New Quake. Quake Champions inspires optimism. Impressions from QuakeCon. New champion: athena

October 11, 2018

Posting date

Update date

Greetings to all champions!

An update is being released on October 11, 2018, which will include: new mode Worm-hole, new champion Athena, fresh weekly rotation arcade modes, image for a heavy machine gun " Destroyer" from Quake 4, champion and weapon balance changes, and additional performance improvements.

According to our calculations, the game update will last from 14:00 to 21:00 Moscow time.

Key points:

New mode: WORMHOLE

Wormhole is a mode in which two teams fight for one wormhole portal - a huge black hole that can expel an ancient, unknown horror from itself. All players appear in the game with a full arsenal, health and armor, but with only one single life - that is, without the possibility of revival. The cult of the Old God who defends the portal is trying to open the Wormhole, and the attacking team must close the gate before some tentacled scarecrow crawls out.

TIME LIMITED EVENT: WORMHOLE CALLS

WITH October 11 to October 31 all players who take part in the event from the very first day will receive "Tentacles" coloring for all starting weapons ( machine gun, shotgun and nail gun)! After other conditions are met, all event participants will receive a heavy machine gun skin Destroyer, unique Scalebearer skin, and at the very end - a new champion Athena or - if you have already opened it as part of a set of champions or simply purchased - its unique appearance.

Details of the event "The Wormhole Calls".

NEW CHAMPION: ATHENA

Athena was one of the first to join the ODF to take revenge on the Strogg who invaded Earth. The expeditionary force in which she fought fell into a trap, and she managed to escape only after the destruction of the Wormhole generator. Her escape capsule was thrown into the arenas of the Dream World. She now uses her grappling hook to perform amazing aerial acrobatics to achieve air dominance and attack enemies from the skies.

Basic characteristics:

• Health: 125/100
• Armor: 0/50
• Speed: 320

Active skill - hook: Athena launches a grappling hook at a designated point and is instantly transported to that location. In flight, Athena is able to stop and turn, allowing it to perform breathtaking maneuvers.

Passive skill - ledge jump: Athena can climb very high by jumping from ledges and steps.

Arcade modes

Play in a new way! Arcade mode is a set of game rules modifiers that change weekly and allow you to look at Quake Champions in a new way. This month we're introducing four new modes, one for each week of the month (in order of appearance):

TEAM “UNHOLY TRINITY”

• We have removed all weapons from the map. Choose any champion and engage in battle with the “unholy trinity” - a rocket launcher, a railgun and a lightning bolt. Everything is the same as before, but this time with a TEAM OF TRUSTED FRIENDS! Armor and health are still on the map. This mode is a great opportunity to practice combos!

CHASING THE LEADER

• In this version of Carnage, everyone plays as a Scalebearer, and the skill "Rush!" kills enemies with one hit. That is, virtually every player here is an armored train that must shoot down... other armored trains.

SWING

• Do you like dancing and music from the fifties? Well, this is a slightly different swing. In this version of Carnage, everyone plays as Athena, and a direct hit with a hook will instantly kill the enemy. Everyone is jumping, spinning, swinging, so yes, in a way, it really is like swinging.

OBELISK

• Remember "Obelisk"? In general, this is it, only here we have reduced the time limit from two and a half minutes to one minute!

NEW WEAPON SKIN: « Destroyer» Army "Destroyer" - best friend Space Marines, who managed to prove their effectiveness in various parts of the galaxy. Cuts through enemies like paper.

General improvements

This update includes a number of general improvements:

Improved performance: the developers did a fair bit of digging under the hood of the game and tweaked a lot of things, and now it runs much faster, and false positives have disappeared. Detailed description can be found .

We are returning the scoreboard to the results screen. After listening to your feedback, we decided to bring this function back from the depths of oblivion, although to do this we had to climb into a lost Wormhole in the very depths of the Dream World.

Performance Summary

• Improved performance when processing champions with a lot of special effects
• Improved client and server side performance for handling shotgun fire
• Improved performance when bloody scum spawns
• Improved performance when processing some maps by optimizing graphics/shaders and reducing the number of polygons

Champions

• Fixed an issue where respawning from the pause menu when playing as Slash would cause the death screen camera to shake
• Fixed an issue where the Strogg champion's "Sensor Antenna" decoration was not hidden by a disguise when using a skill.
• Fixed an issue where Ranger Champion's Doom Orb could pass through doors

