Well as you saw before I gave you a brief intro to the world of Quake, and I know its intimidating to some, but please understand that with the right training you can stand a chance, and depending on your skill of being able to pick up new traits, who knows, you actually might go further than you think :P. But now its time to get down to business...

CONFIGURATION SET UP 2009 EDITION OF HOLY SHIT WTF IS THIS CRAZY STUFF!

That's right, its configuration time, and now I'm going to take your already terrified mind and turn it into a pile of brain melted goo. This is nitty gritty time, where I show you how to customize a game config file and set up your experience the way you see fit (however with this tutorial I'm going to build it off of my config :P). This may be confusing at first but just bare with me..

Before we get into the config set up, first I want to introduce you into some control theory 101. Many people have a rather simpleton mind about control setups, I can move forward, left, right, etc, there's my jump key ok.. and my # keys give me weapons alright cool I'm ready to rock! Well hold on there jimmy, that's a little cookie cutter and unorganized wouldn't you say? How about the new and improved 'Key Binder 3000!" The guide that teaches you how to set up a control scheme that will not only speed up your reaction time, but will be easier on the physical condition of your hands! Here's how to try...

I will give you a setup of how my control system works, I'm not a wasd or arrow key player, nah shift me over one to the right from wasd... that's right, I'm a esdf player! WTF is that? just refer to tribes, some should know what I'm talking about lol. Anyways! here is an image of my current control configuration.

Movement Controls


E = Move Forward
S = Strafe Left
D = Move Back
F = Strafe Right
A = Crouch (move down)
Space = Jump (move up)

Weapon Controls


1 = Gauntlet (use shift instead)
2 = Machinegun
W = Rocket Launcher
R = Lightning Gun
T = Shotgun
G = BFG
Z = Grenade Launcher
X = Rail Gun
C = Plasma Gun
Shift = Gauntlet

Here you see what appears to be a cluttered setup, but trust me on this.. keeping these weapon binds near your movement keys will improve your performance of play greatly. Think of it this way.. you know when you want to use that weapon that's ALL the way down at the end of the number line on your keyboard and you either have to move your hand completely away from your movement of mouse or keyboard and hit that key, or you have to stretch your fingers across the board to push it, thus limiting your ability of function with other keys in that time. I know this sounds silly, but like I said in my last post, every second counts. You want to be on the ball with reaction & response in a game like this and having this kind of set up will help you do this. I use this same type of configuration with every single one of my games and it allows me to quickly switch between weapons and keep my fluid movement in combat.

NOW TO BLOW YOUR MIND WITH .CFG CUSTOMIZATION!
One of the most common traits of a high end Quake player is customizing their configuration file or .cfg file. This file is the base file that the game reads off of to set controls / graphic settings / server settings and other mechanical settings that attribute to the game itself. id Software was kind enough to let the Quake community customize their .cfg files for the competitive player and personal preference. Below I will give you a brief run down of my own custom config that I put together.

*note - this is all built around my personal preference, many that learn config customization eventually build the config to their standards, whatever suits you is what you should go with.

First off, to access your config file for Quake Live, you need to have launched the game so that your account settings (controls, graphics, etc) have been set to the config on your pc. Once you have done this you will go to C:\Users (or documents & settings) --> windows name --> App Data --> LocalLow --> id Software --> quakelive --> home --> baseq3 (Example: c:\users\Mikey\AppData\Locallow\idsoftware\quakelive\home\baseq3). Once you are in the right baseq3 folder, you will see a file called repconfig.cfg, open that with wordpad/notepad, and it is here you will see a list of wonderful commands & config settings.

Now what I'm going to show you below is from my own custom config that I made for this. You are free to use this config file and can grab them both from here. What this file consists of is two .cfg files, both of these will go into the baseq3 folder where I directed you above.

Below is a preview of my config, here I will list notes next to some key commands that will help you better understand what you are looking at ;).

Dyslixecs QuakeLive .cfg Configuration
-tip: With most commands 1 = True, 0 = False.-
----------------------------------------------
unbindall
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Dyslixec's Quake Configuration //
// Last Modified 6/23/2009 //
// www.wastelandtraveler.com/dysconfig.zip //
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

////////////////////////////
// Misc Settings //
///////////////////////////
seta com_allowConsole "1" - This allows you to use console in game.
seta rate "25000"

/////////////////////////////////
// Character Setup //
////////////////////////////////
seta sex "male"
seta model "ranger/default" - Your character model you will play as
seta clan ""
seta name "^1dys^7lixec" - What your name will appear like ^1 = red, ^7 = white

