As a mapper, Nehahra is pretty close to my perfectly ideal engine in terms of features/effects added. i.e., tons of new entity functionality, but only minimal and tasteful graphical enhancements (If it had .lit, I'd be set for life. high quality textures I don't care for, they ruin the thematic consistency of quake. all those lovely shades of brown, yum)

So, I sorta vote for Neh/DP, but if you can make Fitzquake kick as much ass as Neh did, then go for it. 

there is already a Mac port of the Nehahra engine, so going that route nets you more potential players (and yes there are a few mac users that lurk these boards) 

fitzquake! 

I liked the skyboxes and fog too. Colored lighting's dangerous, but it can work when done peoperly.

I used to like darkplaces but now it runs too slow on my system and with the lack of documentation, it's a bitch to turn a lot of the features off.

As for fitzquake, it's not really a new engine as such so use it if you're going for the classic quake feel. I love the software emulated gl lighting, but personally wish it had model interpolation as I'm too used to the smooth animation to go back to the standard jerky stuff. 

Well, there is also another side to this. Chances are ... if it's built to run on Fitzquake, it will also run on other engines as there are not a lot of Fitzquake-specific things that other engines don't have that would cause a crash. Err, if you know what I mean.

I could just as easily get the same progs.dat to run all three engines ... those who like certain effects such as (just for an example) dynamic colored light (i.e. the gaunt boomerangs) can play it in Nehahra and see it, while it simply won't be there in fitz. Same with subtle use of transparent effects and other stuff. I can have the code check to see what engine is running quite easily too.

There's something to think about. Make it compatible to all three, hence pleasing the largest amount of people :D 

Im against fitzquake - it doesnt have animation interpolation and all monsters movements look jerky and fragmented.

I suggest you decide what features u want/need and just use an engine that accomodates.

AFAIK only nehara exe suports mod music (s3m, xm) and good ambient tracks enhance the atmosphere of a game. 

I like the idea of not requiring any specific engine, and instead just using the enhancements that are standard across engines. 

DarkPlaces, bitch. It's just better*.

* when it works 

but darkplaces can load q3 bsps. Im not saying that yay we all use 3 pass shaders for everything and make it crap but mappers would certainly get more freedom with the q3bsp map support. Though this wont be 100% compatible with other engines so bah :/

Good to know the project is moving forwards though, looking forward to it!

Dont remove the cutscenes! The nehahra cutscnes were great! I managed to watch the entire seal of nehahra, yeah it was too long =) but very interresting none the less.

And err, I think I speak for everyone when I say "Bring back teh ph1l!" :D 

I'd say if your going to use darkplaces, use its features as much as possible. Q3bsp, maybe some realtime lights, MD3 models, etc. Why does it matter if it won't run on all engines if it is a standalone game? 

nt 

'Why Not Just Do The Whole Thing In Q3 Then?'

1) DarkPlaces is a more advanced engine that clocks better on Q3 material (bsp, md3) than Q3.
2) Programming in QuakeC or MindCrimes Pascal Hybrid is a piece of cake compared to programming for Quake Arena.
3) you take all commercial considerations out as a factor. A total conversion would cost the end user nothing except in the time to download.
4) in my sujective opinion there appears to be more activity these days in the Quake scene than the Quake 3 scene. 

That's pretty much solely based upon this board I'll bet. :-) 

Well, if you include Urban Terror, Generations Arena and the rest of the team based mod community in the argument, I am waayyy, wayyy, off base, but for vanilla Q3 Arena, I've noticed a drop off of activity in forums and play. 

making a q3sp game will go the way of CF. :P

you'd have to make AI pretty much from scratch which would probably take a long time. 

Don't bother arguing that one ...
Really ...

I don't do Q3. It's bad for you :P 

Mindcrime: So is smoking... ;P 

yes, it should be self-evident as mindcrime says.

for a single player project of this nature;

Q1 is 1000 times > Q3. 

q3 does have all the cool engine things like hint and detail (and caulk) and such... i don't know if it's possible, but if it is, and seeing as this is a tc, you could try to code that into the q1 engine... but i don't know anything about that. 

be able to run on 8mb of ram..

thats the important part 

'... i don't know if it's possible, but if it is, and seeing as this is a tc, you could try to code that into the q1 engine'

Dark Places, man. Ydnars q3map2 can autocaulk the hell out of a map. 

Before this leads to a pointless off topic discussion, I realize the phrase I threw out 'autocaulk' can cause some confusion (since it was made up off the cuff, so to speak, by, errrr, me).

Caulking with Q3map2 involves areaportals, antiportals and other brushes that are specific to Q3map2, and is not done as implied, 'automatically'.

I was referring to the -meta function which decomposes brushes and then regroups them more effeciently than is done by other means. Not actually caulking but it does increase a maps performance nevertheless, and who isn't for increased performance, eh? 

I've updated the Obscurus website. Though if you happened to see it before, you won't see much new ...

http://www.planetquake.com/nehahra/obs

I think it needs different graphics, more in line with the feel of Obscurus, and ...

well Nightmare Interactive sounds lame ...

However simple and to the point! 

"Finally (for now), there will be those who cannot conceive of why someone would build a game on the Quake engine as there are so many more "advanced" engines to choose from. This, fundamentally, is an artistic choice. "

I don't understand this at all. The engine has nothing to do with the art unless your using quake1 or another games content. I wouldn't suggest using realtime lights, because I understand you don't want that plastic feel. But there are still many many reasons to use an engine like darkplaces. Darkplaces runs levels faster, better with newer hardware, and tons of other great features which have nothing to do with eyecandy (scripted menus, video switching, md3 model tags, etc). With a better engine you can increase the gameplay by having much bigger levels, much more monsters and such possible. It doesn't have to be all eyecandy. 

A lot of the site content was written 2 years ago :P

However, what engine you choose to build on *is* an artistic choice. And the word 'art' is a broad term that covers more than just the literal artwork. Whether you draw what you wish to express, or sculpt it in clay, is an artistic choice. What kind of clay you use is an artistic choice. If you draw it, what pencils or paper you use, or what paint and canvas you use, and etc, is an artistic choice. Whether you wish to tell a story with a book or a screenplay, or a cartoon or machinima or clay-mation or a movie, is a fookin' artistic choice. :P Whatever means of expression you use to convey what is in your mind to other people is an artistic choice.

In short: Bite me.

:)