PlanetQuake | Features | Articles | PQ Chats with Zoid!

PQ Chats with Zoid! id mapper and CTF creator Dave "Zoid" Kirsch sits down with PQ and 150+ people to answer questions.   — by The PQ Staff To cap off map week, we managed to pin down Dave "Zoid" Kirsch and drag him into a chat channel with about 150+ chatters Friday night, February 11, to ask him various questions about Q3A, mapping, and other issues of the day. Here you'll find everything he had to say! (Hellchick-PQ) Dave "Zoid" Kirsch of id Software is kind enough to sit down with us and you tonight to answer your questions (Hellchick-PQ) So without further adieu, let's bring him on (Zoid) Good evening everyone! I hope to get to answer almost all of your questions tonight. I'm glad to be here to answer them and hope that tonight will be a lot of fun for everyone. (Hellchick-PQ) Okay... (Hellchick-PQ) We'll be starting off the questions now: (Hellchick-PQ) (sky_) QUESTION #1: given that q3radient is MFC/Win32 based and it would be to much trouble or take to much time for the folks that develped it to convert to another o/s how about releasing the source so others can have a crack at it (Zoid) We are planning to release the source code to Q3Radiant soon. It would not be trival to convert it to another OS, but it is doable. I''d love to see someone port it to something like gtk+ or qt under Linux/X11. (Pappy-R) (Usurper) Question for Zoid: Aside from possible limitations of storage space on the CD, were there any other particular reason why so few CTF maps were released? Was it the intention of ID software to let the community make up for that small quantity of maps? (Zoid) We felt that the four maps on the CD were sufficient for the CTF we wanted in the game. I had hoped that my ThreeWave maps would have been included, but the timing of the release didn't coincide well. The user community is always welcome to make more, but that isn't something we focused on. (LadyICE) (Roc) With lots of new persistent online universe type games planned (like the recent digital extremes announcement), do you think there'll be demand for another quake like game? (Zoid) I think there will be a lot of demand for games like Quake and its kin due to the fact they are easy, quick and fun to play. A massive RPG game takes a huge investment in time to play. You can just hop on a server in Quake and play for a quick bit and then you're done. (spyke) (thylile) will you release more maps like the threewave ctf pack? (Zoid) We haven't announced any plans for more maps at this time, but we're always keeping out eyes on the demand out there in the community. We may have some more stuff in the future, of course. (Hellchick-PQ) (CrusadeR) ok, here's one: "Initially id had stated they were committed to supporting each of the 3 operating system ports with simultaneous releases; however, this hasn't been the case, as the point release has been available for quite some time for Win32 only. What do you think has been the greatest limiting factor in providing across-the-board releases/patches?" (Zoid) I'm not sure if it was specifically stated that we would support all platforms with simutaneous releases. Logistics deal with how release dates go. We have three different quality assurance teams with each of the products as well as seperate technical support teams. They are each different and require different support and lead time between releases. We'd love to release simutaneous, but logistically, it's just not possible. (Pappy-R) (Essobie) Q for Zoid: What rig do you use for coding? for mapping? for playing Q3A? (Zoid) I used to dual a machine with a Dual P2-450 in it with NT, but I've switched away from Dual Processor systems due to the cost. I'm currently using an Athlon 750MHz system with a new NVidia Quadro DDR. I build and play on it. A good system for development is at least 450Mhz system with a good hardware OpenGL based card such as the TNT or GeForce series. (LadyICE) (BinaryCowboy[RxN]) Lord Zoid: any estimated time for the next Q3 point release? (Zoid) As always, the release date for anything is "When it's done." It's hard to pin down a release date for stuff that's specific because its a process of fix, test, refix test until the product, upgrade or addon is completed. (spyke) (Demonic_S) Any plans to make an all out graphic heavy map to show off what the Quake3 engine is capable of doing...such as a completely organic map or such? (Zoid) I don't have any plans for a graphical heavy map, but I know that my friend and co-map author Casey is currently working on a map to showcase high detail and shader effects. (Hellchick-PQ) (Zxeses) For ZOID: When will the "point release compatable" version of Quake III be made available for Linux server admins? (Zoid) The Linux version has been delayed simply due to the logistics I mentioned earlier. LokiSoft is in charge of that