Quake III Arena |
Quake III Arena (Q3A) is a multiplayer first-person shooter released on December 2, 1999. The game was Game development by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly.
As with most multiplayer first-person shooter players the aim of Q3A is to move throughout the arena Frag (video gaming) enemy players and scoring points based on the objective of the game mode. When a players health points reach zero, the avatar of that player is fragged (they die ), soon after the player can then respawn and continue playing with their health points full again but without any weapons or power-ups previously gathered. The game ends when a player or team reaches a specified score, or when the time limit has been reached. The single player mode of the game consists of the same thing against computer controlled Computer game bot.
An by id Software. It focused on introducing team gameplay through new game modes and also included new weapons, items, and player models. However, Team Arena was criticized because its additions were long overdue and had been already been implemented by fan modifications. A few years later Quake 3: Arena Gold was released which composed of the original Quake III Arena and the Team Arena expansion pack bundled together as one game.
On August 19, 2005, id Software released the complete source code for Quake III Arena under the GNU General Public License, as they have done for their earlier Wolfenstein 3d, Doom engine, Quake engine and Quake II engine. This does not make the entire game GPL, however, as the textures and other data were not released.
=Other Versions=
==Dreamcast==
Quake III Arena was released for the Sega Dreamcast in 2001 and featured 4 player online play versus Sega Dreamcast and PC gamers. It is considered one of the best console ports of a PC first-person shooter because of its smooth frame-rate and online play. PC players could download the Dreamcast map pack to join in but after the demise of the Dreamcast console, the map pack remained at PC version 1.17. The current PC version 1.32 effectively makes the Dreamcast maps obsolete.
==Playstation 2==
Quake III Revolution was released for the Sony PlayStation 2 in 2001 and featured several elements adopted from Team Arena but it was unsuccessful due to a lack of online play and poor performance on the PlayStation 2 hardware during intense combat.
=Gameplay=
==Modes==
Q3A comes with several classic gameplay modes. They are:
Since its release, many more modes have been created (see Quake III Arena#Mods).
==Single player==
Unlike its predecessors, Q3A does not have a plot-based single-player campaign. Instead, it simulates the multiplayer experience by using computer controlled players, called bot . In the manual, How to Play is reduced to the single instruction: Frag Everything That Isnt You.
While the story of the game is thin at best (the greatest warriors of all time fight for the amusement of the Arena Masters in the Arena Eternal), continuity with prior games in the Quake series and even Doom is maintained by the inclusion of player models related to those earlier games as well as some biographical information included on each contestant in the manual, a familiar mixture of gothic and technological map architecture, and specific equipment; for example, the Quad Damage power-up, the widely used rocket launcher, and the powerful BFG10K.
==Multiplayer==
Quake III Arena was specifically designed for multiplayer. This means that the game allows players, whose computers are connected by a network or to the Internet, to play against each other in real time. It uses a client-server architecture, that requires all players clients to connect to a single server. Q3As focus on multiplayer gameplay spawned a vivid community similar to Quakeworld , that is still active to this day.
=Weapons=
In Quake III , the weapons are designed such that there is no longer a completely dominant weapon. The right weapons balance was achieved by examining earlier games in the series, namely Quake and Quake II. For instance, the original Quake s Rocket Launcher was so effective such that it dominated entire deathmatches and Quake II s Rocket Launcher was toned down so much that it was passed over for other weapons; Quake III s Rocket Launcher is fun and effective to use but it isn t too powerful allowing it to be countered.
;Gauntlet: The gauntlet is a melee weapon used for close combat only. 2 hits will kill an unarmoured player, earning the killer a badge and the victim a humilliation . More or less it is a last option weapon when all ammo for other weapons is depleted.
;Machine gun: The machine gun is the other weapon besides the gauntlet that the player starts out with. It is a scan-hit or instant impact weapon that rapidly inflicts small amounts of damage, making it useful for finishing off opponents with low health.
;Shotgun: The shotgun is primarily used for close range combat since its large spray diminishes with distance. The gun can shoot 11 pellets that do 10 damage each, so a concentrated spread can kill an unarmoured player. Like the machine gun, it is an instant impact weapon. Found on many maps.
;Plasma gun: The plasma gun is an effective weapon for close to medium range combat. It rapidly fires a stream of deadly pulses which can do significantly more damage than the machine gun, The fast-traveling bursts however are not instant impact like the machine gun. The plasma also inflicts minor splash damage; there is the slight chance of the user hurting himself if he hits a wall next to him. Similar to the plasma gun/rifle found in Doom. Found on most maps.
