This QUAKE Record Took 17 Years To Beat

quake

made fast in the late 90s, these three words were almost synonymous with the words speed running, while the predecessor of your software may have given birth to speedrunning as we know it today. of speedrunning

quake

eventually lost popularity with franchises like Mario and Zelda becoming the big names in town quake

took

a back seat recently I found myself wondering what happened to quake speedrunning I set out to find out what happened to possibly the most influential speedrunning game of all time what i found was the game that facilitates some of the most complex and difficult movements in all of speedrunning and to my delight there is still a community of dedicated runners keeping the torch burning; in fact, in July 2019 there was a speedrun that may be the greatest earthquake speedrun of all time to fully appreciate

this

incredible new

record

, we are going to learn about the richness of its history leading up to

this

moment.

Along the way, we'll discover and begin to understand the techniques that make this achievement so incredibly difficult, so sit back and relax as we examine the progression of the world

record

for top-tier earthquakes The Slipgate complex The Slipgate complex or E1 M1 is called by quake speedrunners' II one referring to episode 1 and m1 referring to map 1 both quake and dune players use this abbreviation to describe levels before jumping into this iconic stage I want to explain why quake was so pivotal in building the popularity of speedrunning in 1996 for him had already established a fairly active speedrunning community, naturally, being qu With the upcoming release of his software, people were already excited to continue that tradition and push the new game to its limits. doom features the first was the end screen which showed the time the level was completed this made real time score tracking king was very easy and begged for the competition to see who could complete each level in the lowest time.

The second was the ability to immortalize runs by capturing entries and storing them in the form of demos. These demos could be quickly sent over the internet and played on any computer with Quake demos installed it's amazing and it's amazing to be able to see runs that are 20+

years

old so clearly back in the 90's capturing video from consoles was actually quite difficult and it generally resulted in low video files demo files and because most internet users used dial up and wanted to keep file sizes small, the videos were compressed to such an extent that their quality suffered greatly. check out a quake speedrun from 1997 two

years

earlier in early 1997 some of the quake speedrunners decided to work together to create a segmented speedrun of t the entire game all four episodes on nightmare difficulty in a standard one person speedrun you will play a game from start to finish in a single try in a segmented speedrun one person or even multiple people will replay each level many times to get the optimal run then put them all together the first segmented speedrun completed quake in a time of 19 minutes and 49 seconds the demo of this speedrun was made into a video file and released under the title quaked on quick in June 1997 quake done quick would massively increase in popularity and mainstream attention anyone who was a gamer in the late 90's knew quake speedrunning, even if I had no idea what speedrunning was or what it was called and to be completely honest at the time Soon, hardly anyone knew, at least they knew that people were out. they were working hard to complete the quake as fast as possible the quake done fast showed off crazy techniques like rocket jumping which amazed everyone and created a lot of excitement uake speedrun has used several different websites to store the many demo files that were being creating, but in 1998 these were merged into a single website under the banner speed demos archive speed demos archive or SDA for short was instrumental in bringing together and cultivating a community of speedrunners originally it was just a hub for quake speedrunning but in the mid 2000s started hosting videos and forums for speedruns of other games too if you were looking for videos of speedruns of your favorite games between the years 2005 and around 2012 possibilities If your search would take you to the archive of speedruns in 2010 users of SDA organized the first charity speedrunning marathon that would bear the name of games made s quickly, aptly named after the game that started it all, a marathon that would go on to be watched by hundreds of thousands of people each year and has raised millions for charity The influence of earthquakes on speedrunning cannot be underestimated, but its popularity in unity has declined dramatically over the years among the younger generation of gamers, not much is known about the history and impact of earthquakes so let's cut to the chase now that we have briefly covered the importance of the earthquakes.

Slipgate Complex To familiarize ourselves with the level, we'll first go through it informally and I'll explain each of the different components as we go. One thing I have to mention is that we will be playing on easy difficulty. You've seen my previous videos, you'll remember Doom Speedrunners Speedrun on the hardest difficulties. Earthquake is a bit different in that regard, as the most popular categories run on the easy difficulty. This is because the monsters introduce a lot of luck into the race. and as we'll see, the quake move is extremely technical and plotted so the least amount of luck is required, the better, we'll also look at the category where the only goal is to get to the end or if you get to the stage as fast as possible, therefore, we will ignore secrets and monsters when possible.