Cards

• Fixed a bug on The Longest Yard: improved lighting on the post- and pre-game pedestal screens
• Fixed various problems with graphics that were observed in the places where the heavy machine gun appeared on the map The Longest Yard
• Fixed an issue on The Longest Yard where players could shoot through the floor causing damage.
• Fixed an issue on the Tempest Shrine map that allowed players to go outside the play area near the ship
• Changed the layout of items on the Lockbox map
• A new teleport has been added to the Lockbox map - behind the acid waterfall

Weapon

• Fixed a bug whereby a heavy machine gun might not deal increased damage when aiming due to the use of certain skills
• Fixed an issue where the flame effect could appear on the glove even when you are not playing as Death Knight
• Fixed a bug where weapon textures could be displayed in low resolution
• Fixed a bug that caused the zoom while aiming to work more intensively than intended

Cosmetic changes

• Fixed the historically incorrect US flag from the B.J. hero set. "Liberator"
• Fixed a texture error that could appear when using the Sorlag “Savage” set

Interface

• Fixed an issue that resulted in players appearing in the lobby after disconnecting from a match in Custom Game mode.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a player's profile to appear empty
• Fixed a bug that resulted in the time limit and points being displayed incorrectly on the scoreboard
• Fixed a bug that resulted in users being unable to open their game profile
• Fixed some lines that were displayed incorrectly
• Fixed a bug that could result in a black square appearing in the store when hovering over the “Deliverer”
• Battle summary and match achievements now display the correct number of characters
• Fixed bugs that could result in difficulty selecting some buttons

Game process

• Fixed an issue where the Strogg player was unable to pick up a soul in Obelisk mode after using Peeker
• Fixed an issue in Unholy Trinity that could cause the Rocket Launcher God medals to not be added to the player's profile
• Fixed an issue in Unholy Trinity where the rocket launcher would continually play a sound effect indicating it was about to run out of ammo
• Fixed an issue in Instant Death that was causing some champions to be unable to deal damage to themselves

Technical aspects

• Fixed an issue where the game could crash in spectator mode if the player used the free view camera between matches
• Fixed an error that could occur if players used voice chat during warm-ups
• Fixed an error that only occurred on computers with AMD Vega, and could cause the game to crash on startup
• Fixed an error that could occur during frequent use of the Death Knight skill when connecting to a game that has already started
• Fixed various performance and framerate stuttering issues reported on our forums
• Fixed various bugs related to the display of champion bloody scraps that could appear on different maps

Viewer

• Fixed an issue where the viewer could see a blank respawn button if the player was respawned during a warmup

Bots

• Added a number of fixes and improvements to the bot navigation system
• Improved weapon handling and adjusted difficulty level

Balance changes

Champion Balance Changes

All champions

• Adjusted viewing height to take into account recent changes in player model sizes
• Squat movement speed equalization o For light champions*: from 80 to 160 units. o For medium champions*: from 77 to 160 units. o For heavy champions*: from 75 to 160 units. *Changes to Slash are below.

• Viewing height: from 0.65 to 0.66 m

B.J. Blazkowicz

• __Viewing height: from 0.58 to 0.56 m

• Scale: from 1.175 to 1.15
• Viewing height: from 0.68 to 0.58 m
• Reduced the size of the active hit area

Death Knight

• Viewing height: from 0.555 to 0.52 m
• Direct damage from lethal fire: from 50 to 40
• Deadly Fire Fragment Damage: 51 to 30
• Lethal fire damage radius: from 3 to 2 m (from 120 to 80 units)

DOOM Slayer

• Viewing height: from 0.75 to 0.6 m
• Hands raising time: from 0.3 to 0.4 sec.

• Scale: from 1.1 to 1.2
• Viewing height: from 0.62 to 0.6 m
• Increased active hit area size

• Scale: from 1.15 to 1.22
• Reduced the size of the active hit area (it "swelled" after changing the scale)

Scalebearer

• Scale: from 1.15 to 1.175
• Viewing height: from 0.65 to 0.64 m
• Damage from the skill “Run Through!” adjusted from 50/75/100/150/200 to 75/100/125/150/200

• Viewing height: from 0.78 to 0.6 m
• Squat movement speed: from 85% to 50% (from 272 to 160 units)
• Friction force when rolling: from 1.3 to 1.0

• Scale: from 1.1 to 1.0
• View height: from 0.7 to 0.58 m Acceleration when using the Bunny Hop ability: from 0.02 to 0.05

Strogg and Peeker

• Viewing height: from 0.58 to 0.56 m

WEAPON BALANCE CHANGES:

Lightning Thrower

• Cooldown: from 55 to 52 ms (from 18 to 19 shots per second)

Don't forget to order Quake Champions - Scalebearer Edition!

