ProQuake Users - Speak Up and Explain

[Baker]

There are some parts of the community that don't understand the appeal of ProQuake.

For those of us that use ProQuake all or part of the time, please participate in this thread to help explain the importance and strengths of ProQuake.

ProQuake has the following features:

Record Demos On A Server - GLQuake can't (bet most ppl don't know that)
Ping in Scoreboard - See your ping and other players ping by pressing TAB.
IPLOG -- identify a player by IP of names they have used in the past
Loc File Support - "I am at Red Armor with 0 armor/37 health"
Bestweapon - Ability to bind a key and have it select best weapon
Game Clock on-screen - Ability to look down and see 29:29 and know that map ends in 30 seconds

I'll go first.

1) ProQuake is not a headache to use, ever! You start it, it works and you play. It needs almost no configuration. Only JoeQuake 0.15 comes close (MP Optimized/Mouselook in menu), no other engine presently comes remotely close, IMHO.

2) Ping in scoreboard. Absolutely essential.

3) Record demos in-game. I record demos with some frequency. Sometimes I record a demo of play, other times I record a demo of someone else's play and other times I want to record a cheater. Most players do not even know that the original WinQuake/GLQuake cannot record demos while on a server and I bet would be surprised that some engines do not have this feature.

4) IPLOG. Ask any player that has played Quake for a while and you will find out exactly how essential this feature is. You can determine who the foul mouthed guy is who just showed up or check who that extraordinary player is.

5) Game Clock. Most players are so used to this, they wouldn't even know that WinQuake/GLQuake don't have this feature. In WinQuake/GLQuake, you have to press TAB to see the remaining time left.

6) Loc File Support. The ability to make a bind like BIND X "say_team I am at %L with %H health and %A armor." and you communicate your position and status to other players on your team. Vital for CA or CTF.

To part time and full-time ProQuake users, which of these features do you value and why? How important is it that engine has these features for multiplayer? What features can you just not live without?

[I am intentionally ignoring the cheat-free support issue, I think everyone knows that is valuable, but most of us do not frequently play CA+ and those of who do may switch from some other engine to ProQuake specifically for that purpose.]

[Canadian*Sniper]

I'd recommend ProQuake for the sake of it's simplicity as there's not a whole lot of files to worry about. No need to worry about different folders and the like.

ProQuake is also very stable and the perfect choice for any computer setup. And if for any reason you can't play with open-gl, switch to winproquake which is just as good.

I've played using ProQuake and GLQuake longer than I have with any other engine. I used to be hooked with JoeQuake for a year but then I realised it just cluttered up my quake setup. Everything is setup so clean with ProQuake

Quake was never ment to be graphix intensive so I give ProQuake 8 points. Out of 8!

[Baker]

That was helpful, and maybe I didn't explain this well enough ...

Is IPLOG important to you? Is the ability to record demos important to you? Is ping in the status bar important to you?

I know this sounds because I already know the answers and know how you use Quake -- like the time you IPLOG'ed me on the xCTF server.

Pretend you aren't explaining to me, but rather someone not familiar with the features of ProQuake.

[Magn3tar]

I just suck with anything but Proquake, I'd prefer WinQuake but I don't believe it works with the servers I play with.

[Baker]

I just suck with anything but Proquake, I'd prefer WinQuake but I don't believe it works with the servers I play with.

Just wondering, what is better about WinQuake than Wqpro.exe (Win ProQuake) in your opinion?

[ORL]

I will never use anything other than Proquake. I use glpro and wqpro for different servers, but i use glpro mostly. Its rock solid, never has it given me any problems. Take for example, Qrack. Everytime I start up qrack it doesnt recognize my config for some reason, so i have no binds at all. I have to go to the console and "exec config.cfg" everytime for it to work, which is a pain in the ass. Darkplaces is a little better, but its always so friggin dark so i have to make it brighter every time i run it from the options menu. Even worse, it doesnt support rcon (I am the host of fvf so, this is sometimes necessary) and it cant record a demo, on or offline! And thats just bad...

Any other engine, just sucks.

I will say some of the features that Baker mentioned that make Proquake simply the best.

#1, Proquake is not a headache to use, obviously. As i said before, Proquake has never given me any trouble. I have never used Joequake though, and I'm sure I never will.

#2 Ping in scoreboard can be important in multiplayer games. I use my ping bind more than look at the scoreboard, but its there for your convience.

#3 Recording demos in game, my favorite of the list. Whenever you want to record something funny, stupid, a bot, a ritual, whatever, its right there for you. All other engines, simply dont do it right.

