Brainstorming time...  Why don't you all (y'all) post your ideas/requests/suggestions/darkest desires for Quake IV in this topic?

I'm curious to see what kind of "mega wish list" we can form here.  I'd love to show the list to the leads at the next team meeting.

Examples:

Male & Female player characters
Co-Op Play
Branching Storyline
Swimming
Drivable Vehicles
Blah, Blah, Blah

Surprise me...  Let it rip.

All right then, but don't tell me I didn't warn you ;-)

Male and female characters: I would like some badass looking male marines and some badass looking female marines that look decent, but like marines (clearly visible muscles like in Quake 2). I hope the design is relatively true to the original design in Quake 2 (but they should have some sort of helmet this time), but more detailed of course (and perhaps with some extra originality put into the suit in the shape of visible equipment). I would love to see the original Q2 marine design, but with camouflage pattern on the armour to make them look more military style.

Storyline: My greatest wish within this is a storyline that somehow makes a link between Quake 1 and Quake 2. Maybe a mention of the original Quake incident in Quake 1 or an even deeper rooted storyline about the Strogg having some "distant relation" to Quake and his minions (it'll have to be rather distant as the styles in the two games are vastly different) - maybe Quake indirectly created the first Strogg from stolen human tech, and then they developed a conscience of their own and developed their own culture.

Quake IV should have more swimming involved than Doom 3, but it shouldn't be overburdened with annoying underwater labyrinths.

Drivable vehicles could be nice as long as it's not overused. I prefer to be on foot in any fps game, but a few situations where you get to control a human ground vehicle would be cool. I definitely want to see more futuristic human military vehicle designs. Quake 2 had only spacecrafts, but I want to see deployable recon ground units or heavy ground combat units - not necessarily in situations where you can drive them - I don't want Quake IV to turn into a driving game.

Kickass weapons. I'm one of the conservative ones who prefer classic Quake weapons - they can save new, original weapons for other franchises, but a Quake game needs the classic guns - one or two original weapons would be nice though. Weapons I really want to see in Quake 4:
Improved blaster: which also has a special melee attack to add spice to it.
Shotgun: they should try and add some special effects to the shots so that it seems clear that this baby doesn't fire 21st century pellets.
Double barreled shotgun: I hope the design is a little more futuristic this time so that it fits better with the style of Quake 2.
Nailgun: (replace the machinegun with this one - Quake IV doesn't need a regular machinegun) made in a style similar to the ETF rifle in the Quake 2 mission pack 'Ground Zero'.
Chaingun: This one's a must. I just hope they make it look bad and make its bark as bad as its bite.
Grenade launcher: perhaps with different grenade types.
Rocket launcher: Duh.
Hyper blaster: I hope they make this one sound really cool - sorta along the lines of the Q3A plasma gun, but cooler if they can do it.
Railgun: It's Quake and moreover, it's the Strogg universe, 'nuff said.
[New BFG-like gun]

Enemies: I want most of the original Quake 2 enemies to reappear, but my enemy list is long and I don't want to make this post that long, so I'll just say this: if they put the old enemies back into the game with improvements in looks in the same ways as what they did for the Gladiator, then I gotta say that they're heading in a really cool direction.
I'll just add this: Have some more variations on the Q2 mutant and make it look really frightening - The Strogg universe is based more around war atmosphere than fear, but there should still be room for some fear in there.

Might pop up in this thread again later if I get some ideas.

Ok, I've said it one hundred times and I will say it one hundred more....

I WANT MULTIPLAYER, A GOOD MULTIPLAYER!! ONE THAT PUTS Q3 TO SHAME!!!

P.S. I already know this isn't going to happen, but it is, after all, a wish list!

I want interaction with all elements in the enviroment.  Example, I want to be able to pick up a chair and use it as a weapon, hit with it and throw it.  If I run into it, I trip and fall down and it moves and/or falls over.

I want an adult version!  Just think of the weapons.

I want maps that in mp that have multiple versions.  Every time you go to the map it could be one of 3 or 5 different versions of it.  It is automatic and no one knows which version will pop up each time it loads.  I'm talking about just minor difference.  A camping place in one version is not in another.  Hiding places are different.  Doors come and go in different versions of it.