and they are working on supporting and directing the release. (Pappy-R) ({Seismodeus}) Zoid, with the great success of q3ctf and the q3wctf map pak and as hook-enabled mods begin to appear, do you feel vindicated now that there is solid support and appreciation for CTF level design/balance _without_ the grappling hook enabled out of the box ? (Zoid) The response to a non-grapple CTF has been quite varied, for sure. I think mostly people have reliezed that with your design goals and motif in Quake3, a grapple didn't make sense. They also relieze that CTF is still damn fun even without it. I'm glad that many people are enjoying it. (LadyICE) (Sniper187) please ask zoid this: many people have complained about the lack of ladders in q3a, specifically mods that are, hate to call them this, team fortress clones. is there any possibility that they will be added to a future release? (Zoid) Ladders can be added by editing the PMove functions that we provide in the Quake3 game source release. You'd have to add the movement support for it. We took it out because ladders aren't condusive to the high action game we wanted, which is where bounce pads came from as a replacement. (spyke) (Avatar-) What's the best way to send variables back and forth between client and server? Using sendservercommand surely is not the best choice, but you can't change the centity struct that controls what information is passed with entities? (Zoid) The best way is probably through sendservercommand. It depends on what information you are trying to pass, without specifics, I can't make suggestions. You could create new EVENT types in the event system for entities--note that adding/deleting events is a protocol change so be careful about it. (Hellchick-PQ) (beave) Do you think quakeworld had better netcode than the other id games (along with any other multiplayer game) and if so, why cant it be duplicated? (Zoid) QuakeWorld net code was really different. QuakeWorld was frame based prediction with extrapolation on players. This made player collision prediction nicer (I added a lot of specific player collision code in my versions of QuakeWorld). The problem was QW was very packet heavy (one packet for frame) which is why it is framelocked at 72fps. Quake3 uses MUCH less packets (at most 20/sec) and a lot less bandwidth. There are trade offs to (Pappy-R) (Morg) Was the response from the Quake community expected when you decided to release the Quake source code? (Zoid) The projects that have appeared based on the Quake source release (such as QuakeForge) are really interesting. It's pretty much as expected and I hoped that the development continued on it in a bazaar model. I know a lot of my bugs are getting fixed now there are many eyes looking at them. :) (LadyICE) (L-Fire) it's been mentioned in id .plan updates that the next point release will include autodownload - will autodownload work with maps, models, textures, VM code, etc - or just small files such as VM code? (Zoid) The autodownload support in the new release is an offshot of the sv_pure functionatlity. Specifically, only .pk3 files are exchanged. So as long as you have pk3 files on the server (which must match the line for sv_pure verification to begin with) and the server is sv_pure, the client will download any needed pk3s that were referenced. (spyke) (Sniper187) question for zoid: what is your opinion on the new lineup of voodoo cards? do you think that they will bring back the reign of 3DFX on the top of the 3D card market? (Zoid) I'm not sure how 3DFX's new cards will perform. I was a big fan of Voodoo2 SLIs back in the Quake2 days, but I'm really liking my NVidia hardware now. Until I see the hardware in action, with good drivers, it will be hard to guage it until then. (Hellchick-PQ) (Majestic) Heres my Question - Are you Keeping in touch With the new QuakeWorld programs that are being made to prevent cheaters around the QW Community? (Zoid) I haven't been keeping specific tabs on the anti-cheating messures, but I have looked at the and have been following their development in my off time. I think they are a step in the right direction. (Pappy-R) BugBear Asked: Are the missing misc_models from q3a going to be released? (Zoid) I don't believe any additional misc_models are going to be released. They are specific to the maps that use them. (LadyICE) *PalAdiN* Are there any plans for the continuation of the single player area of the quake series? More advanced bots or maybe going back to the traditional single player type stuff that appeared in q2 or even something else? (Zoid) I can't talk about advance projects, but I'm sure we'll see possible extensions to single and multiplayer in the future. (spyke) (Hawk) How will id make use of the extra CPU-power freed-up by the increasingly powerful graphics boards (GPU etc.)