This channel is literally my favorite content on the whole internet. I did some speedrunning and more team deathmatch in the late 90's and early 00's. Quake is by far the most influental game - or computer related thing - in my life. Love from Finland.
love the intro & outro music, so calm and peaceful, its like what you would hear from a produce commercial, something like: Here at quake speedruns explained we combine the purest concentration of skill, the finest grind of determination and the most organic mix of refined techniques just for your viewing pleasure
20 years later and im still anxious to watch another quake video filled with skill I'll never comprehend, thanks to your channel. I watch as I might observe a shooting star, and an astronomer explains to me the significance of it. Dont truly understand, but enough to admire the beauty, the art
After the way this achievement was set up, and after watching a lot of Karl Jobst videos, I was worried this was another video about someone cheating their way to a WR. I'm glad you added a lot of failed attempts, especially the one where he raged on the geometry. Congrats, Kisimov!
Blind thumbs up and comment about how much I love these videos. Will edit at the end with more thoughts. :) Edit: GGs Kisimov! It's amazing how new runners seem to keep cropping up lately and accomplish these monstrous feats. Wonderfully told story as well, and I like how you spend a hefty amount of time highlighting the failed attempts as well. It's easy to laud praise on the perfect run, but giving context on just how difficult it is makes it might more impactful. I also appreciate how you tone down the somewhat harsh sound effects of the game effects to match the relaxed and comfy tone of your videos (or maybe it's just making this up, but it seems to me like you are).
I simply adore your videos man, such detailed explanations and tight editing, I'm so happy someone dedicated a full time youtube channel to Quake speedrunning, there's so much history in the making even nowadays.
I'm not sure that's possible. Doom demos only captured the player inputs, and relied on deterministic RNG to ensure demos always played back correctly, so it was in theory predictable. Quake on the other hand uses the C rand function which isn't deterministic, but the demos capture entity states as well as inputs to ensure they play back identically every time regardless of the RNG. If the rand function is seeded with something like the system clock, then it will be impossible to manipulate it predictably.
@@richardg8376 I don't know how C rand function is implemented but it's likely to be a LCG which AFAIK is deterministic. Even if seeded, if it's done with a clock that is low precision (eg: unix timestamp) it's easy to control. What make things difficult is the long period (2^32 for most LCGs vs 256 for doom)and the fact that rand() might be called in lot of places, in unpredictable ways (every call will update seed).
Small note: Kisimov has the Half-Life world record in the scripted category. However, scripted isn’t considered to be the main category, scriptless is. The scriptless WR is a 25.57 by KaNanga. So Kisimov had a Half-Life WR but not in the most prestigious category so I wouldn’t say he has THE Half-Life world record.
Ooh, I did miss those chords. As a fellow Nightmare! speedrunner in DOOM, I _deeeeeply_ relate to the feeling of just throwing yourself into a meat grinder for hundreds and hundreds of hours until the stars align, only for the final successful run to look like the monsters just decided to take the day off lol. But if it can be done, it *must* be done. It might be hard, but the thing about making history is: you only have to do it once. And that's what speedrunning always comes down to. How bad do you want it? Because the only thing standing between you and a world record is simply being crazier than anyone else :)
Once in a while YT suggests these videos. At first I was curious what's the record about this time but as you built up the drama I really got engaged and truely felt why this record was amazing. Great story telling!
God damn so much improvement is still possible, this is damn crazy. Like, Quake speedrun is not the most popular, but it's still going strong, and holy shit I hope this'll incentivize some people to give their all. We need a new QDC with like half a minute improvement.
I hadn't touched Quake 1 in like close to 25-30 years. Bought the remastered game on steam summer sale and started looking up quake 1 content on youtube and spotted your channel. Just wanted to let you know that these videos are super interesting and kudos to you for putting so much effort to them! 👍
Thank you for showing all the madness of speedrunning (especially with RNG), cause it really shows the dedication one needs to improve. Hundres or thousands of attempts for 1 second, or sometimes just 1/10 of second.
To put it in to perspective as to how much it hurts to see a godlike run end, grunt and dog's collision boxes are ENOURMOUS and horrifically disjointed. What appears to be a "clean way through" is blocked by a literal wall of invisible-momentum killing internal architecture. Also, imagine, it takes 30 seconds to finish, and having done this 10,000 times is around 85 hours, straight, on the same map, 9,999 of those were caused by a grunt being in the wrong place, or being shot. And this implies that your motion for each run must be perfect as well. The dedication is crazy.
