that was fast 

mesh models count as brush primitives in d3 engines too... 

how big a deal would it be to increase the number of sound channels in Fitzquake? 

i don't know offhand. Could be really easy, unless there is a network protocol limitation involved. 

would that break compatibility is what your saying?

just cause i know other engines have that fixed, like tomazquake or, i'm pretty sure, aguire's engine.

one final question, what's the deal with packetoverflow? is there any way to get rid of that? 

I think that's also a network protocol limit. And yeah, the main issue is compatability. But also, just making sure it doesn't crash the game. 

those two issues are my major gripes with the quake engine these days. I hate how sounds will cut out in the heat of combat, or gibbing a ton of things makes all the models flicker.

It's not game breaking, but if there was a way, i'd really really appreciate it. :) 

To get rid of packet overflow, the better method I experimented is to use special progs.dat, like progs.dat I used in "Castle of The Dark Ages" (i.e CDA.bsp).
It was based on spawn64 progs.dat that has a corpse removal function, a special teleport/trigger function. The most important is monsters activation (i.e the way monsters appear in map) by trigger, according to the player progression ingame. So given that all the monsters are not present a at the same time, and that all dead bodies disappear in 5 seconds, you limit edicts count and also packet overflow.
I can only say that thank to aguirRe's help I was able to make something playable without too much problem (at least with FitzQuake)
I hope it will help you. 

I mirrored the full idgames2 from 3dgamers.
Including the planetquake folder of course.

http://www.quaddicted.com/idgames2/ 

i mean more like having 50 zombies in a room and not having pack overflow when i toss a grenade at them. 

Is that in beta yet?? ;P 

i'm not really mapping much these days. i was playing marcher again a couple of days ago, and got packet overflows on the last 2 battles (by the bell tower, and then after, when i got teleported to the ground) 

So AFAIK aguirRe's engine is the only one that can support such a massacre.. :D 

tomazquake, for one can handle huge amounts of entities on screen at the same time, as well as has extra sound channels.

i don't know if it is still compatible with other netquakes though.

there are probably more engines out there like this as well.

it's just one of those things that would be really nice to have if it could be done properly.
anyway, just rambling at this point. 

http://members.home.nl/gimli/Quakola.jpg 

Nice and interesting article. Well written. Where did you go? What have you been up to? What drove you from IRC and ESReality? The yellow teeth scandal? 

will we see you on "Darkness TV"?

I hope so. I am wet with anticipation as, I'm sure, is the rest of the world. 

Because the company would fall into financial ruin after purchasing a wide enough lens to fit my entire, fatty visage in one frame.
Or pay to have the Hubble reoriented. 

I still don't think there's any argument for games having bad game mechanics to 'enhance the story'. I don't get it - let me compare games to movies again:

You talked about movies that were no 'fun' but very emotional, but aren't all these movies EXCELLENT examples of directing, camera-work and acting - the equivalents of game mechanincs in film?

I seriously doubt you guys would have been as emotionally moved if those movies were directed by, say, an early peter jackson.

I always seem to be influenced most by games that let you FEEL what they want to express DURING GAMEPLAY. SS2, hl1, prey (utterly failing because it just showed pretty things instead of revealing important, working, logically connected stuff), can't think of any other examples. hl2 just had cutscenes you could walk through, NOT what i'm talking about.

And of course you won't immediately get the motivational impact you have with some movies. Imagine a movie completely shot out of first person perspective - it doesn't have that much of an impact (at first?).

Regarding Deus Ex: i remember playing this, found the first level kinda nice looking and then i can't even remember why i stopped playing this, probably because there was no further motivation for me to play this - ie. it was no fun AND no experiece. 

You talked about movies that were no 'fun' but very emotional, but aren't all these movies EXCELLENT examples of directing, camera-work and acting - the equivalents of game mechanincs in film?
Game mechanics are not movie directing, photography or acting.

The mechanics, or the design of play, is exactly what the non-interactive (movies) and the interactive (games) does not have in common. 

you lost all credibility when you said that Deus ex has no experience =)

Its one of the few games I recall where I was totally sucked into the experience and it made the game so much better. 

It's one of those games I feel I should have played through because everyone is raving about it but the thought of playing the begining of the game again puts me off. 

Agreed, the first level was pretty boring, especially if you are going at it with an Quake-like approach. Got great after that, atmosphere was so nice in that game despite what I thought were pretty poor visuals at times (and horrible model animations). 

you lost all credibility when you said that Deus ex has no experience =)

Word. Great game, great gameplay (in it's style), and one of the few that actually delivered what it promised. 

Game mechanics are not movie directing, photography or acting.

The mechanics, or the design of play, is exactly what the non-interactive (movies) and the interactive (games) does not have in common.

What I was arguing earlier is that the writing and directing, etc. of a movie is analagous to the game mechanics and design of a game becuase they are both the part of the work that the author has control over. Ideally, the author of a game shouldn't try to control things like plot and editing becuase that infringes on the player's role. Of course many existing games are hybrids that try to mix movie elements with game elements, so much so that we assume that's how games should be.