The Mailbag

Remember, if you get tempted to send me a question or problem, DON'T! Check The Unofficial Quake II FAQ which is written and maintained by Richard Connery. He's worked very hard on it so people like me don't have to answer dumb questions. What's that you say? Your question isn't in the FAQ? Well, try the messageboard! There's a link in the frame. Lots of people will read your problem and try and answer it. Another good resource is the Gamer's Guide, which can be found on Blue's.

New colour scheme: Like it?
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As you can probably tell, Quake2.com's colours changed recently from teal/gray to blue/dark blue/gray. Everyone and their mother took the time to write in with an opinion about this. I've posted MOST of the ones I've received in their entirety, and haven't commented them, so you should be able to read through it rather quickly and get a good idea of how popular it is. Brace yourself though, it is a LOT of gray and white...

New colors
submitted by Matt

I like the blue/gray color scheme!!

new color scheme
submitted by Joe Fuyono

Hey y'all,

I just wanted you to know that the new color scheme is good stuff. As for a major layout redesign, I would have to reccomend that you guys do absolutely nothing because I really love the way that this site is laid out. It's really straightforward and simple, that's what makes it speedy on slow connections and focuses on content more because that's what we're all after anyway. Maybe consolidate your left hand frame with the right hand links stuff, but I don't know how you would pull it off. Anyways, keep up the good work.

Nice new site Redesign
submitted by Phenom

Hi,
I like the new site *colours* but if your going to redesign your site I think you should go all the way... like add some java script... a cool menu bar... maybe even a new logo. but keep up the good work.

About the look of Q2.com
submitted by Trogman

The new colour scheme is very nice. But if Q2.com is going to redesign, I suggest not to overuse tables like Planetquake.com does. And a file area containing all the patches will be very cool.

New look
submitted by HME

I like the new colors. easy on the eyes. I think you should do the links in the news a different color from the titles though. Oh and please keep the black background. I can stand bright backgrounds. It kills your eyes and makes it hard to read.

pending changes to the site
submitted by Matthew Ghilarducci

I LOVE THE SITE AS IS!

Don't mind any little petty color changes :) But PLEASE don't make any major (PlanetQuake) type changes!

You have the best Q2 site on the web. It is my homepage. It is simple and well organized. I hate fluff. I want info. You perform that EXCEEDINGLY well.

Site Feedback!
submitted by Roger Wilco

I'd just like to say that, so far, the site changes are looking good! I have been visiting this site pretty much since it has been in existence! I have loved most everything about Quake 2 dot com. This page is at the top of my bookmarks. Sorry to brown nose but I just had to express my opinion of your page. I LOVE IT! :)

New color scheme
submitted by Ronny

The first thing that crossed my mind when your page loaded was: Damn, I can't read the links!!! You should really replace the dark blue on black for links with a brighter color. Don't worry, I need your info, so I will rather overstress my eyes than not read it anymore, if you should keep the blue(s)... ;^)

site changes
submitted by C. Mercer

I like the new colors but pleeeese don't do anything even remotely like www.planetquake.com. Planetquake used to be my start page now it's you and I'd really like to keep it that way :)

Suggestions for new color scheme
submitted by Edge

Hey - looks AWESOME!! One suggestion, however. In the lefthand frame, it'd look better if you made the "News" "Game Info" "Community" and "Other" headings in white or some other color since all the other real text like that is white. But the green/blue just looks pukish.

feedback
submitted by Micah

I think change is good for the site's layout, but its too "dark blue-ish" Go for some more interesting color combinations then just blue and dark blue.

Ack! My eyes!
submitted by MUSTANG

The scheme hurts my damn eyes man. Get rid of it!!! That bluish color and aqua/green color just dont mix. Nasty!