#4 IPLOG. I dont use this feature, I dont have a reason to. Just another thing that makes proquake great.

#5 Game clock, every quake engine should have this. I shouldnt have to take a split second to hold down the tab button, look at the clock, then go back to what i was doing. I should be able to just look down at the status bar and see it. And Proquake certainly does it.

#6 Loc file support. I dont use this feature either, mainly because i dont want people to know where i am, or what i have. Deathmatch or not.

Recording demos in game is by far the most important feature to me. There were times when i wanted to record something badly, but i was in a different game engine and it wouldnt. Like my high ping incident at fvf.... While playing there using Darkplaces something EXTREMELY funny was happening and i wanted to record it, but DP kept giving me problems and wouldnt let me. Boy was I pissed off that night...

So to sum all this up, Proquake is the best. Proquake was always the best. Proquake will forever be the best, no matter what ANYONE says.
I could on for hours about how Proquake is the best, but i think this will give you an idea on how awesome it is.
I don't normally reply to any threads, but i had to on this one, to spread the word about proquakes greatness.

Proquake Forever!

[Monster]

Theres three main reasons I use proquake:

1. It has a security module, which I can't go without--its a pain having to switch back to proquake from a different client if you want to play CA.
2. No intensive graphics that may bog down your connection and framerate (if you don't have a good graphics card), and disturb you from winning the game
3. Loc file support -- these are very helpful in CA, so your teammate knows where you are at all times.

[Canadian*Sniper]

That was helpful, and maybe I didn't explain this well enough ...

Is IPLOG important to you? Is the ability to record demos important to you? Is ping in the status bar important to you?

pfft fine.

1) ProQuake is not a headache to use, ever!
k

2) Ping in scoreboard.
yep

3) Record demos in-game.
don't use this

4) IPLOG.
only use this when Baker/Mr. Green/Javier/etc is around

5) Game Clock.
don't care

6) Loc File Support.
not enough loc files


Happy now Baker?

[=peg=]

Everytime I start up qrack it doesnt recognize my config for some reason, so i have no binds at all. I have to go to the console and "exec config.cfg" everytime for it to work, which is a pain in the ass.

this is becouse quake doesnt load autoexec.cfg by default but quake.rc.. edit the quake.rc file to load ur own cfg files (u may need to extract it from the pak0 that comes with it)

since qrack supports all essential proquake features now and has nice eyecandy qrack is the choice for me.. sure it may need a bit of getting used to all the new cvars and shit but its well worth it! proquake sure is a rocksolid client tho

[scar3crow]

I simply use WQPRO because it's an all-around client, except for QuakeWorld.

Okay I must disagree with it being an all around client for that, simply because not being able to access QuakeWorld is not a smaller loss than access to cheatfree is a bigger gain. Yes, you get cheatfree server access, but with DarkPlaces it is much more important to me that I dont have to worry about whether the server Im connecting to is Quake or QuakeWorld, merely that I have the progs and maps needed to play whatever altered gameplay they might have. Sure I cant connect to cheatfree servers, but I dont necessarily need to, and I much prefer the massive access that is having a client that can play on either normal or quakeworld servers.

[scar3crow]

True, though I get by just fine without those.

The point of my post was a refutation of your claim of it being a great all around client, simply because that is a statement made in ignorance due to the vast quantity of servers. It is far more valuable I say, to have access to the majority of netQuake and QuakeWorld servers in one binary, than netQuake and isolated netQuake servers using one engines non-foolproof system.

You trade your eyes for the right to own an extra chapter to a much larger book.

[Sajt]

I will never use anything other than Proquake. I use glpro and wqpro for different servers, but i use glpro mostly. Its rock solid, never has it given me any problems. Take for example, Qrack. Everytime I start up qrack it doesnt recognize my config for some reason, so i have no binds at all. I have to go to the console and "exec config.cfg" everytime for it to work, which is a pain in the ass. Darkplaces is a little better, but its always so friggin dark so i have to make it brighter every time i run it from the options menu. Even worse, it doesnt support rcon (I am the host of fvf so, this is sometimes necessary) and it cant record a demo, on or offline! And thats just bad...

Any other engine, just sucks.

I will say some of the features that Baker mentioned that make Proquake simply the best.

#1, Proquake is not a headache to use, obviously. As i said before, Proquake has never given me any trouble. I have never used Joequake though, and I'm sure I never will.

#2 Ping in scoreboard can be important in multiplayer games. I use my ping bind more than look at the scoreboard, but its there for your convience.

