Playing Classic Quake Arena

Once you have installed and set up Classic Quake Arena, you can either play single player, against bots, or you can play multiplayer on a CQA server. The best option for finding a CQA server is gamespy (www.gamespy.com), you can either use the CQA tab provided with this release, or search for servers with "cqa" in their map names.

There are a number of features that make playing CQA different to playing standard Q3A:

The HUD: The CQA HUD has been designed to be similar to the QuakeWorld HUD as much as possible. It is made up of the following main components (Any components not mentioned here are the same as their Q3A couterparts):

  • Held Weapons Display: Situated down the left hand edge of the screen, the held weapons display shows which weapons you are currently holding, as well as the currently selected weapon.
  • Ammo Display: This is below the held weapons display, and shows the amount of the different types of ammo you have.
  • Armor Display: This shows the amount of armor you currently have. If you have the pentagram of protection, this will display "666" and the pentagram will appear.
  • Health Display: This shows the amount of health you currently have.
  • Player Head: The head of the skin you are currently using. This head changes depending on how much health you have and your current situation. For example if you have low health the head will have a lot of blood on it, and if you are being damaged, the head will have its mouth open.
  • Mini Scoreboard: The mini scoreboard is displayed in the bottom right of the screen, and shows your score, as well as the scores of the people who are nearest to you in the rankings.

Weapons: The weapons in CQA are the same weapons that were in QuakeWorld

  • Axe: If you run out of ammo for all your other weapons, then you'll have to use the axe. Chop and slash your way through your opponents!
  • Shotgun: Every player starts with a single barrelled shotgun. It uses one shell for every shot that is fired.
  • Double Barrelled Shotgun: Like the shotgun, but does more damage. However, the added firepower means that it is slower to reload than the standard shotgun, and takes two shells for every shot fired.
  • Nailgun: Fires high velocity nails. The nailgun is a versatile weapon, and uses one nail for every shot fired.
  • Super Nailgun: The super nailgun is capable of reducing an opponent to gibs in a matter of seconds. However, its high rate of fire, and the fact that it uses two nails for every shot fired means that it uses up ammo at an alarming rate.
  • Grenade Launcher: The Grenade Launcher does exactly what it says on the tin: launches grenades. It's very useful for keeping chasing opponents away, and for firing round corners.
  • Rocket Launcher: In CQA, like in QuakeWorld, the rocket launcher is the weapon of choice. Immensly powerful, versatile and easy to use, you can't go wrong with a rocket launcher.
  • Thunderbolt: The Thunderbolt is similar to Q3A's lightning gun, except more powerful. CQA also revives the famous "lightning discharge": fire the thunderbolt underwater and it kills everyone who is in the water within a certain radius (including yourself!).

Special Items: There are a number of special items you can pick up:

  • Quad Damage: All your weapons do four times the damage they would normally do. The quad damage respawns every 2 minutes.
  • Pentagram of Protection: You are protected from all damage. This includes weapons and enviromental effects such as lava or drowning. The pentagram respawns every 5 minutes.
  • Ring of Shadows: The ring of shadows renders you invisable for a short period of time. The ring of shadows respawns every 5 minutes.

Other Items: There are a few extra items to watch out for in CQA:

  • Backpacks: Backpacks appear when a player dies, and contains all the ammo they were holding, as well as the weapon they were using at the time of death
  • Armor: There are three types of armor to pick up in CQA. Red Armor is worth 200 armor points, Yellow Armor is worth 150 armor points, and Blue Armor is worth 100 armor points. If you have more armor points than the armor you are about to pick up is worth, you cannot pick up that armor.

Rewards: CQA features the following rewards:

  • Excellent: The same as Q3A's excellent reward: frag two opponents in two seconds and you get the excellent reward.
  • Ownage: If you frag 5 opponents in a row without being fragged yourself, you'll get the ownage reward.
  • Elite: If you frag 10 opponents in a row without being fragged yourself, you'll get the elite reward.
  • Aerial Frag: If you frag an opponent with a rocket launcher or grenade launcher while they are in the air, you'll get the aerial frag reward.
  • Axe Murdered: If you get a frag with the axe, you'll get the axe murdered reward.

Stats Screen: By binding a key to "+stats", you can bring up the in-game stats screen, which displays some interesting statistics about your game. The stats screen displays the following statistics.

  • Rank: Your current rank on the scoreboard.
  • Frags: Your current score.
  • Deaths: The number of times you have died.
  • Excellents: The number of excellent rewards you have received.
  • Axe Kills: The number of axe murdered rewards you have received.
  • Aerial Kills: The number of aerial frag rewards you have received.
  • Ownages: The number of ownage rewards you have received.
  • L33t's: The number of elite rewards you have received.
  • Total Rewards: The total number of rewards you have received.
  • Shots Fired: The total number of shots you have fired during the current game.
  • Shots Hit: The total number of shots you have fired that have been on target during the current game.
  • Accuracy: The percentage of shots that you have fired that have been on target.
  • Rating: A rating from 0-100 based on all the categories above.

Maps: The following maps are included with this version of CQA:

  • cqadm1, "I'mInHell": An original map by Scampie.
  • cqadm2, "Devonaire": An original map by [Kona] with a very Quakey feel to it ;).
  • cqadm3, "The Abandoned Base": A conversion of one of the original Quake DM maps, dm3. The layout has been changed a bit but fans of the original should still love this conversion. The map was converted by KillazOnTheRun.
  • cqadm4, "Return To Atlantis": A conversion of Pingu's a2 by Lordimric. A2 is one of the all time best custom Quake DM maps.
  • cqadm5, "The Cistern": A conversion of dm5 by ShoveL. Although the scaling has been adapted to suit the Q3A engine, the layout remains unchanged.
  • cqadm6, "The Slipgate Complex": A conversion of the original Quake "Start" map by Sagnor. The map has been modernized and makes full use of the Q3A engine.
  • cqadm7, "Back2School": Another conversion of a Pingu map by Lordimric. B2S is a small tourney map that is uncomplicated and great fun to play.
  • cqadm8, "Steel Belted!": An original map by ShoveL which, while looking up to date and fitting perfectly with the Q3A engine, manages to retain a Quake feel to it.
  • cqadm9, "Osiris": A conversion of Dave Bulow's Quake DM map by Dave Bulow.
  • cqadm10, "Ash Rain": A new Q3A map by Bal, who has now converted it to CQA for your enjoyment! Please note that this map may not show up on the map menu, but is still available by typing "/map cqadm10" at the console.

Other Things: Here are a few more things to note when playing CQA:

  • Physics: The physics in CQA has been changed to mimic the QuakeWorld physics as closely as possible. Players run and swim faster, and you have more control of your player in the air.
  • Ammo Management: Unlike in Q3A, where you can only keep ammo if you have the weapon the ammo is for, in CQA you keep all the ammo you pick up.