ShellShock's Crater

Q3Offline Game Page

Back to Contents


Quake III Arena/Game

Game exe: Enter the full path to your game executable file, e.g., quake3.exe. Use the Browse button to browse for the file. Q3Offline will use this field to launch the game. This field is mandatory.

Command Line: Enter any optional command line arguments that you want Q3Offline to pass to Quake III Arena, e.g., your own configuration script that you want Quake III Arena to execute. Q3Offline will add the command to execute the Q3Offline.cfg file to the end of any command line you give in this field.

Q3Offline keeps a history of previously entered command line arguments. To remove an entry from the history, first select the entry from the drop down list box, so that it appears in the Command Line edit control. Then right click on the edit control and select Remove from the pop up menu.

Folder: Select the game folder; for Quake III Arena this is by default baseq. You change the folder when you want to play a mod in a folder other than the default one.

Note: if Auto import is ticked, then when the folder is changed Q3Offline will import maps and bots from all the pk3 files in the new folder. If the folder is not baseq, Q3Offline automatically adds "+set fs_game folder" to the command line.

Auto import: If ticked, Q3Offline automatically imports all maps and bots when Q3Offline is loaded, and also when the Folder is changed. Maps will be auto-imported if they are defined in arena files, or if there is a .bsp file for the map.

Note: a bot will only be imported if it is defined in a bot file.

To find out more about arena and bot files, please download the editing documents from id's FTP server.

Game options

Player: Click to pop up the Edit player dialog. Using this new dialog you can configure your player's model and skin, for both team and none-team games.

Game type: Select the type of game you want to play. For Quake III Arena the choice is:

For other games you may see different entries.

You can override this setting on a map by map basis, so you can play a mix of game types in the same map cycle - see the Edit Map dialog.

Mod: Tick to override the Game Type combo. Enter the game type in the following field. This will enable you to play mods that use a different game type than the standard four offered by Quake III Arena.

For example, the Domination mod can be played from Q3Offline as follows:

  1. On the Game page, set the folder to domination.
  2. On the Game page, set the Game Type to Capture the flag.
  3. On the Game page, tick Mod, and enter the game type as 5. This overrides the game type of 4 set by Capture the Flag.
  4. On the Maps page, import relevant maps, e.g., ctf maps from baseq3\pak0.pk3 and baseq3\twpak0.pk3. Note that the pan_dom1 map from the Domination web site is missing the pan_dom1.aas file and therefore will not work with bots.
  5. On the bots page, import relevant bots, e.g., from baseq3\pak0.pk3.
  6. On the Server page, untick Pure.
  7. Hit Play.

Warm up time: Enter the amount of time players may practice before the actual game starts; the default is 20 seconds. A warmup time of at least 5 seconds is recommended, as this gives sufficient time for all the bots to join the game. If you find that some of the bots are only joining as spectators, then you need to increase the warm up time.

Frag limit: Enter the frag limit for each map in the game. Once the frag limit is reached, Quake III Arena will automatically switch to the next map. The default value is 20. See Frag Limit Rules for details of how Q3Offline determines the frag limit for a map.

Time limit: Enter the time limit (in minutes) for each map in the game. Once the time limit is reached, Quake III Arena will automatically switch to the next map. The default value is 20 minutes.

Capture limit: Enter the capture limit for each map in the game. Once the capture limit is reached, Quake III Arena will automatically switch to the next map. This option is only enabled when the Game type is Capture the flag. The default value is 8 captures.

Weapon respawn: Enter the number of seconds before weapons are respawned after being picked up. id recommend that this is not set lower than 5 seconds. The default value is 5 seconds.

Quad factor: Enter the amount by which damage should be multiplied when the Quad damage is used. The default value is 3 times.

Friendly fire: If checked, then players on the same team can inflict damage on each other. The default is unchecked.

Give All: If checked, then you will be given all weapons and health when you press the In game bind key. Note: you must wait for any warm up countdown to finish before pressing the In game bind key.

God: If checked, then God mode will be switched on when you press the In game bind key. In God mode you cannot suffer any damage. Note: you must wait for any warm up countdown to finish before pressing the In game bind key.

Grapple: If checked, then the grappling hook will be available when you press the In game bind key. The grappling hook is weapon 10, which is normally bound to 0. Note: you must wait for any warm up countdown to finish before pressing the In game bind key.

Arena frag & time limits: If ticked, then the frag and time limits for each map will be taken from the arena file for the map, if the map has an arena file, and the arena file defines a frag/time limit. See Frag & Time Limit Rules for details of how Q3Offline determines the frag limit for a map.

Team

The Team options are only enabled for Team Deathmatch and Capture the flag games. 

Auto join: If ticked, then you will automatically join a team as decided by Quake III Arena.  

Balance: If ticked, then Quake III Arena will balance teams when auto-joining players. Teams are balanced so there is a maximum of two difference in the numbers of players on each team.

Team: Rather than auto joining a team, you can select which team you want to join, when you press the "in game bind" key (see Key below). If you set Team to Random, then Q3Offline will randomly assign you to either the red team or the blue team. Note: you must wait for any warm up countdown to finish before pressing the In game bind key.

Key: Certain commands selected in Q3Offline can only be executed once the first map has started, and after any warm up countdown. Q3Offline gets round this problem by binding such "in game" commands to a key; once Quake III Arena has started and loaded the first map (after the warmup), pressing this key will execute the commands. Such commands currently include

Demos

Record demo: If checked, then Q3Offline will bind keys to start and stop recording a demo. Enter the name of the demo to be recorded.

Start: The key to start recording the demo.

Stop: The key to stop recording the demo.

Note

The file extension for demos used to be dm3, e.g., baseq3\demos\mydemo.dm3. For Quake III Team Arena the file extension has been changed by id to dm_48, e.g., baseq3\demos\mydemo.dm_48. This change applies to demos recorded both in Quake III Team Arena and normal Quake III Arena. This change may have been introduced in one of the Quake III Arena point releases - it definitely occurs with 1.27h.

The result of the change in file extension is that new demos (with the dm_48 extension) do not appear in the Quake III Arena Demos menu, i.e., the menu only displays files with a dm3 file extension, such as demo001. However you cannot play back one of these files because Quake III Arena converts the file name to demo001.dm3.dm_48, which is a non-existent file.

You can however play back a file with a dm_48 extension, even though it does not appear on the Demos menu. This includes files recorded using the Q3Offline demo bind keys. From within Quake III Arena, go to the console and type "\demo\mydemo" and the demo will play back.

Quake III Team Arena does not seem to suffer these problems - the Demos menus correctly displays demos with a dm3 and dm_48 file extension, although you may have problems playing back dm3 demos.