#3 Recording demos in game, my favorite of the list. Whenever you want to record something funny, stupid, a bot, a ritual, whatever, its right there for you. All other engines, simply dont do it right.

#4 IPLOG. I dont use this feature, I dont have a reason to. Just another thing that makes proquake great.

#5 Game clock, every quake engine should have this. I shouldnt have to take a split second to hold down the tab button, look at the clock, then go back to what i was doing. I should be able to just look down at the status bar and see it. And Proquake certainly does it.

#6 Loc file support. I dont use this feature either, mainly because i dont want people to know where i am, or what i have. Deathmatch or not.

Recording demos in game is by far the most important feature to me. There were times when i wanted to record something badly, but i was in a different game engine and it wouldnt. Like my high ping incident at fvf.... While playing there using Darkplaces something EXTREMELY funny was happening and i wanted to record it, but DP kept giving me problems and wouldnt let me. Boy was I pissed off that night...

So to sum all this up, Proquake is the best. Proquake was always the best. Proquake will forever be the best, no matter what ANYONE says.
I could on for hours about how Proquake is the best, but i think this will give you an idea on how awesome it is.
I don't normally reply to any threads, but i had to on this one, to spread the word about proquakes greatness.

Proquake Forever!

DarkPlaces *does* have rcon, and it does have demos though I don't think you can start recording in mid-game (that's being 'worked on' right now... aka it's being put off right now but soon it will come)

And monster, don't complain about framerate or pretty graphics distracting you. You see a lot more distracting graphics (high-colour replacement textures, skyboxes, etc.) in screenshots of Qrack and such. DarkPlaces is the only engine that lets me play Rocket Arena at 1000 fps. If you're not idiotically turning on features that weren't designed to run at three-digit framerates (e.g. per-pixel lighting), then DP is faster and smoother and more stable than most if not all other engines.

[Canadian*Sniper]

(FORCEING r_wateralpha .6? c'mon!) and that horrid gl cashe mismatch bunk.

Nothing Gunter does binds me to his "standards". Do you ever see me using FvF_Chat? I use r_wa .4.

Also, that freequake ctf server binds ur ENTER key to switch through weapons. I find it stupid because I use ENTER to chat

how do I have this super power? THIS!
bind "g" "color 4 0; bind ENTER messagemode; r_wateralpha .4; unbind t; bind ` toggleconsole; echo *Back to Normal*";

[Baker]

True, though I get by just fine without those.

I think of all the posts in this thread, the one by ORL did an outstanding job of describing how many players feel about ProQuake.

This thread to me is not an issue of what is now, but what is the future.

I used DarkPlaces for 3 weeks in a row almost exclusively until a week or 2 ago (when I had to switch clients to work on some stuff), and I used it not because I was testing it, but rather because I didn't want to lose the incredible smoothness of internet play that DarkPlaces somehow gives that is somewhere in WinProQuake level of smoothness (WinProQuake smoothness > GLPRO or any other client).

DarkPlaces is an outstanding client for internet play.

That being said, the present lack of certain features made me feel powerless at times. I couldn't IPLOG to determine if a mystery player was Hydro and you can't play CA or CTF or any other team game without loc file support -- not and enjoy it. And one time there was a bot on the server and you have to record a demo, so I actually had to leave the server and come back with ProQuake just to record a bot and send it off so he'd get banned.

In FFA, those things don't matter and I could do just as well, or maybe even a little better, with DarkPlaces. I felt more confident in pulling off complicated shots because somehow DarkPlaces almost never, ever skips a beat on the Internet (which baffles me how this could be so).

As a result, I could do the most precise of shots that allow for no margin of error. Plus the "feel" of DarkPlaces really gives Quake an entirely fresh feel, even though I had a number of features off, it still felt very exciting and different.

But I think the key thing is that to win over ProQuake users -- which is the overwhelming bulk of players EVEN if they use some other engine often -- means that they can't lose the simple, yet valuable, features that they have come to love.

The success of Qrack and JoeQuake is largely due to the ProQuake-ization of those clients. When JoeQuake was a new client in a very beta stage, Jozsef started immediately getting a lot of requests for small things that ProQuake does right, and as JoeQuake adopted more ProQuake conveniences, the popularity of the engine grew amongst multiplayer uses (and I bet the single players users of JoeQuake appreciated a lot of nice conveniences as well, since not all ProQuake features are multiplayer only).

And, of course, when Qrack came out was an almost fully ProQuake'd JoeQuake, that really attracted an instant and loyal following.

[evilmegaman]

bind ENTER messagemode

zomg you did NOT just do what I think you did... typical mmorpg player style!