I just played through Blastocyst and it was a blast!

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

were the puzzles too confusing or too abstruse to make it through the map entirely?

No, they were fun and made me want to continue playing. I do love puzzle maps, though, so this was right up my alley.

I think two things really help prevent frustration/confusion:

1) The fact that the player is always fairly locked in, so even if you're not immediately sure what to do next or what that last button did, it doesn't take too long to figure it out (since you don't have a sprawling map to run around in, wondering what to do).

2) The visual cues -- in particular the blinking tubes that connect the teleporters, the arrows that show you where to go, and the large images on either side of the large room, which make it very clear which way the room is oriented at any given time.

The only part that had me stumped for a while was the slope jump, mainly because I really didn't expect that mechanic to be used. But when I figured it out it felt satisfying.

What I didn't like so much was the final area where you move through a large spinning structure. It's very impressive visually, but it made me feel nauseous. I would have preferred if that special effect were used for a short sequence (like a wind tunnel or something similar) as opposed to a space you have to navigate and fight through. 

Was one of my favorite parts! Opening that door to see it the first time was one of the best suprise moments in a Quake level ever.

Puzzles were well done. Felt like Portal in quake which was great! Cues were helpful. The ramp jump had me going for a bit too tho.

That and just about every 10secs in Scarabrus was another surprise. Good fun overall. 

Since Ionous' stream showed him struggling with the ramp jump, I silently updated the map to add a narrow step next to the switch, so you could jump normally and not rely on the slope.

That and a few tweaks and fixes in shib3, Sun. 

I'm a metal-head not a chav.
I fucking hate chav scum so I'd rather not be compared to one thanks. 

Yeah the Blastocyst puzzle room was great. I also was stumped by the slope jump for a bit--I saw the button but kept trying to look for a different way to jump to it. The other part that held me up for a bit was the part right before where you have to to the timed two-button press to gain access to the next area. Although I thought I hit it the first time, I think I just barely missed and I assumed I did. 

Dunno if they have chavs in the 3rd world. 

I hope you choke on a yorkshire pudding. 

Haven't had a yorkshire pudding for ages :( 

Orl, impressive release! Very unique and entirely different from anything we're used to. I applaud the approach of disregarding conventions and make something in this scale and themes.

Nice hacks and tricks. I enjoyed the maps, although I had some serious ammo problems towards the end of shib3 and all throughout 4 and 5.

The levels look cool in the sense that the styles is so uncommon for Quake which is refreshing. Of course, the construction is fairly crude in many areas, but I suppose with the huge scale it's impossible to finetune things to the last brush and texture. Not complaining. I thought it was a bit of a shame the buildings were so empty and samey. Some variation (individual detail) here would have made exploration more rewarding. Again, I understand this would have made the pack even harder to finish. This way it's more about setting and scenery.
Disappointing most of them appear to be unvised. I realize a fullvis would take ages, but still -> func_detail the hell out of it and it should be okay?

Nice how it all runs on ID1, though I felt like it could have benefitted from just a little more monster variety in places. Still fun for the most part.

Shib1: fairly straight affair - unless one missed the GK which seems easy as it's tucked away unprominently in one the rooms. This level would have had potential for all kinds of visual story telling by means of unique details in the rooms and events on the beach. The bridge vista is awesome. Shame it cuts off at the sides, but nothing you could do about it. Felt like the girder beam secret could or should have been part of the main progression; running around on the roof tops is nice.

Shib2: kind of odd but nice puzzle map with a mind-blowing finale. I found the puzzles to be managable, no frustrating situations, and it's cool (and required) to see/realize what's going on and how things change on floor/ceiling.

Shib3: Great style and shapes. Seems like it has quite a bit of unused potential, though. Like the temple front was made mainly for the vista and then only populated for gameplay. The stuff in the distance is cool. Never used F11 more than in these maps. Progression can be confusing if one doesn't realize the importance of the central house, because the key doors are somewhat hidden inside.

Shib4: my favorite level of the pack. Very weird and original style and architecture, and cool vista that reminded me of Dark Souls somehow. At the same time, it's very awkward to play. I managed progression for the most part, but had ammo problems and there was pyshics crap likely related to problematic construction.
This may be something for ericw to look into: I had clipping issues on several lifts that would block and return even though I didn't touch any obstacle. Also why the hell does F10 close the game without confirmation?

Shib5: Proper western theme, pulled off well. Very consistent. I enjoyed the nonlinear exploration. The terrain, especially the transition to the skyline looks very natural. Shame the buildings are largely props with nothing inside. Again, this would have been a perfect opportunity for some visual storytelling to reward explorers.
Gameplay seems to rise and fall with the route one takes. Like I said, ammo (and health) was a problem for me, and the grunts chipping away at me from the distance. Also, FFS, clip those mine cart rails next time!

By and large, a nice surprise and refreshing chance of scenery. GG

Demos 

unbind f10 

3GB's of demos at only 86MB.

