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QTest was Ground Zero

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Today is the 14th anniversary of QTest, our release to the public of the Quake executable along with three deathmatch maps, to test our network code over the internet.

Quake was our first internet-playable game, and we knew it would be great to let players try out the net code before the game's release so we had some lead time to fix all the bugs found with it.

At id Software, we never had a QA department. We were our own QA team, us programmers, designers and artists. A pretty small group, but we were pretty thorough. The network code in Quake, however, needed to be tested way more than our small group could handle because of the amount of networking hardware our packets had to travel through.

It paid off - Quake was released with pretty reliable network code. Playing Quake on a LAN was always a much, much better experience, so John Carmack addressed that with the QuakeWorld release in November 1996 by fixing the network code and adding client-side prediction. Now, the issues he fixed are just part of normal network programming.

The day we released QTest, we invited a very small, select group of hardcore DOOM players to our office to test our release right in front of us. They're known as the QTest 7. They are:

Here are the original photos of the QTest event at id Software that Wendigo took that Sunday.

The release of QTest paved the way for high-speed internet FPS gaming. I guess you could say that February 24, 1996 was the beginning of the future. Long live QTest!

Quake sketches

I was going through some old pictures, and figured I might as well just start uploading my old stuff. Why wait? So, in the Quake section I've put up some sketches of maps, artifacts, etc. that I drew for the game.

I have several pages of notes that describe a game different from the Quake that you know. I'll put these up when I start the Quake game page so I can explain what I was thinking for that design.

I've also put up lots of other pictures in many other sections. The smugmug site is really great - you should try it out for your own collections. You can totally customize it however you like.

My original sketch for E1M1, the first map in Quake. This was on my pad of paper where I listed myself as Project Specialist because I did so many different things on our games. The original filename of E1M1 was jrbase1. This map is for the inside of the base. Other sketches cover the outside area.

GameTales: id Answering Machine

It was June 1992. We had already shipped Wolfenstein 3D, the shareware episode only at that point, and were working on finishing the rest of the 6 episodes. Bobby Prince was in the house busy making the music for those last 5 episodes. Bobby brought his entire audio rig with him which consisted of a huge sampling keyboard, speakers, and a rack with lots of effects units.

id Software was working out of a one-bedroom loft apartment at La Prada Club in Mesquite, Texas. The six of us lived at La Prada or at adjacent complexes, so getting to work was only a couple minutes. We didn't think that was strange; we were on a mission.

Whenever Bobby left for the night, Tom and I would start playing around with his sampling keyboard. We came up with some crazy songs, and somehow we decided to come up with some answering machine messages. There were a bunch of samples already in the keyboard, and we came up with these right on the spot with no practice.

I used samples from some Judas Priest and W.A.S.P. songs as intros, and also a Vince Guaraldi song for one. Most of the answering machine "stories" are about a huge, red demon that is looking for id Software and showed up just after id escaped the building. Tom is the guy interviewing the demon, who then tires of Tom when he has no information about id's whereabouts and instantly destroys him. Or throws him down the stairs. This happens again and again.

The recordings are a little high-pitched and missing some bass to them. We only used a couple of these on the answering machine, and then Jay took them off and recorded a more corporate message, thus ending the fun.

Until now, only a few people knew about, and heard, these messages. I shall release the Kraken!



Message #2 was made after the Sesame Street counting segments like this one. Watch the baker at the end.

30 Great Gaming Geeks

How great is it to be ranked #5 on a list of the top 30 "gaming geeks"? Pretty great, if you ask me! Ahead of me are Steve Jackson, Shigeru Miyamoto, Reiner Knizia and Will Wright. That's a pretty awesome group of people.

There's a down arrow on me, and an up arrow on Will Wright, suggesting that I used to be ranked higher than #5. Wow. Thanks, Geek-O-System guys!

It's great to see 10% of the list from id Software. Plus, Warren Spector from Ion Storm, at one point. Tom Hall should be here, though. He's brilliant and under-appreciated.