Color Scheme is Great!
submitted by #1 Psycho

Keep up the good work!

feedback/color scheme
submitted by Al

one word. unreadable. the darkish blue on black looks nice, but when i have to select all the text to read it. the greenish color reads easily though.
my 2 cents :)

color theme
submitted by Francis Zhou

I think the new dark blue color for links are too hard to see, at least, on my brower. Your original color theme is fine. As of redesigning... if it aint broken, don't fix it. ;-)

Please change the colors back!
submitted by Bloodbath

Please change the colors back to green, and forget the *puke* blue! Please! Pleeeeeeeeeeaze!

site color
submitted by Ryan Hughes

I like the color scheme a lot better. If you do a makeover, go for the navy blue / black scheme

font
submitted by Gary7

Your news page is too bright it hurts my eyes. Change the white letters if others think there too bright please.
(Sorry bud - looks like you're the only one! hehe.. - Paubo)

Well, you wanted feedback...
submitted by Iain Lambert

Just a very quick note to say that the new colour scheme (yes, I'm British) (Attaboy! Spell it the right way! -Paubo) is a BIG improvement. This could be because I use an adapted version of the 'Rainy Day' scheme for NT4 (and '95 at home), and so things go nicely with my Windows generally, but in any case I prefer it over the previous one. Actually, the only real complaint I could think of is that you're now more blue than "Blue's"...

Anyway, congrats again on a great site,

Ref: color scheme
submitted by Marc

Hi there,

I like that you are constantly changing your ideas about your website (and not just the news, that goes without saying...even though I just said it...err..).

However, Dark Blue on Black???

Do you have super-bright screens where Dark Blue appears almost white?? If not, then you must enjoy that feeling when your eyes start to water cause of the strain of looking at near-invisible text.... :-)

Okay, my screen at work isn't the brightest ever, but it's near impossible to see the Dark Blue text. (But then, the Dark Greenish colour it used to be wasn't a lot better for me, but was more visible).

But otherwise, I like the white on black and the very neat font you use.

Hope my opinion helps (even if it doesn't mean much).

New Color
submitted by Tom

I'll keep it short. I like it.

Quake2.com
submitted by Patrik

Dear fellow-quakers... What makes You think that, just because the majority of the visitors to You site are used to crawling around in dark, watery holes looking for someone to frag, that they have some kind of oversensetivity to contrasts?
Why do You have texts that are a dark blue-green and a more-then-50%-grey against a black background?????? What is wrong with making things readable???? I´m foremost talking about the menu to the right.

oooh.. my eyes hurt
submitted by Hai Nguyen

sirs
that blue text links on your webpage is really hard to read... just thought i'd let you know.

Color change
submitted by Heavy Load

I find the color scheme not that good cuz it is hard to see the link that I've been too. I like to see something like light blue and dark blue. You chose a color scheme with a difficult contrast. But I know you will fix it! TTYL...

Color scheme
submitted by Christopher Hunter

I think the new color scheme is a definate bonus.

color scheme feedback
submitted by anthony

Just checked out your new colors...while I do very much like that shade of blue, it's damn hard to pick out against the black background. I suggest changing either it or your background.

Hey, you asked.

{Phew).... well, I guess you have both sides of the story now. To all those who have trouble reading the page: perhaps turning up the brightness and/or contrast on your monitor could help. It looks perfectly fine to me, and like I said earlier, a colour change every now and then couldn't hurt. (BTW, you may notice me spelling colour the right way - with a u. That's because here in Canada, and most of the rest of the world, we have a surplus of u's and have to use them all up so they don't go to waste. :) Thanks to everyone who wrote in with your feedback, and especially those who wrote in with your support.

Quake3: Good idea? Bad idea?
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A little while ago, id software gave us the shocking news that their upcoming mission pack is going to be expanded into a full game, Quake3. Here are opinions based on that....

RE: Quake3
submitted by Darren

I say, FINALLY! It's about time they ditched the software renderer. I can't say for sure, but I feel that a very high percentage of Quake players have hardware acceleration of some sort. (I would be very curious to see some sort of poll on this topic.) As far as the game itself is concerned, id Software is a very intelligent company. Instead of limiting their customer base to those who have purchased Quake2, (granted that's quite a few people) they have decided to leave their next project open to everyone. For reasons unknown, mission packs traditionally do not sell well. It makes much more sense to release a completely new game. I, for one, am anxious to see what else id can do with the graphics engine. Even more realistic than Quake2 would be quite a task, IMO.

According to a recent poll of Team Fortress players, roughly 60% of gamers have hardware acceleration... the real question is, can their system handle Quake3? IMO, it will not be as wide open as you might think... you will need quite a machine to run it.

