       'Uncovered' written by Kaj 's8n' Haffenden. Any glaring errors in judgement? Anything you think should be in here? Let me know! "Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?" |
Welcome! Come in, come in, pull up a rock and sit down. Each month on the PC Powerplay cover CD you'll find this neat Quake 2 (and soon to be Q3A) guide thing, tentatively named 'Uncovered'. I'm sure no matter what your level of ability is you'll find something new and useful and hopefully thought-provoking each month. Hell, you might even find something interesting! (Long shot, I know). What you're reading at the moment is s8n's rant, written by (oddly) - s8n. If you're heavily into Quake 2, especially the many physics exploitations swamping the game, you may just have heard of me but most likely not. I run the highly useful and thought-provoking website 'Riding the Rocket' (how's that for smooooth plugging eh?). It features - primarily - weekly challenges for the Quake Gods to see who can perform those new and immensely difficult moves that seem to pop up just about every day. A winner is picked from the entries I receive based usually on style. As the resulting demo is posted on the site; RtR (as it is affectionately known by its dedicated followers) also serves as a great resource for those looking for an insight into the world of doublejumping, or bunnyhopping, or the (relatively) new circlejumping. Just go there, okay? :).
Okay, I made a bet with myself that I wouldn't be able to refrain from plugging the site before the end of the first paragraph. Looks like I won, heh. My apologies. So what exactly is the aim of this entire Uncovered thing? Well, basically I want to share everything that Internet users have at their disposal to those without 'net access. Even if you are connected; you'll probably appreciate Uncovered's way of combining all the important bits into an easily accessible, intuitively-interfaced and witty CD guide. <choke>. And of course there's what you're reading right at this very moment... s8n's rant! Wahey, now where else could you find such a delightfully wonderful - yet ultimately pretty dull - resource of information?! The aim of this particular section is.... well, to be completely and blatantly honest it's an easy way for me to present what I want everyone to know, in a way that's easy for me to write, fun for me to create, and infinitely irritating to you because you just wanna get to the juicy stuff down below! BUT you're not allowed to scroll past this drizzle. Not yet, anyway. I haven't finished speaking :). s8n's rant, then, is just an opening for me to communicate directly with you, the Quake-addicted public. In here I'll include all sorts of interesting stuff (no, really!) and will try to focus on presenting heaps of tips & tricks for the game, either gameplay-based or revolving around those whacky moves you see the Quake-l33t performing. So... on with the show! I think it would be a good idea if I spent the very first s8n's rant explaining about the various 'features' in Quake 2 that permit one to do some seriously crazy shite with movement. Most of the people reading this probably know what a doublejump is, may even be able to employ it themselves; but I suspect a large proportion knows not of the wonders of circlejumping, for example. This issue I won't go into the actual technical reasoning behind each trick, however I might consider this for next time. In order to experience the highest form of visual, aural and emotional elation I highly recommend installing DemoPlay; this will enable you to open the demos from your browser. Doublejumping Doublejumping occurs when a jump is performed into a step, then another one immediately executed. The second jump will be off the top of the step, resulting in a combination of velocities meaning you go really high or really far, depending on what angle you jumped at. This means you will go high if you performed the doublejump while pushing into the step, or go really far if you took a runup and jumped before hitting the step. Click here for a demo of different types of doublejump (remember, you need DemoPlay installed to open demos from your browser). Slopejumping Quite a bit easier to get a handle of is slopejumping, which basically gives you more upward and forward momentum if you jump while running up a slope. That's all there is to it really; but click here for a demo anyway. Rocketjumping Most people know how to rocketjump, but for those still completely in the dark a rocketjump involves shooting a rocket at the ground beneath you and jumping simultaneously. The angle you fire the rocket at determines how high or how long you'll go; so if you wish to gain as much height as possible you'd aim straight down. Of course you'll take damage from this; so if you don't need to go quite as high then you may wish to try firing the rocket a little after you've jumped: this still gives you height, but without as much damage loss. A couple of examples of rocketjumping can be found here. Grenadejumping, BFGjumping Rockets are not the only tool used for explosive jumps - grenades (either chucked or launched) and even the mighty BFG are both plausible methods of getting some (not always) fresh air. Naturally, a BFG jump hurts significantly more than your humble rocket or grenade... Also, quadded rockets and grenades will earn you some SERIOUS air and SERIOUS respect, but at the same time inflict some SERIOUS pain. Non-explosive weaponjumping Any other weapon can also be used to jump, unfortunately the weapon must be in the hands of someone else. The railgun is especially beautiful for this. Due to the difficult nature of predicting exactly where, when and from what angle your opponent is going to fire from it makes jumps like these pretty much down to luck. I can think of maybe one or two occasions I've consciously used someone's railgun, both instances were on dm1 to grab the rockets / health in the outdoor area beside the pool. I was out of rockets and wouldn't have made it had I tried to slopejump or doublejump up there. As a side note, there is nothing wrong with using your opponent's rockets or grenades to jump aswell. These become viable strategies in a good player's repetoire, and many times will you find a grenade sitting in just the right spot. Applause is generally yours when you stand still under a rocketjumpable spot waiting patiently for your oblivious opponent to fire a rocket at you, at which moment you time a perfect jump to nab the goodies waiting patiently above you. Strafejumping Strafejumping is the staple maneuvre of any Quake God, and hence you should try to add it to your arsenal rather quickly indeed. It's premise is simple: Jump whilst holding down either strafe key. This will give you a significant distance and speed boost, certainly enough to cover many a chasm. This demo will present an example