Star Wars Quake, also called Star Wars: Call of the Force, was a planned total conversion mod for the computer game Quake, and later for Quake II, that suffered from all of the classic problems of an amateur development: skilled workers without lasting dedication, shifting goals, and poor leadership. The development shared many of the same problems and timeline as the ill-fated Daikatana.
Beginnings
The original Quake had reached its peak in 1996, and around the same time George Lucas was in the process of remastering and rereleasing the original Star Wars trilogy in the movie theatres. The time was ripe for a good first-person Star Wars game, and the modding community picked up the challenge. Star Wars Quake was born.
The project probably began in late 1996, as a total conversion mod for Quake. Total conversion mods are very ambitious projects, since they require almost everything be created from scratch. They require a very dedicated team with strong leadership in order to finish. Star Wars Quake had neither. At one point early on, the entire original team, save one member, left. An unfortunate precedent, the entire team would have several more massive turnovers over the years. A constantly rotating cast of artists and programmers meant that the project never achieved consistency.
Indications of poor leadership also emerged when the project goals kept periodically expanding or changing, without any indication that the previous goals had been reached. The design document, which, for game design, needs to be a rock-solid reference in order to coordinate a team, was completely rewritten more than once. Every so often the then-current leadership would appear online in the community and flaunt all of their great plans, and throw out arbitrary dates for completion of various elements of the game, none of which were ever reached.
A major setback and more problems
One of the major setbacks was the fact that Star Wars Quake was originally developed for the Quake engine, but a very long development time meant that Quake II came out before the project was even close to finished, which meant that the project's graphics would look severely dated by the time it was done. The designers made the tough decision to switch to the Quake II engine, but this meant basically scrapping much of the coding work that had been completed so far and basically starting from scratch on much of the game.
With the new engine, the Star Wars Quake team managed to get further than they had before, and even produced a well-received multiplayer beta with support for bots, maps, characters, and a decent implementation of the lightsaber.
The lightsaber was an ongoing problem with the mod. Neither the Quake engine or the Quake II engine handled lighting effects well, so coding a lightsaber to look accurate was a problem. How the player handled them suffered through problems as well. At one point the design called for a very complicated system for controlling the lightsaber that required the use of the entire number pad (nine different controls).
It gets nowhere, and then ends
Once again, development was so slow that Quake III Arena came out before the team had produced a complete working demo, and even before they locked down the design document. Faced with the decision of switching engines and starting from scratch again, they declined, and pushed to simply complete the game with the engine they had.
By this time Lucas Arts had seen the desire for a new first-person Star Wars game, and produced Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast based on the Quake III engine. Jedi Knight II even had a very intuitive to use and good-looking implementation of the lightsaber.
With the niche for a first-person Star Wars game filled, interest in the project quickly died out. The team dwindled to no more than a few devoted members, and right before they died out completely they decided once again to switch engines, this time opting for the Jedi Knight II engine.
Shortly afterwards, on August 7, 2002, the current team leader, Red Knight, cancelled the project.
Afterward
Like all amateur projects, even in failure the participants gained valuable experience. Red Knight talked about the most important lessons he learned:
- "Deadlines are real, so don't promise what you can't deliver. Don't get caught up in telling people the great things you have planned, because frankly, your plans amount to jack shit. Work steadily, work quietly, and only flaunt what you have to show. I know it is like an unwritten law that all mod project leaders be self-righteous jackasses with an inverse attitude to talent ratio, but it does not have to be that way."
The development of Star Wars Quake followed a path very similar to Daikatana: a very strong start, changing design document, massive defections, a bevy of inexperienced people, a decision to switch to the new Quake II engine, over-promising, and constantly missed deadlines. Daikatana was eventually released, but it was scorned across the board on all gaming review magazines/sites.
The game itself would have used all original characters, except for a few guest appearances by Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. It was to take place over several fully developed original worlds, feature a slew of weapons, have a complicated force power system, and take place before the events of the original trilogy. An ambitious non-linear plot for the game had already been written, but even with the project's demise it's unknown whether it'll ever be released.
Star Wars CTF
On a side note, a mod for the original Quake named Star Wars CTF (capture the flag) was released when that game was at the height of its popularity. The mod was nowhere near a total conversion, but its Star Wars themed levels and weapons gave a fresh take on the CTF concept and the mod turned out to be a huge success. A planned Quake II version of the mod, however, suffered the same fate as the total conversion, and was never released.
See also
External links
Last updated: 08-23-2005 07:47:34
