QuakeGod: Ok, for those who don’t know, who are you?

General WarT: I’m me. 🙂 To elaberate… I’m Carl Glave, usually known as General WartT’ I’m a QC coder. I’ve made the Custents and am currently working on the Apocalypse project.

QuakeGod: Sounds cool, now for those who really aren’t into Quake news, what is Apocalypse?

General WarT: Well, to use the words of Steve “It’s the first TC that’s not really a TC.” I think what he meant itthat we’re actually using and extending the plot for Quake (There really is one) and making it much more involved forthe player so he really cares what happens in it.

QuakeGod: Can you tell us a little about the plot?

General WarT: Not really, since it’s not completely done yet. It’s taking linger than expected because of the branching plot thing, and cause we don’t want to conflict with ID. We can say that you’ll have to face another one of Quake’s big guys, but this time his position relative to Quake will matter the game.

QuakeGod: Sounds cooler, so, what exactly are you doing for Apocalypse TC?

General WarT: Well, I’m doing most of the QuakeC for it. There is another programmer for Apoc, Graham Ferris, but he’sbeen really busy with RL lately. darn it. But lately I’ve been doing redoing the weapons and ammo system, adding all therequests for new map enhancing toys, and bacically programming lots a stuff. Oh yea, and I’ve been giving all the monster’s AI a bit of a face lift. 🙂

QuakeGod: Wow! Sounds like a lot! What kind of weapons are there for Apoc?

General WarT: Here’s a quick list of what we’ve already got done and working. We’ve removed some of the original Quake weapons. The ax, regular shotgun, super nail gun, and lightning gun have been… axed. In their place, though, are several more weapons. The replacement for the shotgun is called the Judicator.It’s a small hand gun that uses a regenerating battery cell to generate its ammo. It fires sorta like Robo Cop’s gun, in short, quick bursts.
The replacement for the super nail gun is currently called the vulcan cannon. It uses energy energy ammo to propel nails to speeds that make it too fast to see, and cause it to deflect off of surfaces once. It takes time to get it to fire at full speed, but once it warns up (takes a few seconds) you can do things like hose down a Shambler in less than 3 seconds. Of course you’re completely defensless till then.
Hmm, what else…
doh, how could I forget my favorite of them all… The Phased Plasma Cannon. >)
I love this baby. You charge it up and let’er rip. When firing, it’s sorta like the plasma gun from Doom.But when it hits enemys, it makes them start glowing for a few seconds. It look really cool. It’s even better when you kill someone with it, cause it overloads their molecilar structure and they just blow up in to a fine blow of nothingness.It great for making that hard to hit enemy in a dark passagway into a flash light. hehe.

QuakeGod: Hehe, sounds sooo cool!!! You said up above your were making map enhancing toys… what kind of toys?

General WarT: oh, really fun ones. 🙂 My current favorite is one I just finished. It’s an auto gun turret. It hangs from the ceiling and can really shoot the crap out of you if you don’t respect it’s space. It’s kinda like those turretsin Dark Forces, but mich cooler. 😉 It can do cool stuff like retract into the ceiling too, so you could be walking along, set off a laser tripwire, and all the sudden a gun turret drops down behind you and starts frying your rear.

Other cool, but less voilent, map enhancements that I’ve finished are things like a particle sprayer that can be used for things like steam leaks and water fountains.

Oo, why didn’t I mention this first. Hehe, I’ve gotten Quake working now withit now so that each entity can haveup to four different targets and four different targetnames. Some of the new entities (like the moving actors) use themultiple targetnames to get triggered to do different things. I’ve already used them myself a bit, and it can make complex setups so much easier to do. There’s a bunch of others to. Misc. triggers, trigger interupters, impulse activated triggers. Just about everything Steve has been able to think up. 🙂

QuakeGod: You seem like a good programmer 🙂

General WarT: Aw gee. *blush*

QuakeGod: So, you said you were working on the Monster AI… what’d you do to them?

General WarT: Welp, lets start with the soldiers. I haven’t done much with them all that I want to with them yet, but I’ve got different version shooting nails guns, grenades, and rockets. I didn’t do it in some cheesy way either, they’retougher and really know how to use them to pummel you.
Next up is the Enforcers. So far I’ve treaked their firing patter so it’s very unpredictable. Sometimes they fire three times when they feel like it. Also, they randomly lead you with their shots, so it makes dodging them a real pain cause you sometimes don’t know wether to keep going or stop.
The last ones that I’ve managed to play with so far is the ogres. These people will notice the biggestdifference in. They are just plain naist now. hehe. Do you remember that one caged ogre in to begining of e1m3?

QuakeGod: Yeah…

General WarT: Well, he can now hit you from there when you’re all the way back to the far wall. They compensate for up and down angles, and change their firing arc to get just to right firing distance. They can usually hit yuou beforeyou can hit them. Besides that, I’ve added a few new frames to the ogres so that now they can run and shoot at the same time. No more standing there like a dunce while you pound on them. If they fire, you keep right on runnin.

QuakeGod: And people are suppose to survive this game somehow with all of these monster enhnacements?

General WarT: Hehe, wel, yea. We’re not going to pach them in as much as ID had too, at least I don’t think so. 😉 That’s really up to Steve how quickly you will die. hehe
It’s really much more fun having to actually worry about what the monsters are doing rather than just haveing to think about sidestepping then shoot.

