therealthan> Also, would one of you raven employees like to explain why everyone knew about the plot twist before the game was even released, and how people at Raven feel about it generally?

i didn't know, but frankly, i wish i had - as i was completely frustrated until it. i even considered to stop playing - but i wanted to check out the amazing graphics, so i gave it another shot.

someone should release a mod which skips the lame vehicle parts in the single player campaign. 

The final boss fight was a joke. Didn't even die once....... This was on normal skill mind you

I found there was a GREAT difference between Normal and Hard Skill (whatever there Quake4 equivalents are, corporal/lieutenant wahtever) in the final boss fight. My first play through was on hard, and second time through I went normal, and on normal I could just basically stand there and blast away and that was that, not so on Hard 

Also, would one of you raven employees like to explain why everyone knew about the plot twist before the game was even released,

If you mean turning into a Strogg, it heavily featured in the promo video clip, released, presumably, by Raven.

If there's another twist, I dunno.

Now if Amazon would HURRY THE CUNT UP AND POST MY FUCKING GAME "DISPATCHED IN 24 HOURS MY COCK" THEN I MIGHT ACTUALLY KNOW... 

 

because it's somewhat of a gameplay feature aswell as a twist. They needed to say -something- to get peoples attention, and I think it worked.

Though yes, it would have worked very well as a surprise too. 

how does it actually affect gameplay ? 

looking forward to this - I'll prolly play it in about a month I'm guessing. I agree with others in that I value the feedback from actual Quake fans (i.e. you guys) much more so than the agenda-filled shit you read in the media reviews.

Not over the moon about all the story/cutscene bollocks though. Carmack has actually said in his own words that he feels it's a shame that when you make a game nowadays, you basically have to make a B-movie as well, and they can't just concentrate on what makes a game, well, a game.

In a similar vein, I'm guessing they felt they had to put vehicles in just because it's what their consumers expect from an FPS now. It's a shame because I always feel that the Quake series should be "pure" - free from cruft and just concentrating on the very essence of FPS. 

You run faster, you reload faster, you get 25% more health and armor, you can use strogg health stations scattered around the world, and (I might just be imagining this though) the text on the strogg monitors becomes readable. 

SPOLIER
about the text on the strogg monitors: you can actually see the text changing when the brain 'something' implant is being made on the monitor where the brain scan is displayed. The stroggification is well designed after that (hud changes, move faster), I loved the fact that you could hear both strogg and marine radio transmittions. Noticed on the second run through the game. It really should be played on hard once you get used to the weapons. 

if that would make him do things the way they want instead of "what they have to". 

Lunaran, someone told me you were responsible for Lost Fleet. Thank you! The map is great, it's the best of the out-of-box maps, I just had a 2vs2 on it and quake 4 felt like a completely different game. 

Yay! Most of the maps seem nicely clipped 'n' caulked, shouldn't take me too much time to slap in some botclip and shake that sexy aas.
Oh except for q4dm2 terrain mesh will make baby bot cry :(, I will need to do a bit oh work on that.
A chunk of patch on stairs of the edge too, no problem.
Patch stairs on ctf1 should be ok after a quick n nasty botclip wedge.
And finally ctf3 with a few patch floor edges to brick up.
I would say it gives me something to do while waiting for sdk, but I've allready got plenty to do and don't mind if the raven lads take your time :P
I don't know if I'll spend that much time on my bot, a quick port in the very least. I do know of some more experienced bot authors lined up to have a crack at their own. So people won't have to put up with the retardedness of my bot (if they don't want to). 

finished the game, liked it alot! everything rocks there.

sometimes american soldier bots blocked my way, but that's ok. and i wish the main hero betrayed humans and joined stroggs and didn't destroy their main brain... personally, i didn't want to destroy it... 

Just getting the shit setting up right.

Firstly - I've solved a problem with using the zoom / alt fire mode crashing the game - updated video drivers so was obviously a problem that the old drivers didn't support the visual faggotry zoom mode entails.

Secondly - the god-fucking-cunting-awful headbob, I can't believe that put something this awful in a game but there you go. I've half-solved this by adding the following commands:

seta pm_bobpitch "0"
seta pm_bobroll "0"
seta pm_bobup "0"
seta pm_crouchbob "0"
seta pm_runbob "0"
seta pm_runpitch "0"
seta pm_runroll "0"
seta pm_walkbob "0"

to the Quake4config file. BUT each time Q4 quits, it resets that config file and removes those commands. So I have to copy and paste them in each time before playing.

Anyone got any ideas how to get those commands in permanently??

Thirdly - anyone know how to reduce the HUD size?? Looked on the Cvar list here: http://hwspirit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=129 but couldn't find nowt?? 

Er... put those commands into autoexec.cfg like you would do with any Quake-engine game?


...Duh 

Oh yeah silly me, I should have known that Quake 4 would function in exactly the same way as all the other Quakes as it's so similar in engine and in how things function, and remember exactly how I got commands to work with previous Quakes from the last time I had to tinker around with such stuff which was only 7 years ago with Quake 2 WHATEVER THANKS GENIUS. 

write-protecting config.cfg?
that was an old q1 trick too. 

But the thing that made my draw drop in the game was quite sadly enough a rather mundane and boring shot...

In the opening cinematic, there is a shot where all the marines are sitting down in the dropship before it is hit, the lighting, the models, texturing makes it look pre-rendered like a cgi movie from just a few years ago. 

Only the brushwork. Someone else laid it out originally.

And czg's right about the spoiler.

And that's all I'm going to say from here on out. 

Is mentioned on the box and the manual ffs _<_><><_>_ 

In the multiplayer mode for people who jumped there first you have the Stroggified Kane model.

I actually liked knowing the spoiler was coming up, it meant that I kept on waiting for it to happen in various fights and made them more tense. 

Game becomes alot more enjoyable after that spoiler... =) Was too damn slow before, should have happened earlier...
I'm definatly enjoying this more than Doom3, although the atmosphere isn't quite as nice, and the progression is very linear. 

yeah, It's just like Doom3 in this respect, with less dark corners and some side doors to open just to find a dead end.
Still no ambushes while crouching, and still NO secrets. I remember when re-playing q2 I was thrilled to find the secret level which took you into a space ship, did not find it the first time I ran through the game.
But this deserves it's own thread (what was wrong/could have been done better in Q4 SP); I think some of the enemy sounds could have been improved, I loved the old sound of the iron maiden from q2. 

normal fps bits are fun (thats where you`r on your foot and indoors)
wehicles/target practice parts fail
and outdoor looks bleh for the most part
indoor levels are nice, I like the lighting

monstes are nothing exciting so far , except huge red spiders

overall, this game reminded me of Elite force1/2 (by Raven/ritual) rather than quake
I dont really mind squadmates. Not bad attempt at making player feel involved into a military operation and AI is quite good

performance:
Game runs like shit on the older hardware
-ati 9600xt some slowdowns even in 640x480
-ati 9800 some bad FPS in 800x600, ok in 640x480
-fx5900 medium/800x600 with rare slowdowns
(no AA/aniso there ofcourse)

and at settings low/640x480 it just looks ugly
(no wonder)
gameplay is quite faster than in d3 and when u get fps drops in combat and cant aim - its just not fun. Im enjoying Qfour much more after changing 9600xt to fx5900 and o/c my ram+cpu slightly 

But it does have secrets! I've found quite a few armor health stashes etc that are hidden away(doesn't tick off a counter though.) No secret levels either as far as I have found.