? Where does the future lie within optimal CPU-utilization for a FPS? (Zoid) The most sigificant use of any "extra" CPU that results in offloading graphics processing to other hardware is in AI. I'm sure everyone has noticed how much things slow down in Quake3 if you load a lot of bots. AI that is convincing and realistic takes a lot of CPU processing. As we get more of that, it'll get more advanced. (Hellchick-PQ) (Hypno|S|) Q: When first starting on a map what are some of the preperations you make? Or do you take on the style of just build as you go? (Zoid) One of the first things I do when making a map is simply to sit down and think about it. Then I draw some sketches to use as a reference and a guide to the deisgn. Most maps are theme based--central room, figure eight, multilevel, etc along with a texture style (gothic, base, space, etc). That's determined before I start. (Pappy-R) ([HfHas]LO^SuperSumo) would it ever be possible in a future game or an update, to put multiple properties on one object? ie, make an elevator explode. (Zoid) Multiplayer properities? As for making an elevator explode you could do that in Quake2 by linking the button or tigger that causes the explosions to a target_relay then link that to several func_explosives that go off then set the killtarget to the target of the elevator. (Zoid) It isn't multiple properties that you want, it's how you link them. Target_relay allows you to link groups of entities in a trigger together. (LadyICE) (Essobie) Q for Zoid: the autodownload thing with sv_pure... so if the server is running sv_pure 1, and say, the server has my sobpak7.pk3 installed... will people automatically HAVE to download the pak from the server? or will there be an option? Will there be a way to only download certain "types" of pk3 files? (Zoid) It will download your "sobpak7.pk3" in your example if it was referenced when the server loaded (for example loading the map in it, or if it has a shader). People will automatically download it when they connect. Unless you set sv_allowdownload 0, they will automatically download it. If you want to use something on the server that you don't want people to download it, don't put it in a pk3! (spyke) (blazter) how did you started programming ? do you have any academic formation ? (Zoid) I started programing by simply picking up a computer and started hacking it and reading every book on programming I could get. Back on those days it was an Apple II. I haven't had any formal schooling in my programming--I was too busy writing programs! (Hellchick-PQ) (Dimebag) Question : The whole feel of quake world and quake 2 were just right for what they set out to achive, qw being a more frantic game where quake 2 requiring some aiming :) - Do you think that taking individual elements from each game and blending them into one game has worked as well as you expected? (Zoid) I think the elements we combined and designed in Quake3 built a game that is fun, for sure. I know I have fun playing it everyday. Since Q3Test came out, I haven't played any Quake2. :) (Pappy-R) (BalleSkalle) Antilogic is one of the phattest maps i've played,any chance you will do more tourney maps ? Also..will there be official maps included in feature "patches" ? (Zoid) Antilogic was a lot of fun. When Sonic Mayhem suggested the idea, I was quite hip on it. I did that map over my holiays which kept me from being bored. I'd like to do small piecemeal maps like that in the future since they are fun to make. (LadyICE) (L-Fire) when q2's autodownload first came out, it was by default active on the client side - a later point release turned q2 autodownload off by default, which pretty much rendered it worthless since a lot of people didn't know to turn it on - will q3's autodownload be on or off by default? (Zoid) I'm not sure what the default will be on the point release. I'll take a look at it when I'm working on it tomorrow. I've added to double check it on my 2do list. (spyke) (eh) Have you had any experience with the current batch of nVidia GeForce Linux drivers that are currently being shown off at LinuxWorld? If so, how do they perform? (Zoid) I haven't actually tested the new NVidia LInux drivers. I think they are DRI based which should give some great performance. I talked to Nick at NVidia a lot during their development and kept tabs on how it was proceeding. (Hellchick-PQ) (Durzel) Could you please ask Zoid: "Which of the mods that have appeared following the release of the Q3 source code do you, and the id boys like playing.. if any.." (Zoid) I haven't been playing a lot of mods. I've been playing mostly Deathmatch these days (I've been over-CTF'd. :) I have been playing a bit of intsagib which is excellent for warming up the railgun game. (Pappy-R) (|Shug|) Zoid: How do you feel about QW's longevity after so many years of play?? (Zoid) I think QuakeWorld has stood the test of time because it was originally