my mate was working on that for PS2 when I was at Rebellion. Rebellion was trying to get the contract and actually, what he was doing looked REALLY similar. That's cool though, I hope they are taking it in the same direction he was trying to. The no hud thing sounds great. 

Getting rid of modern effects in fuhquake: Run it with -no24bit in the command line.

QW is best when you are playing somebody of your skill level. It's fun when both suck and it's fun when both rock (except when people camp).
It's not fun to play against someone that is 1000 times better than you (a very regular experience in QW if you go to a random server).
I can't stress it enough. Don't stop QW if you keep only getting minus frags, but seek a fun opponent with whom you can play. It's great that way.

So play friends.

Best way to learn QW is to play duels. Most servers use ktpro or ktx qwprogs. These make it easy to use the servers for regular players, no admin rights required.

Type ready to start the map and dm2 to change to dm2, timedown to reduce match time limit, dmm3 to set dm mode where weapons stay etc. Usually the server has an alias called 1on1 to set 1on1 game defaults. So just type 1on1, then dm2, then ready to get a duel game going on .
Then play 2on2s in dmm3 and finally 4on4 dmm1 (weapons don't stay).

Nowadays there are newbie friendly organizations in place, like #qwnewbie on quakenet and stuff on quakeworld.nu or linked from there. If I remember right. There are lots of cool services.

You can also spectate (you can use qwtv too) a few games or watch a few demos to just gape in awe at the god-like moves the stars pull off at times. Riker, Fix or Paradoks just to mention some names. I don't know who's the hottest name nowadays. 

since QW is such a fast game, after the first few games I'd suggest spending some time on the mouse settings and configuration. I use -dinput on the client cmdline. I also use a Hz hack in windows to up the mouse refresh rate. And have a CRT running at about 85 Hz (set on client's command line again). I don't know about modern LCD:s, they're probably fine, might require settings though. There are some other variables too but I don't remember them offhand (don't use m_filter tho).

Once you have it all clear and smooth, other games feel like total crap, so this is a double edged sword. 

Gimme a gun and I'll shoot stuff.
I just like deathmatch! I also like playing against people who just kill me because it makes me better (and bald)

I'll have to have a proper look into it, but at the moment I know nothing, so I'll probably take a while to find something which I'm comfortable with... 

that what ive installed. it sems ok, I went on some FFA server in Europe, cant remember which one. er... there was one map with IKBase textures in it... that one was OK, but got killed loads on DM6, and my ping was 135 :-| 

is there a bug which makes the refreshrate needing to be changed form 60 every time you load (I want 75)?

I cant seem to save it. 

It works for me at home now (it's always on 75 for me) but I vaguely recall having to mess around a bit to get it to force the setting on every time.

I don't think it will simply remember the higher value and re-enable it next time (this is possibly intended, so you don't get stuck with an invalid/bad refresh rate?)

Setting it via the command line, adding it to your .cfg files or a combination of both is probably required. I'll check when I get home to see if I can remember how to do it. :) 

that'd be great. It seems ot stay in the config.cfg file till the next load when it gets overwritten back to 60 at startup. 

Put all of your video settings in autoexec.cfg followed by vid_restart, and that should set you straight. Like this (though take out or change any commands you don't want, of course):

vid_vsync "1"
vid_fullscreen "1"
vid_bpp "32"
vid_width "1280"
vid_height "1024"
vid_refreshrate "75"
vid_vsync "1"
vid_restart

The downside of this is that I think it makes the game take a little bit longer to start (since it's doing the vid_restart after it's loaded) but it's not a major drama.

Also, I just noticed I have the same command in there twice... good work me. 

Serious Sam - That was pretty fast wasnt it. I have that game, and I think its fun to play! Its also pretty surreal. Let down a bit by level design and general stupidness, its not a very intellectual game, but it certainly has fun fast paced gameplay. I love the way that you know whats coming, you can hear your enemies coming, you know they're coming from all directions...
...designed to make the player panic, I think! 

use refreshlock:

http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rl/ 

Serious Sam is a great game all in all, but it wouldn�t have hurt if they gave it some kind of fun physics, and if the rocketlauncher had at least a little splash damage... 

Was let down by only having ten or so enemies. Otherwise a great game. 

Did have well-designed, fun enemies, though. The screaming suicide guys, the big bull/rhino thing, the fiend rippoffs, etc. Many of them required using a different tactic for each enemy type. 

