This QUAKE Record Took 17 Years To Beat

earth

quake

made quickly in the late 90s, these three words were almost synonymous with the words speedrunning, while their software's predecessor may have given rise to speedrunning as we know it today, it was earth

quake

that propelled it into the mainstream , but what was once the shining star. Speedrunning quake eventually lost popularity and franchises like Mario and Zelda became the big names in town. quake

took

a backseat recently. I found myself wondering what happened to quake speedrunning. I set out to find out what happened to arguably the most influential speedrunning game of all. At the time, what I found was the game that facilitates some of the most complex and difficult moves in all of speedrunning and, to my delight, there is still a community of dedicated runners who keep the torch burning; in fact, a speedrun was held in July 2019 that may be very We will be the biggest earthquake speedrun of all time to be able to fully appreciate

this

incredible new

record

.

Let's learn about the rich history that led to

this

moment. Along the way we will discover and begin to understand the techniques that make this achievement so incredible. difficult, so sit back and relax as we examine the progression of the world

record

earthquakes in the first level, the Slipgate complex, the Slipgate complex or e1, m1 is named after quake speedrunners' II, one that refers to episode 1 and m1 which refers to map 1, for both earthquake and dune players. Use this abbreviation to describe the levels before jumping into this iconic stage. I want to explain to you why Quake was so instrumental in building the popularity of speedrunning in 1996, as he had already established a fairly active speedrunning community, naturally, with Quake being the next release of his software people were already excited to continue. that tradition and push the new game to its limits.

Quake incorporated a couple of very important features from Doom. The first was the final screen that showed the time the level was completed. This scoring was done in real time. track very easily and called for competition to see who could complete each level in the lowest time. The second was the ability to immortalize careers by capturing innings and storing them in the form of demos. These demos could be quickly sent over the Internet and played. any computer with quake demos installed is amazing and it's pretty amazing to be able to see 20+ year old runs so clearly in the 90's, capturing video from consoles was quite difficult and usually resulted in poor quality video files that were much larger than demo files and because most internet users were using dial-up and wanted to maintain file sizes, the small videos were compressed to such an extent that their quality was greatly affected, for example, take a look to this footage from Goldeneye double zero seven from 1999 now. take a look at an earthquake speedrun from 1997, two

years

earlier in early 1997 some of the earthquake speedrunners decided to work together to create a segmented speedrun of the entire game, all four episodes on nightmare difficulty in one speedrun standard, one person will play a game from start to finish in a single attempt in a segmented speedrun, one person or even multiple people will repeat each level many times to get the optimal run and then put them all together, the first segmented speedrun completed the earthquake in A time of 19 minutes and 49 seconds, the demo of this speedrun was converted into a video file and released under the title Quaked on Quick in June 1997.

Quake Done Quick would gain massive popularity and widespread attention. Anyone who was a gamer in the late 90s knew about earthquake speedrunning, even if they had no idea what speedrunning was, what it was called, and to be completely honest, at that time hardly anyone knew about it, at least they knew that people were working hard to complete the earthquake as quickly as possible. Earthquake Made Fast showcased crazy techniques like SDA for short, was instrumental in gathering and cultivating a community of speedrunners. It was originally just a hub for earthquake speedrunning, but in the mid-2000s it began hosting videos and forums for speedrunning other games, as well as if you were looking for speedrunning videos of your favorite games over the

years

2005 and 2012, your search will likely lead you to the archive of speed demos in 2010, SDA users organized the first charity speedrunning marathon to be named after games made fast, aptly named in honor of the game that started.

All of this was a marathon that would be watched by hundreds of thousands of people each year and which has raised millions for charities. The influence of speedrunning cannot be overstated, but its popularity in the community has declined dramatically over the years among the younger generation. Not much is known about the history and impact of Earthquakes from gamers, so let's get to it now that we've briefly covered the importance of Earthquake speedrunning. We can delve into the history of earthquakes on the first level of the Slipgate complex to familiarize ourselves with the level we are on.

We'll fill it out casually first and I'll explain each of the different components as we go. One thing I should mention is that we will be playing on easy difficulty. If you've seen my previous videos, you'll remember this. Doom Speedrunner's speedrun on the hardest difficulties, Earthquake, is a little different in that sense as the most popular categories are run on easy difficulty, this is because the monsters introduce a lot of luck into the run and as We will see, the movement of the earthquake is extremely technical and designed so that the less luck required, the better.

We will also look at the category where the only goal is to get to the end of the stage as quickly as possible, therefore we will ignore secrets and monsters whenever possible once the stage starts. level and moving along the first hallway we find our first door on the left, it is important to note that there is no activation button on the seismic doors, they are activated by proximity and the buttons are activated by making physical contact with them, this means that There's no need for perfect time frame inputs to open doors and press buttons as quickly as possible like you would in Doom, after a short elevator ride we encounter our first enemies and a bridge across the next door.