;Grenade launcher: The grenade launcher fires grenades that detonate either on direct hit of an opponent or a set time after being fired. Compared to the rocket launcher, it releases projectiles faster although more ordinance is required to inflict similar damage due to the grenades inaccurate short-range arc (making it hard to score a direct hit) and bounce unpredictability. Grenades are affected by gravity, unlike rockets and blasts from the plasma gun and the BFG10K, which always travel at constant speed.
;Rocket launcher: The rocket launcher is one of the most widely used weapons in the game because it is easy to use and can inflict a lot of damage with little aim as the rocket impacts cause a lot of splash damage. Because of its wide blast radius, players are encouraged to shoot the ground rather than aim for the opponent directly. This however becomes a double-edged sword at closer ranges; at point blank range the player could significantly harm or kill himself if he is careless. This weapon can also be used to rocket-jump, taking advantage of the players own blast to reach even higher heights than regular jumping. Found on every map.
;Lightning gun: The lightning gun is much like the machine gun, except that it fires as a beam, deals more damage and has an extremely limited range. In close combat, it can kill a healthy opponent in seconds with no risk to the user. Similar to the Thunderbolt of the original Quake , although you *can* use the lightning gun underwater.
;Railgun: The railgun is primarily used for long range combat or sniping. It is very precise, inflicts high damage but has a low fire rate and requires good aiming. Found on many large maps with wide open spaces.
;BFG10K: A rapid-fire weapon, firing out bursts of fast-moving plasma at a rate of about 5 shots per second, which inflict damage and splash damage comparable to that of the rocket launcher. In effect, Quake III s BFG is a rapid-fire Rocket Launcher.
=Items=
==Weapons==
Weapons start off as items. They spawn at regular intervals at specified places on the map. When you pick them up, you will gain the weapon and a set amount of ammo. When you die, you drop your currently selected weapon.
==Ammo==
Ammo boxes are located throughout the map. They are usually in easy-to- find places, but oftentimes ammo crates will be hidden. Ammo crates give you a standard amount of ammo that simply gets added to your current supply. When you first enter an arena, you start of with some amount of ammo, and every time you die, you start of with that same amount Machinegun - 100 Shotgun - 10 Plasma gun - 50 railgun - 10 BFG10K - 20 rocketlauncher - 10 Grenade launcher - 10
==Health==
When your health gets low, you can pick up health items. There are 4 kinds of health items. Yellow recovers 25 health, orange recovers 50 health, green recovers 5 health, but can go over 100, and blue recovers 100, and can go over 100. The maximum health you can get to is 200, however when you go over 100, your health starts ticking lower until 100 points, one point per second.
==Armor==
Armor decreases the amount of damage you take when you get hit. Armor comes in three flavors: Armor Shard, which gives you 5 armor points, Yellow Armor with 50 points and Red Armor with 100 points. Armor can go over 100 points, but as with health, it starts ticking back to 100.
==Power-ups==
;Quad damage: Despite the name in Quake III the Quad Damage power-up only triples the amount of damage done by the weapon you have (the name comes from previous titles in the series where it actually did have the effect of quadrupling damage). Quad damage is very effective when using rapid-fire guns (machine gun, plasma gun). Extreme caution must be taken with guns that have splash damage (such as the rocket launcher and BFG10K), since the splash damage is multiplied just as much as the direct impact. Quad damage is less useful for slow-firing guns like the rail gun since they are already strong enough to quickly kill a player in a few hits.
;Haste: Haste doubles your firing/movement speed. When used with strafe jumping, you can move at an obscene rate. Haste will cause you to deplete your ammo faster if you are careless.
;Regeneration: Regeneration regenerates your life for a period of time. It regenerates at a rate of 5 hit points every two seconds, and can go up to 200 health.
;Flight: Flight is an extremely rare power-up that shows up in a mere handful of maps. When active, it allows you to fly around. You just hit forward and look around to fly. It is only found on Q3DM19, and even then, only in multiplayer.
;Battle Suit: Protects against splash damage, and environmental hazards.
;Invisibility: Makes the player only visible as a slight distortion that is completely transparent.
=Techniques=
Quake III Arena is a game which requires many different skills to play well. Some of the techniques which must be mastered are:
;Aiming: Aiming in Quake is simple - point and shoot. There are no dynamic sprays and movement does not affect the spray of your weapons. With hitscan weapons such as the gauntlet, machine gun, shotgun, lightning gun and rail gun, simply aim directly at your opponent and fire. Weapons like the rocket launcher, grenade launcher, plasma gun, and BFG require a bit more practice to master, as they require you to Leading targets or shoot on the nearby ground to inflict splash damage.
;Movement: For the most part, movement is simple. You can run, walk, crouch or jump. Running is always on by default, though running everywhere isnt smart. Walking is useful as you make no noise when you walk, allowing you to sneak up on an opponent, crouching also deadens the noise you make when moving in exchange for decreased speed. Another advantage of crouching is that it puts you lower to the ground and therefore makes you a smaller target, which can be useful if your enemy is using the railgun.
