What Is QuakeWorld?
QuakeWorld Is...

QuakeWorld is an Internet multi-player specific version of Quake. While the original version of Quake can be played over the Internet, many users modem users - the majority of players, had less than satisfactory play. Symptoms like excessive lag - actions actually happening much later than you did them; packet loss - the game would freeze and resume several seconds later; and various other difficulties plagued users.

After realizing how many people played Quake on the internet, and how many wanted to, but couldn't due to the play being unsatisfactory, John Carmack of id Software decided to create a version of Quake that was optimized for the average modem Internet player. This Internet specific version does only 1 thing, play deathmatch games over a TCP/IP network such as the Internet. It has no support for solo play, and you can't do anything with out connecting to a special server.

Now in it's second generation, QuakeWorld has been sculpted by countless hours of user feedback and tweaking to provide the best multi-player experience that can be had from the equipment the average gamer will have. All that is required to use QuakeWorld is registered Quake, and one of the installer files off this site.

Many thanks to Richard "^Drag0n^" Brewer for the origional QuakeWorld documentation available at QuakeWorld Central.

QuakeWorld Client
Download & Installation

There are 2 clients installs and several server packages available to download. Most people who are just interested in playing a few games, will select one of the client installs, people with access to a high speed internet line wishing to setup a server should download one of the server packages.

To run a QuakeWorld client, registered Quake, an Internet Connection, Windows95 or WindowsNT is required. A Linux version is also available. Most people should download the full install that includes the client, QuakeSpy, and QPlug. QuakeSpy is a utility that retrieves lists of currently running servers, queries them for game info (map, number of players, etc) and sorts them by the speed of which you can send and receive packets from the servers (relative connection quality). QuakeSpy also has scores of other features far too numerous to mention, but just get it and experiment! If you already have the latest QuakeSpy or for some strange reason don't want it, download the client only install. QPlug is a Netscape plugin that works with both Netscape browser and Microsoft Internet Explorer, that queries a server, shows players and game options, it will even allow you to start QuakeWorld and connect to the server right from your browser!

QuakeWorld files section

If you selected the full client install, simply run it after downloading, answer a couple simple questions, and your ready to play! If you downloaded the client only for Windows or Linux just unarchive the package into your quake directory.

The Player Profile

When you first run QuakeSpy it will ask you to create a player profile for yourself. A player profile lets you set common options about how you look in the game, and what options you'd like to use. Lets look at the player profile window and run through the options.

Player Name: The name that others will see in the game Shirt: Select the shirt color you like. Pants: Select the pants color you like. Custom CFG File: (optional) Select the .CFG file you would like to have executed when this profile is used. Don't get skins: disables downloading of skins when you join a server. Also turns off display of skins other than the default Quake skin while in the game. No auto-aiming: Turns off slight auto-aiming in the game. Team: (optional) enter up to 4 characters that sets the team you would like to be on The 2 lists of weapons set the limit on which gun you automatically arm yourself with when you pick up a gun or a backpack. Setting them to Super Nail Gun means you would never automatically start using a grenade launcher, rocket launcher or thunderbolt when picked up. Skin: Set this to the skin you would like to use, it is previewed in the window below.

What is a Master?

An integral part of QuakeWorld are the master servers. These are systems that act as databases of available servers to be used. When a server operator runs a server, it is an option for them to register their server on one or more of these masters. Quake Spy keeps a list of the master servers and quires a master for it's list of servers when you ask Quake Spy to update it's server list. You will notice that multiple master servers exist, this is for a few reasons. First multiple masters means redundancy, so if a master isn't available everyone isn't shut out from playing. Second Masters can be setup for geographical regions, then server operators can register their server on the closest master, allowing the end user the ability to only refresh the servers that have the highest likeliness of great play for them. Third, they can help sort servers by game type, allowing you to check for only servers that are deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and more. Currently Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Team Fortress, and other game specific masters are available. To switch masters in QSpy, just click the button on the bottom that represents the master you wish to use.

Be sure to check the Quake Spy homepage at www.quakespy.com every once in a while for an updated list of masters.

What Are Skins?

