Getting there, I'm not sure it's front page worthy... :\
I won't have time to finish this before qcon is over it seems - it's nearly done however. Anyone is free to finish it, edit it, and post it anywhere they want-
Hi !
<big friendly sign>
I hope you are enjoying or just enjoyed QuakeCon 2016 - Welcome to QuakeWorld - Come check us out!
(happy you found us!)
The QuakeWorld(QW) scene is a very intimate place; where nearly everyone knows each other. As many of us have played together for over a decade, and some now for two decades, we have some quirks and unique terms that for us is second nature. For new players coming into the scene it can seem cumbersome to understand all the various aspects of what it is to be a QW player. And finding someone to play with can be a struggle. Especially when you are just starting out.
The skill celling, as you can imagine when someone has played QW for this long, is very high. The customization options in QW is also quite overwhelming. Your first months in QW might therefore be a challenging but fun learning experience, both in QW gameplay, setting up your client to your liking and the socializing aspect.
Hopefully this quick start guide will help you find people to play against and give you a brief summary of how the community is organized, so that you can easily find the activities you want to be a part of. There will also be some sprinkling of common used quirky QW words and terms here and there.
Above all else, since we are such a small community, and especially outside Europe we have for a long time have had an urgent need for players. It's therefore important that you try to connect with other players right from the get go. All of QW is very welcoming to new players and, and we really want you to succeed and have fun! Probably much more than you do yourself! All you have to do is make some effort in reaching out, and you should fairly quickly see that people will come rushing to help you with any questions you might have!
::
ClientYour first stop to getting your feet in on the fun is however to download a QW
client. A QW client is the program that runs Quake for you.
There are various clients to chose from. At this moment in time the current most popular client is EzQuake. Although EzQuake can be downloaded separately, a more user friendly version can be obtained in the QW
package NQuake.
NQuake is merely a collection of features bundled together and pre-setup.
Perhaps an easier way to think of EzQuake and NQuake is:
EzQuake is a mod that alone "relies" on you already having purchased the Quake game.
While Nquake is a collection of mods that includes EzQuake, but does not require the purchase of Quake,unless you want single player enabled.
So in essence you are going to be playing Quake with EzQuake, while Nquake has made it slightly easier for you to do is.
You might later find that you want to include single player to your game by buying Quake. Or maybe you want to add some new textures to a map,change the Lightning Gun's lightning colour or add different rockets. All of this and more is possible and considered fair and legal in play.
In fact fiddling with your Quake install, and setup, is one of the things many people find very confusing when they begin playing Quake. It truly is a double decade long endeavour to customize your client.
NQuake eases much of the setup hassle and so for this guide we will assume you are running EzQuake with an NQuake install.
http://nquake.com/::
Options menu tutorial:One of the first things you might want to check out after installing and starting up EzQuake from the nQuake package is the options menu. Pressing Escape brings this up.
Lets start with a few changes in the options to get familiar with customizing your Quake setup just a tad,learning how to access he "consol", changing our crosshair, crosshair colour, and saving your config. Your setup is often shortend to "cfg", wich derives from config. The "cfg" is actually also the file type used to store all your QW variables wich makes up your unique cfg.
(It's located in the nQuake\ezquake\configs folder. After we make our first save, it will be called "config.cfg". And the file can be open in wordpad if you want to fiddle with it outside the game. )
* In general to manipulate the different sliders and toggles in the menus you can use the mouse, but for many things its easier to use the keyboard keys.
- The BACKSPACE key functions as a decrease or remove function. While the ENTER key functions as an increase or enable toggle. The arrow keys on your keyboard navigates the menus and sections.
* The suggestions underneath are all subjective and you will likely play with all the settings yourself in time to find what you like the best. However lets highlight some important features to get comfortable with the options menu.
First you are going to enable "Advanced options".
- Advanced options its on the top of every section. It's a universal toggle however - so you only need to enable it on one of the sections.
<Screenshot advanced options in players section>
In the 'Player' section, edit the
- Teamchatname.
To something more alike your nickname. The teamchatname works togheter with something you might fiddle with later on as you play team games, team messages. Team messages in text are often refereed to as "MM2" by Quake Players, while voice communication is called "MM3".
To change teamskin and enemyskins:
* Teamskin and Colors*
and
*Enemyskin and Colors*
Both having a - Skin toggle.
- Skin
Entering this lets you select a few different fullbright skins for teammates and enemies respectively.
Keyboard and mouse bindings is found in the 'Controls' section.
Adjusting screen settings can be found in the 'systems' section.
Once you are done setting this to your needs head on over to the 'Graphics' setting.
