Quake III Arena

Quake III Arena
Also known as: Quake 3 Developer: iD Software Publisher: Activision Platform: PC Released internationally: December 2, 1999 This game has unused playable characters. This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused items. This game has unused sounds. This game has a prototype article

Quake III Arena is the best of Quake and Quake II mixed with a great movement system. It owns so much that there's a free version named Quake Live that can be played on any browser. It is also notable for being one of the sources of those goddamn irritating announcer soundfiles that every fucking Counter-Strike server has.

Unfortunately, it contains very little unused stuff compared to Quake II. However, there is a leaked prototype filled to the brim with all sorts of changed textures and the like, which makes up for the original game having little unused content.

Grappling Hook

A fully coded Grappling Hook can be summoned via cheats. While it functions properly, it's graphics are very incomplete; the model is covered with a temporary texture, the “chain” is a lightning bolt, and the actual “hook” looks like a rocket. It does not precache the lightning shader when it loads, so if the map lacks a Lightning Gun, the "chain" will appear as a white null texture.

There are a few glitches with the weapon. First, if the player grapples onto something, then picks up an item, they will switch to the new weapon,but will continue to grapple even after they reach their destination. The only way to break free from the grapple is to take out the Grappling Hook again.

It is unknown why it was cut. It would fit Q3's fast-paced style very well, but there could've been problems with people getting into unwanted and exploitable places via the Hook that would've made it easier to scrap the entire thing than redesign certain levels around it.

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  The Grappling Hook

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  Firing the Grappling Hook

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  What happens when you switch to another weapon while using the Grappling Hook on a wall.

Unused Announcer Sounds

There are some unused announcer sounds corresponding to character skins. Presumably there were plans for more bots in the Single Player campaign at some point.

"Flisk Wins"

"Krusade Wins"

"X-Ray Wins"

Unused Music

Two Sonic Mayhem tracks (sonic3.wav, sonic4.wav) are not used by any map of the game. They equal a total of 39.5MB in size and they make up the majority of the unused content in disk space usage.

Unused Bots

In a November 2000 patch release, there are files pertaining to several bots never implemented in the game (didcotmassif, malaki, tim, trillian, xian). In addition, there are bot files for Team Arena that go unused in the base game (fritzkrieg, pi, taa, tad).

Tim, Trillian and Xian are id software employees, and didcotmassif is a member of the (now defunct) OldManMurray forums.

Unused Flares

Flare

Sun

There is a flare shader and texture in the game that are loaded, but goes unused. This is because the flare feature was dummied out in the engine's code before the 1.10 release, as the implementation was broken in May 1999. Despite this fact, flares are still compiled into the game's maps that are never seen until they were finally revealed in modified source ports that restore and fix the missing flare code.

These flares are seen in early promotional screenshots and can be activated in certain prototype versions, in their broken glory. The sun however, was never seen.

Unused Fonts

Console characters

In pak0.pk3:gfx/2d/bigchars.tga, the letters of the bottom half are completely unused. The bottom characters are left overs from the prototypes and the top is a partial Quake 2 carry over, potentially predating the prototypes. It is also less opaque. Both sets of fonts lack lower casing.

There are also several squares at the top row that are unused, but were once used in early prototypes to make up as placeholder menu graphics.

Bot Chit-Chat Credits

There are definitions for bot text-chat that has them merrily tell you who made them. For some reason, these don't seem to work anymore, at least in the latest version (the bots only seem to respond to the "thanks" part of "special thanks")

//************************
//Thanks to those who helped this part of the game happen.
["special thanks"] = 8
{
	"The warriors of Quake 3 Arena want to thank some special people. [Type *more* several times to see them all.].";
}

["*more*"] = 8
{
	"To Jan Paul van Waveren and John Cash who gave us life, intelligence, and the freedom to act.";
	"To Paul Steed, Kenneth Scott, and Paul Jaquays for our bodies, our looks, our histories, and our personalities.";
	"To R.A. 'Bob' Salvatore and the ~Seven Swords, Steve Winter, and Paul Jaquays for our voices.";
	"The ~Seven Swords are: James Kelly, Michael Leger, Brian Newton, Thomas Parker, D. J. Salvatore, Gary Salvatore, and James Underdown.";
	"To Hector Guerrero, Steve Boisvert, and Eric Webb who made sure we said what we should, when we should.";
	"To Paul Steed, Kenneth Scott, and Steve Boisvert who pitched in some extra lines.";
	"To Mike, Roderic, and Kevin for lending us their good looks.";
}
//**************************

Unseen Bot Synonym Context names

When a bot chats a line referring to another name of the game's bots, they go through a word replacing parser to spice up the variety, determined by weight. Several of these go completely unused with a weight of 0.

Name	Unused Synonyms
Xaero	baldy
Hunter	bitch, beeyatch