Quake II Remastered

[hfc2x]

I'm referring to the Q3-style "fast weapon switch", which on PC can be disabled with the g_quick_weapon_switch CVAR.

[Lizardcommando]

I don't think I have run into any PS4/PS5 or Nintendo Switch players while playing multiplayer. I've seen plenty of XBox players though.

[Edward850]

Xbox players are visible on PC, however other console players show as a globe.

[Lizardcommando]

Oh, I did not know that. I was wondering what the globe symbol meant. Was there a reason why PS4/PS5 and Nintendo Switch players are showed as globes instead of their perspective console's logos?

[Lila Feuer]

Just want to say COTM is probably the best Q2 SP content I've played and I'm only three units in. Really like the surprise boss fights!

[WorldMachine]

11 hours ago, Edward850 said:

Xbox players are visible on PC, however other console players show as a globe.

Any reason for that actually?

[hfc2x]

It's kinda obvious lol. Windows and Xbox are both property of Microsoft, therefore no licensing conflicts. I doubt Microsoft cares if you're actually playing Quake 2 on Steam while running Linux or macOS.

 

Sony and Nintendo might probably not want their logos used in contexts outside of their ecosystems, or maybe charge a ton of money to do so.

[Chang O'Brian]

I cant believe these levels are near identical
 

 

 

[Kinsie]

8 hours ago, Lizardcommando said:

Oh, I did not know that. I was wondering what the globe symbol meant. Was there a reason why PS4/PS5 and Nintendo Switch players are showed as globes instead of their perspective console's logos?

 

6 hours ago, WorldMachine said:

Any reason for that actually?

Pretty sure it's due to console certification stuff and the weird, weird corporate political games that cross-play games have to play as a result.

[Edward850]

We probably can show other consoles on PC, we just decide not to to keep paperwork to a minimum, as on the flipside we can't show other consoles on eachother due to rules about competitor products. Why only Xbox is shown is due to Xbox being both PC and a console for the same service, and our platform identity doesn't make the distinction.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Edward850

[Azuris]

6 hours ago, Chang O'Brian said:

I cant believe these levels are near identical
 

 

 

 

I actually like the blue tone way more, i just got enough brown of Doom 2 and Quake 1 :D

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

Is there a reason the behavior of the anti-aircraft gun in Research Hangar is different? In the original game, the gun would fire at the hangar doors and gradually destroy them, but in the remaster the doors instantly explode as soon as you activate the terminal, which doesn't make much sense.

[mhmh]

A minor bug, but after picking up an ammo pack in the base game, I noticed that I had ammo for expansion weapons - Flechettes, etc. This is a cosmetic item rather than gameplay-affecting, as without the weapons the ammo is useless, but it does just add some clutter to the inventory. 

[Edward850]

Not a bug. All the expansion packs and base game were merged together so the weapons exist in the base game, even if there's no spawns for them.

[mhmh]

And that's fine. It's not gameplay-affecting, it's just cosmetic clutter, and I have it mentally filed as "nice to have" but can accept rationale for it being the way it is. 

[SMG_Man]

Playing the remaster jogged my memory on something fairly obscure I came across in the (original) Ground Zero expansion:

Spoiler

 

This compass item, when used, will give your coordinates and direction. I wonder if the compass in the remaster came about from trying to make this item more useful to the average player? Or perhaps it's just a small coincidence that a compass already existed in Quake II.

[Edward850]

It was kind of a coincidence. It came about because we wanted to add an automap (since Quake1) but it was proving too complicated to engineer in a way that we could automate, then it was realised we could simply direct the player using the bot navigation mesh which could already allow bots to finish the campaign levels on their own, and Sponge or Paril noticed there was an unused compass item that could be reused with this behaviour.

 

Had we not wanted an automap, and had the bots not existed the compass item likely would have been left unused.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Edward850

[dustarma]

Got to the Jail unit in the remaster and some of the areas seem strangely fullbright-y, like there was no precalculated lightmaps applied.

 

Yamagi Quake 2

 

Remaster

 

Yamagi

 

Remaster

 

The remaster generally has a great atmosphere and looks better but those spots look really unfinished.

Edited August 28, 2023 by dustarma

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

23 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

It was kind of a coincidence. It came about because we wanted to add an automap (since Quake1) but it was proving too complicated to engineer in a way that we could automate, then it was realised we could simply direct the player using the bot navigation mesh which could already allow bots to finish the campaign levels on their own, and Sponge or Paril noticed there was an unused compass item that could be reused with this behaviour.

 

Had we not wanted an automap, and had the bots not existed the compass item likely would have been left unused.

Hey man, I have a question for ya if you don't mind. Sorry if it's not explicitly related to the discussion, but your talk here of the compass and everything made me think: I always see you explaining these developer stories and all these cool details about how certain things in Night Dive's games came to be. I was just wondering if these stories are actually logged somewhere or discussed in other public spaces by other people on your team. In other words, I was curious if a lot of this developer trivia stuff is unknown to the people outside of this forum. I think a lot of people outside of Doomworld are interested in these little tidbits you share. As someone who has no idea how the legal side of development works, I'm surprised that you're allowed to share anything "insider" with us about the development of your team's games. I think it's cool though, I always read your posts about Night Dive stuff even if sometimes I'm not smart enough to understand what you're talking about.

