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[J-Snake]

I am interested to see what you think about these particular arena-shooters. Which do you prefer and why.

How do you compare both in pacing?

Why do you think the weapon-set in one or the other is better (or more fun)?

Which shooter encourages to develop a richer pool of skills?

Feel free to cover all those questions and more to your personal estimations.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

It's a bit of a difficult topic because I love both games. That said as I stated previously quakeworld is still my favorite. Specifically quake1/quakeworld.


There's a lot of angles to discuss when debating the differences between these two games.

Some of these topics are :

input systems
physics
weapons
level design

So why dont we start with weapons.

I prefer quakes weapons because while there weren't many. For the most part they had unique uses and were remarkably deep. Granted there were some weapons that were decidedly inferior such as the shotgun and nailgun1. That said you spawn with the shotgun though and as a result it helps perpetuate positive reinforcement.  

Further to this is that explosive weapons had significant push. If you were truly great at this game you could use it significantly to your advantage. If you knew how to lead a enemy with a rocket or grenade shot into a position where they would be pushed back against their will and you could have your next explosive already in that area ready for the kill. Of course i'm sure were also all familiar with the famed rocket jump.

Explosives and explosive pushback are a huge factor to the weapon system in quake. There were split second risks that you had to calculate in regards to damage to yourself for better positioning or how to disrupt an enemies position.



UT99 certainly had some interesting weapons. I feel that the ripper and the combo attack on shock rifle stood out the most to me. The rocket launcher I felt relatively underwhelming due to it's reduced pushback and requirement to load up missles with altfire to get a significant amount of damage.

I do very much like the headshot advantage with the ripper and the combo attack with the shock rifle though. A well timed combo attack with the shock rifle is very satisfying.

In some cases I feel that the secondary fire modes were tacked on or not different enough to warrant an alt-fire.

I will say I find the flak cannon in UT99 more satisfying than the shotguns in Quake because it's far more likely to kill in one hit.


This is somewhat of a devils advocate argument for me though because both games are some of the best in their genre. For the sake of argument and discovery i have to argue against UT99.

[Ant]

no poll?


Anyway UT every day of the week for me. Reasons for FPS arena unbeatable supremacy:

Weapon selection is more varied with each individual weapon also having variance. Take the missiles launcher, can fire standard missiles or alt-fire for grenades. Hold fire to load a cluster with missile/grenade cluster behaving differently. Hold reticle over player for homing missiles which has its own uses. So many options.

Variety in map themes and general expertly designed maps. Originally I had the UT demo and could play instagib Phobos for hours the flow in that level is like an oily soapy eel.

Pace of UT was spot on. Quake always felt like it was based more on luck since it's so fast you barely have time to think, where as with UT you have time to predict and strategise.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

The speed issue is also interesting to me. I found UT99 slow because I came from playing quakeworld. I never found quake too fast. Just other games to slow.

What game did everyone play first? I'm curious.

[s0]

quake 3. best weapon balance, best maps, tightest controls. best pure twitch shooter ever made.

[Ant]

Yeah no denying Q3 is the best twitch shooter, but UT beats it on overall godly package and variety. Modding for it is sublime to, even a code-dunce like me could put together mutators and the level editor was top draw too.


@ISM
I played the earlier Quakes first, then UT, then Q3.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

no question the unreal editor was way ahead for its time. Mutators too. That was one of the best parts of UT. I must have made at least 50 UT maps.


The subtractive BSP stuff was also quite interesting. That was back in the days where it wasn:t easy to trace a leak.

[Ant]

dem bsp holes haha

rather sad i don't have my old pc creations anymore, ut maps, klik n play gams, all gone ;_;

a few pictures are all that remain...








*sob*

[forwardresent]

I prefer UT99. It felt more tactical, and I played Facing Worlds(?) like all weekend, every weekend with a school friend. That mad dash to get the one Redeemer on the map was always hilarious.

Quake was more about twitch, I only really enjoyed the jailbreak mod.