Once we start the level and head down 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 proximity activated and buttons are activated by making physical contact with them, which means you don't need to program perfect inputs to open doors and press buttons as quickly as you would in Doom after a brief elevator ride we were met with. we find. our first enemies, as well as a bridge through the next door, there is a T-junction with a dead end on the right, here is an exploding box that will explode when shot at the next few corners, we find a well of slime that blocks access to the In the rest of the level, a button to the right will extend a ledge once activated, allowing us to cross.

The next section contains a spiral ramp that houses three buttons. All three buttons will be activated. to open a door that is at the base of the ramp, once we are through the open door, a short corridor is all that separates us from the final room that houses the Slipgate that we used to complete the stage. The Slipgate is activated by a contact, so timing a final button press is not a requirement. Ward's first recorded record dates from August 20, 1997. Running back Cunha Andre was grumpy in a time of 30 seconds. Unfortunately, this is the one demo he seems to have missed forever, so we won't be.

I got to see the race, but it wasn't long before goona made it obsolete when he clocked a 29-second run on September 19, 1997. This race is extremely primitive. None of the future techniques had been discovered. forward in a straight line trying to cover as little distance as possible, there was one thing to watch out for, which is a gr jump executed on the ramp section. Actually, I haven't mentioned it so far, but yes, you can jump in an earthquake. It completely separates it from its predecessor Doom. I'll add a screen at the bottom of the screen for each run that will display a number.

Pay close attention to this number, as it represents Quake Guy's current speed in units per second. When running in a straight line, the speed that the quake type 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 play goes by the name burnin son. managed to complete the level in 28 seconds here we see the first implementation of a wall of genuine speed technique running strafing along a wall can achieve a fairly large increase in speed up to 480 units per second the design in Earthquake levels are quite complex, but you can see how Burnin Son takes every little opportunity to use the wall run to his advantage.

April 24, 1998 saw player Marsh take the record to 27 seconds and take advantage of a very primitive technique known as zigzagging by rapidly toggling side-scroll buttons, it can reach speeds of over 400 units per second. We will use this technique as much as possible, but still tried to incorporate some wall running where possible. Incredibly basic, but a technique was about to be discovered that would drastically change the earthquake landscape forever On May 30, 1998, sprinter Ilkka kirk allah would achieve this run for the first time, even if, albeit in moderation, the technique known as strafe jump will be used without going too far into an explanation of quake movement mechanics, lateral jumping allows the player to achieve a much higher speed, it was already known since at least 1997 that you can increase speed by both strafing and turning the mouse in the direction of the machine gun, but this was not necessarily that useful since as soon as it stopped spinning, its speed would immediately drop to 320 units per second due to the friction created by running across the ground, but you can't abuse this Mechanic jumping at the end of the spin while in the air.

No friction is applied to the quake boy, which means that he will maintain the full speed of him at the time he jumped. that is, of course, until his feet hit the ground. It is also possible to maintain a bit more of this speed gain by damping the jump command, which causes the player to jump as soon as he lands. There will definitely be a little loss of speed from the brief moment of the quake. the guy touches the ground, but it is minimal, so it is still possible to maintain some of the speed gained. This act of hopping to preserve speed is known as bunny hopping and is one of the most famous techniques for seismic motor hopping, albeit at this point. the technique has not yet reached maturity, gamers are definitely beginning to understand what needs to be done to maximize speed on June 26, 1998 Peter Horvath would incorporate more bunny hopping 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 pretty significant amount of speed by jumping off a downhill slope. The reverse is also true if you jump from an uphill slope. slope, you'll lose a lot of speed, this mechanic is pretty shocking as there are a lot of slopes in an earthquake and figuring out where you can or can't jump from is a big part of the strategy that Peters would stick to for five months. on november 11, 1998 coca-cola would do this the movement in this race is a level beyond what we have seen before and for the first time we saw the implementation of a technique known as air strafing we already know that turning while strafing can produce a speed gain and we know that as long as we are airborne there is no friction to slow us down but the only thing that is not obvious is the fact that we can use spin and strafing to gain speed even while airborne if possible able of gaining speed while airborne this should make up for the speed drop we encounter when we make brief contact with the ground, so he continually gains speed through multiple jumps in a 24 second run, he used air righting himself on the legs corners this is the most intuitive place to execute this maneuver while we are turning anyway what is not intuitive is being able to increase speed c With air strafing while traveling in a straight line using very precise timing, we can gain speed by alternating airstrikes between left and right, one thing that cannot be overstated is how much skill it takes to perform an airstrike optimally, sure it's reasonably easy to learn how to jump and gain a decent amount of speed, it

