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Using Custom Skins Aren't you getting tired of seeing those same ole marines running around in last year's colors? Today we change not only the way the marines looks, but also how they play!! By Ruffin Bailey Published: 2/21/99 |
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Before setting up a big LAN party, you're going to want to know how which client-side files each party participant's going to need. This article will help. |
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In past articles, we've shown you how to hook up a LAN using classic Quake,
and also how to install client-side QuakeWorld.
Since QuakeWorld, unlike Quake Classic, demands a
dedicated server,
we will also have to set up server-side QuakeWorld before we are off and running.
SKINS
Your marine doesn't have to look like a Quake marine. There are skins galore to let you customize your player's appearance. The skin above is just one example, letting you look like everybody's favorite web-slinger, Spider-Man. Step one to using skins is to download the skins package files. My recommended place from which to grab skins is cdrom.com. You can find the skins by following this link. There are seven large files chock full of skins for you to download. You'll find Spidey and friends in this collection. The site does get fairly crowded during peak download hours, so give yourself some time when you head over for downloading. Another place you might want to look for info on skins is the Quake Skin Artists Web Ring. Many of the pages listed in this ring are now Quake 2 pages, but there are still a few classic quake sites. Finally you might just want to go peruse PlanetQuake for skin info in particular and Quake info in general. It's a great site that we'll be revisiting for some mod information and downloads later in this article. It, too, is pretty much focused on Quake 2 now, but is still the place to go for Quake info. We are going to need to place these skins in the "skins" folder that lives in your "qw" directory that, in turn, lives in your Quake folder. So open up the "qw" folder that was installed when you installed QuakeWorld (again, if you need to figure out how to use QuakeWorld, just skip on back to part 2 of this tutorial), and if there isn't a folder named "skins", make one. Now we just need to get those skin files unzipped! If your browser didn't do it for you, you've got a couple of choices. The easiest is to upgrade your version of Stuffit Expander to version 5.1. Apparently, this newest version can handle .zip files! This was news to me, and shows why any good web author should do his or her research before writing their stories. I've just given it a run, and it works great with zips. The second option, which used to be the recommended option, is to grab a copy of ZipIt, a $15 shareware program that handles .zip files in a Mac-friendly user interface. ZipIt has two advantages over Stuffit. One, you can pick and choose which files you want to expand from within a .zip archive. Stuffit throws 'em all out there, like it or not. Secondly, ZipIt allows you to make .zip archives, which will be useful for cross-platform LAN parties. You can zip up all the skins, maps, and mods you need for you party, and you're ready to serve. Aladdin's DropStuff 4.5 can make .sit archives and unzip files, but it's $30 and the fact that it doesn't make .zip files hurts its cross-platform usefulness. Bottom line: Grab Expander for your client-side computers, and have one copy of ZipIt, to use when you prepare .zips for your LAN party. (Send any Windows OS gamers who don't have software to unzip files to WinZip before the party.) So stick those skins into your "skins" folder within the QuakeWorld's "qw" folder and you're ready to play. To choose a skin for yourself, open up QuakeFinder (it came with your QuakeWorld download), and choose "User Profile" from the "Edit" menu or hit "  U". Click on the
"skin" select element, and you're ready to go. Your current skin choice will be displayed in the QuakeFinder User Profile box, looking just like Spidey, above.
