Although some developers may disagree, some of the funniest or wittiest things you can do in video games come from bugs. Games like Skyrim have shown us that bugs can create very interesting and comedic situations, but there are titles that take it even further.
Over time, some of these bugs become trademarks of games, and when I think of this type of bug, it is impossible for me not to think of Quake’s “strafing-jumping”.
Originating from a programming error, this bug not only changed the behavior of its players in online games, but also caused disagreements between the gaming community and its creators id Software.
But what is this random mechanic and why is it important? Today we take a closer look at the bug that shaped an entire generation of players and the most popular PC game genre, and whose effects can still be felt decades later in current and popular titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or even Apex Legends.
If you watch the video, you will notice that Quake players at a high level do something very strange:
When it comes to moving around the map, they do this by jumping. Although it may seem like there’s nothing more to it, there are explanations and a history behind the advantages of moving this way.
They are not just simple jumps. It is a technique with its own evolution and background studies: strafing-jumping.
This movement technique is not just about moving forward while jumping randomly. Strafing-jumping is a way to exceed the maximum movement speed of characters by utilizing three factors:
- Missing friction while jumping
- Diagonal movement
- Camera control
It is a complicated technique where people have explored the mathematical backgrounds that give those who master it an impressive advantage over other players.
And you know what? id Software did not design it, but it is a programming error. An error that became a crucial advantage in competition with others and that other first-person shooters later adopted.
This random mechanic originated even before the release of Quake. However, the technique, as the name “strafing-jumping” suggests, requires jumps to perform. In the years before the 3D shooter Quake, there was nothing like this in first-person shooters. The mouse wasn’t even used for camera rotation.
This is where the predecessor of “jumping” comes into play: “strafing-running”. The technique was discovered in 1993 in games like Pathways into Darkness (by the way, developed by Bungie) and the first Doom. Players realized that by moving diagonally they could move faster.
The developers reacted only slowly or not at all. In the case of Doom, the legendary developer John Romero admitted that he only learned about the “strafing-running” error and its consequences a year after its release.
Later, the bug was accepted as a feature, and developers of new maps and mods began to accommodate this mechanic. From that point on, players had to know that “strafing-running” was possible in order to handle challenges in the game.
With the release of Quake in 1996, it didn’t take long for first-person shooter fans to find a way to replicate this type of technique in the new game.
“If we could achieve extreme speeds beyond what is allowed in Doom through diagonal movements, who’s to say we can’t do the same here?” was a logical consideration. And a popular game has a large number of fans who engage with the mechanics to give the movement more gameplay depth.
While strafing-jumping was initially done rather by eye, a discussion began about why it worked the way it worked and how it could be optimized.
On paper, the perfect execution, taking into account movement vectors, angles, and a variety of factors – is as precise as it is complicated to ensure optimal execution.
But the perfect execution exists only in theory. It is nearly impossible and also a bit impractical to apply the calculations to the game. So there’s no way to get it right 100%. And yet, the technique has become an important cornerstone in the multiplayer shooter community.
The authorities at developer id Software even argued with the community over this bug and wanted to remove it.
John Carmack, then chief programmer at id Software, said: “Strafing-jumping is a bug. The fact that people have worked hard to exploit it does not justify its existence […] when I play online, I enjoy it more when I have to run and dodge rather than jump. That’s my personal preference, and it counts for a lot”.
Even today, remnants of the mechanics can still be found in games:
If you look at the source code of Quake 3, you can see that they actually tried to fix the bug for the third game in the series. But the result was far from satisfactory.
Ironically, when Quake Live was released, the originally free version of Quake 3, players noticed quite a big change.
In Quake Live, while it still requires some knowledge of how strafing-jumping works, developer id Software ensured that the speed of running and jumping no longer increases as significantly as it did in the earlier version.
The North American studio is aware of its heritage and knows that strafing-jumping is part of its history. They did not want to completely reinstate the “bug” and instead offered an alternative for those who did not master this technique.
In the end, id Software, despite Carmack’s complaints, accepted that a small programming error is part of the history of one of its most important games instead of swimming against the tide and perfecting their game purely on a technical level.
This did not happen in a small studio bubble. Titles that used the same engine as Quake, such as the first Call of Duty or Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, were also affected by strafing-jumping, leading to all sorts of unintended strategies in their online games.
On the other hand, there were also games that used engines derived from Quake. Works like Half-Life, Team Fortress 2, or even Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends had to implement measures to limit players’ maximum speed to control the power of this technique.
Nevertheless, it is something that was never really corrected, and even today you can see remnants of what was once the star mechanic of competitive shooters.
This article originally appeared on the gaming site 3DJuegos, our partner. 3DJuegos belongs, like MeinMMO, GameStar, and GamePro, to the Webedia network. We translated it into German.