* Field of view *
- View size (fov)
In QW having a wide field of view is actually a big advantage. As the game is very fast, it's important to be able to see as much as possible on the sides, and not just straight ahead. Most QW players have a FOV in the 115-130 range. Put this to a setting where you feel your aim is not to hampered, while still maxing it as much as possible.
In general a wider FOV is more important in team games than in duels - but it's better to get used to just one FOV and not switch back and fourth between TDM/Duels.
- View height , should be set to -6. For our purposes this relates to aiming, where having another setting will make you not hit where you are aiming.
* Environment *
- Simpleitems - This gives you Quake 3 item icons, put it either on or off depending on what you like.
Since you are a new player, we are also going to enable a mini-cheat. Now in tournament play, you will lose this feature. But when we are just learning and having fun, it's a super nice addition!
At the absolute bottom of the 'Graphics' section there is a line that says
"particle shaft" - we are going to flick this one over to on.
Most players you meet will have absolutely no problem with you having it on, and they won't even be able to tell. But once you enter in an official match, you will have to enable an anti-cheat feature. This anti-cheat enforces the particle shaft to off.
So it's up to you:
Having it ON, is no big deal, it looks nice and it's more fun to play with.
Having it off is however required in competitions, and so it could be a drawback later on if you are to accustomed to having it on.
Check around the Options menu, see if there are other settings you are curious about - typically the settings are explained in more detail by pressing the F1 key.
::
Basic Consol Tutorial:As you can see there are quite a lot of commands in the options - however all of the settings in the menu are also present as variables in the consol. There are many more variables in the consol than the menu gives, so getting familiar with using the consol is quite handy in Quakeworld.
It's likely you will be using the consol every time you play QW when you get more experienced.
To start you of using the consol, lets try changing our cross hair and learning how to "tab_complete" while we are at it!
There is no difference between lowercase and uppercase characters in the consol, and the slash "/" is also not needed to be typed.
To open the consol hit the tilde key - it's located to the left of 1 on most keyboards - or google if you can't find it!
Type in "/map start" in the consol first, and press enter, so we can actually see our crosshair!
<screenshot tilde key location>
Once you have the consol open type "cr" and press "tab". Pressing tab completes the line to the closest command you have started writing.
As you can see the consol now says crosshair, add an "S" to crosshair so it says "crosshairs" and press enter.
(So we just learned how "tab_complete" works!
Try it out, press any letter on the keyboard, and press tab. Look at the consol, it should have filled up with a cupule variables. All of the variables are valid commands that can be run. While at the same time, you don't have to type more than a few letters of the command to fill it up, handy huh!)
You have now executed the "/crosshairs" command when you pressed enter, and it has listed a series of nquake default crosshair images.
In the consol there are now 20 "cross hair images" listed. If you don't see the list of 20, try using the page up and page down keys on your keyboard.
The "page up" and "page down" keys scrolls the consol up and down.
To browse through the crosshairs you are going to have to test each one till you find one you like.
As you can see in the consol when you typed /crosshairs it also told you how to switch crosshairs.
Many commands have this explanation added to them when you execute a valid command.
Lets try changing to another crosshair image with "tab_complete":
Type cr press tab, add an i press tab. It should now say crosshairimage. Try the different ones that you got after running the /crosshairs command to see if you find one you like. example: /crosshairimage 3
If you don't find any you like, you could try the default cross hairs.
In Nquake the default cross hairs are disabled on default (wich is why the slider on crosshairs in the options menu does not work).
Type /Crosshairimage 0 to disable cross hair image.
You are now able to use the default crosshair command or use the slider in options.
Two other handy commands to know is changing the cross hair's size and color. They are /crosshairsize and /crosshaircolor. /crosshairsize is quite self explanatory.
/Crosshaircolor supports 3 colors from the color paleet. You can combine these red, green and blue colors to find the color you feel most comfortable with.
Example for green crosshair is: "/crosshaircolor 0 255 0"
Lastly, lets save all our changes so that next time we start Quake, things will be like we left them.
In the consol type
"/save_cfg"
::
BotplayEzQuake has a built in bot feature, that is accessible through the consol.
You can learn of the bots commands by executing the "/bots" command.
It is best implemented for Free for all, 1on1, and Team Deathmatch.
Lets learn how to start up a 1on1 match against a bot.
Type "/bot_1on1"
This loads the Aerowalk map, one of "THE BIG FIVE" in QW. (- More about The big five later..)
If you don't want to play on Aeorwalk, you can simply change the map to something else. Say you like Ztndm3 (bloodrun) better then you can change to ztndm3 by typing it's name "/map ztndm3"
But you are alone on the map! This won't make much of a 1on1.
To add a bot type: /addbot
This adds a bot with skill level 5, the name doesn't have anything to do with the skill level or play style of the bot.