Edited August 28, 2023 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Chezza]

@TheMagicMushroomMan It would be interesting if they logged all this. But I suspect they would work like most office / project teams segmented in their specialised groups. Some would keep notes of the little details, some would have a meeting with all sorts of details recorded but archived somewhere likely to never be seen again, some very little notes etc

[Devalaous]

17 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Hey man, I have a question for ya if you don't mind. Sorry if it's not explicitly related to the discussion, but your talk here of the compass and everything made me think: I always see you explaining these developer stories and all these cool details about how certain things in Night Dive's games came to be. I was just wondering if these stories are actually logged somewhere or discussed in other public spaces by other people on your team. In other words, I was curious if a lot of this developer trivia stuff is unknown to the people outside of this forum. I think a lot of people outside of Doomworld are interested in these little tidbits you share. As someone who has no idea how the legal side of development works, I'm surprised that you're allowed to share anything "insider" with us about the development of your team's games. I think it's cool though, I always read your posts about Night Dive stuff even if sometimes I'm not smart enough to understand what you're talking about.

 

I also enjoy the things Edward, Quasar and Sponge share; in my case its because I myself have worked in the game industry and I understand a lot of what they say and the rationale behind choices. Even if there are decisions I would have liked done differently, I always understand the how and why of what they do

[Edward850]

@TheMagicMushroomMan Sometimes we post such details here or Something Awful, but nothing really publically or internally logged. And yes there can be legal issues that come up, basically what we talk about is usually a fraction of what's going on behind the scenes. We never talk policy, for example or if we do, it's normally with important details scrubbed.

 

It also largely depends on the contractor for a title.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Edward850

[riktoi]

@dustarma It is true that the lighting ends up brighter in some areas because of a more modern lighting compiler being used with phong and bounce (from what I can tell), but I don't remember these sections being this overblown. Perhaps a change in settings?

[Edward850]

28 minutes ago, riktoi said:

@dustarma It is true that the lighting ends up brighter in some areas because of a more modern lighting compiler being used with phong and bounce (from what I can tell), but I don't remember these sections being this overblown. Perhaps a change in settings?

It's this combined with the map simply having a very bright light for some reason, ericw-tools handles bright lights differently, and combining it with bouncing causes the light to just saturate the area.

[Daytime Waitress]

Seconding (fourthing?) the appreciation for the behind-the-scenes aspects, but

 

5 hours ago, Edward850 said:

@TheMagicMushroomMan Sometimes we post such details here or Something Awful, but nothing really publically or internally logged. And yes there can be legal issues that come up, basically what we talk about is usually a fraction of what's going on behind the scenes. We never talk policy, for example or if we do, it's normally with important details scrubbed.

 

What does policy refer to in this instance?

[Edward850]

For example, talking about a hypothetical platform that hypothetically makes feature demands for crossplay.

[Koko Ricky]

7 hours ago, riktoi said:

@dustarma It is true that the lighting ends up brighter in some areas because of a more modern lighting compiler being used with phong and bounce (from what I can tell), but I don't remember these sections being this overblown. Perhaps a change in settings?

I think someone in this thread mentioned those fullbright areas will be fixed in an update. I have a feeling a sunlight style light source, which wasn't present in the original engine, might have goofed up on a few places. 

[Jello]

I really think the Berserker jump attack needs to be addressed. There's probably a reason that it was taken out of the original game, and it actually would work well if it was balanced. But that would mean that every Berserker encounter would have to be redone to account for it. So I'm just going to leave two screenshots as I think this is ridiculous:

 

 

That's the amount of time it took me to press F12 twice. And the Berserker is crashing down on the right side of my rocket launcher. It's not going to stop me from playing the game, but it's really really annoying. The Berserker shouldn't be able to close the distance of the bridge in one jump. And this isn't the only instance where this happens, their jump is broken. It's kind of funny when they do a jump into a lava pit, but for the most part they went from a really good melee opponent to a giant pain in the ass.

 

And it's far more annoying when they're on a lower level and they do the ground pound and bounce you in the air when they are standing five meters below you. It doesn't even really hurt you, they just bounce you around like a pinball, and that's not enjoyable gameplay.

[Cantleylads]

1 hour ago, Jello said:

but for the most part they went from a really good melee opponent

 

I'm generally in agreement with your post but 'really good melee opponent' is not what I experienced in the original release. I'd take their current 'annoying' incarnation over their original, non-threatening version.

[Edward850]

2 hours ago, Jello said:

There's probably a reason that it was taken out of the original game

It wasn't taken out so much as it was Quake2 literally wasn't finished. There was a whole bunch of AI behaviour that failed to make the transition from the original QuakeC to the native C library when that got changed part way through development.