Quake3
submitted by Viking of Fury

I have looked over the message board, and I was shocked and dismayed to discover that there were so MANY people complaining about the Q3 announcement... I mean... it's GREAT news... I don't think I've even heard a RUMOUR about any other game supporting *only* 3D hardware... It's great! One thing I've always expected from id is their high goals. They have never failed me. People call them greedy. they're not greedy, they've got their eyes on the future. Granted, such advanced stuff does come with a rather high price tag, but then again, what doesn't? I will most likely be among the first to buy Quake 3, because I have that much confidence in their work and Quality. and if it needs patching, I'll get the patches, because after all, who wants a game company that always assumes that their stuff can't get better... improvement isn't static.

I have heard of ONE game needing 3D hardware, in fact it will likely be one of Quake3's competitor's: Prey. Watch for it. And, yes, people do think of id as greedy, simply because it is easy to interpret their actions in that way. You can look at it two ways: id's doing it for money, or id's doing it for the benefit of technology... you are a true believer. I salute you.

Quake3 (of course)
submitted by Overkill

I think that ID should just stick with Quake 2 for now, they can expand and make the game a lot better with the new mission pack. If ID were to release Quake 3 soon, not many people will be able to buy it because it will require a 3D graphics card, and you have to get it seperate from your computer (this is what I was told anyways). Besides, if ID spent a lot of time on Qauke 3, it would be a lot better than Quake 2, and nothin can top Quake 2 right now! Thanx thats all.

Others are already working on mission packs, and the beauty of the Quake2 engine lies in the fact that gamers everywhere are expanding and making the game a lot better. Although an official id mission pack would be nice, it is not a necessity. Anyway, by the time Quake3 is released, 3D cards will be standard, if they aren't already. It is a relatively simple upgrade, and most gamers have already taken the plunge. id seems to be planning ahead... incorperating the software renderer will only impede them from this point on.

Quake3
submitted by OB C3P0 88

I think the idea of quake 3 is great. But if their gonna come out with a whole new game they shouldn't restrict it to the limited number of people with 3d graphics cards.

Let's flip that around a little: I think their idea of Quake3 is great. If they're gonna come out with a whole new game they shouldn't restrict themselves by designing it for the limited number of people WITHOUT 3D graphics cards.

Re: Quake3
submitted by Mr. Baldy

Some comments on the plan for Quake3... It seems to me that Quake3 would just be a major upgrade for Quake2, and it would almost seem better to either have customers buy a patch to create the version 4.0 or whatnot. Also, though, I think Quake 3 could bring back some respect to id. I think that Quake 2 was a downfall for some part for id. There have been many complaints about gameplay, framerates, ease to complete the game, and many other things. Quake 3 could be a chance to revive id, and bring back more Quake 1 enthusiasts and Quake 2 haters, to think highly of id. If id wants to release Quake 3, they need to listen to some feedback about gameplay for Quake 2 to make the game likeable by everyone, not just a small amount of people. Also, id should spend more time before releasing Quake 3 on the market (If it ever gets accomplished), to get the bugs worked out of it. I have had a pain of a time downloading new patched every day, and I am sure many are also. One important tip...VWep needs to be included. I think that is the greatest mod to date, and I was dissapointed not to see it, just because there wasn't enough time. I don't think that is a reasonable excuse for these professional programmers and such to say that there wasn't enough time. One more thing...stop releasing information about features that aren't going to be released. I was pissed off to see that the changable status bar was not included. It looked really cool, and now it is a pain to figure out how much ammo you have and with what weapons, and a movable status bar would be a real plus. Don't get me wrong though...I have my dislikes and likes about Quake 2. For instance, the time it takes to switch weapons is more realistic than before, rather than automatically. To sum it all up, Quake 3 could be great if id listened to some feedback about gameplay. Otherwise, it could financially and morally hurt id, and scar its reputation.

Well, let no-one say id doesn't listen to feedback... Just think about CTF, and how co-operative they were with that in Quake2. Try convincing oh, say, Microsoft Games to include a form of a user-made patch in their next game! I, along with everyone else, have high hopes that id software will make sure this game is 'the one', the one to blow everyone away. One can only hope they don't repeat their mistakes of the past...

quake3 question
submitted by pissed off in ohio

i think it`s dumb.what about the people like me who still have a 133 mhz machine and directx5.0?they shud make a game for us "computer old people"!and i have an ast, so ican`t get an mmx!id pisses me offf!not everybody want to spring for a whole new fu**ing machine so we can play their "new,3d accelerated-required game"!as i said before, some sh**head from id shud look at these messages and mail!

