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These maps are blowing my mind... I need to play skacky's, socks and tronyns and I've done them all.
Nightmare skill demos with comments!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cowfu745s20u7og/skacky_jam2_dems.zip Cocerello: I liked the use of textures and the archicture, and lighting was good for the most part. However, I'm not gonna lie, I absolutely hated the gameplay. Completely unfair monster combinations with no good weaponry. FifthElephant/Ericw: Very good. Visuals are a bit plain at times but the architecture is neat and impressive. Fights are good and situations are interesting. Ammo situation is tight but pretty balanced. That final fight is still super hard on skill 3 but that's alright I guess. :p Lunaran: I wanted to call my map Persia Invasion, heh. Unique take on the theme, very good map overall with a cool layout and cool secrets. The final arena being very dark isn't particularly great tho, but that's my only issue really. Cool new textures! MFX: Definitely one of the best Quake maps I've ever played, hands down. Everything is perfect. Architecture, gameplay, progression, secrets, texturing, situations. Everything. I feel that the crates are a bit jarring but that's my only complaint. Scampie: Another unique take on the theme. I love how frantic it is and backtracking is never boring, with every room having several unique purposes. Architecture is gorgeous and the super secret is fun as balls. Sock: I loved that one. Loved the pools and the SK choice. Secrets were clever as usual albeit a bit repetitive. Architecture was very good and texture usage as well -- except these gold domes, but that's a nitpick. Tronyn: Holy shit batman. Very VERY impressive vistas with killer architecture and cool gameplay (though it's hit or miss). Some situations are great and some others are plain evil! Lighting inside is gorgeous! That pack is even better than the first. Goddamn I love you guys. and most of them are amazing!
Still finishing up playing this pack, but the quality is through the roof! Great job guys Skill 2 demos for everyone!
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/otp_jam2_skill2.zip Brain too exhausted for a comprehensive map write up, let's try that tomorrow. Good god though, mfx. And Lun. And sock. http://www.quaketastic.com/files/func_mapjam2_ijedemos1.zip
For Cocerellos, Fifth's Lun's and Mfx'. I couldn't finish Cocerellos because the gameplay was just too annoying. I'm on a time limit so didn't want to keep trying to get blood out of that stone with the other maps waiting. I also couldn't finish Fifth's, but because I'm dumb. I didn't know what to do with the Chthons - no buttons in sight and no custom progs so I can't kill them. Swam around a bit, shot some lights and got lavaballed a few times... Lunaran's was a nice departure. Games have taught me that waterfalls always have a secret behind them. I checked two of the three lavafalls so will go back and check the third later. Mfx' I playtested so knew what to expect to some degree. It has improved a lot (not that it was bad before) but everything is incredibly tightly put together and solid - gameplay, visuals, theming and the secrets are awesome. I'll record demos for Scampie's, Skacky's, Sock's and Tronyn's sometime soon. Some of them are multiple files cause I am a noob.
Enjoy these badboys guys. http://www.quaketastic.com/files/jam2_5thdemos.zip Not too much of a need for comments because I added in-game commentary in most of the demos. will play all of these (with The Ramones/erection/etc) when I get home, but the waffle about mine:
- it's a failed remix of doom e2m1. only managed the first half, obviously. the roof was going to be the plasma gun secret. - the roof combat is supposed to be pitch dark with all the monsters in silhouette, to make it more tense and scary. I predicted to scampie that everyone would think I just didn't light it right. :( everyone's really building up my expectations for mfx's map, although apparently there's crates in it so it's an automatic negative one star Unbelievable that Quake1, even in 2014, crushes all the other fucking computer games out there !
And this because of you guys ! An amazing pack of maps, many of which could easily be released as stand alone maps on their own merits!