This awesome set includes a hand-painted 12-inch Scalebearer figurine, a Champion Pack, and an exclusive Scalebearer Demon of the East skin! Learn more about how to place an order from anywhere in the world

Just a year ago we were overjoyed when id Software very in the right words described their future Doom. Guns, gore, rhythm - exactly what was expected from that game, and it was very nice to know that the developers understood this.

Now, at QuakeCon 2016, they are talking about the new part Quake, subtitled Champions. And again the very words that are expected from them.

Key word: speed

As wild as the rebooted Doom was, it was still blamed from time to time for making Doom Marines run slower. It’s clear why the pace has slowed down - in early Doom and Quake it would have been fundamentally impossible to aim on a gamepad, but the new game was still adapted to all current platforms.

And here Quake Champions will be exclusive to PC. And the first word heard at the presentation was “speed”. Watch the gameplay video. Compare the new product with any shooter with console roots. Yes, this is exactly the pace at which Quake 2 and 3 were played. And this is exactly the pace at which Quake Champions will be played.

This is the most classic arena multiplayer shooter. With weapons appearing on the map strictly according to timing. With a complex and confusing structure of levels, where the advantage is given to those who have explored all the corners and mapped out all the routes in advance. With rocket jumps, finally - a jump on a rocket explosion here throws you up a good seven floors. There is both jumping and strafe jumping. Almost every advanced movement technique you learned fifteen years ago should have a use in Quake Champions.

id, as the developers say, has many projects, but few people, so the main work on Champions is done in New York-St. Petersburg Saber Interactive. But this does not mean that the development was left to them entirely.

Now there are heroes here too

The main innovation regarding Quake 3 ( Quake 4 And Enemy Territory We don’t take them into account, they are good, but too... different) in that heroes and skills have appeared. The class division here is not as strict as in Overwatch, where each person has one gun and a bunch of skills. In Champions you use any weapon that you can find on the map, just in addition, each hero has a nice bonus that can help in battle and partly change the style of combat.

The heroes themselves are familiar to us, it’s just that in Quake 3: Arena they were strictly decorative images, but here they gained their abilities. For example, Visor can occasionally highlight the silhouettes of enemies through walls, and Nyx (let’s assume that she’s a relative of Mynx from the third part) becomes invisible and invulnerable for a few seconds, hiding from enemy fire.

A total of a dozen heroes are expected at the start. Then there will be more of them, although here, of course, there is difficulty in maintaining balance.

Ranger teleports short distances (remember the translocator from Unreal Tournament), Scale Bearer accelerates and demolishes everyone in its path, tearing it to shreds (like a bull in a bullfight or, if you prefer, the Juggernaut from the X-Men). The lizardman Skorlagg is slightly more durable than others, and can spit acid, leaving puddles-traps. A friend from the third part of Anarky accelerates, newcomer Galina places enhancing or slowing down totems, and so on.

At the same time, many skills operate on the “rock-paper-scissors” principle. If the accelerating Scalebearer runs at Minx, and she suddenly disincarnates, he will simply run right through and get shot in the back. But the trick is useless against Visor: if he enlightens the surroundings, he will see the invisible one. Skills recharge for thirty to forty seconds, depending on the character, and the only way to speed this up is to collect bonuses in the form of hourglasses on the map.

Guns - you've already seen them

Development Manager Tim Willits specifically draws our attention to the fact that abilities are like another set of guns that you can experiment with. All heroes are designed for fighting - no “tanks” or healers.

As for weapons, here we get a wild combination of the arsenals of the first and third Quake. For the most part, however, this is a proven set from Q3: machine gun, shotgun, lightning thrower, railgun, glove with circular saws, rocket launcher. Only the nail gun was taken from the first part: it is more powerful than a machine gun, but the bullets do not reach the target instantly, you need to calculate the lead.

It is not known what fate befell the grenade launcher, plasma cannon and, most importantly, the BFG. Or rather, the developers, of course, know, but they are not talking yet.

* * *

id does not say how Quake Champions will be distributed (paid? free? with a subscription?). They don't know yet. The game is definitely due out next year, and the developers are confident that they will be able to shake up the online competitive shooter genre. Things like Lawbreakers They are suspiciously vigorously striving for the same niche, but still, it was with Quake that eSports began at one time.

And it’s time for the veteran to return to it.