OK, THINK about what you're saying.... new game, old computer...What is it they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Works for computers, you just have to accept the fact that your system is obsolete. Two choices: sulk, or upgrade. Do you want id to make a game designed for the technology of last year? Well, probably YOU do, but the rest of the world does NOT. You want to play an id software game designed for your machine? It's called 'Quake'. Enjoy it while the rest of us upgrade. (BTW, I only have a P133, but I WILL upgrade).

Replies and rebuttals and the like
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RE: Sad, sad day for one quaker...
submitted by bEElzebUb

(Message from last week)
Why do guys use the female character instead of a guy...In real life, are they scared they might get caught dressing in mommy's clothes, so they explore their homosexual tendecies online...or do they think the 'real guys' will get pissed off being beat by a girl?...well folks....Wake up call....anyone (female,male,black,or white) can beat anyone if they played long enough...and anyone with a real life realizes that a woman of 56, a girl of 8, or a boy of 7 can beat you if they play more than you (yeah, I got my ass whoopped by a 7 year old).....so quit pretending to be a girl, and play...that is PLAY...meaning-enjoy the game, comraderie, and the people of the community...and quit sniveling about everything (end of message)
============================================================
Give me a damn break. That's so ignorant. I wonder if it ever occured to this guy that females actually play Quake2? I have about 10 Quake2 buddies who are female, most of whom are damn good players. I'm not a female, but I use female skins all the time. Why? Because I like the soundds better. The female character's screams are hysterical, so I use them. To say that anyone using a female skin is trying to make a statement is just f*cking lame (pardon the language). Lighten up a little, pal. You might have a lot more fun if you do.
bEELzebUb

Well said... seems not too many people were impressed with what that guy had to say. Well, I think he was REALLY PISSED OFF when he wrote it, so let's give him a break, K? We all get frustrated now and then...

JESUS BLEEDIN CHRIST!!!
submitted by Mugwum

Yes, i could have been a bit clearer, but then again, he didn't have to have a go at me!
Look at it this way, i don't particularly care what he thinks of my computer skills. If he can out-credential me, then GREAT. Good for him. I just wanted to point out that new users would have a helluva time upgrading and he went and dissed me because of a couple of things i said. I have been into computers for 2 years and compared to most people who have been into cpus for that long, i am "incredibly technically apt". I see that i'm starting to turn people against me, so i'll say this. I respect Richard Connery BIG-TIME, and to have him publicly diss me was painful. I wouldn't do that to him, why did he do it to me? Rich, if i upset you, well, sorry. I didn't mean to.
------------------------------------------------------------
Right, onto something more interesting than my personal position in the community. The Quake3 thing. No ones seems to have ,mentioned it yet, although i noticed it. Carmack mentioned that the PVR2 wouldn't handle Q3 for some reason. I don't recall quite what. This means that id are backing 3DFX in the 3dcard war. Yes, i know there are other cards, and bloody good they are too. But here in England, a day doesn't pass when a mag somewhere isn't comparing 3dfx and PVR2. It will be quite serious over here. I was gonna buy a PVR the other day, but i didn't. Interesting tho, isn't it. ------------------------------------------------------------

OK man, peace. Calm down. I think Rich just missed the mailbag a little, and wanted to have a go at some people... don't take it personally, he just saw an opportunity. Let's drop it, K?
As for the 3D cards, that is an interesting point. I believe there was a technical reason the PVR2 would not support Quake3: one of its qualities just wouldn't measure up to the standards they're programming in... but let's face it, a PVR2 could not compete with a Voodoo2. id is backing the Goliath of the war, which will likely become the standard in a little while. See the next letter for more...