developed for the community and was built on a foundation of direct feedback. The fact that Quake itself was a damn awesome game helped a lot too. (LadyICE) *Hawk* will c continue to be the programming language of choice at id, or do you plan on converting to c++ or something else? (Zoid) C it is for now. I have been playing with C++ on my own and getting a feel for it. C++ has changed significantly in the last few years with the ANSI ratification process and I'm trying to keep up to speed with it. I still prefer C for a lot of tasks, but I'm personally starting to warm to C++. (spyke) (Endy[QWF||QSG]) Now Pheonix has released a portable shader library, and the QSG is pushing to get shaders in all the 'big' new q1 based ports to support shaders... do you think it can rival Q3A, with it's mapping abilities but with good 'ol Q1 gameplay? (Zoid) The shader library was something intersting. I think the Quake engine is going to grow by leaps and bounds now that's in the community and I'm quite hip on seing that is done with it. But remember, most of Q3 isn't just the engine, it's in the content. A new Quake shader library doesn't give you content or a game, just a new tool. (Hellchick-PQ) (sky) QUESTION #2: there was rumor before Q3A was release of some sort of "packet protection" built into it, now that there are several client side aiming/radar bots out, does id plan on changing the sv_pure protection to protect also the .exe and netcode using something along the lines of the quakeworld forever project or the quake lives project which use a combination CRC and encryption scheme? (Zoid) We are looking at solutions to client hacks in Q3. Cheating is certainly an issue and there are no easy solutions to curb it. We can just make more and more a pain in the ass to accomplish. (Pappy-R) (Kerbuffel) Quake 3 CTF is lacking a lot of features that make it good for CTF tournament play. In fact, a number of ladders have shut themselves down for the time being because they have to wait for mods to put out what is needed. Were there ever plans to make CTF mode better for clan matches, will any improments be released in a patch, or are you just going to leave it to the mod designers? (Zoid) We don't plan on specific match level features. There is enought there with callvote, g_doWarmup etc that you can do matches on a private server or a LAN. I think what are you asking for features is a match lock (players can't join), ghost codes and voted admins. We don't plan to add that. (LadyICE) *L-Fire* by your description of how it works, the q3 implementation of autodownload seems flawed - if the client will only autodownload a pk3 that the server is actually using, then how do mod teams release something like a pk3 with only a client VM update or a pakfile of new mod specific crosshairs - since the server doesn't use the client VM and crosshairs, the server won't send it to the client (Zoid) The q3 implementation isn't necessary flawed. The idea for the distribution is for addons such as maps or models. I'll double check about the referencing, however. That's a good call. (spyke) ([sDos]Bass) ask zoid what happend to his cam site heheh (Zoid) I took the cam down simply because of bandwidth concerns and I got tired of people watching me. It's a creepy feeling. (Hellchick-PQ) (Fighter_Jet) Zoid - with the release of the quakeworld src, is there anything you would recommend being done that you feel needed fixing/improving? (Zoid) Wow, that's a good question. The major thrust in QW is the rampant cheating. i'd love for the community to come up with a solution to that. As for other features, that's a hard call. The "game" itself was pretty much completed. I guess it's more a set of creative features than necessary ones. (Pappy-R) (devkev) zoid: do you think that quakeworld cheating can be stopped without resorting to closed source addons/proxies? (Zoid) Cheating in QW currently can't be stopped with today's solutions, it can only be discouraged and made a real pain in the ass to do. I'd love to see an ideal solution and I'd be very happy if someone in the community came up with one. The source is out there, people are free to experiment. (LadyICE) (Napalm666) Question for Zoid, What kind of music are you listening ? Concrete Group ? (Zoid) I tend to listen to more industrial and ambient type stuff. My favorite bands include stuff like Delerium, Synaesthesia, Front Line Assembly, Juno Reactor, Enigma, etc. I'm not a big fan of what I call "happy dance" techno. I like stuff that is dark and ambient. I'm not a big fan of lyrical compositions. (spyke) (fish) In rocket arena 2, there were multiple arenas per map... is this possible in q3, or will it have to be like the original quake arena. (Zoid) As to the map combination or seperation, that's really up to the implementation of the version of rocket arena. You could go either