took

me about 20 hours of practice to get to this point, but to get the maximum amount of speed requires extreme precision I have to be honest and say that to make this video i had never learned quake speedrunning techniques when i watched quake sprints the jumping mechanics didn't seem that complex but she can't really appreciate how hard a good bunny jump is until you try it and it certainly I had no idea what reallyit takes to try to make it in a straight line without any obstacles was already 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 had a very rude awakening, although when I started trying it, it seemed impossible to do anything inside. these little runners and a light touch to a wall or an enemy results in a massive loss of speed talking about enemies. I haven't yet pointed out the fact that they will ruin your runs a lot. Enemy forgiveness is random and some of them move very fast they are big and block if they get in your way you're screwed they also possess high level of accuracy it didn't seem to matter how good my movement was the shots seemed inevitable Most of the time, damage from enemies has credible recoil, so getting shot from the front will destroy your run.

Elka's 24 second run would remain the record for 7 months. During this period, skills steadily improved on June 14, 1999 Marcus T'Pola would set a new benchmark with this run at the highest levels quake speedrunning involves a lot of planning Because the level designs are so complex, the amount of different combinations of jump patterns becomes astronomically large. The goal is to find the perfect pattern. A way to maneuver around the levels while maintaining maximum speed. This discovery process takes years. The far players had arrived as far back as 1999. Marcus's time of 23 seconds would stick for almost two years, a testament to the strength of the race, but during this time Marcus had been practicing a completely new strategy and, in my opinion, this is where things start to look up. going crazy on March 14, 2001 Marcus Tai Polly accomplished this run earlier in the video when we were first introducing ourselves at this level.

I mentioned that there was an exploding box that would explode when fired. The explosion of this box can be used to create Tremendous speed earthquakes The most striking technique Rocket jumping is also due to the same mechanics. The box impulse is extremely accurate. You have to be the perfect distance. Stop when the box explodes shut and you die too far away and you won't gain enough speed Players must do a quick 180 once to get past the box Shoot the box at the perfect time and then do another 180 while performing bunny hops simultaneously to maintain speed. Marcus's run was good, but you can see how he lost a lot of speed during the button sequence due to an imperfect bunny hop pattern, so it felt like the run wasn't optimized yet.

Marcus added a slight boost. at the base of the ramp after the button sequence which provides a huge speed boost for the final section. Marcus wasn't the only player who had been busy mastering this strategy. Peter Horvath, who had previously set a new record on this stage almost three years ago. He was still playing, he too had been trying to use Box's momentum to set a new record when he found out that Marcus had already clocked 22 seconds. Peter managed to tie 22 but felt it could be improved as both his and Marcus' runs didn't look perfect so Peter kept playing and on March 25, 2001 he made this run.

Peter's 21 second run is absolutely incredible for the time it was set to, his box drive was executed much better than the previous 22. allowing him to reach and maintain a much higher speed through the next section of the stage, the button sequencing was done much smoother and overall this race is pretty amazing, in fact it was so good that it would still be the record over 17 years players would definitely continue to tie although the first was in 2006 by player Mandel Mandela and he went 6-3 from 21 points in 2009 in 2007 the Navigator would be the first to

beat

Peters decimal getting a 21 -point 786 in his notes he states that actually now that I think about it I think 20 is possible but possible is one realistic thing is another real progress in e 1m 1 would not be achieved until 2016 with the introduction of a new power bunny hopping technique or power bunnies, for short, knowledge of power bunnies had been around since at least the mid-2000s, but there's a reason it took a while to implement them into strategy, they're basically a much more precise and difficult version of the standard bunny hop with normal bunny hops there is a speed loss each time the player hits the ground this speed loss creates a soft cap of just over 500 units per second at this speed the gain from air strafing is nothing more than a friction loss with the power rabbit jump you can negate much of this speed loss due to friction by tapping the forward button the moment the quake AI hits the ground.