comment on a rant
submitted by LiMbO

I saw this in the mailbag:
---------------------------------------------------------------------- " know it's not a question, but.... QII sucks. I've been playing these
games since Doom I, and loved Quake I. But ya know, this QII has so many friggin bugs, I can't believe they released it! The best games I've played are Dark Forces, Jedi and Mysteries of the Sith. There's so much more going on in these games. Much more to do..... I've got a 166 Pentium, 80 MB RAM, matrox Millenium 2D card, Matrox M3D 3D video card with 4 MB RAM and still this game plays choppy! What do I hafta do to make this game play smoothly? Run it on a friggin SGI with two co-processors? MOTS plays wonderfully on my machine. Oh sure, the graphics levels probably don't compare, but why buy a game just cause it has all this neat code for 3D but it doesn't play well on 90% of the machines out there? And how in hell do you even attempt to play this hog over a modem? I think id has sold you chip heads a bill of goods about this game. I've played it through and download add-on levels, but hit a big room with lots of bad guys and the frame rate drops to nothing. And don't give any crap about buying somebody else's 3D card to make it run. What's the point of building a game for a designated card? Getting kickbacks?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Id software didn't design Quake2 to be 3Dfx specific. They didn't do anything like that. The reason this person gets lame frames is because of his poor choice of an OpenGL accelerator. The PowerVR chipset doesn't support all the features of Quake2's OpenGL renderer, and colored lighting SHOULDN'T even be supported. You can thank PowerVR/Videologic for hacking up their GL minidriver to get it to work. Board vendors/chipset makers that think their product can run an OpenGL application or game try to build a driver that can run them, and sometimes their attempts are futile or below standard, such as PowerVR. Right now I have a P200 MMX and a Monster3d, and its obvious my setup will last until Quake3 comes out, then I will have to get an entire new computer with better 3d acceleration.
There are MANY boards that will run GLQuake2; there isn't just 3Dfx and PowerVR. There's nVidia Riva 128, Rendition v2x00, Permedia2, ATI Rage Pro (so they say), Glint, and the Intergraph Realizm boards (if you're rich, or work at id software).
In the coming months, there will be even more capable boards. Intel's i740, nVidia's new chip, and yes...PowerVR's new product. But to say Quake2 sucks because your hardware cannot perform the way you would like it to (because it can't), does not constitute shoving the game aside and playing something else. Next time, buy better technology.

Check.

Quake2 choppy? Blahaha
submitted by [R]Korn

Hey there, I'd like to respond to all the lamers who have high end pentiums and whine that Quake2 is choppy. GIVE ME A BREAK! I have a P200 (not mmx) and 64 mb RAM. Also, my graphics card is a certified POS (S3 ViRGE, hehe, soon to be voodoo2 though). I run fullscreen 512x384 (or whatever that res is, starts with 512). Mine runs fine, smooth at 22 fps. So these people must be trying to run it in 800x600 or higher unaccelerated. I know it takes at least a P2 to run it smooth there. So please, stop whining that it sucks and just turn down the res a little. OR buy a good graphics card. I mean sheesh, I'm 16 and I'm getting a Voodoo2, it's called a JOB people. Oh yea, and I run with everything else on high (sound, details, etc), just the res it lowered, so stop whining and just play.

Love that word, blahaha...

So your team sucks, huh?
submitted by Morisato Strife

Well, does your CTF team truly suck? If you are on a team that is doing so badly that your score is a negative number that even scientific notation can't express, it could be because of a number of factors. Maybe your team is mainly HPB while the opponent is mostly LPB. It could be because of unbalanced teams. Maybe your teams is good, but the opposing team is better. Maybe it's because of Weapons Stay, Weapons Respawn, Techs, No Techs, Extra Techs, gravity, etc.(I personally don't give a damn about the settings) It could be anything. It could even be YOU holding the team back. But...

If your team really does suck SO bad that you sometimes get beaten to a bloody pulp by an opposing team half the size of yours (it happens), do not get angry and type messages that begin with f***, end with @$$hole and have a lot of $#!+ in between. That attitude will only make your team do worse than it already is. Instead, if you are convinced that you are the only hope for your team, then stock up on all the weapons you can get, pick up every piece of armor and shards laying around, rent Rambo, and when you're fully prepared to kick ass, grab that mega-health, run into the opponents' base and MAKE THAT CTF THE MOST INTENSE ONE PLAYER GAME YOU HAVE EVER PLAYED! Just think of your opponents as Strogg, only infinitely smarter. And if you can get *A* capture, you just may raise your team's morale enough to even the score (like I said before, it happens).