14:02 I'm pretty sure Nightmare doesn't make any changes to enemy accuracy, it instead zeroes out the delay between attacks and sets certain enemies (including grunts) to automatically refire, greatly increasing the rate of attack.
That is correct. (Ranged) enemies attack more frequently, each shambler lightning blast lasts a little longer, and vore projectiles move faster, but there are no other differences in vanilla.
Redirecting yourself based on where the enemies have spawned reminds me of looking at what your next pieces are and planning their placement when Tetris is going at top speed
Pro speedruners inspire me so much! I wish I had the tenacity to persevere like this over self imposed goals. Watching the fails segment, I felt it in my chest :))) ... If I try this I'm sure I would loose my temper and break something after a couple of dozen of fails and these guys go through thousands. Amazing!
I just saw this again, I must have seen it in a rush the first time because I really enjoyed it now. First of all its mindboggling that someone got an Easy Run in :20 with no barrel boost, just WOW. Back in my days in 2005 or 2006 at my peak (pre Power Bunnies era) I could get :22 at will and very frequently, attempts just minutes appart, and I thought (back then mind you) I was very very good. The buttons part was always so hard for me. But yeaj, in skill 0 very rarely monsters mess up your run. In skill 3 its a whole different story, and the :22 has a .58 decimal and two sticking points, unbelievable! But the monsters were SOOOO incredibly cooperative!!! I also feel the :21 should be doable by some of these new crop of runners with modern bunnies who can jump across the slime so easily, but it seems it would take a looooot of attempts, you'd have to be a little mad to try it. Would love to see it though. Mad props on the video, you did an excellent job helping non-speedrunners understand the monstruous difficulty of this run, or so I hope. Regards, -Arturo
I love how you can demonstrate the runs from "surveillance camera" perspectives, that's really neat. Is that possible because you're using the demo file? I'm legitimately curious. Wonderful video, thank you for sharing!
Yes, it's because of the demo file format :) To make the movie 'recams' I use a combination of a very old Perl script (from 1998!) called Remaic, as well as some modern tools created by @MattsRamblings for the Joequake engine.
@@quakespeedrunsexplained fascinating! Thank you for sharing some of the magic behind the curtain. This was really neat to watch, and see the phantoms of different Runners moving together as if an actual race or time trial was happening. 👏👏👏
If I remember right there was a small, let's say a bug in error correction (if any) in the isee/ishoot algorithm for ranged enemies in Q1 engine. Their aiming was worse if your aiming cone doesn't cross with their movement and shooting vectors
Man, that speed at the button sequence was crazy high, I think it would have been the holy grail if Kisimov somehow changed course to the other side of the pillar to not head bump and SOMEHOW did not get shot or get blocked, since that grunt+dog combo right in front of the entrance to the last room is almost impossible to get past(and it just makes sense to bypass them.)
The patience and tenacity of elite speedrunners amazes me as much as their skill. Even if I had some skill, I know I would just rage quit especially in a game with this much rng.
Well the game is 28 years old! And there still players which are trying to find possibilities to play it faster and faster and still do new records, that's crazy. I loved this revolutionary game from when I played it first time, now I play it maybe once per year, but it is the only game I still sometimes play. I don't know when I accidentaly catch video (movie) Quake done Quicker 16:35 (most probably around the end of the year 1997 or beginning of 98) and it absolutely blows my mind. Long time after Quake done Quick with a Vengeance 12:23 (what?) and finally after long years Quake done Quickest 11:29. It is more than 12 years old now! And there are new and new record of solo levels.
That head bump after the button sequence would keep me up at night.
Maybe it was lucky and changed enemy positions for the perfect finish
My bank account been keeping me up at night lately
@@ChaosPootato Yup I did get two small shotgun boosts after that bump which I've never seen/had before.
@@kisimov4246 Congrats on the run big man
@@kisimov4246That was an insanely lucky recovery. I think it would have been a mid-23 without them.
I enjoyed the segment with failed runs. To truly understand how tall a mountain is you have to peer over the edge and recoil in horror.
Well said
This channel is literally my favorite content on the whole internet. I did some speedrunning and more team deathmatch in the late 90's and early 00's. Quake is by far the most influental game - or computer related thing - in my life. Love from Finland.
Thanks a lot!
