Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (Beta) - First Impressions

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » June 23rd, 2007, 22:06

Well a few of us have acquired the beta and had a blast now, so I thought I'd put some first impressions up.

My initial reaction after a map or two was one of utter confusion. In the beta map, the strogg are defending the map and the GDF are attacking it. There are a series of progressive missions that have to be completed/prevented for whichever side to win the map. However, different classes are needed for the different missions, and it wasn't immediately obvious what to do. From the Strogg's point of view, it was even more confused. Not least because the equipment isn't the standard fare that you get in, say, Beef. However, by the end, I felt I had a grasp of what was going on and therefore it all made a lot more sense. Many of the tools/vehicles etc will be a lot simpler once I have the manual to read too.

The map used in the beta is pretty small, and doesn't appear to have the teams swap objectives, but hopefully bigger maps with more varied missions will appear in the full game, and the pace should be accordingly less frenetic.

I think I stuck everything up to high and it worked perfectly smoothly on my machine. Lag was a bit crappy, but I think that's due to it being a beta still. Overall, the graphics seem pretty good though.

The game had a feel not dissimilar to Beef, and once I'd wrapped my head around what was going on, I started liking it a lot more. I don't love it yet, but I haven't been put off it yet either. Roll on the full release!

Post by **Dog Pants** » June 23rd, 2007, 22:12

Christ, in the time I've been downloading it you guys have played it and written a review

It's unpacking now.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » June 23rd, 2007, 22:31

Just to add to Lat's comments a little.

I'm really liking it so far, some of the weapons/balance are off a little I think.

Lag seems to be mostly due to all of the EU servers being packed (and the server browser being not great at knowing how full a server is)

Though we also had one server that was pretty clearly having issues (jumped from pings of 30 to 380) I suspect likely a fuckup somewhere.

Performance seems mostly pretty good, the game is certainly very playable at 30fps (the maxfps is default set at 60 too, which is odd)

Gameplay is interesting. Given 5-10 minutes BEEF players should have a good idea of how to use all the weapons, it feels very familiar.

However, actually knowing WTF you're doing will take a bit longer, but comes after a few rounds. I'd suggest playing as humans to get to know the style.

Personally, I'm very pleased with what I've seen. It's not quite there yet, but it is pretty close.

MrGreen · Post by **MrGreen** » June 23rd, 2007, 22:34

Server browser is fail, It didn't show up what game you lot were playing on so I ended up googling the server name. I think the in-game friends functionality shall have to come in use.

Gunslinger42 · Post by **Gunslinger42** » June 23rd, 2007, 23:34

From the Strogg point of view the game is just utter confusion, but from the human teams .. well, to begin with it's still utter confusion, but after a few rounds you start to know what and where the objectives are, which will also let you be able to defend properly whenever you're on the strogg team.

So far it seems more like a team game than Beef does, since you actually have specific goals to accomplish rather than just running around by yourself capturing random flags.

My only complaint with it so far is the delay when getting in and out of vehicles or zooming in and out, but that'll probably be resolved for the final game.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » June 24th, 2007, 0:07

the only thing i wonder is: is it running smoothly? my pc is already a couple of years old (about two and a half years now i think) and i can still run futurebeef on pretty high setting (basically, it could run on the hightest settings, but less smooth) but i fear this won't be so with quake wars.

Post by **FatherJack** » June 24th, 2007, 0:14

Mr. Johnson wrote:the only thing i wonder is: is it running smoothly? my pc is already a couple of years old (about two and a half years now i think) and i can still run futurebeef on pretty high setting (basically, it could run on the hightest settings, but less smooth) but i fear this won't be so with quake wars.

Vanilla BeeF might be a better test, on my last machine, 2142 was fine but vanilla had issues.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » June 24th, 2007, 0:32

i'll give it a try when i get back, but i seem to remember it going pretty well on highest settings. when is quake wars supposed to come out?

Gunslinger42 · Post by **Gunslinger42** » June 24th, 2007, 0:42

Quake Wars should come out in august, and if you can run futurebeef on high you should be fine with this, it seems less demanding than beef.

Anyway, just had another go and once you know the mission objectives it's much better regardless of which team you're on *kept constructing anti-personnelle turrets at the EMP thing they needed to build*.

I unlocked a plasma launcher for the engineer class

MrGreen · Post by **MrGreen** » June 24th, 2007, 0:55

This has been outlined before, but I might as well say it: If you want to get good first impressions of the game, play as GDF, then play as the Strogg.

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » June 24th, 2007, 1:01

Gunslinger42 wrote:*kept constructing anti-personnelle turrets at the EMP thing they needed to build

How'd you build shit? I figured that'd be a good way of whoring XP, but couldn't figure it out

Gunslinger42 · Post by **Gunslinger42** » June 24th, 2007, 1:21

Well, technically it isn't building, but you go as engineer, select the little binocular things and hit fire, you switch into third person mode and get a little wireframe outline of things you can have placed there, you can only place them in green areas, so just look around until you find one and click, wait ten or twenty seconds and one gets deployed.

There's an anti-personnelle turret, an anti-vehicle turret and some anti-artillery thing I think.

Post by **Dog Pants** » June 24th, 2007, 8:38

I gave the Strogg assault class a bash last night and it seemed less confusing once I worked out what the weapons did, seeing as it's not immediately obvious:

Weapon 1: Assault Rifle
Weapon 2: Anti-tank missile
Weapon 3: LMG
Weapon 4: Shotgun

I played two rounds. Got 'most noob' on the first and 'best assault' on the second. Go me. I still haven't a clue how to use the jetpacks though.

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » June 24th, 2007, 9:52

Jump into one of the ones that spawns, hold shift

Post by **Dog Pants** » June 24th, 2007, 10:12

Yep, worked that out now. I've also worked out how to create and use the Strogg corpse spawns. I now need to work out how to revive people as Strogg.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » June 24th, 2007, 10:38

I'm not sure how the jet packs are supposed to work. Once you're in the air if you let go of shift then press it again while falling it doesn't make you go back up until you hit the ground but it still plays the sound and uses up "fuel". You'd think you would go back up again whether you're touching the ground or not but you don't.

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » June 24th, 2007, 11:05

It's to mimic the gravity effect I think. Worked the same way in Tribes. What you can do though is burn fuel to prevent falling damage.

Gunslinger42 · Post by **Gunslinger42** » June 24th, 2007, 11:21

I'm not sure how the strogg spawn hosts work, I've created a few (and died in the process) but not figured out how to spawn in one.

There also seems to be things I just don't have, like those little strogg horse fields I see people dropping, and the plasma/grenade launcher I unlocked last night has disappeared.

The strogg spec ops flying drone is made of win. I hid in the tunnels somewhere and flew it into the control room they were haxing, exploded it and killed the one trying to hack it and some guy next to him

Post by **Dog Pants** » June 24th, 2007, 11:33

The spawn hosts look like a metal rib cage with a hazy red body shape. To spawn in one you need to claim it when you're alive by wandering over, pointing at it and holding 'use'.

Post by **deject** » June 24th, 2007, 14:03

Yeah I have no idea how to spawn at the spawn host either.

Also, however did the voice acting for "Grenade!" needs to be shot because it's annoying as hell, especially when it sounds NOTHING like the rest of the Strogg voices.