It is located at a T-junction with a dead end. To the right is an explosive box that will explode when fired. Turning the next corners, we find a slime pit blocking access to the rest of the level. A button to the right will extend a ledge once activated, allowing us to cross the next one. The section contains a spiral ramp that houses three buttons, the three buttons will be activated to open a door that is at the base of the ramp, once through the open door, some short corridors, everything that separates us from the room end that houses the Slipgate.

We used to complete the stage, the Slipgate is activated by contact, so timing the final button press is not a requirement. Ward's first recorded record dates back to August 20, 1997, runner Cunha Andre sulking in a time of 30 seconds, unfortunately this is the only demonstration that appears to have been lost forever, so we won't be able to see the race, but It wasn't long before goona made her obsolete when she achieved a 29 second run on September 19, 1997. Running is extremely primitive, none of the future techniques had been discovered, so winning simply ran forward in straight lines trying to cover the shortest distance possible.

However, there was one thing to keep in mind, which is a jump and run on the ramp section that I actually have. I didn't mention it until now, but yes, you can jump in Quake, a mechanic that completely separates it from its Doom predecessor. I'm going to add a screen at the bottom of the screen for each run that will display a number, pay close attention to this. number, since it represents Quake Guy's current speed in units per second when he runs in a straight line, the speed that Quake Guy will reach is 320 units per second, so with that number as a reference point you will be able to identify which movements or techniques create more speed On January 26, 1998, a work called Burnin Son managed to complete the level in 28 seconds.

Here we see the first implementation of a genuine speed technique. Wall running by strafing along a wall can get you a pretty big boost. At speeds up to 480 units per second, the earthquake level design is quite complex, but you can see how Burnin Son takes advantage of every little opportunity to use the wall run to his advantage. April 24, 1998 saw player Marsh take the record. At 27 seconds he will take advantage of a very primitive technique known as zig zagging by rapidly alternating the strafing buttons. It can reach speeds of more than 400 units per second. We'll use this technique as much as possible, but still tried to incorporate some wall running when possible.

At the time, earthquake speedrunning was still incredibly basic, but a technique was about to be discovered that would drastically change the earthquake landscape. forever. On May 30, 1998, speedrunner Ilkka kirk allah would achieve this race for the first time, albeit in moderation. The technique known as machine gun jumping was used without going too far in an explanation of the mechanics of earthquake motion. Machine gun jumping allows the player to reach a much higher speed. It has been known since at least 1997 that speed can be increased by strafing and rotating the mouse. the direction of the strafing, but this wasn't necessarily all that useful given that as soon as you stopped spinning, your speed would immediately drop back to 320 units per second due to the friction created by running across the ground, but you can't abuse this. mechanical jumping at the end of the turn while in the air, no friction is applied to the earthquake type, which means you will maintain your entire speed at the time you jumped, of course, until your feet hit the ground, too It is possible to maintain some of this speed gain by damping the jump command causing the player to jump as soon as they land.

There will definitely be a small loss of speed from the brief moment the earthquake guy hits the ground, but it is minimal, so it is still possible to maintain some of the speed gained from this act of jumping to preserve speed is known as jumping. rabbit and is one of the most famous earthquake engine jumping techniques, although at this point the technique has not yet reached maturity, players are definitely starting to understand what it takes. do to maximize speed June 26, 1998 Peter Horvath would incorporate more bunny hops and achieve a time of 25 seconds Pisa would implement what is known as a slope boost at the beginning of the level, you can gain a fairly significant amount of speed When jumping like a bunny from a downward slope, the opposite is also true, if you jump like a bunny from an upward slope, you will lose a lot of speed.

This mechanic is actually quite shocking as there are a lot of slopes in an earthquake and figuring out where you can and can't jump is a big part of the strategy. Peters' record would stand for five months on November 11, 1998. he would be Coca-Cola he would do this the movement in this race is a level beyond what we had previously seen and for the first time we saw the implementation of a technique known as aerial strafing we already know that turning while strafing can produce a gain in speed and we know that as long as we are in the air there is no friction slowing us down but the only thing that is not obvious is the fact that we can use spins and strafing to gain speed even while we are in the air.

If it is possible to gain speed while in the air, this should compensate for the drop in speed we encounter when we make brief contact with the ground, continually gaining speed through multiple jumps in a 24 second race, he used air to right himself on the corners, this is the most intuitive place to execute this maneuver since we are turning anyway, what is not intuitive is being able to gain speed with the air. By strafing while traveling in straight lines using very precise timing we can gain speed by alternating aerial strafing between left and right. One thing that cannot be overstated is how much skill it takes to perform aerial strafing optimally, it sure is reasonably easy to learn how to do. bunnyhop and gain a decent amount of speed, it

took

me about 20 hours of practice to get to this point, but to get maximum speed you need extreme precision.