or three of strafejumping for your viewing pleasure. Circlejumping The circlejump was discovered only a few months ago and immediately gave anyone who could do it God status. Now, more and more people are finding it useful and it's come to a point where circlejumping is restricted not only to the quake-l33t, but to your average Joe Quaker aswell. Circlejumping is a rather more difficult process than strafejumping, however it basically boils down to just turning the mouse while jumping. This won't do much by itself; so determine where you actually want to go with the circlejump then run perpendicular to it for a bit, then begin turning about 45 degrees towards your target, then jump and continue turning to just past the target. The optimum jump requires control over the speed of turning; this is something you will have to practice yourself as it depends on waaaay too many variables (in other words; we haven't yet figured out exactly how to do it best =). Here is an example of circlejumping. Bunnyhopping There are now two types of bunnyhop, however the second has been given (by yours truly) a different name. Regular bunnyhopping involves performing repeated strafejumps, and you'll find an IMMENSE speed pickup. Having a final bunny off a cliff will permit you to sail for HUGE distances; try it at the upper rocket launcher in dm1. The trick to ensuring each hop is executed immediately after the last is to hold down the jump button BEFORE you hit the ground; this will automatically jump you the instant you touch down. It takes a little practice, but this demo should help you along. Circlerunning Circlerunning has been around for a while, but I took the liberty of actually naming it just a few days before this article was written. It is simply a modified version of the bunnyhop, where instead of strafejumping you perform repeated circlejumps. For this to work, the path you take has to generally be curved however the great thing is you can mix circlerunning and bunnyhopping during the same run - ie you can circlejump twice then strafejump and still have the whole series as a bunnyhop without losing speed. This way, you can maneuvre around corners and still be hopping down a straight stretch. When circlerunning, don't turn the mouse quite as fast -- it seems that a steady turn of the mouse yields best results for circlerunning (really, saying it's repeated circlejumps is a bit misleading, as a circlejump looks quite different in actual play). The demo for bunnyhopping shows how the two can be mixed, as some of the jumps were circles. Cratejumping Cratejumping is an odd jump that - whilst being around and used for ages - has only just recently been explained, courtesy primarily of Anthony Bailey (of Quake done Quick fame). Anthony eats, breathes and sleeps Quake 2 physics so it's no wonder he was the first to actually explain the phenomenon. As simply as possible, it occurs because Quake 2 rounds your current position towards 0. If your z-coordinate (ie. up/down) happens to be negative then your position will be rounded up, hence you will effectively jump a *tiny* bit higher. Normally this isn't noticed; however the standard size of a block is almost low enough to accommodate this rounding effect - but not quite enough. Another phenomena occurs when you jump twice consecutively (like in a bunnyhop), where you only hit the ground for an instant - due to another rounding reason (I think; it's been a while since I actually read this stuff), you'll gain another small amount of height (again, because of the z-plane). This is getting really, really close but you also must have a reasonably high framerate to make the jump - the reason is because you are only *just* getting the height; if you are getting a low framerate there is a chance you will miss a frame or two; the frame that you achieved optimum height. Bummer, eh? So basically you must have a reasonably high framerate (say, timerefresh in the area of >70fps), then walk up so you're just before the crate, jump, then jump again as soon as you hit the ground (see Bunnyhopping for details on how to do this), and push forward onto the crate. It may take a couple of tries before you get it. In order to make the jump pretty much all the time; try to aim for having a 100fps timerefresh. Additionally, I believe that if you have a *really* high framerate there is no need for the first jump, either (Immortal, for example, appears to be able to do it in one jump). Confused? So was I until I read Anthony's explanation half a dozen times with a nice, warm cup of strong coffee =). Now, because cratejumping requires you to be in negative z-space, actually being able to perform a cratejump depends on what map you'er playing on: most maps tend to be all above the z-axis; however one that isn't is q2dm8. Hence this is where most cratejumps occur. Check out this demo for some cratejumping action... Okay, now we've got that lot out of the way you're probably dying to know what we've got for you this month, right? No? What do you mean you've already been rummaging through the rest of Uncovered for interesting stuff to play with, and upon finding nothing resigned to sitting down and reading this?? Bah, I'm sure everyone -else- read my provocative, edge-of-your-seat and generally amusing rant BEFORE diving headfirst into the goodies.. you're different, and strange, and all that. Yeah. Okay, well first up we've got an incredibly thought-provoking interview with the hugely talented Phil "Overman" Rice of Zarathustra Studios, makers of the famous Father Frags Best movie (amongst others). On the Level Tips front I've whipped up some of the very latest q2dm1 goodies to keep you frustrated for hours while trying to master them =). The Demos section has some great 1-on-1 action on display thanks to jump-king Julios (if you've never heard of Julios, you will soon - trust me :), the latest version of the highly acclaimed Gladiator Bot features in the Mods department whilst Demoplay and a few other goodies can be found under Assorted Files. The Site Spotlight also kicks off with a roundup of the must-bookmark Quake sites on the net, so if you're new to the scene it'll definitely prove profitable. Before I go, I'll just say that if you think of anything you'd like to see in Uncovered, have a site you want promoting, program you wrote, cool demo/screenshot/picture of your q2 tatt or just comments/praise/abuse feel free to send it along! (except for abuse. That can go to hell :). If it's a picture, please be sure to save it as a .JPG or .GIF file first and if it's anything else... zip it :). Also, I haven't had a chance to check the HTML on browsers other than IE4 so if you're having any problems at all (unlikely), make sure you let me know... thanks! :) Okay, I'm done talking now so you can give in to your primal urges and start clicking! Catch you all next month..... - s8n. |