I want a Realistic Damage mod built into mp.

I want a gun that shoots flaming pickles.

I want to go prone and be able to fire my weapon.

I want more opportunities to get behind the bad guys, to sneak up on them with surprise in sp.  Multiple routes per level all leading to the same ending of it.

I want to be able to be quiet and it mean something.

I want to hide in the dark and scare the crap out a bad guy just before slicing his head off.

I want to be able to ride a bike and shoot my shotty.

Just my two and one half cents.

Most of my thoughts are in my Wishes, Hopes, Dreams, and Demands thread, but Co-op play and believable materials physics (penetration, deformation, sound, etc) would be very nice.  Nothing immerses you in the battlefield experience like seeing the environment become broken and scarred around you during a battle (aside from quality sound, I suppose, but I'm expecting that anyway.)

I'm not to concerned about the game specifics like models ect I'm sure that will be great. My only concern is the multiplayer aspect, I think that the multiplayer needs to cater to the existing quake online comunity. The ability to have a large FFA server or say a 1v1 server is huge in importance. If that aspect of the game is removed or altered it may turn out to be a killer for q4. The only other wish I have is for a more user friendly ability for players to understand all the commands in the console. I think a list of commands with good definitions for newbs would give them the ability to have a decent config in less then a year. This may create a condition with more players staying with the game longer.

                            TT......  

Promode, add promode thats all you need, or make Quake4 a mix of Quake1 + Quake2 movement I.E. bunny hopping + double jumps  + add ramp jumps in just for kicks

www.promode.org its popular for quake3 and there is a large tourney going on (www.wansanity.com) really hope Quake4's movement possibilities are almost endless:)

As for the multiplayer...

"If there were a small set of professional rules that I agree with in theory but have chosen not to pursue because they conflict with more common play, then an official 'pro mode' might make sense. Any other suggestions along those lines?"

-- John Carmack, '99

This single quote has given birth to a q3 mod you probably know (Challenge ProMode Arena), aimed at first at the "pro gamers", but then evolved just to be a real #### good game.

The basic idea of this thing is that if you make a game that's "newbie friendly" (a.k.a. ut2003), so as to give new players a chance against the better ones, you'll end up with an un-fun pile of crap. The game won't be friendly to newbies, but it also won't be friendly to the much better players. It's impossible to make a game that let's [KINDERGARTEN]H4XX0R_12 win with Thresh fair play.

The trick is to make a balanced game, where players can play others that are on the same level, and have a LOAD of fun by that! This way the whole clan [KINDERGARTEN] can play each other, and Thresh can have fun playing e.g. Fatal1ty.

If you make a game that has a lot of tricks to be mastered (vide QW, Q2, CPMA (promode), or even Doom 2 to an extent), and won't only be based on aim, players can have much much MUCH more fun exploring and improving.

If you get some real good players (from the QW, Q2, CPMA, Doom 2 community) and give them a lot of time to make the multiplayer perfect, you're sure to have Quake 4 as the new "pro platform". And actually one, that (unlike other games *cough*UT2003*cough*) was made by people that know what they want and know what they are doing - a game by players, for players . And you can be sure you'll have a game to be played for decades (QW? D2?).

So, if you want to be sure you did a good job on the multiplayer - look at how it's done with CPMA. Then, get the top players to design stuff for you. And you're all set.

P.S. Didn't mean to sound rude, if you got the impression by some strange twist of luck 

I'd like artificial intelligence, both enemy ánd friendlies. This is a war, so some marines to fight alongside the player should be in there. Also, I wouldn't like to see Quake IV's graphics to be as dark as DOOM 3's.

Character animations are important too: in previous Raven games (*cough*SOF2*cough*) lip-sync is often worse than Oni's lip-sync (which had NO lip-sync), characters' walking animations look very strange, characters look into the deep nothingness while talking to people... It's all too obvious that it's a matter of "character goes here, says line and walks away".

By the way, I just had a thought: the attack on Stroggos results in lots of marines being slaughtered - perhaps a tense atmosphere like in Vietcong would be fitting for the game as well.

I would like to see joystick support, particularly for the PantherXL. Another thing would be nice is the return of aliases, and of coarse online play like in Q3 is a must.