Quake done double Quick ----------------------- (0) Index (1) Introduction (1.1) What is Quake done double Quick? (1.2) History of the project (1.3) About coop demos (2) The demos (2.1) Installation (2.2) Running the demos (2.3) Solving playback problems (3) More details about the demos (3.1) Timing (3.2) How the run was recorded (4) Statistics (5) Credits and contact info (5.1) Credits (5.2) Utilities used (5.3) Contact info ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Introduction (1.1) What is Quake done double Quick? Quake done double Quick is a novel type of run to come from the QdQ team. Like our previous releases, it is a run of Quake on Nightmare skill, going through the levels as fast as possible. This time however, the demos are in cooperative mode: two players tackle the map together, sharing the work to complete the level quicker than would be possible in single player mode. The result is a run through Quake which is four minutes faster than Quake done Quicker, our single player run. Still, we do not expect every demo to be optimised, there is still room for improvements - the only certainty in speed-running is that you can always do it faster somehow. If you can beat any of the demos in QddQ, go ahead and try, and send us your demos if you succeed. Before you do so however, check out our improvements page to see if any maps have been run faster after this release. (1.2) History of the project QddQ started way back in January 1998, making it the longest project QdQ have taken to produce. It was started by Will Marsh and Fred Fogarty, who after finding their fellow schoolmates too easy to beat at deathmatch, tried speedrunning the levels in coop mode. From there it was a long progression to the finished product. At the time the project started, bunnies were still pretty much unheard of, so the decision was taken not to use them, nor to use excessive boosts from the other player, as this seemed like abuse of teamplay, which had to be used, else the possibilities became a lot less interesting. One factor that contributed to the long duration of the project was its special nature: Recording multiplayer demos over the Internet was not an option most of the time because of lag, so we had to rely on people to come together and re- cord them on a lan. Luckily, we had some excellent speed-runners living not far away from each other who could meet every now and then. We are currently making another version of this run on Easy skill that uses bunny-hopping to its full extent and will be significantly faster than QddQ. (1.3) About coop demos Since this is the first coop project from QdQ, some explanations are due. The demos are recorded by two players, a "server" and a "client". The server loads the map and usually pauses the game to wait for the client. The client connects to the server's machine. When the client has entered the game, the server can unpause and the action begins. In case you want to try some coop-recording yourself, the necessary console commands are as follows: On the server: "disconnect;record ;wait;pause" On the client: "disconnect;record ;connect " Binding the commands to a function key is recommended. Having two players available opens a new bag of speed-running tricks. First, players can share the work; actions which are necessary to leave the level can be distributed between the players, leading to faster times. This is especially useful with button-operated doors; one player presses the button while the other waits at the door. Examples of this are, for instance, e2m5 and e3m3. Another category of new tricks are boosts: One player can shoot the other, giving him additional velocity. This leads to interesting new shortcuts, see for instance e2m3 or e3m1. Grenade jumps from the other player's grenade give twice the boost that your own grenades cause, leading to longer or higher jumps (see for instance e4m4). However, these possiblities would be useless if the players would end up killing each other. Therefore, we make use of the "teamplay" console variable. When teamplay is set to 1, players can shoot each other without damage to the other's health (damage to armor remains the same), provided they wear the same colored pants. A side-effect of this is that a player is not only unable to hurt his partner but also himself; rocket and grenade jumps are practically for free. A detailed list of the cooperative tricks is found in cooptrix.txt. (2) The demos (2.1) Installation First you need to find your main Quake directory. This probably has the name "Quake" and will contain such items as your Quake executable programs (such as quake.exe, or winquake.exe, or glquake.exe...) and your Id1 subdirectory. (Mac users may be more used to the term "folder" than directory.) You should make a subdirectory of this main directory. Give it whatever name you like; for the purposes of these instructions we will assume you have called it "qddq". In DOS, you can do this by changing to your main Quake directory and then typing "md qddq" at the prompt. The qddq.zip/dz file should contain three files which should be extracted into the qddq directory. These three files are: cooptrix.txt - list of coop tricks pak0.pak - contains all the data for the demo qddq.txt - this text file you are reading (2.2) Running the demos Now to run the movie, start Quake with the command-line option "-game qddq". In DOS, you should change to the main Quake directory and then type "quake -game qddq" (or "winquake", or "glquake" if appropriate.) On a Mac, you should press the option key whilst starting Quake in order to be able to enter command-line options. The demos are played from a menu interface, so that you can choose to play the whole game, or individual episodes, or individual levels. Moreover, you can choose to watch either player, or both players' view in alternating order (the options menu allows you to set the mode of play). Using the menu should be mostly self-explanatory! There are just a few additional things