Terrific job Negke, very enjoyable to watch from beginning to end. And it looks like this time around you were having a good time, which I was very glad to see. Your little quips are always fun to read as you play.

To address some of the criticisms:
Yes, the rooms in maps 1 and 5 are by and large very samey and copy/paste. Reason being is I didn't want to spend too much time creating individual designs for each room. The goal of the project was to step away from the absurd detail I put into previous maps. And while it may look bland, it was sort of the intention.

I would have loved to have the golden gate bridge stretch off much further, but that is as far as the 999 protocol would allow. I did try to create the illusion of it stretching into infinity, but I couldn't get it to look right, so I stuck with what I had.

No trouble at all with map 2. Besides getting stuck briefly on the timed double sided ledge button puzzle, you passed it with ease.

You had no problem memorizing where the silver and gold key "doors" were in shib3, which I'm certain made progress for you go much more smoothly. And avoided all the raining rockets like a pro.

Obviously the big problem in shib4 was getting crushed by the platforms. Sadly from what I had learned over time, and by Ericw, this is and always has been a Quake problem tied to framerate. Even at 72 fps, you will still get crushed. Host_maxfps MUST be set to 60 or lower to ensure it doesn't happen. It sucks, but sadly there's nothing I can do about that. With that said, it was understandable you noclipped and god-moded your way through some of the map.

Despite being always low on health and ammo up to map 5, you managed to persevere and complete it. Shib 5 is designed so that, if one route seems to difficult, there is almost always another path you can take that might be easier.

Again good demos Negke, thanks for playing it all the way through! 

Why not use fog? That's what struck me first, how your exterior lighting looks almost fullbright. Fog would help immensely. 

Now that most everyone has had a chance to play the maps or at least watch them livestream, I'll share some info.

As much as I really did not want to, I had no choice not to vis maps 3, 4 and 5. Even func_detail'ing everything, the maps were still just too big and open for vis to have any affect. Not even a fast vis would make a difference. If anything, all it would do is increase the .bsp size by about 100MB or more.

Ericw can corroborate, as he has been attempting to vis shib5 for the past several days, though I give him credit for trying!

Inspirations for each map are varied from different video games, television shows and real life locations. Shib1 was actually based on a dream I had, where I wasn't on a tropical island, but a bridge largely resembling the golden gate bridge towered above me, stretching from left to right as far as I could see, and was so tall it extended beyond the clouds.

Shib3 is mostly just my admiration of Asian architecture, and not from any real life location. The same goes for shib5, just inspiration from other games and movies that used a western theme that I wanted to see be made in Quake.

Shib4 is as many have guessed, largely inspired by Dark Souls. Specifically towards the end of Dark Souls III, in two areas called Kiln of the first flame, and the dreg heap. The twisted and bizarre structures was to see just how Lovecraftian a Quake map can be. But more associated the map with Alice's adventures in Wonderland, which I can certainly see the resemblance to. The 'floor' texture is a birds eye photograph of a town in Syria that I heavily edited to make it look like it would be impossible to exist in our reality. http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/AFP_Getty-521723796.jpg

And finally, many compared shib2 to Portal. But shib2 is entirely inspired by an old, somewhat obscure 1996 game called Blast Chamber. The concept of the game is you the player are placed in a large cube, and are tasked with solving the cube, or chamber's puzzle. And to do so, you must rotate the chamber, which makes the ceiling the floor, and vice versa. Just look up any video on Blast Chamber and you will see the inspiration I took from it.

And as far as the many, many rotating objects I used throughout each map, you should credit Scampie for figuring out how to do that in id1. :) 

..real-world settings in videogames so this is heaven for me:)

But why people always think Quake engine could not manage these types of maps ?! It's an engine like the others.. only more dated!
If we saw few of these in the past is only for mappers fault, laziness :) 

It's not that real world settings can't be done in Quake, its more that there isn't really a desire for them. Most are comfortable with Quake's familiar themes. 

More than that, I think Quake's otherworldliness is precisely what makes this game still unique to this day, and it would be a bit of a shame to defile it with bland real-life settings like soooooo many other games do. Quake is a laboratory for creativity, abstraction and experimentation and that's how it should be. From what I've seen, your "real-life" maps in this pack are not defiling anything though, so congrats for pulling that off. All other RL settings I've seen before in Quake were just plain and boring AF.

Blast Chamber
I remember playing the demo on PlayStation back in the day. Was nice, but not enough for me to buy the full game. 

QuakeInjector's download progress bar is stuck at 0% and waits forever without giving an error. 

You should report this to Quaddicted instead of here. 

I don't think the episode is on Quaddicted yet. 

I think my machine won't respond to this large maps 

you have to set sv_protocol 999 and gl_farclip 100000 in teh console, and reload the map 

I tried several farclip 256000/10000, but it only chunks a full unvised path. 

set that, then reload the map and it should work 

Looing clear at the "path" screenshot it reads
using protocol 666 (FITZ) +Fte2(OX2A).
Also reloaded it with that statement.