[s0]

i dont understand how UT is "tactical" other than secondary firemodes. to me its a twitch based deathmatch shooter like quake, only slower haha. sth like counter strike where theres a skill ceiling and high level play ultimately comes down to teamwork is tactical.

[Ant]

Well I think it feels more tactical because of the weapon variety. Most weapons offered the choice of an instant-hit and a slower projectile which does more damage, then you've got extra stuff going on like shock-combos and bioglobs. Quake weapons were pretty one dimension instant-hits because the speed doesn't allow for things like slow projectiles to be useful. Generally there's just a lot more options open to you with UT weapons.


p.s. low grav + instagib + capture the flag + hall of giants



all dem memories :3

[rivon]

My journey: Unreal -> UT99 -> UT2k3 -> Warsow/Urban Terror -> QW(Q1)/Quake3 -> QL...

Quakes have definitely the best movement system/physics. I just love strafe jumping and rocket jumping. The weapons are just great, each very different, each having it's specific use, all very balanced and there are only 7? of them so it's easy to bind them around the WASD. The maps are nice.

UT has very good and varied maps, good gametypes. It's definitely slower (after playing Quake for a while, it's just so sluggish, really). The weapons are nice but there are quite too many, especially since 2k3 and 2k4. Why have 2 sniper rifles? I think 3 different types of rocket/grenade launchers etc. Just too many. Onslaught is great fun though :D (and also Assault... never really played anything like it)

I can't really say which one is better because they are both aimed differently.
Quake is a duel game. Yes, there is CTF. Yes, there is TDM. Yes, there is CA, but still 1v1 is the main specialization.
UT on the other hand is mainly a team game, oriented especially at CTF.
That of course means that Quake has mainly small maps and UT has big ones to accomodate more players.
Also, Quake (especially because of the fast movement and small maps) is much more difficult to master and the differences between low and high players are much bigger. UT is much easier to get into.

Quake is for people who want a challenge (a really big one). UT is for people who want to have fun (without needing extreme skills).

Final decision: Quake has better physics/movement and weapons. UT has better style/setting/world/aesthetics, maps, fun stuff (mutators, Onslaught and other fun gametypes), Assault.


Btw Hall of Giants + Low Grav + High Jumps + Instagib is really great fun :D

[impulse9]

Moving in UT always felt to me like I'm in some sort of liquid. It's a good game and all but I really dislike how the movement was done.

Quake is probably my favorite game so I won't lose words there. 

[rivon]

Still UT is way faster than any Half-Life game. Those are the real slow ones.

[impulse9]

Not if you learn how to bunny-hop.

[s0]

Quake is for people who want a challenge (a really big one). UT is for people who want to have fun (without needing extreme skills).

good post. i would normally be on the "UT" side of this debate (more shit to do, lower entry point) but quake is one of the few games i ever played (somewhat) competitively and at some point shit like weapon variety just isnt a factor anymore and balance becomes more important. also i played almost exclusively duels in quake and was never a big CTF/team player in any shooter so that probably explains why i didnt have as much fun with UT.

[rivon]

By the way, has anyone here ever played the original Unreal in coop mode (possibly on one of the modded servers)? That was a lot of fun

[Schoq]

Still one of my fav FPSs, and the reason I prefer UT over Quake.

[rivon]

Yeah, there was so great atmosphere. The "birds" flying everywhere, fish in the water, beatiful nature. A really great environment. Definitely one of the most memorable games ever. On the level of Deus Ex or Half-Life...

By the way, here's some nice UT2k3 fragvid by azzures of The Outlawz (shitty quality, sorry):


part 1


part 2

Probably not the greatest video of all time but at that time it was just awesome, at least to me.

And here's some nice Quake stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6IAHWMd2I - some defrag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hoJvZsNnIQ - arguably the best Warsow Race movie (that's why Quake physics rule)

[pfaffian]

The speed issue is also interesting to me. I found UT99 slow because I came from playing quakeworld. I never found quake too fast. Just other games to slow.

What game did everyone play first? I'm curious.

The funny thing is when quake was released in 1996 everyone complained about it being too slow.