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Pro Mode:
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Pro Mode MBs:
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Fair enough - it was a risky venture into "multiplayer only" territory and to be commercially viable, Q3A had to be something that got "casual gamers" online, and into playing deathmatch against other people. The result is that Q3A is not a difficult, challenging game (like Quake 1 was). Certainly, it is a great game, it is a lot of fun, and both newbie and expert alike can enjoy it. But Q3A is not an "expert" game - and it was not designed specifically for use as a "competitive sport".

As far as "competitive sport" goes, the id Software guys appear to believe that it is a little too early to be taking Quake seriously as a platform for sports and so on. Steed and Willits told us (while in Australia) that they saw the term "cyberathlete" as an oxymoron. Most of id Software's customers play Quake very casually, and it wouldn't be surprising if id Software think that the small, vocal minority of gamers who treat Quake as a "sport" are just "a little too serious" about the game. Fair enough.

During the build and test phase for Q3A, there was talk among the existing "Quake community" (QW/ Quake 1 players and Quake2 players) about a "pro mode" that would be aimed more at the "expert gamers". If there was a consensus, it seemed to be that pro mode would involve changes to such things as RL speed, damage, radius, air movement, footsteps, player speed, and so on. But quite what it was, nobody really knew. And who should define what pro mode is anyway? Even id Software itself toyed with the idea of creating a "pro mode" for release with the main game, but in the end they dropped the idea.

After the release of Q3A, there was still quite a lot of interest in a "pro mode". Certainly a lot of curiosity as to what it might be like. It is as a result of this continuing interest that the Challenge network is going to have a go at building a "pro mode" modification for Q3A.

The Challenge Pro Mode
Being a global network, the Challenge network has a few resources that we can draw upon which are unique - we are international, we have many "pro gamers" (expert gamers) in our midst, and we have programmers. We have the capabilities, although by no means do we claim to be the only guys or the best people on the planet who could make a "pro mode" modification for Q3A.

It should be underlined, that what we are building is a "Challenge" Pro Mode. If you are expecting this to be "the" pro mode, to represent the wishes of all gamers out there, to somehow unite the Q1 and Q2 worlds, to solve all your "problems" with Q3A, and so on, you may be disappointed. We don't claim to speak for you, we only claim to make the mod that our designers come up with. We hope you will like it, and if the Challenge Pro Mode proves popular and it does have an influence, that's fine and well and good. But we're actually pretty realistic (I hope) about what we're up to.

Our approach to building a Q3A "pro mode" modification is as follows: we are going to form a project team, and follow a plan, and we are going to try and enjoy the process of making the mod as much as (hopefully) the end product. For many of us, this will be the first time we try to work together on a project like this.

Our main focus will be on building the Challenge pro mode, but we will also support another modification called "Q1Q3". The reason for this is that there are a lot of gamers who are convinced that Quake 1 is the one and only "true way" (actually I am one of those nutters myself). We are going to support a separate modification for those people who want to see all the Quake 1 features in Q3A, called "Q1Q3".

The Challenge Pro Mode may or may not end up with a lot of Quake 1 in it - who knows? Perhaps the designers will import a great deal of Q1 characteristics into it. But if they don't, then those Q1 features will hopefully be available in the Q1Q3 modification - so we can see what they are like there. If pro mode does end up with enough "Q1" in it, then the Q1Q3 mod may not become necessary.

There will also, a little bit later on, be a "Sport" version of the Challenge Pro Mode. This will not be a separate mod, but rather a more fully-featured version of the same mod. A "Sport" version might have support for proxy broadcasting to large online audiences, and so on. Whether or not this happens will depend on how successful the Challenge Pro Mode is, and whether or not the designers and programmers want to do it. The Sport version will not be done first because it is a lot more complex and will involve a lot more work. You can think of it as "Phase II".

Now, by making these mods a bunch of "Challenge" mods it basically means we can do this stuff and have fun with it, and not upset anybody by claiming that we are "making pro mode for them" and so on. We have plenty of resources in our Challenge community, such as pro gamers and programmers from all over the world, which we can draw upon for the development of these mods.

Also we have no desire to make these mods "closed" so basically if a third party (outside the Challenge network) is developing something that would work really well with a particular mod (or vice-versa), we are all for co-operation, partnership, cross-linking, and sharing of resources. We will also seek the input of "pro gamers" and other gamers who are not involved with the Challenge network.

If you have any questions or suggestions, or you would like to get involved with the Challenge pro mode project, feel free to .