I must be honest and say that to make this video I had NeverI learned earthquake sprinting techniques when I watched earthquake sprinting, the jumping mechanics didn't seem that complex but she can't really appreciate how hard it is to jump like a bunny until you try it and she certainly didn't understand what it really was. you need to try to do it in a straight line without any obstacles as it was incredibly frustrating once I got comfortable with it I thought it would be pretty simple to apply it to e 1 M 1 and start running fast. I was expecting a very rude situation.

However, upon waking up, when I started trying, it seemed impossible to do anything within these small hallways and a light touch to a wall or an enemy results in a massive loss of speed, speaking of enemies, I still haven't pointed out the fact that They will ruin your run a lot, enemy forgiveness is random and some of them move very fast, they are big and blocky, if they get in your way you are screwed, they also have a high level of accuracy, it didn't seem to matter how good was my movement. The shot seemed inevitable most of the time the damage from enemies has incredible knockback so getting shot from the front will destroy your run.

Elka's run of 24 seconds would remain the record for 7 months during this period. Skills steadily improved June 14, 1999 Marcus T'Pol would set a new benchmark with this career at the highest levels. Earthquake speedrunning involves a lot of planning. Because the level designs are so complex, the number of different jump pattern combinations becomes astronomically large. The goal is to find the perfect pattern. A way to maneuver around levels while maintaining maximum speed. This discovery process takes years. You can see how. How far the players had come already in 1999. Marcus's time of 23 seconds would for almost two years be a testament to the strength of the running race, but during this time Marcus had been practicing a completely new strategy and here in my opinion, is where things start to work. go crazy March 14, 2001 Marcus Tai Polly achieved this run earlier in the video, when we were first introduced to this level.

I mentioned that there was an explosive box that would explode when fired. The explosion from this box can be used to create. Tremendous earthquakes of speed, the most striking technical rocket jump is also due to the same mechanics. The drive of the box is extremely precise. You have to be at the perfect distance when the box explodes to close and you die too far away and you won't gain enough speed. You must do a quick 180 once to get past the Box, shoot the Box at the perfect time, and then perform another 180 while simultaneously performing bunny hops to maintain speed.

Marcus' run was good, but you can see how him losing a lot of speed during the button sequence was due to an imperfect bunnyhop pattern, so it seemed like the run wasn't optimized yet. Marcus added a slight boost at the base of the ramp after the button sequence, providing a big speed boost for the final section. The only player who had been busy mastering this strategy, Peter Horvath, who had previously set a new record in this scenario almost three years ago, was still playing. He had also been trying to use Box's momentum to reach a new record when he learned that Marcus had already achieved 22 seconds.

Peter managed to tie 22, but felt that it could be improved since both he and his races did not seem perfect, so Peter continued playing and on March 25, 2001 he would perform this Peters race of 21 seconds. is absolutely incredible for the time it was set up, its snare boost was executed much better than the previous 22, allowing it to reach and maintain a much higher speed during the next section of the stage, the button sequence was done much smoother way and everything in this whole run is quite amazing, in fact it was so good that it would remain the record for over 17 years, players would definitely tie it, although the first was in 2006 by player Mandel.

Mandela would achieve a 21-point 6-3 in 2009 in 2007, the Navigator would be the first to

beat

Peter's decimal, scoring a 786 out of 21 points in his notes, he claims that, now that I think about it, I think 20 is possible, but possible is one thing realistic and another not real. E 1m 1 would be advanced until 2016 with the introduction of a new technique: power bunny hopping or power bunnys, for short. Knowledge of power bunnies had been around since at least the mid-2000s, but there's a reason it took them a while. To be implemented in the strategy, they are basically a much more precise and difficult version of the standard bunny hop with normal bunny hopping.

There is a loss of speed every time the player hits the ground. This loss of speed creates a soft limit of just over 500 units. per second at this speed, the gain from aerial strafing is nothing more than a friction loss. With the power bunny jump, you can negate much of this frictional speed loss by tapping the forward button at the moment the earthquake AI hits the ground, this allows for speeds of over 600 units per second with the power bunny jump. From standard bunny, the forward key is not held as this makes it impossible to perform aerial strafing correctly, causing direction changes to differ.