This allows for speeds of over 600 units per second with standard bunny hops. air strafing correctly making directional changes differ the fact that power bindings incorporate some use of the forward key means that air strafing is indeed more difficult, so it's best used for direct p In fact, its use it is comparable to the SR 50 in Doom. It offers a modest speed increase, but is difficult to implement in complex movement patterns. seconds without using barrel boost at all this heavily hinted at the feasibility of the record going down if both pieces could fit together in a single run several more plays would go on to even the 21st without the use of the exploding box one of these players was a man named Connie who was a nurse and goes by the pseudonym jukebox Connie already had quite a bit of experience with a 1m and after reaching 21 without the boost she knew she could push it lower 17 1/2 years after the 21 original was set on august 19, 2018 jukebox managed this run there is a lot in this run that i could cover if i had to explain every single detail that happens in this record this video would be two hours long there are very subtle maneuvers are executed in each step at the beginning of the level , slope boost is particularly accurate if you land where flat ground and slope meet, you can reap the benefits of increased speed and by At the same time retaining the ability to do a full height jump normally when jumping off a slope some of the vertical momentum of the jump is transferred to horizontal speed so some height is sacrificed if this initial jump is not executed perfectly this will do you may have to perform an extra jump in the sequence which means more speed is lost due to friction this maneuver only saves about two tenths of a second but in racing this optimized is a big problem the low ceiling makes this jump difficult really hard to do near the end of the stage he lands as close to the final ramp as possible this is so the next jump hits the ramp at a much shallower angle minimizing speed loss this is due to because the angle at which you hit the ramp will affect the magnitude of the ramp.

If an impact and sloping up or down will affect your speed you will notice that after the box boost players will go out quite wide as they go around the next few corners this is due to the floor layout and the fact that It's separated into different levels by earthquake. I can't clear more than two of these stairs with a single jump and since it's impossible to jump stairs and maintain speed, we can only use specific areas to land and still continue the rabbit hopping pattern. Jukeboxes last 20 seconds. It's really good, but it's still not perfect.

He knew almost immediately that there were still areas for improvement in an ideal career. The bunny jump will continue throughout the entire scenario. The rabbit jump is that we can make the most of the speed that we have created through various techniques. as soon as you stop jumping, you will lose all the extra speed you have accumulated in the twenty second run. There were three places where the bunny jumping sequence was interrupted. the first one was in the elevator at the beginning of the level, it's pretty safe to say that stopping here is unavoidable as we need to wait for the elevator to go down enough to get out, the second instance was before Box's boost, this is to help trigger the impulse. correctly to get the most out of it, given that you need to be a specific distance from the explosion and also need to be airborne, making it difficult to execute during a bunny jump sequence if a single jump is disabled beforehand or the speed isn't In the correct case, the whole sequence would be different, meaning it couldn't be in the correct position to do the boost correctly, so up to this point the players had stopped the sequence at the box and then started it again. , making it easier to jump from the same location every time the third stop in the jump pattern was on the final button of the three button ramp once this button is activated the player must make a near full turn 180 degrees, this makes it seem impossible to keep a sequence going, but it might be doable if you can maintain enough speed and swing over the rail before coming back up. to the button similar to how the jukebox handled the first button on its record-breaking run, but since you need a lot of speed to get this all off before the final button is perfect we just want to go fast enough the jukebox studied the level meticulously and realized that it was theoretically possible to keep a single rabbit jump sequence from the elevator to the end did some initial testing and calculated that a 19.9 could be achieved each jump was carefully planned and mapped he knew exactly where had to land each time to keep the sequence going officially started trying to make it come true on June 19 and 23, 2019 after 70 thousand attempts Konig where nurses achieved this run this run is just amazing one single sequence stayed of bunnyhop from the elevator to the end of the stage, it's just mind blowing how much precision ision is needed to be able to maintain Having a bunny jump sequence while at the same time turning 180 degrees to shoot the exploding box and keeping everything together while boosting at incredible speeds the button sequence ran smoothly and the jukebox makes this look so much easier to do. what it really is is one of the most perfect streaks in earthquake history for all intents and purposes this is as low as the record can go barring a major strategy is developed the record will stay at 19 for a long time long time now I offer you a challenge I managed to

beat

the Slipgate complex in 25 seconds if you're up for some friendly competition grab a copy of quake and see if you can do better if you can beat my time post the video or demo on my discord and I will put your name in the next video.

I will also randomly select a race to play during the video. 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 famous stories in all of speedrunning and it's a shame it's not as popular as it was 20 years ago this will change thank you very much for watching you absolute legends hope you are having a fantastic day and i will see you in the next video