Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Quake II engine" in English language version.
Dynamic linking provided numerous advantages: [...] Full native speed for mods, no need to rely on QuakeC and Quake Vitual machine.
Dynamic linking provided numerous advantages: [...] More capabilities to mod makers, the entire game could be altered via game.dll.
Contrary to Quake1, Quake2 used radiosity and colored light during the precalculation.
The Jake2 applet example shows the future of game distribution over the Internet. Jake2 is a port of id Software's Quake II to the Java platform developed by Bytonic Software. (...). With the new Java Plug-In, it is now possible to deploy the game directly into the web page with full hardware acceleration and rock-solid reliability.
This is a great show of 3D prowess. Things like this, as well as the Narya 2D open source engine from ThreeRings really are starting to at least show Java can serve as a first-class gaming platform. More than that, just having seen all the… *cough* horrible code in games before, having things like Java's threading model, network and database support might really make it a BETTER platform for a lot of forthcoming games than C.
We also had light bouncing—simulated radiosity—so every corner of the world had some lighting.