QuakeGod: Hehe, ok, will monsters be tracking you through the whole level like in Quake 2, or will they wait until they hear a sound or see you? Or even better, can monsters call on other monsters for help?

General WarT: I’m not that great of an AI guy yet. I’ve just started in this area, and things like that are still a bit beyond me, but I just might catch on to stuff like that before Apoc if done. 🙂 As for the calling for help, I don’t know we don’t have anything like that planned.

QuakeGod: Ok, Steve was raving in his Apocalypse .plan awhile back about how cool the end boss is going to be… any new developments on that you can share?

General WarT: none besides the fact that it won’t be Quake him/it self.

QuakeGod: Ok… another thing in Steve’s .plan was this little thing about colored lighting… care to share anythingabout that? 😉

General WarT: Um, if you’d like. 🙂 Neal, another of our programmers, but not QC, is working on a really cool new lightutility. He’s calling It’s called LightDLX and it can do all sorts of cool new lighting effects, as well as this new colored lighting setup. The colored lighting that Apocalypse will have uses a new lighting colormap to simulate two different colors of lights besides white. You can’t mix them together, but if done properly (ie keeping them away from each other) it’slooks absolutly kick ass. He’s got redgoing to be implimenting red and some other color, probably blue or yellow. Thething that makes this so cool though, is that it works in regular Quake. The odd thing is, it doesn’t work in GlQuake. 😛 Hehe, but we’ll have that little glitch taken care of soon.

QuakeGod: Cool! So we have colored lighting! Any other monumental changes for Quake?

General WarT: Lemme check my list here… Oh yea, we’ve completely revamped the ammo types that you have. The new ammo types are a regenerating battery, Phased Plasma, nails, explosives, and arrows.

There’s also going to be ducking in Apocalypse. You can squeeze through little ducts that are about half the height you could normally fit through. But when ducking you move at half the regular speed, and you can jump, just do a little jumpping like hop to get over low ledges.

The lastthing I can think of is inlevel cut scenes. Using a new remote camera (similar to the ones in Duke Nukem)and also the new actors, Steve has been able to make little cut scenes in the middle of the levels. So as you’re goingalong you might get a little cut scene showing something that would result in a door or something happening that you haveto do something about.

QuakeGod: Wow! That’s sound cool! So, ummm, with all this cool stuff, is Apocalypse going to be free?

General WarT: Well, unless you insist on sending us money before downloading it, yes. We won’t mind if you do that either. 😉

QuakeGod: Hehe, now, before we end this interview, why, in your opinion should people bother to get Apocalypse whenit comes out before 1998?

General WarT: Well, we’ve noticed that alot of the stuff we’re doing is also being done in Quake 2, so we’ve gotta bedoing something right. 🙂 Besides that, the truly involving story line that we’re making will just suck you in and makeyou really care about what’s going on. You might not start crying when a friend of your get blown to pieces by the enemy, but you definatly have a feeling of wanting revenge. >) Also, it’s really cool, and we said so. 😉

QuakeGod: Cool! You keep saying that a lot of the Apocalypse stuff will be added to your Custents pack after Apocalypseis released, is this true?

General WarT: Well, I hope it’s true, or else I’m a big fat liar. Yes, all map enhancing entities in and features in Apocalypse will be added to Custents for all to enjoy and kill players with. 🙂 The stuff like monster enhancements and power ups, and new weapons will not be added to Custents, since they are not map releated things, but for those that do want those really cool things, We will also be releasing the full Apocalypse source code in a timely fasion just as the two mission packs did.

QuakeGod: Great! Hey, what kind of power-ups?

General WarT: We’ll we don’t have any of them working yet, so I can’t tell you. Just believe that they’ll be really cool and not just some “do more damage” or “take less damage” things. They will allow you to do stuff you cand get places you couldn’t before. So they’ll actually be involved in the game.

QuakeGod: Ok, well, any thing that I missed that you want to say before we end this interview?

General WarT: Hehe, oh yea, I forgot to mention my second favorite new weapon in Apocalypse. 😛 Silly me. It’s a long bow. Hehe, that’s what uses those arrows I mentioned. You will be able to draw it back any amout you want to get jus tthe right arc to the arrow, of course, fuul draw means full power. 😉

Also, that Phased Plasma Cannon is what’s replacing the lightning gun. Two full charge bursts from thatwill turn a shambler into dust.

QuakeGod: So, General sir, thank you for coming to this interview!

General WarT: Yup, my pleasure. Hehe, thanks for interviewing me and not Steve. 🙂

QuakeGod: BTW, what are you general of?

General WarT: I’m general of The Trench of Mental Warfare. The fine line between sanity and reality… walk it with me boys. 🙂

QuakeGod: Where’s your army?

General WarT: What? You don’t need ne stinking arny this war boy! Use your mind, or else it will rot away will somany (unmentioned) people and you’ll lose it. *snap*

QuakeGod: Hehe! 🙂

General WarT: Thanks for the release, my brain needed that. | )

Screenshots
   • New Ogre
   • New Zombie
   • New Enforcer

   • Colored Lights 1
   • Colored Lights 2
   • Colored Lights 3
   • Colored Lights 4

   • Phased Plasma Beam 1
   • Phased Plasma Beam 2
   • Phased Plasma Beam 3
   • Phased Plasma Beam 4

   • Turret 1
   • Turret 2