I remember staring at the polygonally-rendered torch-flame on the first level and being mesmerized by how the lights flickered and moved. Compared to the usual four-frame pixel-art animations I was familiar with in 'traditional' games of the time, Quake's torches --and the technological shift it represented-- seemed so incredibly futuristic. I could only imagine what the future would hold, but the possibilities seemed limitless.

Quake isn't the only reason I got into 3D gaming. Quake isn't the only reason I found myself at this site. It is, however, the main reason. Glad to see it in the HOF, finally.

I already posted once to this, but just flooded with nostalgia today and just watched Romero's 1 min speech on that link... Looking through my backup drive still have the original qtest1.zip, a bunch of (crappy) maps I made as a kid. Quake was just the ultimate, not only among the earliest fully 3D games, proliferated +mlook and graphics cards, QuakeC, mapping, dedicated online servers, mods, LAN parties, Trent's awesome OST, GTKRadiant, such a cool unique lovecraftian atmosphere, etc.

Looking at what Quake has become 30 years later that is only possible by Carmack pushing to open source the engine. We have Vulkan based engines like vkQuake that run at 5,000fps on modern hardware (my old 5800X hits 4,000 if uncapped like woa we need 5KHz OLED monitors now hah!), and custom maps like Arcane Dimensions and The Immortal Lock that would still blow minds today.

This really might be the most groundbreaking game of all time.

VaranDragon wrote on May 9, 2025, 05:03:
After someone showed me how to play Quake with a mouse and keyboard, I went back to Doom 2 and DukeNukem3d, and tried it there and OMG, what a revelation. Who the fuck knew, right?

Thank you Quake, you were awesome, and especially thank you Quake World for some great times.

I played Doom with a Logitech Trackman, the one with a blue ball that was just an upside down mouse. However, it had 3 mouse buttons, which felt like magic. Right click was move forward, middle was move backwards. Not sure if I came up with that, or if it was a default.

For Duke3D, suddenly we needed more buttons. I started by using the arrow keys, but for strafe, jump, duck. Movement was still right and middle mouse. When I played at school 8 player LAN, I needed to push the keyboard way down to be comfortable. I realized it made it hard to use medkits and such, so I looked at the keyboard for something that looked arrow-like, was more comfortable, and better situated. went esdf necause they were the most aligned.

When I finally played Quake, I learned about wasd, and felt like my esdf was far, far superior since it gives you the w and q as easy access. I stand by it. esdf > wasd.

When I got to college, playing Quake 2 on the network was a blast, because most people did keyboard only, which meant it was super easy for me to go 10-0 in a match. A blast, until everyone started quitting the LAN game when I joined. I get it, I could get those 10 kills in about 90 seconds, before some people even figured out what level they were in if they didn't frequently play. Playing against someone really good when you're just trying to casually play with friends isn't a good experience.

Frijoles wrote on May 9, 2025, 09:55:

VaranDragon wrote on May 9, 2025, 05:03:
After someone showed me how to play Quake with a mouse and keyboard, I went back to Doom 2 and DukeNukem3d, and tried it there and OMG, what a revelation. Who the fuck knew, right?

We had a tournament at our college and all of us where keyboard only. Two guys showed up that played with keyboard + mouse and absolutely destroyed us. We asked about cheating (they sat behind us so we couldn't see them playing), but the people running the tournament were watching them the whole time and said it's the mouse. Everyone switched that day. I think they were from the future.

I learned m+k from a PC Gamer interview with Thresh following his Quake DM victory in '97 to Entropy, so I must have learned it in that year. He said he used WASD and the mouse, and I remember finding it very difficult for my young 12 year old brain to adapt to, and went back to keyboard the next day. But that felt slow in comparison, so I forced myself to learn m+k and like others, then took that back to Doom and Duke 3D.

VaranDragon wrote on May 9, 2025, 05:03:
After someone showed me how to play Quake with a mouse and keyboard, I went back to Doom 2 and DukeNukem3d, and tried it there and OMG, what a revelation. Who the fuck knew, right?

We had a tournament at our college and all of us where keyboard only. Two guys showed up that played with keyboard + mouse and absolutely destroyed us. We asked about cheating (they sat behind us so we couldn't see them playing), but the people running the tournament were watching them the whole time and said it's the mouse. Everyone switched that day. I think they were from the future.

I still remember the first time I saw Quake running on a Voodoo card, in a custom PC shop in Columbus, Ohio. I asked the store owner what it cost, and he said "you can't afford it". While he was right, he had no idea who the hell I was or what I could afford. And I kind of hate that I still remember this interaction, all these years later. Anyway, long live Quake, my favorite of all the id games.

After someone showed me how to play Quake with a mouse and keyboard, I went back to Doom 2 and DukeNukem3d, and tried it there and OMG, what a revelation. Who the fuck knew, right?

Thank you Quake, you were awesome, and especially thank you Quake World for some great times.

Also, QuakeC rarely gets mentioned when discussing the game's innovations, but it's a huge reason why the modding scene took off the way it did. That, combined with easy TCP/IP networking, gave the game huge staying power. First thing I did in QuakeC was make the rocket launcher shoot barking dogs. Many luls were had.

Defender and Quake should have been in the Hall of Fame right from the start. Well, better late than never.

Man I remember buying my Voodoo card and installing the patch for Quake. The intro alone was just...I literally stared at it for a good minute. Then playing the game with FASTER framerates and such detail (back then). I was hooked. And of course Blues News was one of the main reasons why I did that. Thank you, Blue. Da man.

It's hard to explain the leap in technology to people today. The 90s was the era where clever programmers made hardware do things that people didn't think was possible. Then the hardware people made things that made it even better. These days you spend hundreds to get get 5-10% faster and don't see new features very often. It's nice to see Quake in the hall of fame and nice to share some time time on a website and community that enjoyed that era.

Reason i bought my Voodoo 1 card.

Yea one of the earliest maybe the first game with a console built in. Hitting that ~ key and typing +mlook was revolutionary. Once you got used to it there was no going back.

I can still remember my first couple days with Quake as I adjusted from the keyboard only controls of Doom to this new "mouse and keyboard" crap. I remember the first time I automatically looked up at an enemy way above me and nailed him with the nade launcher. I was hooked. Little did I know what all that was going to lead to!

fujiJuice wrote on May 8, 2025, 19:34:

phinn wrote on May 8, 2025, 19:27:
Congrats to Quake, one of the most groundbreaking games of all time.

Hear, hear!

+1!

phinn wrote on May 8, 2025, 19:27:
Congrats to Quake, one of the most groundbreaking games of all time.

Hear, hear!

Congrats to Quake, one of the most groundbreaking games of all time.