Quake is life brother, endless love mang.
love the intro & outro music, so calm and peaceful, its like what you would hear from a produce commercial, something like:
Here at quake speedruns explained we combine the purest concentration of skill, the finest grind of determination and the most organic mix of refined techniques just for your viewing pleasure
haha love it
That collage of runs is a thing of beauty
those takes with all the runners moving in the same time in slowmotion are just perfect.
Quake is life
Life is Quake
The world started in 1996.
Half is life.
quake is love
quake is life
Quake is also death. But mostly life
20 years later and im still anxious to watch another quake video filled with skill I'll never comprehend, thanks to your channel. I watch as I might observe a shooting star, and an astronomer explains to me the significance of it. Dont truly understand, but enough to admire the beauty, the art
After the way this achievement was set up, and after watching a lot of Karl Jobst videos, I was worried this was another video about someone cheating their way to a WR. I'm glad you added a lot of failed attempts, especially the one where he raged on the geometry. Congrats, Kisimov!
Blind thumbs up and comment about how much I love these videos. Will edit at the end with more thoughts. :)
Edit: GGs Kisimov! It's amazing how new runners seem to keep cropping up lately and accomplish these monstrous feats. Wonderfully told story as well, and I like how you spend a hefty amount of time highlighting the failed attempts as well. It's easy to laud praise on the perfect run, but giving context on just how difficult it is makes it might more impactful. I also appreciate how you tone down the somewhat harsh sound effects of the game effects to match the relaxed and comfy tone of your videos (or maybe it's just making this up, but it seems to me like you are).
Thanks! I just keep the game volume fairly low, I don't modify it :)
I simply adore your videos man, such detailed explanations and tight editing, I'm so happy someone dedicated a full time youtube channel to Quake speedrunning, there's so much history in the making even nowadays.
Thanks for sharing! I love the calm vibe of these videos. Congrats to Kisimov.
Just love the pacing und music of your videos! These niche channels are the jewels of YT!
These overlapped demo files look amazing.
My 2025 prediction is that someone’s going to figure out a quake rng manip and everything is going to go haywire
I'm not sure that's possible. Doom demos only captured the player inputs, and relied on deterministic RNG to ensure demos always played back correctly, so it was in theory predictable.
Quake on the other hand uses the C rand function which isn't deterministic, but the demos capture entity states as well as inputs to ensure they play back identically every time regardless of the RNG. If the rand function is seeded with something like the system clock, then it will be impossible to manipulate it predictably.
@@richardg8376 I don't know how C rand function is implemented but it's likely to be a LCG which AFAIK is deterministic. Even if seeded, if it's done with a clock that is low precision (eg: unix timestamp) it's easy to control. What make things difficult is the long period (2^32 for most LCGs vs 256 for doom)and the fact that rand() might be called in lot of places, in unpredictable ways (every call will update seed).
i could somehow physically and mentally feel the pain of getting blocked by the dogs and the frustration ong
Small note: Kisimov has the Half-Life world record in the scripted category. However, scripted isn’t considered to be the main category, scriptless is. The scriptless WR is a 25.57 by KaNanga. So Kisimov had a Half-Life WR but not in the most prestigious category so I wouldn’t say he has THE Half-Life world record.
Good point, I could have clarified which category it was!
Ooh, I did miss those chords. As a fellow Nightmare! speedrunner in DOOM, I _deeeeeply_ relate to the feeling of just throwing yourself into a meat grinder for hundreds and hundreds of hours until the stars align, only for the final successful run to look like the monsters just decided to take the day off lol. But if it can be done, it *must* be done. It might be hard, but the thing about making history is: you only have to do it once. And that's what speedrunning always comes down to. How bad do you want it? Because the only thing standing between you and a world record is simply being crazier than anyone else :)
Haha all the rangers together, slowly jumping through the map with this music is awesome. Fantastic that the record has been broken!
Well told. It's shocking to see how far ahead the record run was from all the others at the end.
NEW QUAKE SPEEDRUN ANALYSIS VIDEO DROPPED LETS GOOOOOOO
Once in a while YT suggests these videos. At first I was curious what's the record about this time but as you built up the drama I really got engaged and truely felt why this record was amazing. Great story telling!
God damn so much improvement is still possible, this is damn crazy. Like, Quake speedrun is not the most popular, but it's still going strong, and holy shit I hope this'll incentivize some people to give their all. We need a new QDC with like half a minute improvement.