Once you have wopped the level 5 bot a bit, you could try increasing its skill level by typing "/skillup" to the desired bot level, then "/removebot" and "/addbot" again, and you will have a bot at level 6.
The good thing about playing against bots, is that there is no pressure, and once you get higher skill level they actually have quite amazing aim!
The bad things about playing against bots, is that there is no pressure, and they have quite bad decision making brains in general
For some Aim practise UK player Mike's suggestion is:
"I've found playing on bot_arena vs. a skill 9 bot with lg_pref or a skill 15 bot with rl_pref a good way of honing your aim. Use rl / lg combos and try to regularly beat the skill 9 bot by 5-6 frags and the skill 15 bot by 2-3 frags per 3-minute match. The best maps for this are povdmm4, dm2dmm4, dmm4_3 and dm3hill."
So by all means do play with the bots now and then, it can be quite beneficial and relaxing!
::
Now that we have fiddled with the settings, for what seems an eternity. Played with bots till we have 20% lightning gun hit percentage, its time to head on out onto the big scary world of meeting your fellow Quakers in Kenya, where there are lions and tigers!
Where we will learn how to connect to servers with the best ping possible, navigate a website, getting on the optional IRC, Discord, or facebook, and getting killed before we reach a weapon.
Lets start with playing and finding a good routine for how to find games, because that's why you are here!
Now I'll assume you know no-one that plays QuakeWorld. Your just a lonely whippersnapper looking for puppies to play with.
::
Server browserBuilt into the EzQuake client is a Server browser. To access it hit escape key till you get to the main menu and select Multi Player.
<pic server browser.>
It should immediately start updating and pinging servers. Unless you are on a 14.4 modem, like I once was, this process should be fairly fast.
The server browser uses some of the same hotkeys as the options menu and the consol. Backspace to cancel/go back, enter to execute and arrow keys, page up and page down to navigate.
The server browser has a tendency to sometimes freeze. if nothing is happening for 3-4 seconds, feel free to ctrl-alt-delete,end the EzQuake.exe*32 process and start EzQuake again.
(A common hiccup people have with the server browser is not seeing any servers. This is most caused by the search function. All the normal alphabet keys functions as a search filter. Any touch on those keys starts a filtering process on the servers. Just press backspace a few times to make sure there is nothing in the search field. If you still don't see servers, head on over to the Quakeworld.nu forum, irc or alike and ask what's up.)
If you are lucky; you are currently based in Europe which has a larger active player base than the other regions. Which increases your chances of finding a populated server. Now for other regions, if you are limited to using the game server browser, you might be left with two grim choices, none of which are super exciting news.
Either accept defeat and log into a high ping server which have players on it, or try the [Servme bot] and wait.
::
Beepboop - Transmitting.: servme bot.The Servme bot is a multi purpose chat relay.
It's primary function is to help you find someone to play with. It broadcasts your messages to all other servers which has a Servme bot on it, nearly all the servers. It also sends the message to pretty much all of the QuakeWorld channels on IRC. (quakenet.). The message it sends automatically includes where it was sent from. As such, if you are on a server looking for opponents, you don't have to include the game IP/channel you are on. The bot does this for you.
To use the bot type: ".qw your message." - everything after .qw will be broadcasted to the other outlets.. (Don't tell Al Qaeda.)
Example: .qw Come join me for some 1on1!
The .qw bot is likely the one major way everyone manages to find people to play against in QW, and it's free to use by all the players.
But we are organized in other ways as well!
::
IRC & DiscordIRC:
Historically IRC has been the stomping ground of Quake. We even have "our own" IRC server network! Quakenet!
In the recent years we have expanded a bit on only being on IRC. We are now present on all the major social networks. I'll quickly go through the various ones.
However the best way of finding comrades and getting inside the qw scene is still rooted in IRC.
I won't go into the details of how to setup IRC - there are several IRC clients around. You don't necessarily need a IRC client to enter IRC either, as you can use this link as well:< enter qw.nu java irc>
But a client is probably the best way to connect to QW players overall still. Personally I have been using
http://www.mirc.com/ since my 14.4 modem. But if you google around I am sure you can find something you like!
The quaknet server ip is: irc.quakenet.org
Here is a list of popular community channels:
#qw.na (this is where most of the north americans are!)
#quakeworld & #qwrookie
#qw.ru (Mostly russian/baltic speaking)
#ibh
These are active tournament channels:
1on1: #thunderdome #duelmania
All types of games: #sundayspawnfraggin
4on4: to be announced
Special event channels:
#qwallstars
#salvation
Clan channels in no particular order:
United Kingdom based: #Fatalerror , #ballsacks
Eu based: #crazy88 #div99 #suddendeath #fragomatic
Swedish based: #020 #chosen
Finnish based: #fu #paras
Discord:
<quake discord enter>
So head on over to discord, or one of the IRC channels and see if you can get a game vs someone!