P.S.-I didn't read the last issue of Mailbag until now, but I would like to reply to Richard when he said this about me-
"you're no less of a wuss for not being able to kick his ass with any weapon you find."

Did I say ANYWHERE in my rant that I couldn't kick ass with any weapon I find? No. Did YOU find anywhere in my rant that I couldn't? No. Why? Because I didn't say that! I said that it was troublesome to switch to the hook to the weapon and back again. That is not the same thing. But you probably didn't take the time to ASK ME about, say, deathmatching, did you? About how I can take my blaster and chase down a person while they're BFGing me, or how I use a shotgun to take a super shotgun, or how I go though entire levels skewering rows of people with a railgun, and still end up in either 1st or 2nd thru 6th place, OR about super shotgun-jumping or any of that other stuff. No, you just probably glanced at the rant and scratched up your response. Well, let me suggest to you your comment you gave to Paul-Get you facts straight, or at least half-straight. Rants are like contracts, Richard, if you don't fully understand them, don't sign them.
(super shotgun-jumping: jump on a croucher and shoot, but everyone knew that)

Well, many of us kinda get frustrated being outnumbered in CTF... and we often lack the skill to take over a base defended by three BFG-toting thugs :). As for Rich's response, personally I don't really agree with what you had to say, and I think he may have misunderstood you, but let's not get mad... I don't mind a good rebuttal, but flame wars are over the line.

Space for Rant
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Subjects for Arguement
submitted by Mavon00

The patches issue:
Id was trying to release Quake II in time for christmas and you gamers were the ones ranting about them releasing it sooner. Well you got it! They released it early and now your angry. I am rather happy that they released it earlyer but Id could of at least put some message on the box saying that it was incompleate. What do you think?
Stragety issue:
Many different gamers have many different forms of stragety so it is nearly impossible to form a good stragety unless the whole team is following one person. A stragety I use is when I just respawned and have nothing but a blaster and im getting shot at by someone with a rocket launcher I run right into their face. Then they take damage too. And when I play CTF, which I frequently play, I always have the whole team defence and just a couple of offenders. But most people don't comply with one form of stragety. As for camping, it has equal disadvantages as it has advantages. I always say "Never stop moveing" others say "Find a good spot and start killing". With camping you usually cannot win unless a lot of people pass through where you are camping but this is very rare. Not only that once somebody finds where you are they can form an organized attack. But if your moveing around a lot you usually die a lot and never have much ammo (unless your just really good) but you have more chances for that sweet kill and are able to say "Damn im good!". I think that in team games one person should be a commander and basically organize the fight but this is rare because that person usually has the least kills.
The grappling hook issue:
Many gamers like to pull away from the grapling hook but others use it as a meticulous tool. I am a fond user of it. I thought the best grappling hook I used was the one in thunderwalker's ctf. It shoot fast it look realistic and it returned fast. Zoid's grappling hook though takes gamers from useing it as a major manuverability device to a device used soly to get to places. Where as thunderwalkers was used more as a "get the hell out of there" device. It is argueable but in the long run servers should be able to set the speed of it or even have gamers vote.
Quake 3 Issue:
One thing I can say on this one is "They shure left it open". Yes It seems that the game just stoped at the end. Like it could go on. I think Id planned on makeing the game longer right from the start but decided to release it early. I am definately for id's quake 3 plan. And I would bet on it that Id will not release a unfinished game with this one. As for the 3D card requirement, deal with it. As you probally alredy noticed (unless your days are spent in the dark playing quake) literally all of the latest games and software are going 3D. Just as computers improve so does software. If you were to only make games that didint need a 3D card think how pitifull some of the latest games would be. Think of some of the N64 games running at 10 fps. So over all don't complain start figuring out how your going to get a 3D card. And as for the brand (as I say for all computer hardware) "Stick with the most standard parts". I definately think 3D fx is pretty much standard as most games that are incompatible with it are being patched so they are.