///////////////////////////
// Teams Setup //
//////////////////////////
seta team_model "ranger/default"
seta team_headmodel "ranger/default"
seta headmodel "ranger/default"
seta cg_forceTeamModel ""
seta cg_forceEnemyModel "visor/bright" -This will force all enemy opponents to look like this model

///////////////////////////////////////////
// Keyboard Binds (misc) //
//////////////////////////////////////////
bind y "messagemode" - Chat to all
bind u "messagemode2" - Chat to team
bind TAB "+scores" - View Score Board
bind F1 "vote yes"
bind F2 "vote no"
bind F3 "readyup"

///////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Keyboard Binds (weapons) //
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
bind MOUSE1 "+attack" - Primary Attack
bind MOUSE2 "+zoom" - Zoom DUH
bind MOUSE3 "+button2"
bind MWHEELDOWN "weapprev"
bind MWHEELUP "weapnext"
bind c "weapon 8"
bind r "weapon 6"
bind t "weapon 3"
bind w "weapon 5"
bind x "weapon 7"
bind z "weapon 4"
bind g "weapon 9"
bind shift "weapon 1"
bind 2 "weapon 2"
bind 1 "weapon 1"

////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Keyboard Binds (movement) //
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
bind a "+movedown"
bind d "+back"
bind e "+forward"
bind f "+moveright"
bind s "+moveleft"
bind SPACE "+moveup"

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Hud, Visuals, and important CG_ Commands //
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
seta cg_noProjectileTrail "1" - Removes smoke trail from rockets
seta cg_drawFPS "1" - Displays FPS rate on HUD
seta cg_oldRail "1"
seta cg_crosshairColor "4" - Changes the color of your crosshair
seta cg_zoomfov "22.5" - The field of view of your zoom
seta cg_shadows "1"
seta cg_crosshairBrightness "1.0" - Brightness of your crosshair
seta cg_crosshairHealth "0" - Will display health of person you look at around crosshair
seta cg_crosshairPulse "1" - Crosshair Pulses when you hit target
seta cg_trueLightning "1" - Sets lightning beam to stay straight (less accurate representation)

seta com_blood "0" - Removes 'gib' effect from game
seta scr_conspeed "3" - Speed at which the console comes down
seta cg_drawgun "0" - Whether or not your gun is visible on screen
seta cg_bob "0" - 0 disables movement bob when crouch moving.
seta cg_kickScale "0" - 0 removes kick movement on screen when you are hit
seta cg_crosshairSize "24" - Size of crosshair
seta cg_newWeaponBar "1" - New hud elemnt of weapon ammo display
seta cg_allowtaunt "1"
seta cg_showvoicetext "1"
seta cg_playvoicechats "1"
seta cg_drawtargetnames "1"
seta cg_fov "120"
seta cg_drawCrosshair "6" - Crosshair type (6 = dot)
seta cg_drawTimer "1" - Displays time on HUD
seta cg_drawCrosshairNames "1" - Displays Targets name under crosshair.
seta cg_marks "1" - Display of bullet marks on walls
seta cg_simpleitems "1" - Changes world items (health, ammo, etc) to 2d icons
seta r_fullbright "0"
seta r_vertexlight "0" - Low quality light mode, improves performance.
seta r_inBrowserMode "5" - Resolution of game in browser
seta r_picmip "16" - Quality level of Texture, 16 being the lowest, displaying nothing but flat colors on the surface like shown here

-- following settings attribute to over all visual brightness in the game --

seta r_ignorehwgamma "1"
seta r_overBrightBits "1"
seta r_gamma "1.7"
seta r_intensity "1.4"
seta r_mapOverBrightBits "2"

-----------------------------------------------
The End lol.

Now as you can see, this config doesn't look like the original .cfg built by id software. That is correct, what I did was section specific commands off so that you guys may better understand what you are looking at, however in this blog I added notes as to what certain commands do, in my actual config file there are no notes ;).

Now what if you want to create your own config file? Well sure, here's a few simple steps that will allow you to do just that!

Step 1
Create a new notepad document.

Step 2
Take all the content from the repconfig.cfg file and put it in the new note pad document.

Step 3
Once you have gone through this tutorial, and have looked at my config, you may understand what some of these commands do and can organize the new txt file to your liking.

Step 3
Save the note pad as an 'all files' file type, and name it whatever.cfg, it will turn the notepad document from a simple txt document to an actual config file.

step 4
Once you have done that you will create another notepad document and then put inside of that the following: exec whatever.cfg -Then you will save it the same way as the first config but this time you will name it autoexec.cfg.

Step 5
Put those 2 config files you just created into the baseq3 folder I took you too. Once you launch the game your config file will automatically be activated and you will be good to go!