So first off, demos! Split the zip because Sock and Tronyn's demos were somewhat big. All skill2. All maps except Sock/Tronyn Sock Tronyn Straight off: Other than I think being a bit too tight on ammo early on, MFX's map is absolutely amazing and I think most will agree the best map in the pack. As in likely the best release of 2014. I loved the bit of free choice in the start of the map to enter the temple! The visuals are awesome and unique, the atmosphere as you go through the level is fantastic, and it was just a joy to play. Wonderful :D Next I believe Sock's map is another clear stand out for it's clever design. It feels different than many Quake maps, but still fitting, and it gives you a definite choice in routes to try, and encourages you to play it again. The secrets are fun and the gameplay excellent. Everything about this just seems well thought out and considered. And of course, it looks awesome as you would expect from sock! Lun's map is a great setting, that just feels fun to play through without it trying to do too much. Some of it's Doom beginnings shine through, and there are nice secrets and the hot lava that will in fact kill you when you mess up your jump over it. The end is maybe a bit weak, but the overall setting and gameplay are fun. A nice short map that is lacking sanddogs that existed in it's beta... skacky's map is fun, and has another nice looking take on things with the floating upsidedown temple thing going on. This is some straight forward Quake action! The gold key area is a great big battle and the highlight of the map. Tronyn's was a massive vista that somehow you managed to let players walk around in. No wonder it took forever to vis! The visuals are big and chunky and Quake. I'm not so much a fan of the gameplay and pacing, it feels very odd to start off fighting Shamblers and Vores and Hell Knights, then meet sprinklings of Grunts and hordes of Knights and Scrags here and there until the end battle. Possibly this was due to needing to cut down for time? I had to actually quicksave in this level though, which is something I never do! Fifth/Ericw's map I feel like tried to do too much and it became a bit of a monster for them to wrangle into something coherent. It's a decently fun map, the combat was generally good, and there are nice visual elements... it just feels like it needed more polish beyond what they could reasonably do in the couple weeks. It DOES have the most unique battle in the pack though, so congrats on that part! Cocerello's is again another map where 'bit off more than you could chew' seems to be what happened. I appreciate the general direction of the look, think it needed some more lighting polish to try and make this shine... but the gameplay was really poor. I think you intended players to sneak around and collect some weapons and ammo, but that goes against the instincts of Quake players so much, and even then the monsters were still a bit too much to slog through with peashooters. I don't want to rag on this too much, you clearly state in it's title it's not finished to your liking, and I do know you are still relatively new to Quake mapping. My only suggestion for the future is to think smaller scale until you have a better handle on how much you can reasonable do to a high quality! To reiterate, this pack was fantastic, and a joy to play, great work everyone! I've played five maps and only succeeded in recording three demos and one of them was on my own level
I finally was able to find sock's super secret, without cheating ! :-)
Really great. Reminds me your Quake3 single player map. And apparently Sock have some sense of humor, related to the forum users here. Should I say more ? I don't want to spoil the surprise ! Heheheee ! recorded demoes.
died in a few so will do re-dos and post here eventually! The maps in this pack, like everyone keeps saying, are way better than they have any right to be given the time limit. Pretty amazing how well this jamming thing has worked out so far. Here's hoping you guys find a way to keep some sort of momentum going now that Sock won't be organizing! so your reactions after you played them are what i expected.
I'll explain: hard mode was planned to be experimental, brutal and UNFAIR, unfair in a sadistic way from the mapper like the traps in Quake custom maps from 96-97 (the tarbabies' ambush was planned with those objectives in mind), and from that position i toned it down a lot. And i didn't care much for two reasons: i never thought so many people would play them on hard, and because is the hardest skill, and a gameplay like that should be somewhere to appease that type of players. Those that want the usual Quake gameplay have easy and normal, i wanted to have a map for everyone. But i agree that for this type of map people expect straightforward gameplay and play with that in mind, and i should have put an advice ingame. Instead of most custom maps when the differences between skill level are minor, i wanted to specialize each skill for a different type of playing. Each skill level is like a different game. As i wrote on the text file, I achieved this not the usual way of changing the number of monsters, which is the same in all skill levels, but by changing the enemies placement and choice. I was pressed against time, so the faster option had priority and was used more than changing the monster placement, which achieved this grinding gameplay. So: - Easy skill: anyone can do it, very easy. - Normal skill: usual type and difficulty of gameplay in most Quake custom maps. For those that want a more normal gameplay while being challenging. - Hard/nightmare: unfair, and grinding, for those that want a extreme or weird experience. At least in hard, and judging from your reactions, i think that i have achieved my objectives quite well. About the matter of the choice of weapons is my own particular tastes. I don't like the big guns, as you can go through enemies like they were paper, obliging the mapper to double or triple the number of enemies or be very clever in its usage, which i didn't want nor had the time to do. So instead of matching the gameplay to the weapons given, i did the opposite, match the weapons to the gameplay, placing the big guns (GL and LG (i hate the RL)) as secrets with limited ammo. ******** Well, to summarize, those that hated hard skill gameplay, try out normal difficulty, is like a different map, more Quakey and i am sure you will like it way more. *********** Played a few, and I just have to say that Tronyn's map is not only the best he's ever made by a long way (so much better with a restricted texture set and no Drake mod), it's one of the best Quake maps I've ever played and indeed one of the best FPS maps I've ever played. The epic spectacle, sense of place and how far it pushes beyond Quake styling makes it as aesthetically exciting as any sci-fi/fantasy FPS.
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