way. (Hellchick-PQ) (thylile) which are your favourite maps, q1 q2 and q3a? (Zoid) Favorite maps? Q: dm4, dm6, e1m2, ctf1, ctf4, ctf2m8. Q2: q2dm1, q2dm3, fact3, q2ctf1, 2 and 3. Q3: q3dm17!! q2wctf1,2 and 3. (Pappy-R) (Choser) "What do you think of alternative platforms for development? What do you think is the viability for a Linux or BeOS or MacOS for mainstream gaming? What would be neccessary for that to take place?" (Zoid) Alternative? Windows owns the desktop right now by a large margin, so developers will ensure that their products will be first or soon on the Windows platform. Other platforms will only develop as consumer demand grows for games on those systems. It's a simple case of numbers. (LadyICE) (LadyICE) *Spam* to Zoid: Im a TF player by heart...from what i hear you really dont like TF that much...but would you agree that TF has been one of the biggest communities so far in QW? Do you think it could be improved? (the community or game itself) (Zoid) I've played TF in the past. It's a good game and it's up to its authors or deritivate versions of it to improve upon it. It is certainly one of the major modifications for QW. I talked with the TF guys a bit during QW development about it. (spyke) (DevilM) Zoid, what do you think of adding TF style weapon control e.g. being able to prime a gren and fire a rocket at the same time? (Zoid) Do you mean a user mod adding or us adding it to Q3? We are quite happy with the weapon control in Q3 and have no plans to change it. User mods can completely rewrite it and add whatever they want! (Hellchick-PQ) (Mystiq) for Zoid: A3D 2.0 was happily implemented, but what happened to EAX? Is it because of cross-platform compatibility? (Zoid) I'm not sure exactly what the issues with EAX support. I was in charge of linux platform, so I don't know the specifics of sound driver support on the win32 version. (Pappy-R) (guns[gpC]) Why are the Q3A rockets (in speed) so different from the QWDM? (Zoid) The Q3 rockets are different simply because Quake3 DM isn't Quake DM. The speed was determined based on your design, feedback from the community and playtesting. It's the speed we think works the best in the game we built. (LadyICE) *che* Q To Zoid: I was quite suprised when I got Q3a and found it had 2 things that I thought Q2 really excelled in over QW, The Q2 menu system, setting up games etc.. and Ammo dropping which I thought made Q2CTF go to another level of teamplay as sharing weapons, health powerups was great. (Zoid) I'm not sure what in the Q2 menu system you specifically mention as lacking. Do you mean the in game menu? That was on the server end and specific to the mod (like my CTF). Weapon and ammo dropping were talked about during the development of Quake3, but we decided that it wasn't a feature we wanted to go with. (spyke) (Hawk) How will the imminent move from the currently standard 32bit processors to 64bit (ala IA64) impact id? Does id plan on writing code optimized for this platform as by the time your next project is out (~2 years) 64-bit will likely have hit the mainstream? (Zoid) I can't answer questions about id future products or development platforms. I'm sure we will development our games to take advantage of any new features in hardware that develop. (Hellchick-PQ) (StoneColdLazy) Hello Zoid. Q for you: Where do you get your inspiration for your maps? Do you get ideas from other games, or other sources away from computers? (Zoid) I certainly get inspirations from maps from many sources. Novels I read that describe fantasy places, artitechure I see in the world and even the ideas in other games. The creative process takes input from many sources and a persona simply has to gel them together to produce a new work. (Pappy-R) (UndrDogg) question for Zoid: During map creation, what do you think the biggest part is? And why does BSPC error out to "Leaking"? (Zoid) The biggest part is making sure your design is fun and that you map is consistent and well put together (clip brushes to help game flow, etc). I'm not sure what you mean about the BSPC error. I only used BSPC to make aas files for bots. It sounds like you are refering about the bsp2map feature which isn't really something we use. (LadyICE) Zoid, when you build a map, on average how long is your compile time? and what system do you have? (Zoid) I used to cook maps (I use the term "cooking" when I'm waiting for a map to bsp/vis/light) on my dual P2-450. With liberal use of detai brushes, the vis time wasn't too bad--usually under an hour. The lighting phase is what eats up CPU time the most now. Some of my larger maps took three hours to light on the dual P2-450MHz system (around 900MHz of power). (spyke) (fish) Do you program for Linux in Linux, or do you do it all in NT? (Zoid) I do most of my content development in NT actually. I do a lot of testing and playing under