MAPSThere are a couple of places from which to get your maps. The first on most obvious one is via QuakeWorld. If you attempt to join a QuakeWorld game online and don't have the map that's being played, QuakeWorld will automatically begin to download the map to your QuakeWorld folder. There are some disadvantages to this method, however. First, the server is pretty busy keeping track of the game going on, and has to share its processing time and internet connection with both the game and your download. Second, if the game that's being played ends (sometimes games are played to a certain number of frags or a certain amount of time. See part 1 of this tutorial to see how to set such options in a classic Quake game), your download, even if it's 98% done, cuts off. One way to speed this download up is to type in "Rate 9999" in your Quake console, but don't expect any miracles. A better way to get maps is via the web. Your download speeds will be faster, you won't get interrupted by the ends of games, and your map selection will be a heck of a lot bigger. One great place online to find deathmatch maps for Quake is Multiplayer Quake. As opposed to ftp sites where you have to just guess what's going to be a good map from the name, MPQ has reviews and screenshots of each map so that you can get a good idea of what it is that you're about to download. Though we haven't talked about mods yet, TF Newbies has traditionally been the place to go to get Team Fortress maps. Now don't go running off to that link just yet. We'll be showing you how to download and set-up Team Fortress in the next section. But when you want to download the most popular maps that the TeamFortress servers are playing, this is the place to go. And when you decide that these maps just aren't good enough for you, and that you could do much, much better, go grab Quiver, a Mac-only Quake level editor (now the maps you make aren't Mac-only; only Quiver is Mac-only, with the kind of UI you'd expect from a Mac app). Making maps takes quite a while, and just messing with this shareware editor should at the very least give you a whole new respect for the maps you're playing now. Special Note:In the next few weeks, I'll be starting a column reviewing some of my favorite maps. If you're a Quiver-using Mac-map maker, give me a yell. I'd prefer to do Mac-map reviews!MODSAnd the final topic for today is the Quake mod. Actually, QuakeWorld from last week was a mod, but today I'm going to show you two mods that work hand-in-hand with QuakeWorld: TeamFortress and HeadHunters. I've read online that as many as 40% of Quake players online played TeamFortress. Half-Life, an incredibly impressive PC game, will soon debut its own version of TeamFortress (click here for some screenshots). To top things off, TeamFortress 2, a new TeamFortress stand-alone game based on the Half-Life engine, is in development. No other Quake mod comes close to this kind of success, and no other Quake mod has garnered such a following. Though this brands me as one of those "you need to get out more and game less" kinds of people, I still vividly remember the first time I played TeamFortress online. I was on a server that was running a "Mega-TF" game (though I didn't know it at the time; you don't need to download a separate mod to play Mega-TF), and the sight was something to behold. I quickly found myself peering from a slit in a wall from a sniper's nest, with a bird's-eye view of a firefight going on at a pass in a mountain. You could hear planes flying overhead, and messages about continual airstrikes being called down on my fort. When I hit the fire button, my sight zoomed in about 4x, and a little red dot appeared on some of the firefight participants down below. It was, sure enough, a laser-site from my gun. I'd like to say I calmly pulled the trigger and knocked out the other side's key soldier, turning the tide and allowing our side to make a successful bid for the enemy's flag, but, um, no such luck. With my luck, I probably popped one of my own guys when I took my finger off of my single mouse button. There are many different classes to choose from, from Pyromaniac (flamethrower), to Demolitions Man (explosives expert), to medic to spy (can actually change his color and skin to look exactly like a member of the other team a la Mission Impossible)... Each class has its own special weapons that can only be used by that class like huge chain guns, tranquilizers, sniper's rifle, or bio-axe. Basically all these classes have to work as a team in a giant game of capture the flag. So enough talking; if I haven't sold you yet, I don't know how. Follow these directions, download the mod, play it some online, and I'm betting it appears at your first/next LAN party. (Note: these mods do need a dedicated server to be run through QuakeWorld at your LAN party (as opposed to playing on the net). We will be discussing the server-side in an upcoming article.) 1.) Go to the PlanetQuake Teamfortress download site and get the download that matches this description: Download TF 2.8 Full Zip (4.1meg) Contains all versions, normal and QW. Grab this if you're not running Win95/WinNT.2.) Unzip the download using Stuffit Expander version 5.1. Just drag the TF file onto the Expander icon. 3.) Put the unzipped "FORTRESS" folder in the same folder as Quake and QuakeWorld. 4.) Join an internet game to try it out. Remember where we chose "Standard Games" (give the image at this link a second to download) from QuakeFinder to play the Standard Games? This time choose Team Fortress. Hit T to get
your ping times and what maps are being played, and you're off to the races. Once again, remember that you can go to TF Newbies
to download your maps a bit quicker than you can through QuakeWorld.
That's pretty much all you need to do with any mod. If you want to find some more mods, just take a look around PlanetQuake. One that I'd recommend and that I'm going to review in the next two weeks is Head Hunters. Follow that link for general Head Hunters information (though it's mostly about Quake 2 Head Hunters now) or go directly to the QuakeWorld Head Hunters .zip file. Again, follow the same basic instructions that you used for the Team Fortress mod to install the Head Hunters mod. If you remember the picture of my Quake directory (again, give the image at this link a second to download) from part 2, the mysterious "hh" folder pictured is my copy of the Head Hunters mod. It's as easy as that! Well, that's about it for this week. In the next week, I'm going to take a break from Quake how-to's and write up a review of Connectix's Virtual Game Station as well as some Quake maps and mods. Hopefully I'll also revise the xlr8 games home page. But after all that's done, we're back to figure out the last big hurdle to setting up your own LAN party: CONFIGURING THE SERVER!!!! Related Links:
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