Quake's Player Speed (2017)
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Delving into the nostalgic world of classic FPS games, a 2017 analysis of Quake's player speed sparked a lively debate about the realism and impact of movement speeds in gaming. Commenters weighed in on the relative sanity of Quake's player speed compared to Doom's, with some arguing it felt more immersive and humanly possible, while others noted that even Quake's speed is still quite fast by modern standards. The discussion took an interesting turn when commenters drew parallels between game speeds and YouTube video playback, joking that creators "stretch out" their content by slowing down their videos, much like Quake's original speed was tweaked. As commenters explored the implications of video playback speed on metrics like watch hours and monetization, the conversation revealed a fascinating intersection of gaming culture and online content creation.
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In Quake, the player speed is less insane, more in line with human abilities, and it makes Quake feel more real. BTW the same is true for System Shock, where the player is not a sprinter champion at all (but can obtain a skateboard, but this is another kettle of fish).
Doom offered very nice gentle "bobbing" that added to the illusion of a real person's gait. Of course, only when you played single-player and switched off the "always run" mode. (Regarding this, I wish there were a popular FPS that would explore the notion of stamina, so that running mindlessly would be wasteful, but sprinting at critical moments would be an extra game mechanic. It worked reasonably well in Diablo, released in 1996.)
Diablo 2 (2000) added the sprinting mechanic with limited stamina, but it panned out as irrelevant for gameplay. The stamina supply easily ramps up to more than you ever deplete so you just always run. And players wanted it that way since no one wants to walk slower, and the monster speeds were later increased to be balanced against players always running.
But that’s the thing if you’re only there for mindless slaughter then it’s anti fun, but also very close to a non issue because you’re spending most of your time so OP.
This tread claims that David Brevik, creator of Diablo, regretted the stamina mechanic too https://steamcommunity.com/app/2694490/discussions/0/6052961...
Further, the more you carry, the slower you can sprint, the faster stamina drains, and the faster your energy and hydration meters deplete. Since this is a game at least partially about scavenging, if you're carrying too much, you can only take a few steps before your stamina is depleted and you are unable to even walk unless you toss your immensely heavy backpack or gear on the ground and wait to recover.
None of this is to suggest that complex stamina mechanics are common in gaming, however...EFT is an exception to the mainstream.
If you load up too much stuff in your backpack, you go from normal to overweight to tankmode. Overweight penalties are reasonable and progressive from normal weight. Tank mode is not. Walking, at a snails pace, now costs stamina. You cannot recover stamina unless you are standing still. OR, unless you go prone and crawl forwards at roughly the same speed as walking.
Idk if you’ve ever put 25 lbs + in a backpack and prone crawled, but that’s very much the opposite experience In real life. Same with crouch walking not costing any more stamina in the game.
I have heard this is because there's a magic duration number for monetization.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeDxelsLhikFHC8QnrcgQcg
There might be >350 polys visible from weird camera locations, but if the player is never there in normal gameplay you don't care about them. If they do end up in such a weird position in one game in a thousand (say a rocket jump lifts them up to somewhere normally inaccessible) it's not the end of the world anyway, the game will just render slower for a few frames.
It is essentially a set of all polygons that are visible from any point inside a fixed volume, but the camera only exists at a single point inside that volume so there will probably be some polys that the camera has no LOS (though I suspect these would still be 'rendered') to and a bunch that are out of the view frustum which will not be rendered.