Why do people like Quake so much? I'm too young to understand. Does it do something unique compared to other shooter games?
For instance, Quake was the first FPS where the maps were truly 3D and could have one piece of floor on top of another. It would be considered insane for a game to not have that now. Quake(World) was the first truly massive online gaming FPS. Quake II was the first game I ever owned that used a 3D graphics card, I still remember the first time loading it up after I installed my card to set this wondrous coloured lighting that followed a rocket when I fired it.
Anyway, point is you’re right, you are too young to understand. I don’t mean that in a patronising way, it’s just that it’s not impressive today in any way. The enthusiasm you see here is nostalgia. It’s a museum piece.
And you could see both at the same time. The Build Engine used by Duke Nukem 3D could also have one piece of floor on top of another floor (or even going through another floor), but due to how it worked, if both were visible at the same time you would have a "hall of mirrors" effect instead of rendering properly. And also water: while the Build Engine faked it by teleporting the player to another room when entering or leaving a water area, Quake did not need that kind of trickery.
Other than Duke Nukem 3D, other popular FPS games from that era also used "2D map with varying height" (like the Doom family), or even simpler things like rectangular 90-degrees-only single-height maps (for instance, Wolfenstein 3D).
Also, "first true 3D FPS" depends on how you would classify Descent.
Bethesda's Terminator: Future Shock predated Quake by a year and also had truly 3D maps - which were often more expansive than Quake's (also you could drive vehicles, fly a helicopter or something like that IIRC, enter various places to find loot - though the loot variety was limited to basically ammo, weapons and grenades). I think Quake got more attention because Doom made way more of a noise than Bethesda's previous game (which AFAIK was a poor Wolf3D clone[0]) and unlike TFS Quake also had multiplayer support which was HUGE (TFS was criticized at the time for not having it).
Amusingly enough TFS controls pretty much like a modern FPS with its mouse look and the ability to configure WASD whereas Quake was still a hybrid of mouse being used to move forward/backward (unless you typed the "+mlook" command in the console) and again TFS was criticized for this.
[0] ok, they also made Arena but still id's previous game was way bigger and even at the time your last game was what people paid most attention to for the next one
2: Doom's impact was more huge than Quake. The MOD community still releases PWADs today. Doom basically boosted LAN multiplayer matches.
- First real 3D FPS game using OpenGL (GLQuake)
- First real multiplayer 3D game with 16 players
- First to introduce the idea of a "clan" or "guild" for a multiplayer game. It's where the term "clan" came from
- First esports game
- First instance of Capture the Flag mod later used in other games
- First instance of Team Fortress later used in other games (e.g. TF2)
- First game to have "demos" (aka VODs) where you can rewatch / replay a match
- First game with a multiplayer competition match mode (Clanring or CRCTF or CRDM)
- First web service allowing you to see what's going in in games from the internet [qstat](https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/qstat)
Aside from all of these firsts Quake 1 and Quake 2 were incredibly executed.
- Soundtracks made by Nine Inch Nails. Who at the time ever heard of a tier 1 famous band making entire videogame soundtracks?
- Creepy gothic lovecraftian demonic theme combined with space. The space parts were later ripped off by Half-Life. And you can see the influences even on modern cultural artifacts like the show Stranger Things (which itself seems to rip off Half Life's storyline).
Quake is basically the original online multiplayer game and had almost everything we have today but had it all the way back in 1996. The only things that game didn't really have was deep API integrations to websites the way games have now or complex matchmaking with elo and ranks.
Both are great OSTs, Q1 is a "ambient-horror-esque" styled album [1] while Q2 OST [2] is practically industrial metal made using synths.
[1] https://youtu.be/5n8iU7abqkQ [2] https://youtu.be/svRkAEoT5Hc
The most popular choice of accessory was the Sidewinder 3D Pro. That was my choice of input device and I was easily a top 5% player in my teens.
I never touched one, but many people swore by the SpaceOrb 360 as the pinnacle of controllers for Descent.
They did a lot to open the idea that game mods could be more than cheats and cracks, too.
I still remember the grenade launchers and wild modded grenades fondly. the bouncing ones were so much fun in hallways.
Duke 3D had gameplay that was more fun, but it was a 2.5D game with a Doom-style engine (it was much more sophisticated with scripting and slanted ceiling/floors but still not true 3D like Quake).
Post-release, Quake had patches called GLQuake which added 3d accelerator support, and Quakeworld which added internet movement prediction so playing online didn't feel as jank. Quake 2 came out with these features integrated and more - colored lighting, transparent surfaces, etc.
Allow me to share the perspective of someone around 18 years old at the time.
First, Id Software created the FPS category with Wolfenstein. However, the company didn't gain widespread recognition until they released Doom. Doom was exceptionally unique, to the extent that it made headlines in mainstream news.
With the launch of Quake, although other FPS games existed, the expectations were high as everybody saw it as the successor of Doom. Also, Quake had a genuine 3D environment as opposed to Doom's 2.5D. 3D graphics cards were not common, making Quake a marvel of PC gaming. Moreover, Quake featured an advanced mod system and a level editor, which were rare in games of that time.
FPS games are now ubiquitous, and even budget smartphones have more 3D capabilities than high-end PCs of that era. So, the “wow” factor of Quake was extremely high.
You can get into a rocket fight with your opposition, sustain a fair number of hits, heal in the next room, and repeat. Their goal was to make you feel like an amazing demon-killing machine.
Quake was one of the first PVP FPS games to bring that feel to the game. Death had minimal consequence, your goal was to find and kill the opposition, lethality was set low enough that you could shoot a rocket at your feet to "jump" higher.
At least, that's what made Quake (and ID games of that era) stand out to me.
However, Carmack was the most brilliant engine developer of his time and was heavily committed to open platforms, so that meant these games looked head and shoulders above their peers and played amazing online and had massive communities of modders and admins running the online games. Basically they created the modern FPS genre.
Until Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike came along, the Quake series was the king of online FPS gaming. And even after they appeared, Quake 3 held its own.
Both the resurgence of "boomer shooters" (at least in PC) and by extension the recent remastering of both Q1/Q2 indicates an existing target group for these kind of games.
Point taken that younger players may see no fun or meaning in games like this, but modern gamer <> young gamer.
Indeed, some years ago i'd wake up, take a shower, make some coffee, do a quick play of the first episode of Quake (i stopped at first death but i pretty much knew the game so well by that point that i rarely died before the last couple of maps) to wake up and then go to work :-P.
One can drift naturally to one or another extreme, but the more the variety the better imho. I just enjoy simpler games both in graphics and gameplay.