The intro track. So good!
Pixel Perfect by Lords of Lounge.
@@Etherglide Fun fact: Quake Speedruns Explained guy is one of the musicians in that group.
@@AdamTheJensen Really? That’s definitely a fun fact!
I hadn't touched Quake 1 in like close to 25-30 years. Bought the remastered game on steam summer sale and started looking up quake 1 content on youtube and spotted your channel.
Just wanted to let you know that these videos are super interesting and kudos to you for putting so much effort to them! 👍
Love your delivery and presentation of the runs. Cinematography is also great
what a tenacious player. gratz kisimov
Absolute madl̶a̶d̶ man for doing a grind like this. I can't imagine the patience one must have to do something like this.
"sounds easy", yes, when there aren't 6+ grunts shooting at you in a narrow corridor 😅
gg kisimov
Thank you for showing all the madness of speedrunning (especially with RNG), cause it really shows the dedication one needs to improve. Hundres or thousands of attempts for 1 second, or sometimes just 1/10 of second.
I so enjoy each of these breakdowns.
To put it in to perspective as to how much it hurts to see a godlike run end, grunt and dog's collision boxes are ENOURMOUS and horrifically disjointed. What appears to be a "clean way through" is blocked by a literal wall of invisible-momentum killing internal architecture.
Also, imagine, it takes 30 seconds to finish, and having done this 10,000 times is around 85 hours, straight, on the same map, 9,999 of those were caused by a grunt being in the wrong place, or being shot.
And this implies that your motion for each run must be perfect as well. The dedication is crazy.
Glad to see the shoutout to Quakespeedrunsexplained, he absolutely deserves it. Such great content
What a milestone. congratz kisi
It was a matter of time, but that doesn’t take away from how impressive it is, fantastic analysis again, Thankyou
Holy hell.
Thank you for the great video again!
14:02 I'm pretty sure Nightmare doesn't make any changes to enemy accuracy, it instead zeroes out the delay between attacks and sets certain enemies (including grunts) to automatically refire, greatly increasing the rate of attack.
To the best of my knowledge you are correct.
You might be right! I will check this!
That is correct. (Ranged) enemies attack more frequently, each shambler lightning blast lasts a little longer, and vore projectiles move faster, but there are no other differences in vanilla.
@@h4724-q6j thanks!
Redirecting yourself based on where the enemies have spawned reminds me of looking at what your next pieces are and planning their placement when Tetris is going at top speed
Wow, just wow. All those failed attempts gave me a massive headache. Thanks for your amazing videos, Quake speedrunning is super fascinating.
Pro speedruners inspire me so much! I wish I had the tenacity to persevere like this over self imposed goals. Watching the fails segment, I felt it in my chest :))) ... If I try this I'm sure I would loose my temper and break something after a couple of dozen of fails and these guys go through thousands. Amazing!
Amazing video. Thank you!!!!
Such a wholesome channel. Thanks man. Never stop! 😀
These players are so incredible to watch. In all my years of Quake you never cease to feel amazed what players like this achieve!!
"... watching this hurts my soul" 🥺
That statement sums very much up. Imagine the souls of the speed runners...
Great work! Love your videos
I love speedrunning videos. They're always 50x longer than the run in question.
Love it!
I just saw this again, I must have seen it in a rush the first time because I really enjoyed it now. First of all its mindboggling that someone got an Easy Run in :20 with no barrel boost, just WOW. Back in my days in 2005 or 2006 at my peak (pre Power Bunnies era) I could get :22 at will and very frequently, attempts just minutes appart, and I thought (back then mind you) I was very very good. The buttons part was always so hard for me. But yeaj, in skill 0 very rarely monsters mess up your run. In skill 3 its a whole different story, and the :22 has a .58 decimal and two sticking points, unbelievable! But the monsters were SOOOO incredibly cooperative!!! I also feel the :21 should be doable by some of these new crop of runners with modern bunnies who can jump across the slime so easily, but it seems it would take a looooot of attempts, you'd have to be a little mad to try it. Would love to see it though. Mad props on the video, you did an excellent job helping non-speedrunners understand the monstruous difficulty of this run, or so I hope.
Regards,
-Arturo
"Ööh..Ööh Waaah!"
Great channel ❤
He's back!
incredible
Sick demo overlap of runs in beginning
what a run! gg
this is AMAZING! great job everyone.
