erc (435) on 9/16/2012 10:59 AM · Permalink · Report

I am a little confused here.

Over the last month, I have been submitting screenshots for unofficial Quake expansions that have been captured under a derivative of GLQuake, namely QuakeSpasm. This engine is a continuation of FitzQuake, which is in turn based on the source code of GLQuake that was made available by id Software themselves in 2000's. QuakeSpasm does not add any graphical enhancements that transformsthe game to something it was not in the first place (see DarkPlaces), but merely eliminates the bugs in the original and removes the hard-coded limits to make way for larger, more detailed custom maps. Thus, it is a faithful port.

The original Quake executable is for DOS, while the GLQuake executable (which was released in a year's time and updated accordingly by id Software themselves) is Windows-only and requires Glide or OpenGL drivers at the user's end (there is also software support for Windows in the form of WinQuake). This was first done as an update, but later official compilations of Quake and its expansions come with the latest versions of both Quake and WinQuake/GLQuake on disc. So, the game natively supports the Windows platform.

Another thing to note is that both the official (Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity) and unofficial expansions (such as Dark Hour and Q-Zone), as well as various 'total conversions' (Shrak, Malice and X-Men: RoA) does not come with any executables whatsoever. They are merely .pak files (which includes all the maps, sounds, models and custom code) that are dependant on original Quake and GLQuake executables, and require Quake to be installed first. So, a player who has Quake installed in its latest official form can run this expansions both under DOS and Windows platforms. In the light of this fact, it occures to me that all these expansions should be listed as DOS / Windows. However, this is not the case as some are listed as DOS-only.

Now the thing is, I'm running the game through an executable for its ease of use and extended limits that is pixel-to-pixel faithful to the original GLQuake look, take screenshots in a resolution that is also supported by GLQuake and half of my submissions are accepted, while the other half are returned to me stating that this game does not support the platform, or that GLQuake is not an official part of the game and such. By the way, most of the other submitted screenshots for Quake derivatives on the site are taken under GLQuake. Don't forget the FuhQuake ones with radically different HUD graphics.

So?