The fact that electric bindings incorporate some use of the forward key means that aerial strafing is actually more difficult. so it is best used for straight passages, in fact its use is comparable to SR 50 in Doom. It offers a modest speed increase, but is difficult to implement in complex movement patterns. In 2016, player Danu would show what was possible with the power of the bunny hop. managed to tie the record of 21 seconds without using barrel momentum, this heavily hinted at the viability of the record going down if both pieces could fit into a single run, several more plays would continue to equal the 21 without the use of In the explosive box, one of these players was a man named Connie, a nurse who goes by the pseudonym Jukebox.

Connie already had quite a bit of experience with a 1m one and after hitting 21 without the boost, she knew she could get it down to 17 and a Half a year after the original 21 was set on August 19, 2018, the jukebox achieved this execution. There is a lot in this run that I could cover if I explained every detail of this record. This video would last two hours. They are very subtle maneuvers that are executed at each step at the beginning of the level. The slope impulse is particularly precise. If you land where flat terrain and slope meet, you can reap the benefits of the increased speed while still retaining the ability to do a normal jump at full height when the bunny jumps off a slope, part of the vertical momentum of the jump.

It is transferred at horizontal speed, so some height is sacrificed if this initial jump is not executed perfectly, this will cause you to have to perform an additional jump in the sequence, meaning more speed is lost due to friction. This maneuver only saves about two tenths of a second, but in such optimized races it is a big deal. The low ceiling makes this jump really difficult to perform near the end of the stage, land as close as possible. the final ramp as possible this is so that the next jump hits the ramp at a much smaller angle minimizing the loss of speed this is because the angle at which you hit the ramp will affect the magnitude of the impact and the upward or downward slope which will have On your speed, you will notice that after Box's boost, players will move quite far away as they navigate the next corners.

This is due to the design of the court and the fact that it is separated into different levels. Earthquake I can't clear more than two of these stairs with a single jump and since it's impossible to jump like a bunny from the stairs and maintain speed, we can only use specific areas to land and continue the bunny jump pattern. The 20-second jukebox length is really good, but it's still not perfect, he knew that. Almost immediately there were still areas crying out for improvement in an ideal career. The rabbit jumps will remain continuous throughout the stage. Rabbit hopping is that we can make the most of the speed we have created through various techniques.

As soon as you stop jumping, you will lose. all the extra speed you've built up in the twenty second run there were three places where the bunny jumping sequence was interrupted, the first was in the elevator at the beginning of the level, it's pretty safe to say that stopping here is inevitable since we need to wait. for the elevator to go down enough to exit. The second instance was before the cash push. This is to help activate the boost correctly and get the most out of it, as you have to be a specific distance away from the explosion and you also have to be a specific distance away from the explosion.

Being in the air makes it difficult to execute during a bunnyhop sequence. If a single jump is done beforehand or the speed is not correct, the entire sequence would be different, meaning you would not be able to be in the correct position to do the jump. boost correctly, so Up to this point, players had stopped the sequence at the box and then started it again, making it easier to jump from the same spot each time the third stop in the jump pattern was at the last button of the three button ramp once this button was pressed. activated, the player must do an almost complete 180-degree turn, which makes it seem impossible to maintain a sequence, but it might be doable if you could maintain enough speed and spin over the railing before heading back towards the button, similar to how Jukebox handled the first button in its record run, but since it takes a lot of speed to achieve this, everything before the final button needs to be perfect, we just want to go fast enough.

Jukebox studied the level meticulously and realized that, in theory, it was actually possible to maintain a single bunnyhop sequence from the elevator to the end. He did some initial testing and estimated that a 19.9 was achievable. Each jump was carefully planned and plotted. He knew exactly where he had to land each time to maintain sequence. The attempts to make it come true officially began on June 19 and 23, 2019, after 70 thousand attempts, Konig was a nurse and achieved this career. This race is simply amazing. A single bunnyhop sequence was maintained from the elevator to the end of the stage. It's mind-blowing how much precision it takes to be able to maintain a bunnyhop sequence and at the same time turn 180 degrees to fire the explosive box and keep everything together while propelling yourself at incredible speeds.

The button sequence was executed perfectly and the jukebox does this. It seems much easier than it really is. This is truly one of the most perfect runs in earthquake history for all intents and purposes. Now I offer you a challenge. I managed to

beat

the Slipgate complex in 25 seconds. If you're up for a bit of friendly competition, pick up a copy of Quake and see if you can do better if you can beat my time. Post the video or demo to my discord and I'll put your name in the next video. I will also randomly select a race to play during the video.

I think you'll appreciate the races highlighted in this video a lot more when you try to speed up. run quake yourself let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this video and would like to see more quake speedrunning content quake has one of the most storied histories in all of speedrunning and it's a shame it's not as popular as it was 20 ago years maybe this will change thank you very much for seeing you absolute legends. I hope you're having a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next video.