You came, you played, and for some reason, almost every time you get on a server you download a few "skins". One of the first things you will likely notice in a game, is that not all the other players look like the normal Quake guy. QuakeWorld supports "skins", which allows a player to change their look in the game. The only draw back is to see those skins, you must have the image file on your hard drive. If it doesn't exist on your system, QuakeWorld will attempt to download it from the server, if that fails, then the default skin is used. Skins are created by people through out the Quake community, because of this there are a lot of them. Every few weeks skins submitted to the skin maintainer at id Software publishes a pack of the new skins, new packs will be posted on this page as they are released. However you will want to download the packs that are out now.

QuakeWorld files section

Under your Quake directory you should see a qw\skins directory, just unarchive the packages into that director and your set. You may either set your skin in QSpy or bring up the console in the game and issue the command skin <skinfile>.

Where Did 'ping' Go?

If you've spent any time playing regular Quake over the net, you have undoubtedly used the ping command to check the latency of yourself, and others. However, you'll notice that it isn't available anymore, this is because it's been moved to the score board. Simply hit your showscores key, typically TAB, and you will see your ping, along with everyone else's in the game, updated in real time!

How To Use 'pushlatency'

Pushlatency is one of the tools QuakeWorld gives you to minimize the effect of lag on your game. However, preferences varies greatly from individual to individual. Most people either don't like the effects of puslatency very much, and don't change it, while others do like it and change it based on their current ping to the server. Generally setting it to -1/2 the server ping is a good starting point, notice that you set it NEGATIVE as setting it positive would increase your lag :). For example if your ping to the server is arround 300, then you would bring up the console and type pushlatency -150. However, the best thing you can do is try and play with several settings to find the values your most comfortable using.

'rate' & 'r_netgraph'

The other major tool that QuakeWorld provides for combating lag is the 'rate' command. Rate controls how many bytes the server will try to send you in a second. By default it is set to 2500, which is appropriate for most modem users. If you have ISDN or faster connection, setting it to 5000 will yield better results. Setting r_netgraph 1 is a diagnostic tool to help you tweak your rate. If you find that you suffer from short pauses in the game and you see red spikes in your netgraph, you should try setting the rate down a bit. Note that r_netgraph does not work under the OpenGL version of QuakeWorld.

The height of the pink lines towards the bottom is your latency on received packets. Red lines are lost packets. (bad) Yellow lines are from the rate command kicking in, it's data that wasn't sent to you because you didn't have the bandwidth for it. (OK) Blue lines are very bad, they invalid delta's, and are related to the U_REMOVE warnings. (see below)

U_REMOVE, What Gives?

If during your play, you frequently see a string of messages with the term "U_REMOVE" in them, and your play seems to freeze for serveral seconds, use the console command cl_nodelta 1. This is a slightly less efficient way for QuakeWorld to work, but if your ISP is overloaded or has some configuration problems, it may not pass packets to QuakeWorld properly and cause difficulty.

How Can I Set My Team?

Regular netquake players know that teams were set by pants color. It is different in QuakeWorld however, a new console command team exists. You may set this to any value up to 4 characters, note that it is case sensitive. In showing you this image again, you see that team is set to "none". Everyone who has their team set to "none" will be on the same team, regardless of pants color or anything else. If you want to join the "blue" team, just bring up the console, and type team blue. If you wish to not be on a team at all type team "".

How Can I Observe?

This time you see our friend Joe E. Fragger with the word (spectator) next to him. What is this? It means that he is not playing the game, but observing it as if he were playing. In this mode, you move around the world in a flying/noclipping fashion, but cannot interact with players or anything else. In spectator mode, you can also track players buy first using you fire button, then using your jump button to cycle through all the players in the game. The auto camera always keeps you close to a player so you can see exactly what they do.

How Can I Start GLQW From QSpy?

QuakeWorld now supports a GL client for playing. To setup Quake Spy, choose the menu option under "View" "Options...", then under the "Gameplay" tab, select the "QuakeWorld command line:" box and replace what is there with "glqwcl.exe", and hit OK.

QuakeWorld Server
Download & Installation

If you have access to a reasonably fast computer that is also on a T1 class or better connection, you have all that's needed to run a server. One warning before you setup, Quake and QuakeWorld servers take several megs of RAM, and significant amount of CPU power, as well as a bit of networking bandwidth. So make sure you have permission/authority to setup the server, before you continue. Currently QuakeWorld servers exist for Win32, Linux, BSDI, and Solaris.