you should know about using it. Whilst playing a demo, you can press F10 to stop and return to the menu. If you are playing a sequence of levels, such as the full run or an episode, then you can press F9 to advance to the next level. You can set the viewsize and crosshair settings that you prefer in the options menu. The function keys F1 through F5 let you alter the speed of the playback. F1 is fast forward, F2 is normal speed, F3 and F4 slow motion, and F5 pauses. (2.3) Solving playback problems Some versions of Quake have some problems playing back very long demos. We have used every trick and hack we know to try to solve these problems, but it is possible some will have slipped through for your Quake version. If so, please tell us so we can fix the bug. But in any case, any errors shouldn't ruin your enjoyment of the movie. You can use the menu interface to play it one episode at a time, or to play any individual level. (3) More details about the demo (3.1) Timing Just a quick explanation of why we say we completed Quake in 12:35. We recorded every demo separately and then connected them together, adding the times for the four episodes plus the end level. We did not count the times on the start level since, as you probably know, Quake never displays times for them, and apart from that they're not really interesting to run. (3.2) How the run was recorded We recorded each demo separately, on skill 3 (Nightmare), of course without any cheating. To start with the correct stats we ended the previous level with, we used a QuakeC patch that allowed us to select the statistics we started with. We recorded Quake as one big run because Quake was made to be played each episode in a row, and not as separate levels. There are no weapons in the higher levels, because you should have them already from previous ones. And we did it by connecting single demos together because the final product is a lot more interesting that way and entertaining, and we could include some very cool tricks that we couldn't do had we recorded it in one sitting. As explained above, we used a setting of "teamplay 1" to allow for more tricks that we didn't have in single player mode. We felt that the added possibilities lead to runs which are more distinctive from their single- player equivalents and hence more fun. The demos included in this package are basically the original recordings, but we had to make some changes to make them play within the menu. We did take care to keep the spirit of the original recordings. Here's a list of the edits: - Made the demos play within the menu - Added fade-outs at the end of each level - Removed "x entered/exited the game" messages on every level - Made the players' colors the same in every demo - In e4m7, the roles of server and client were reversed - Modified the finale sequence of end a tiny bit :) (4) Statistics "Saved" times are compared to the "Quake done Quicker" run in 16:35. ----------------------------------------------------------- Level Map Running Time Saved ----------------------------------------------------------- Introduction START The Slipgate Complex E1M1 Attila/Peter 0:27 0:03 Castle Of The Damned E1M2 Attila/Peter 0:34 0:04 The Necropolis E1M3 Attila/Peter 0:28 0:07 The Grisly Grotto E1M4 Attila/Peter 0:15 0:05 Gloom Keep E1M5 Attila/Peter 0:13 0:03 The Door To Chthon E1M6 Attila/Peter 0:09 0:02 The House Of Chthon E1M7 Ilkka/Juho 0:17 0:10 ----------------------------------------------------------- Episode 1 - Dimension Of The Doomed 2:23 0:34 ----------------------------------------------------------- Introduction START The Installation E2M1 Attila/Peter 0:09 0:01 The Ogre Citadel E2M2 Attila/Peter 0:44 0:07 The Crypt Of Decay E2M3 Attila/Peter 0:20 0:07 The Ebon Fortress E2M4 Attila/Peter 0:51 0:04 The Wizard's Manse E2M5 Will/Jesse 0:28 0:21 The Dismal Oubliette E2M6 Will/Jesse 1:18 0:04 ----------------------------------------------------------- Episode 2 - The Realm Of Black Magic 3:50 0:44 ----------------------------------------------------------- Introduction START Termination Central E3M1 Marlo/Fabian 0:26 0:20 The Vaults Of Zin E3M2 Attila/Peter 0:19 0:34 The Tomb Of Terror E3M3 Attila/Peter 0:21 0:09 Satan's Dark Delight E3M4 Attila/Peter 0:30 0:17 The Wind Tunnels E3M5 Attila/Peter 0:27 0:19 The Chambers Of Torment E3M6 Ilkka/Juho 0:27 0:04 ----------------------------------------------------------- Episode 3 - The Netherworld 2:30 1:43 ----------------------------------------------------------- Introduction START The Sewage System E4M1 Ilkka/Juho 0:17 0:17 The Tower Of Despair E4M2 Attila/Peter 0:37 0:09 The Elder God Shrine E4M3 Ilkka/Juho 0:45 0:10 The Palace Of Hate E4M4 Ilkka/Juho 0:26 0:01 Hell's Atrium E4M5 Ilkka/Juho 0:11 0:01 The Pain Maze E4M6 Ilkka/Juho 0:22 0:02 Azure Agony E4M7 Ilkka/Juho 0:44 0:15 ----------------------------------------------------------- Episode 4 - The Elder World 3:22 0:55 ----------------------------------------------------------- Introduction START Shub-Niggurath's Pit END Attila/Peter 0:30 0:04 ----------------------------------------------------------- Quake done double Quick 12:35 4:00 ----------------------------------------------------------- (5) Credits and contact info (5.1) Credits Attila Csernyik Running, Programming Jesse van Dijk Running, Co-ordination Marlo Galinski Running Peter Horvath Running Fabian Kollakowski Running Ilkka Kurkela Running Juho Larvi Running Will Marsh Running, Co-ordination Stefan Schwoon Post-Production (5.2) Utilities used The utilities we used included: LMPC by Uwe Girlich for decompiling and recompiling demos so we could use the convenient LS format. Also Uwe's DEM specs were very useful for us in creating our own tools. Some in-house utilities; QdQstats DemoRelise (unreleased) to make demos that fit into a continuous run, and Demtool for various editing jobs. (5.3) Contact info For QdQ news and future projects check our page at . For general comments to QdQ, email . Enjoy Quake done double Quick!