...why not pop over to quakeone.com, they have a lot of info for peeps just joining the online fun. 

was cool, especially in packs and when combined with the screaming exploders. 

when you took advantage of the fact the the SS Editor let you scale any enemy you wanted to whatever and you made the bull 1/4 size and the exploder 5 times bigger. The bull still hit you for the same distance, and the exploder didn't do any damage since it would detect collision on the larger size, but the explosion would still be small.... but it was fun :) 

ta. the autoexec thing works but I'll give that program a shot too. 

i'm still confounded by the config.cfg problems you're having. So there's a vid_restart in the config file, but the refreshrate is somehow getting reset anyway?

Do you have any command line window settings? That could be the problem. The presence of -window, -width, -height, or -bpp will disregard the config.cfg video settings. 

here's a list of the vid settings :

vid_bpp "32"
vid_fullscreen "1"
vid_height "1024"
vid_refreshrate "75"
vid_vsync "0"
vid_width "1280"
viewsize "100"
vid_restart

but when I start the game, it resets to 60hz refresh rate and I have to manually adjust it.

Frib's solution works, I have to put it int he autoexec.cfg file. 

It's not saving it in my config.cfg because I made that file blank and read-only :D

You know what though, I'm not sure why I ended up with the video settings in my autoexec.cfg rather than in my own little frib.cfg...

I remember having problems getting it to work at the time, but I tried it just now (took the stuff out of autoexec and put it in the other cfg) and it works.

*shrug* 

Ok, so if I put the video settings and vid_restart in my config.cfg it doesn't work... it's not a bug though, because I just remembered I hacked my quake.rc to make it not load default.cfg or config.cfg.

So, I'm a victim of my own shenanigans. Doh! 

What's the schedule estimate and status of a new Fitz release? Is it coupled to the SDL version? I'd still like a version with dinput (windows directx) support too, unless there is a way to get rid of mouse acceleration in SDL. Is it too much of a hassle to keep both codes in?

I mean, even if there are just a few fixes it wouldn't really hurt to do a small release like 0.81 even if it was quickly superseded, especially if the Hz vs dinput mouse lock issue is the fix.

I'm not in a position to demand anything of course. 

actually, version .85 is quite far along. I mainly have cleanup and bugfixes left. The schedule is unknown of course, but 1-2 months seems about right.

Current plan for SDL integration is for me to worry about it after 0.85 is released :) 

From the University of Texas Master Class interviews by Warren Spector:

WS: Is there a difference, as a designer, when you sit down to make a multiplayer map and single player map, are they different? How are they different?

TW: In multiplayer maps, there's these kind of themes. And if you were to do one of these things, your map will be successful. There's the arena theme, which is basically you have this central area that everything feeds into. Then you have a location theme, you know, made famous by, you know, the, uh, Quake ... deathmatch level 3 I think. Where you have like, a generator room, and you have like a water room, so you have like these identifiable locations. Then you have like a "themed" deathmatch map, like uh. In Quake3, like our space maps, with the bounce pads and the acceleration pads and stuff. Those, really, three things, three basic concepts of multiplayer maps, makes a multiplayer map.

There's actually a formula, regardless of what game you're making, and what weapons you have, if you make a map in a certain way, it will always be fun. You know, and that is, uh. Like the Edge, in Quake2, which originally was inspired by a map called Ledges from Doom, is the ... perfect kind of basic framework for a multiplayer map. Where you have this nice central, centralized area, you know, round or square doesn't matter, and you have a few multi -levels where you have some access points and you have some exits and things, and you keep players all focused on this middle area. Then you need to, you know, put a few sound cues, like a ladder or a bounce pad to kind of trigger the players for where other players are, but if you make a map just like that, it will always be fun. It's a bold thing to say, but I have never seen a map like that - made correctly! - in any game that wasn't fun. It really is the perfect ... and I've been doing this a looong time. It's the perfect construction of a multiplayer map.

You know, with, saying that, location based maps are always fun, where you can be like, 'Ohh, I'm in the generator room,' or, 'Ohh I'm in the pump room.' You know, and you can set up kind of fun, gameplay mechanisms with that. And then of course theme maps ... theme maps are always a gamble. You know, like, a big bounce pad and you're always bouncing around, or ... lots of teleporters, or you know, no grav or lots of water. Those can be fun ... most people don't like them, most people will wind up playing the arena style. But if you make a map like that ... I guarantee you.

Once you graduate past basic nub, "Made Correctly" is where 99% of the thinking happens. I'm really kind of surprised that a guy in his position who's had this much time to build maps and test them and consider them, talking about level design for a gametype that's all about player movement, collection of items, and combat, gives tips that have little or nothing to do with any of those things.