The history of Prey began 19 years ago. The game was announced in 1995, and two years later the game was shown at E3. The developers' bold ideas excited the minds of the players, but realizing what was promised turned out to be expensive and difficult. The concept changed, work on the project was suspended several times, until Human Head Studios and 3D Realms Entertainment got down to business. The game reached the shelves only in the summer of 2006, and soon the second part was announced. The history of the creation of Prey 2 turned out to be almost as difficult. The game has been in development since 2009, and the first footage was shown at E3 2011. It seemed like Prey would make it to release on time this time. Then the project came close to alpha testing and all the main content was already ready, but Bethesda Softworks was not satisfied with many things. "The game did not meet our quality standards and we have decided to cancel it," Bethesda said.

Look

The project was suspended, but, having enlisted the support of Dishonored developers - Arkane Studios, they decided to bring the game to fruition. The developers completely revised the concept of Prey 2 and abandoned game engine id Tech 4 in favor of CryEngine 4. The second part has nothing in common with the original, except for the name. Spatial portals from the original game are simply missing in Prey 2. The developers once again abandoned multiplayer, focusing only on the story campaign.

The first gameplay video of Prey 2 was shown to journalists the day before the start of QuakeCon 2016. In a two-minute video main character Morgan Yu describes the mysterious events happening to him on the Talos I space station, located in orbit of the Moon. Players will have to fight with phantoms who can blend into their surroundings. The developers promise non-linear levels that can be explored in different ways, and a full-fledged role-playing system. As gamers note, Prey 2 is reminiscent of System Shock and Half-Life - series of games that have always inspired Arkane, who also made Bioshock and Dishonored. The game's release is scheduled for March 2017.

New presentation of Dishonored 2

The presentation of Dishonored 2 took place behind closed doors, any video recording was prohibited, but, according to journalists, it was the most memorable moment of the festival. At QuakeCon 2016, the same mission was presented as at E3 2016. Then the passage for the character Emily Kaldwin was shown, but, as you know, levels in Dishonored 2 can be skipped in several ways, depending on the style of play. There will be a choice of character, but the chosen hero will have to go through the game from beginning to end. Emily is a lighter and more dexterous character, but Corvo is a real “brutal”.

Look

This time the developers showed Corvo's abilities. Some of them are already familiar to us from the first part, but they work a little differently in Dishonored 2. When selecting the Blink ability, Corvo is now able to not only move, but also immediately attack the enemy. Bend Time allows you to slow down time. The Possession ability will help you quickly leave the battlefield by turning into a wasp. Other new features will allow you to scatter surrounding enemies (Windblast) and set swarms of rats on the enemy (Devouring Swarm).

For Corvo they showed how you can pass the level in aggressive style, but players can choose to go through the game in secret. In addition, tasks can be completed in completely different ways. At the end of the presentation, Corvo had two goals to choose from: destroy Viceroy Byrne or Paolo. At E3 2016, Emily chose the first scenario, while at QuakeCon 2016, Corvo hunted Paolo. It is possible that, despite the closeness of the presentation, a new gameplay recording will soon be on the Internet. Dishonored 2 will be released on November 11, 2016 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Gameplay video and first details of Quake Champions

A lot of attention at QuakeCon 2016 was paid to the new part of Quake. Not everyone will now remember that eSports appeared as a phenomenon after the first Quake tournaments in the 90s. In recent years, Quake has been forgotten, and dueling shooters have become a little lost amid the growing popularity of MOBA games. With the release of Quake Champions, everything may change. id Software has already stated that they are ready to hold championships and invest heavily in popularizing the game. Given a successful combination of circumstances, Quake Champions is quite capable of attracting the interest of young players.

In Quake Champions, we once again have to make quick decisions, constantly move and shoot accurately in order to survive. But there will be no pure old school: the developers had to make some compromises. IN new game character classes will appear. Each character will have their own unique skills and abilities. Ranger, better known as QuakeGuy from the first Quake, can throw a teleporter, thanks to which you can escape from a dangerous situation. The character Visor, who appeared in Quake III Arena, will be able to see through walls. Nyx is endowed with the Ghost Walk skill, when activated, the character becomes invisible for a while. Another newcomer, Scale Bearer, is equipped with the Bull Rush skill, which will allow you to instantly reduce the distance to the target. Anarki, another character familiar from Quake III Arena, will be able to move around the map a little faster than other heroes.

Look

It remains to be seen whether Quake will follow the path of Overwatch. Class abilities and skills, according to id, only affect the style of play (although there will be even more of them in the future). Otherwise, all heroes will pick up the same weapons scattered around the map. In the video you can see guns recognizable from other parts. After the appearance of “lodouts” in DOOM 4, there were concerns whether a similar feature would be in the new Quake. But here the developers remained faithful to the old principles.