Especially the #qwrookie channel might be your new stomping ground
::
Websites:The majority of the scene is structured around the
QuakeWorld.nu site. Through this site, and its forum users you can find everything QW related that you will need. If you look on the top of the site you can see a grey bar, with grey buttons.
This "QuakeBar" links to many of the other important QW sites. Some of the most used is the QTV, Servers, Wiki, Stats and GFX sites.
Pop into the site right now and register and account and come say hi
The site is going to follow you through your entire QW career.
QTV:Lets take a look at the QTV site first, to continue on our game finding path. While using QTV to find a server and connecting to custom ip's using proxies this time!
The QTV site is located here:
http://qtv.quakeworld.nu/It's unlikely that QTV will find a server with players that didn't show up with the server browser. But many people don't even use the browser at all, and merely rely on qtv. And QTV is what we use when we are observing big games, so it is useful to know how to use it.
<qtv page pic>
ProxiesIf you see a server with players on it, or in general if you are just given an IP this is how to minimize the ping to that server:
1 Mark and copy the IP of the server. The ip of the server is the top most line of each little window on QTV.
2 Start EzQuake.
3 Open the consol.
4 Type "sb_refresh" (this is generally only needed once per gaming session, it is the same as updating the server browser.)
5 Wait - until it says in the consol "Ping tree has been created" (it should not take longer than a minute, unless you have a 14.4 modem!
6 type "/connectbr ip you copied earlier. Example: "/connectbr sfo.qw.traxo.net:28502".
The BR on the end of connect there is important to include.
The game will now try to find the best possible route from you to the server, hopefully making your ping better.
Ideally anything over 50 ping is not a good playing ping - but sometimes it can't be avoided.
A tip might be if you find a server with a player on it: Ask him where he is from, and try to find a QW server somewhere in-between the two of you.
Quick IP explainer:
Lets take a quick look on the ip we used earlier. sfo.qw.traxo.net:28502 . Here the ip is sfo.qw.traxo.net, while :28502 is called the port.
ip:port.
This format is what all quake servers use. A QW server typically has 3-5 different ports, each port can have lots of individual connections from players, but it is still the same server, just another part of it !
:.Observing with QTV.:QTV's ultimate benefit comes of course from it's spectating benefits.
For most of you it will be enough to click the "Watch" button on a QTV server window on the QTV site.
But for some of you this feature wont work as your browser either doesn't support it or there is another issue.
To be able to quickly connect to a QTV manually here is the procedure should you need it:
1.Right click the watch button.
2. copy link location, or ip so you get something that looks like this: "qw://8@quakeworld.fi:28000/qtvplay "
3. paste this somewhere.
4. remove "/qtvplay" and qw:// from the line you pasted.
5. copy the new line so you get something like this: "8@quakeworld.fi:28000"
6. start QW, and paste this line into the consol.
7. Add "qtvplay" to start of the line, so it looks something like this: qtvplay 8@quakeworld.fi:28000
8. Hit enter
::
www.quakeservers.netThe Quakenetservers.net webpage, located in the QuakeBar under "servers". Is the biggest collection of servers in a browser interface. It can be handy in finding players. However it it excels at finding servers in specific countries.
Go to the site, either trough the QuakeBar or directly -
https://www.quakeservers.net/ Enter the QuakeWorld section, click search, and select your desired country. Filter out Qizmos. And you should have an easier time finding a good server that is located somewhere in between your opponent and you.
::.
Connecting with community.Historically QuakeWorld has been structured around clans; and the predominantly strongest modes 4on4 and 1on1. As you saw at QuakeCon, we do play 2on2 as well - but it is not the mode that most people find entertaining. Both to watch and to play the 1on1 and 4on4 have been where we have had our major competitions and rivalries.
The TDM mode quickly spawned clans right after Quake was released. Back then the players even played 10on10 competitively. Pretty soon however the 4on4 mode was identified as the most efficient and entertaining TDM - and this tradition has lived on till today. Where tournaments such as Smackdown, Nations Quake Rank (NQR) and European Quake League (EQL) reigned supreme. Catering for hundreds of clans, with thousands of players. They helped keep the scene alive, sparked intense rivalries,created gaming history and fond memories trough tens of thousands of 4on4 games.
Today the scene
qtv site+.quakeservers.net explained. ((server browser))
((help with getting qtv working/browsers??))
short mentions: stats site,(((gfx site))),WIKI
-interact:How to find games - and what people r playing..
teamspeak
CLANS..
-fuckin' ...lingo... < onliy in kenya embed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPtBnhehPOU >
((ip/server:port explainer))
hugs & direction to forum + rookies corner, mushis quickstart guide posts
work in progress..
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