;Strafe-jumping:Strafe-jumping is one of the most important skills to master in Quake III . It accelerates the user to an incredible degree if used correctly. While moving forward, strafe in either direction, hold forward, jump and move your crosshair in the same direction. The best thing to do when learning to strafe jump is to move your cursor very gently left and right, alternating strafe keys between jumps. That is, hold forward strafe right, move the cursor right, jump, strafe left, move the cursor left, jump, etc. You shouldnt be moving your crosshair more than a few inches. The best way to get a feel for how to do this is watch demos of professionals - they strafe jump constantly.
;Rocket Jumping:Rocketjumping is jumping using the knock-back effect of a rocket to propel yourself further. What you do is jump immediately before firing a rocket at the ground. This can increase the height of your jump drastically. If done incorrectly, it will damage you and not help your jump at all. For starters, it is easier to jump and fire the rocket at the same time. The effect is almost the same. The closer the rocket is fired after the jump, the higher the jump. While the damage to yourself cannot be avoided, it can be reduced greatly by collecting armor prior to rocket jumping. This way, its your armor that will take most of the damage instead of you. when doing a rocket jump on a jump-pad, you can make huge jumps, bringing you to high and otherwise unreachable places.
;Grenade Jumping: Grenade jumping is one of the most difficult skills to master in Quake III , since it requires the exact timing and placement of the grenades. Simply fire a grenade, be over it and jump when it goes off. This can be used in conjunction with rocket jumping, but usually this results in massive damage to the player and has a low success rate.
;Plasma Climbing: Plasma climbing is using the knock-back from the shot from the plasma gun to climb up walls. To do it, just get right next to a wall, aim low on the wall (about an inch or two from the floor), jump, and fire continuously. This technique can be extremely effective when used with grenade jumping. Drop a grenade, aim at the floor, and right before the grenade goes off, jump, and start firing your plasma gun.
;Timing and map control: Having control over the items of a map is equally important as aiming, movement and tactical skills are to winning a match. Since items reappear over specific periods of time it is possible to snatch items away from the opponent, just as they appear. By memorizing the time an item was last picked up you can keep important items like armor and megahealth away from the enemy and gain a significant hit point advantage.
=Mods=
Like its predecessors, Quake and Quake II , Quake III Arena can be heavily modified to support other gaming styles. They can use (like Quake II ) native shared library to store the game code but the preferred method is to program all modifications in pure C language and compile them with a special version of the free C language compiler Little C compiler into machine independent byte code, which will be interpreter (computer software) by an in-game virtual machine. The virtual machine in Quake III Arena even uses just-in-time techniques like modern Java programming language virtual machines.
The most popular mods for Quake are Rocket Arena, Orange Smoothie Productions (OSP) and CPMA. RA3 is a tournament focused mod, allowing players to play on the same server in 4 virtual arenas. The players rockets inflict no damage to himself, allowing intensive usage of the rocket jumping technique. Unlike regular Quake , when a player dies, he is dead until his entire team is eliminated. OSP is a mod meant for tournament play. It gives the player more interface options and modifications. You can effectively change everything in the interface so that it fits your whims. There are also added parts to the multiplayer that make it easier than standard Quake for tournament play. Such improvements include only allowing players to start a match after each had declared their readiness, additional stats on the score window, voting, timeout calls, and much more. CPMA includes vastly modified physics, with features adapted from Quake and Quake II such as bunny hopping, double-jumping and fast weapon switching.
The other popular mods are-
A listing of Q3A mods can be found at mod (computer gaming)#Quake III Arena.
=Bots=
Bots are multiplayer opponents controlled by an Artificial Intelligence. Quake III Arena featured an (for the time advanced) AI, with difficulty levels ranging from I can win to Nightmare . Although these bots are good for practicing and can be difficult for a beginner to defeat, they are not advanced enough to provide a challenge to an experienced player.
=Competitive play=
Quake III Arena s multiplayer focussed development lead to it developing a large community of competitive players and like its predecessors in the series it was used extensively in professional electronic sports tournaments.
In competitive Quake III Arena , there are two distinct disciplines, often referred to as rulesets . The out-of-the-box Quake III Arena game is referred to as the Vanilla Quake 3 (VQ3) ruleset. It is referred to as vanilla in contrast with the CPM ruleset of the CPMA mod. This kind of separation into different disciplines is not uncommon in online first-person shooters and also occurred with the original Quake , where the 2 rulesets are Vanilla QuakeWorld and JawnMode. As with CPMA, JawnMode adds more capability for fast movement and other competition oriented changes.
=External links=
; Guides
; Websites
; Resources
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