Watching the army of Quakeguys never gets old.
I love how you can demonstrate the runs from "surveillance camera" perspectives, that's really neat.
Is that possible because you're using the demo file? I'm legitimately curious. Wonderful video, thank you for sharing!
Yes, it's because of the demo file format :) To make the movie 'recams' I use a combination of a very old Perl script (from 1998!) called Remaic, as well as some modern tools created by @MattsRamblings for the Joequake engine.
@@quakespeedrunsexplained fascinating! Thank you for sharing some of the magic behind the curtain. This was really neat to watch, and see the phantoms of different Runners moving together as if an actual race or time trial was happening. 👏👏👏
If I remember right there was a small, let's say a bug in error correction (if any) in the isee/ishoot algorithm for ranged enemies in Q1 engine. Their aiming was worse if your aiming cone doesn't cross with their movement and shooting vectors
Yeah, congrats Kisimov!
Imagine being a worker at the slipgate complex, and seeing a horde of bouncing men flooding the front gates
The grind must’ve been mind-numbing.
Great stuff!
thanks for this content :D
That intro 😗👌 good song choice
A there is still that exploding box available! Thank you for the content! :)
OMG! I watched Kisimov stream for a bit and hes actually attempting it! Aaaaa! :))
Havent played Quake in like a decade, but i still love hearing about the heights people take this game.
A worthy endeavour and your faith has been rewarded
The algorithm did its thing with this one
The RNG gods looked favorably at Kisimov once again. Absolute legend
Omg that happened! Also love the inro)
I felt pretty good about my 24 on easy, this is just madness
You're the David Attenborough of Quake speed runs.
he is rng crazy man
great stuff as usual. love from croatia.
7:12 a little foreshadowing there
I still play all these old games. I played doom on a Pentium 486 ibm 386 as a 10yr old in 1994. I never looked back.
kisichad
kisichad
kisichad
Man, that speed at the button sequence was crazy high, I think it would have been the holy grail if Kisimov somehow changed course to the other side of the pillar to not head bump and SOMEHOW did not get shot or get blocked, since that grunt+dog combo right in front of the entrance to the last room is almost impossible to get past(and it just makes sense to bypass them.)
The patience and tenacity of elite speedrunners amazes me as much as their skill. Even if I had some skill, I know I would just rage quit especially in a game with this much rng.
Well you know what they say... 90% of gamblers quit right before they hit it big.
Is there a difference between the hd and originally versions other than the frame rate maybe?
The official speedrunning-engine (joequake) keeps original gameplay/physics 100% intact.
grats! BULGARIAN GIGA CHAD!
Well the game is 28 years old! And there still players which are trying to find possibilities to play it faster and faster and still do new records, that's crazy. I loved this revolutionary game from when I played it first time, now I play it maybe once per year, but it is the only game I still sometimes play. I don't know when I accidentaly catch video (movie) Quake done Quicker 16:35 (most probably around the end of the year 1997 or beginning of 98) and it absolutely blows my mind. Long time after Quake done Quick with a Vengeance 12:23 (what?) and finally after long years Quake done Quickest 11:29. It is more than 12 years old now! And there are new and new record of solo levels.
I imagine the mixed feelings of getting stuck on the ending platform for a fraction of a second, but still achieving the WR.
On his final attempt all grunts were taking lessons from stormtroopers!
4:21 bro helped the player 😭😂
The Legend Will Never Die
GG's
I love this music
70,000 attempts for a record is madness.
Thankyou youtube for deactivating the notification of this channel.
I attempted a speedrun of E1M1 while also going for the Slipgate Pacifist achievement in the remaster.
My best time was around 50 seconds.
Kisimov :gigachad:
Insane
It was bound to happen, and yet it's still cool.
I love your videos, but between the chill music and your soothing voice, I keep finding myself having trouble keeping my eyes open.
For some reasons I found the horde of rangers absolutely hilarious. GG
kisimov legend😎😎😎
you dont think its suspicious how many grunts missed their shots on that 22 sec run
Nah, Kisi streams his attempts and we have the demo files, with enough grinding these kinds of freak runs are going to happen eventually
Why don't they use the explo_box?
I imagine its due to health vs the increased enemy count + attack speed. Box boost can leave the player in one shot territory health wise.
yes, and also because the box boost requires a different path, which on nightmare skill is simply blocked by enemies