Linux. (Hellchick-PQ) (Love2Play) (LesbubXVII) question: why does the a3d implementation not play any of the ambient weapon sounds? i.e the lg, rail and bfg + I can't duck in mid-air anymore. I can remember this working in the tests (Zoid) I don't know any specifics on the A3D port. I wasn't involved with the win32 implementation and support, sorry. (Zoid) Honestly, I don't know why ammo/weapon dropping wasn't in, specifically. It was a feature that was discussed and the team decided it wasn't something that should go in. (LadyICE) (LadyICE) *Spammy* Question: Why is there so little air manipulation in Q3A? I'm an avid Q1 player, and the transition nearly killed me! Now it's so hard to squirm and dodge rails in the air. (Zoid) Actually, Q3 has MORE air control than Quake/QW. The only thing lacking is the Quake/QW bug where could cancel your horizontal air velocity to essentially zero horizontal motion by pulling in the reverse direction of your movment. This bug is what Quake/QW players miss a lot. I admit, you can do cool tricks with it, but it wasn't a designed feature, much like strafe running in DOOM was a bug in movement. (spyke) (Mystiq) Zoid: I noticed running my own Q3 server it's sucking more cpu horsepower (p120, 8 users, compared to q2, 16) than Q2, is that a partial reason of the small maps? :-) Are there going to be any more official maps coming in the next release? I miss the maddness of large Q2 CTF/DM games... (Zoid) Wow, that is a very opposite observations on CPU usage than I've heard. Pretty much every linux adminstrator I've talked to has noticed Q3 uses LESS CPU than previous games. This is because Q3 is based on timed snapshots and not frame-per-packet and does a lot less packet processing. I don't know why you see this different. We got 120 people on a 600MHz Athlon server on a LAN at Quakecon and were only at 90% usage. (Hellchick-PQ) (Fighter_Jet) Zoid - when you were working on quakeworld, were you the C coder, quakeC coder, or both? (Zoid) For QW, I did most of the engine work in C such as adding GL support and tuning the network code. Disruptor (aka Xian) did a lot of the QC work on it. (Pappy-R) (Essobie) Q for Zoid: Working Contract for id... do you get dental and medical? Seriously: what are the benifits/drawbacks of telecommunity from Canada to Mesquite, TX? (Zoid) As for a contractor, I'm self employed. There are drawbacks to it, but there are also advantages. Since I'm contracting, I get to set my own hours and schedules. (LadyICE) *strife* for zoid: as an aspiring programmer (mainly for Unix/Linux) what do you suggest is a good place to start learning.. besides reading books like C in 21 days:P They seem to teach u the syntax of c but not so much how to use it. And trying to jump right into quake source is a little over my head right now:) (Zoid) Programming is more a generic art than language specific. The hardest part of programming is learing the fundemental concepts of programming; structed code, data abstractions, algorithms (searching, sorting, etc). Most language specific books teach you the syntax of the language, but not general programming concepts. A good book on programming concepts (Data STructure design, etc) will go a long way than language specific ones. (spyke) ([sDos]Bass) zoid, does a linux multi processor see abigger impact on q3 (r_smp 1) than an equally equipt win nt machine? (Zoid) We haven't released a Linux SMP capable Q3 binary yet. I have done only minor testing with SMP under Linux, so I don't have numbers to figure out any performance differences between NT and Linux. Driver differences will be the most siginificant. (Hellchick-PQ) (Maynord) Can ID add dga 1.0 and 2.0 support to both Quake2 and Quake3? Also, can ID add mesa 3.x support to quake2? As you may or may not know, X 4.0 does not support dga1.0 which is what the linux quake3 uses. If ID doesn' thave the time for this, could I or someone else do it with a NDA? (Zoid) LokiSoft has been following the development of the 4.0 tree and the new DGA stuff (they are pushing for direct mouse reads). It may be LokiSoft that adds any necessary support to Q3 in the future. We'll certainly keep aprised of new developments in Linux OpenGL and X11. (Pappy-R) (Kerbuffel) CTF has progressed from your serverside hack into a near relgious status. Games are beginning to be judged by whether or not they have CTF out of the box, and many of the upcoming games are coming with it. There are dozens of ladders and tournaments, where hundreds of clans compete. The are mods upon mods using CTF in some shape or form. How does it feel to say "This is all my fault"? :) (Zoid) The response from the entire evolution of ThreeWave CTF has been nothing short of phenomenal. I've bene overjoyed by how things have gone and I'm very happy to have made something that so many people enjoy and have fun playing. (LadyICE) (BinaryC[RxN]) Lord