth and longevity.

[Anonymous No.6450754]

[Anonymous No.6450768]

>>6450754
CRAAAAWLING IN MY SHIIIIIT, THIS SPHIIIINCTER WILL NOT HEEEEEAL!

[Anonymous No.6451082]

Ranger VS Doomguy to the death

Who wins from a lore perspective? Who wins from a gameplay perspective?⅞

[Anonymous No.6451721]

>>6447440
Why would advertisers give a fuck about /vr/ at all? Nearly all the games people talk about on here are dead franchises or radically different from the modern titles in their respective series, not to mention it's a slow board
If this were /v/ I could at least give you the benefit of the doubt since that place is shill central

[Anonymous No.6451730]

lore is cringe
the "story" in doom 2016 and doom eternal is fucking terrible.

[Anonymous No.6452421]

>>6441520
>>6447604
this and this