Quake2 was not incomplete, it just wasn't finished... did that make sense? :) I mean, there were a lot more little things that needed to be fixed, but the GAME was done. Waiting much longer wouldn't have accomplished as much as you think. To quote Carmack, "We beta-tested the PR (Point Release) for 2 weeks and all it seemed to get us was a 2 week later release." And just imagine someone putting a message on the box saying "incomplete product". Imagine the sales figures! :)
Next: camping. I think it is PERFECTLY FAIR to find a railgun and a dark spot and snipe some people... sure it is annoying, but the camper is a sitting duck! It all kinda balances out...
Grapple hook: This is zoid's decision, he was very clear that the grapple had become too prominent in CTF and it was deliberately slowed down. Myself, I don't really remember much of it. I went straight from DM to a week of CTF, then straight to TF. :)
Quake3: I agree with you there... 3D cards are the future of gaming, and if you don't have one yet, GET ONE!.

more rants
submitted by zarathustra

Well, what the hell is wrong with being a guy and using a female skin? It's a matter of personal preference, I think, and it's just a freaking skin. It doesn't automatically classify you as a homosexual or whatever. Besides, if you're that picky, you spend too much time on this game.

Reasons why camping is bad: 1. The obvious... it's basically cheating. Sitting on top of a weapon and killing all who come close, or sitting on a player respawn spot and killing everyone who comes out, is really just a cop out. 2. It's bad strategy, believe it or not. Another player can easily sneak up behind you or plug you from a distance, or can at least drive you out of that spot. Also, you never get a good frag number because only a certain amount of people will fall for your ploy and will learn... and snipe you from some other point. 3. What fun is it?! How can you appreciate one of the most advanced and enjoyable (yes i like q2) games if you do nothing but sit in a corner the entire time? Even when I first got on Q2 multi (only 3 weeks ago), I decided to just play the damn game no matter how often I died.

One complaint I have... and it's with Microsoft and not ID... why is DirectX 5 not compatable with previous versions?! I can't play Master of Orion 2 or ZPC on Win95 because they use DirectX 2, which version 5 apparently doesn't support. Even downloading Microsoft's version didn't help! What the hell Microsoft?!

And, in case it should escape some of you hardcore players: QUAKE 2 IS ONLY A GAME. Outside of your computer room is an entire planet that's constantly changing and moving. Take a walk. Read a book. Talk to a friend. DO something!

I sound like a total hypocrite, don't I? :) Oh well...

There's no way you can convince me that camping is cheating.. actually, Thresh wrote an article about it recently in PC Gamer which dealt with the camping issue, and he has the same viewpoint as me: there's nothing wrong with it, it's just annoying.

Why I bought QuakeII
submitted by Raptor5588

Why did i buy quake II like millions of others. The fun in gibbing bad guys. Busting a cap in thier *ss which would throw them into a pool of boiling lava. Thats what i thought would happen when i was playing Quake II. I was too wrong, not that i dont like quake or anything i love it but i have found a lot of guys just standing right over a pit of lava or something and when i walk up behind them and whip out my SSG i cant blow them into the lava. (heres the raving part) Whats with that, i cant knock some freaking badguy into a freaking pile of lava, whats with that, i dont know. All i would like is to knock some stupid piece of strogg into a pool of lava. Heres a good suggestion to all those MOD makers out there. Make a MOD that will make guys fly 30 game units when hit with a gun that does not make them gib. This would be funny to walk up behind some guy and shoot them with a laser gun and watch them fly into a boiling pit of lava. Wouldn't that be funny. One last thing, keep up the good work, Quake2.com is the best quake II site on the net.

Um, it was like that in the first demo, and everyone hated it, so they got rid of it... someone could make a patch, though, I think it's the 'kick' value of a weapon that determines how far they go flying back.

And so ends my latest mailbag. If I didn't post your mail, then you didn't read the guidelines! Remember, technical questions will go straight to my trash can. I will try to post submissions which contain ONLY VALID OPINIONS. Read on for the guidlines...

Guidelines

Don't send me specific hardware questions; mail them to the respective companies' technical support.
Don't send me specific gameplay questions like how to finish a certain level.
Don't send me specific problems you're having; mail them to id Software instead.
Don't send me questions about a specific mod; mail them to the mod author.

The Mailbag deals with opinions, not specific questions. Also, I don't reply directly so you'll need to check The Bag each week. If I happen to grin at your submission you are free to send another. Use it to show I was wrong; if you don't send other logic arguments or facts I will grin a lot harder. Send them to mailbag@quake2.com.

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