Zoid: what does the trap_ mean in all the system calls? (Zoid) In the Q3 source, trap_ simply means that function is a "system" call and when it is called, it leaves the VM and enters the engine itself to perform the call. (spyke) What are your thoughts on communal open source development? (Zoid) I've been a big fan of Open Source software and the bazaar model in particular. I'm quite happy that projects such as QuakeForge are going with a bazaar model of development and hope they are successful with it. I wish I had more time to contribute to communal projects myself. (Hellchick-PQ) (Squick) to Zoid: Before you did game programming, did you ever do application development? If so, what language did you do? (Zoid) I've been programming mostly in C for the last twelve or thirteen years. There have been various other languges that I've used to construct applictions such as DataFlex, dBase, perl, awk, etc etc. I did a lot of internet based appliation develpoment throughout most of the 90s. Then Quake came out, I made a little mod called CTF and everything changed. :) (Pappy-R) (BugBear) Is it possible to use func_train or other moving entities on curves and simple patch meshes? (Zoid) Yes, curves and patches can be part of entities in Q3 such as the func_ entities (trians, doors, etc). (LadyICE) *L-Fire* even after q2 came out you continued doing QW releases - many people still enjoy playing q2 so do you have plans to do anymore q2 releases, even though q3 has been released? (Zoid) There aren't any major plans for Q2 upgrades. I'm working on some changes for Q2 for linux to upgrade it ot the new OpenGL driver models, but otherwise, no. QuakeWorld was not an official product, it was experiemental which is why it went through lot of changes and experiementation. Q2 is an official product and we are "done" with it. (Hellchick-PQ) (Maynord) could you ask, What's your feeling on image based rendering for games that was shown at siggraph? (Zoid) I haven't seen any of the siggraph stuff. I saw some image based stuff on the net. People will probably experiment with it and if it makes games fun and exciting it'll get used. (Pappy-R) (sky_) I released allctfmaps for quake3 ...which put flags on all the dm and tourney levels... I didn't see a way to put a func_wall or misc_models in any level because of q3map... so the levels look kinda bare...any suggestions? (Zoid) You can't really add func_wall or misc_models to existing levels without having the source map and re-cooking them with q3map. I suggest you invent new levels and make some thing more exciting. dm maps are NOT designed for CTF. (LadyICE) *eh|2* Zoid: I did not know you could char *blah in Windows. Is this a Linux-specific thing or will I need a special compiler? (Zoid) I'm not sure what you mean by "char *blah" versions Windows vs. Linux. C is the same in all platforms, it is only the libraries that are different. (spyke) (Sniper187) Q: why the shortage of medevil maps in the latest quake games? they made a great setting. does ID plan on releasing any maps with a medevil setting, or even textures for mappers to make the maps easier? (Zoid) Uhm, the gothic design is medieval like in nature. I'm not sure what sort of map design you are asking. I can't talk about future directions or maps. (Hellchick-PQ) ([ElzZy]) Zoid: How do you compare Unreal Tournament to Quake 3 Arena (Zoid) Q3A and UT are both great games. They had some differences in design, but any fan of online deathmatch and teamplay should pick them both up. (LadyICE) *Spammy* Question: What upcoming game are you personally looking forward to? (Zoid) Hmm, I was hoping for an announcment about a possible Total Annihilation II, but with the recent announcement of Cavedog's closure, I'm not too hopeful. I was a huge fan of the original Total Annihilation. Other games I'm looking forward to is probably Halo, Command and Conquer Renagade and Diablo II. (spyke) Do you read Slashdot? If so, what do you think of it? (Zoid) I read Slashdot everyday. I think it's an intersting site and has quite a community behind it. It's certainly focused on the type of stores I'm interested in. (Pappy-R) (Concho) Question: How often do you play Q3A online? (Zoid) I play Q3 online every day. You can usually find me on a Seattle server for an hour or so later in the evening. Gotta keep those rail guns skillz fresh. :) (Hellchick-PQ) Okay... (Hellchick-PQ) PQ would like to thank Zoid for taking the time to chat with us (Hellchick-PQ) We hope you guys got a lot out of this. :) Thanks, Zoid! (Zoid) Thanks everyone for coming out. I hope I answered everything people asked for! I'd like to thank PlanetQuake for doing a great job hosting this chat tonight and keep things running smooth. Give them a big hand. :) (Zoid) Have a good night everyone and take care! (Hellchick-PQ) Thanks for coming everyone! (Knower) Good Night Zoid.