It is already known that the starting weapons in Quake Champions, as in Quake III Arena, will be the Machine Gun and the Buzz Saw Gauntlet (a machine gun and a glove with a saw). In addition, the following guns have been confirmed - Shotgun, Nail Gun, Rocket Launcher, Lightning Gun and Rail Gun. The gameplay video also showed several seconds of jumping - the familiar strafe jump and circle jump from QuakeWorld. Rocket jumps (jumps using rockets) were shown even more.

Compact levels, dynamic gameplay, modern graphics and recognizable from other parts game process. What else do you need for happiness? Probably, there is only one thing - for the developers to take into account their previous mistakes and continue to support Quake Champions after the game's release. QuakeCon alone is clearly not enough to popularize games from id Software. We need intrusive advertising, tournaments and Full time job with the community.

The first expansion for DOOM 4 - Unto the Evil

The first paid add-on for DOOM 4, Unto, was released at QuakeCon 2016 the Evil. This add-on is intended for network game. Players received three maps for multiplayer battles - “Ritual”, “Cataclysm” and “Offering”, one new demon to play as, a new weapon - an EMG pistol with an alternative type of shooting in the form of powerful accumulated charges, armor sets, hacking modules and ridicule. The add-on is already available for 499 rubles.

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id Software significantly continues to support DOOM multiplayer, while not promoting the game as an eSports game. Apparently, if the developers do not separately announce e-sports support for the game, as is the case with Quake Champions, then there is no point in waiting for it. Even at QuakeCon there was no DOOM tournament - more proven disciplines were chosen for the competition.

Rapha is a five-time QuakeCon champion

QuakeCon remains the only major tournament to still feature Quake. The strongest players on the planet put aside all their business every summer to come to the USA and compete at the oldest championship. Despite the absence of Anton "Cooller" Singov and Alexey "Cypher" Yanushevsky, who could have graced the championship with their presence, our fans had someone to worry about. Sergey “Evil” Orekhov seriously claimed a high place and was the main rival of the four-time QuakeCon champion Shane “rapha” Hendrickson. The American had a great chance to become the most titled player in the history of the tournament; his eternal opponent Cypher, who had won QuakeCon four times, was absent this time.

Like all favorites, Evil easily made it to the playoffs, where they beat two Australians - the legendary python and Fraze, but in the winners' finals they could not oppose Rafa. The American's playing style is tailored to constant pressure, which the Russian player could not cope with. Evil made several offensive mistakes and lost outright three maps. After the defeat, the Russian player did not lose heart and in the very next match he left no stone unturned against k1llsen, who beat Spart1e in the losers' semi-final, and in the first losers' final beat the three-time world champion Zero4 (though more than ten years ago). There is another chance to get even with the offender and take revenge for the defeat in the grand final of QuakeCon 2015.

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The decisive match of the championship was scheduled for six in the morning Moscow time, and those who got up early for the final were not at all upset: the match was a feast for the eyes. If in the finals of the winners Evil could not break through the “sticky” game of the American, then in the grand finals Rafa became bolder and made more mistakes in attacks. The second map was indicative, where nine overtimes were played. Unfortunately, the Russian player lost 2:3, but made a lasting impression. And who knows how the grand final would have ended if the American player had not had an enviable one-card handicap.

For first place, rapha received 12 thousand dollars and the title of five-time QuakeCon champion. Evil, after losing the finals in 2013 and 2015, again became second, k1llsen was third, and Zero4 was fourth. At the next QuakeCon, the central tournament will probably be Quake Champions. The current favorites will have to prove their worth from scratch.

QuakeWorld: 19 years later

In addition to the Quake Live duel, QuakeCon hosted a QuakeWorld tournament in the 2x2 format. It's hard to believe, but this was actually only the second QW tournament in the festival's history since 1997. Previously, QW was presented at QuakeCon 2007, when a special tournament was held for all Quake games at the same time. The competition could not be called amateur: many famous players showed up in Dallas, many of whom had not seen each other for years. First place was awarded $12,000, unheard of money for the ancient discipline. The entire podium was occupied by the Scandinavians: silver and bronze were taken by the Swedes - carapace/LocKtar and bps/Locust, and the Scandinavian mix Ragnarok won. He was played by Finn Milton and Norwegian Rikoll, the strongest in QuakeWorld recent years, which directly affected the results of the games - even in the playoff matches, victories were often devastating.

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Although this year QuakeCon came at the right time The International 2016 (not to mention the Summer Olympics), the festival received its share of attention both in gaming industry, and in eSports. QuakeCon remains a holiday for fans of Quake and any other games from id Software and Bethesda. Twenty festivals are behind us - we hope there are at least as many more ahead.