QuakeWorld files section

Simply unarchive the server package applicable for your system type, into the Quake directory (with the proper switch to recreate directory structure). An example; pkunzip -v qwsv0812.zip c:\quake. To run the server, just enter qwsv at the command line, you should see a few dozen lines of text fly by and stop. If so, your server is running and ready to accept clients. Note that you may type console commands at the prompt, however, it is highly recomended you create a server.cfg as described in the section below.

Using The server.cfg

While you may pass all your server options when you start the server up, or type them in the console, it is usually much easier to store them in a file that can be retrieved and executed later. When a QuakeWorld server starts up, it looks for the file named "server.cfg" in the id1 directory. This file is simpily a list of the server settings you would like your server to use automatically. Some example settings are shown, you can download this file into your quake\d1 direcotry from here.

hostname "My QuakeWorld Server"
setmaster 192.246.40.12:27000
maxclients 16
maxspectators 4
deathmatch 3
teamplay 2
fraglimit 100
timelimit 30
samelevel 0
password ""
spectator_password ""
rcon_password "my_server_pass"
map dm1

Any of the server commands as well as most of the game play specific commands described in techinfo.txt and manual.txt (these came with Quake) will work here. The server.cfg file is executed automatically when you start the server.

Proper Use Of Gamedir

Quake allows the expansion of the game via the game directory, a new directory off of the quake directory tree is setup and new files (sound, graphics, progs, maps, etc) are placed in it. In QuakeWorld when a server is running a modifed game, the server tells the client automatically what directory to load the changed files from. This is unlike normal quake where the client user had to specify the directory when they wanted to join the game. This does create a couple problems however.1) all clients must use the same directory to store the new files, so patch authors should make it clear that the new files must be placed in the directory name specifed. When setting up a server with a modified game, you set your gamedir parameter to the physical directory that the patch is installed in. Then set the sv_gamedir paramter to the client directory name that is required for the patch (see patch documentation). Note that you must set the gamedir paramter first, then the sv_gamedir paramter 2nd.

Setting Up Map Rotation

As of version 2.0, the QuakeWorld server allows an administrator to setup a batch of specific maps to rotate through. To give the server the list of maps to rotate you must use the localinfo command at the server console, or in a server.cfg. For example if you wished your server to play the maps e1m1, e2m1, e3m1, dm3, and death32c; you would do:
localinfo e1m1 e2m1
localinfo e2m1 e3m1
localinfo e3m1 dm3
localinfo dm3 death32c
localinfo death32c e1m1

Notice that the last line takes the last map and points to the first one. If the last line does not point back to the first map, map switching continues as normal.

Server Fraglog

The server can keep a simple log of every frag that occurs during play. Simply type fraglogfile at the server console, or add it to your server.cfg. (Typing fraglogfile again stops logging). You should find a file named frag_X.log in your quake\qw directory where X is the log number, i.e. frag_0.log, frag_1.log, etc. The format of the log file is as follows:

\<frager>\<fragee>\

If "Player1" frags "Player2" 3 times, and then frags himself the log would show:

\Player1\Player2\
\Player1\Player2\
\Player1\Player2\
\Player1\Player1\

Additional Info.
Master Servers

Using QPlug

If you wish to include a reference to QPlug in your web page, a template of the HTML code required is below. Note that the main intended use of QPlug is not to catalog scores of servers, but to provide quite access to a specal server (a server that runs a mod you publish for instance).

<EMBED
SRC="foo.quake"
ALIGN="baseline"
BORDER="0"
WIDTH="600" HEIGHT="100"
TYPE="application/x-qplug-plugin"
NAME="quake.server.com"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.quakeworld.net/" >

An explanation of the options shown in the EMBED tag:

• SRC="foo.quake" indicates the brower should download the specified file (foo.quake) before starting up the plugin. Because Microsoft Internet explorer requires a data file to exist, you should just create an empty file of that name and place it in your HTML direcotry (QPlug does not actaully use any data from that file).
• WIDTH="600" and HEIGHT="100" control how QPlug looks on the page. QPlug has 2 sizes, the normal and mini, both are 600 wide, the normal is 100 units high, and mini is 25 units.
• NAME="quake.server.com" is the address of the server you want monitored. It is in the format <address>:<port> such as inferno.idsoftware.com:27500. Port can be omitted if you wish it to look at the default 27500.
• PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.quakeworld.net/" tells your brower where it can find the plugin if it is not already installed