I can see the similarities to Lower Forecourt but the inspiration of this map is from playing MFX's latest map Klein's Bottle. I really liked the abstract architecture and bright floating void feeling. I have never been a fan of black void maps, it just seems a waste of a good skybox opportunity to me.

Didn�t Sock say he was retiring from Quake maps?
Technically I said I will not be doing anymore vanilla Quake maps. I am still working on my ITS mod (very slowly) and I have always wanted to play with a tech themed AI set which Quoth is a good fit for.

that's the problem I find, it's more fun to build stuff
This is exactly where this map came from, a desire to play with abstract architectural shapes surrounded by a cool skybox. The map is technically broken because it lacks any kind of portal/vis data and will only run on a good pc. It seems there are still people running Quake on old pc hardware and this map will be a slide show for them. It might be better to leave this as a screenshot rather than any serious release. 

Especially those 60+ likes I got on tumblr when I posted the image ;)

http://quakeguy.tumblr.com/post/85936164682/didnt-sock-say-he-was-retiring-from-quake-maps 

to have inspired you sock, you inspire me too!
Peace! Release it, come on. 

60 likes? Pff, I got 130!!!!!!1123 https://www.facebook.com/8723859970/photos/a.10150277895379971.1073741827.8723859970/10150371386514971/?type=1

Still looking for ACTIVE volunteers to join the page, I lack talent at recruiting people who like to post stuff... Join now to gain a lot of internet power and fame. 

Wait... posting on func_msgboard is the secret Captcha for activating an inside3d.com account? That's even more selective than NeoGAF! :-) 

I am at a dilemma, I started work on making the secret map for the first episode of "quake like id did" and it was going to be a low grav map. In-fact I was going to probably do 2 or 3 low grav maps in total, but I have learned that on standard quake it has to be named e1m8.

Here's the dilemma choice -

1. Have no low grav maps.
2. Name the map e1m8 and have just one low grav map.
3. Have multiple low grav maps and use quoth.

I don't want to do #1 really. If I do #2 it means we get just the 1 low grav map like in vanilla quake. If I do option #3 then I could have a normal mode, a hard mode and a quoth mode (aka "quoth like id did"). I don't know how much of a pain in the butt it would be to balance for a vanilla mode and a quoth mode though.

Any thoughts? 

#2 sounds good to me! But it's not like I'd lead a pitchfork-mob to your castle if you do something else. 

with mob! 

as i assume there is a workaround for your problem.
Negke can help you for sure. 

http://mobile.sheridanc.on.ca/~jonescor/temp/progs.dat

add 'gravity' to worldspawn for custom gravity setting. 

Is it going to replace all the enemies with spawns? 

that would take more effort than actually doing the custom gravity thing. 

which reminds of this mod that fixes every single aspect of quake....

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60978 

Option #2 is closest to the map pack title of "Quake like ID did it" IMO. I thought that the original concept was just to jazz up, expand and otherwise tweak the original levels as if ID had all of the time in the world to make them instead of being under a deadline to get it out the door.

Now that may mean that they might have added more secret levels with low gravity (I would think that that little extra bit of fun would have been something that they would have made the player have to work for before they could play it no matter what) but as it stands there is only e1m8 hard coded into the original engine which to me says that the "The way ID did it" part of the title means that that was a conscious decision, after all once the engine allowed for low gravity it would have been just as easy to make it a worldspawn entry.

There is a simple workaround, if you are willing to make each episode it's own standalone mod in its own folder you can have four secret maps named e1m8 with low gravity without changing anything in the engine or progs.dat. It's not like anything carries over other than the episode gates anyway (the sigils too) but that's just to activate the episode gates and allow entry to the final boss battle with Shub and there is a simple workaround for that too by simply making it tie into the final exit in episode 4.

The main downside to this is that it forces the player to take each episode in order instead of allowing for them to pick and choose (and the Nightmare skill teleporter might have to be moved).

Just my 2 cents... 

A quick scan of the progs.dat that necros posted looks like all that changed was that all of the "Official" map names (e1m1 through e4m8, all of the DM maps 1-6, Start and End maps) now allow for gravity to be set. I also didn't see what I saw in the joke progs where all enemies were turned into spawns. Adding a custom progs.dat is not an issue and to be quite honest you would have to do that anyway because if ID had unlimited time to roll out Quake they would have caught the fish kill count bug and fixed it anyway so no harm, no foul. 

Quake came with a custom progs.dat, so why shouldn't your map pack? 

I don't know what that prog fixes. I have no coding skills so unless someone donates a fixed one then it will just be the low grav... 

The idea isn't to spruce up all the id maps but to make an alternate universe quake. I kind of regret calling it that since it definitely feels much more detailed. I don't even think it will run on the original engine. 

If you don't mind asking, why not? Unless you're breaking the original engines limits that is. If so I get it and I completely approve (not that my opinion matters a bit of course).

One of the things that I forgot to mention in my previous post was that I almost positive that your project would break the limits set by the hardware of 1995, and why not? That was one of the issues that ID was facing and why there was a much more blocky layout.

I think that any Quake level should still have that blocky feeling (at least in the background) because that's part of what classically defines it (and the original models wouldn't look right if that blockiness wasn't there anyway) but with todays tools, engines and hardware there's no reason to not get a bit more detailed or add more surfaces to draw at once even when you know for a fact that it's going to break the original limits

I was under the impression that you were going to basically keep the general tone of each level, add some new areas to explore, move some secrets and maybe add new ones but in the end keep enough of the original levels general idea to make it recognizable as such while switching up the gameplay to make it fresh again (that's what the similarly named Doom mod did so that's what I assumed here). Was I wrong in that impression or have you changed your vision as to what you want the end product to look like?

I'm not trying to sound whiny here (especially when the whole thing is going to be free anyway so there is no reason for anyone to complain) but there is only what I've read here written by you to go on and the screenshots are few and far between. 

With all due respect and not meant as discouragement but QTWID not running in the original engines would be a major disappointment. 

Would be a major breach of public trust. 

I wanted to address this separately because I wanted to make some very specific points on it.

Alternate universes in fiction (and lets face it, Quake is set in a fictional world) have things that are the same yet different (sometimes very different, but still recognizable). For example, even though they share a lot of similarities in settings in a general sense, Star Trek is not set in the alternate universe of Star Wars. They are two very different universes.

I hate to sound like a Trekkie but if you look at how they did it the bones (not the doctor) were the same. The ships were similar in layout and overall feel, the enemies were similar (although they may be the opposite where who was once an enemy were now your friends and vice versa) and so on. In other words you knew what was going on was in an alternate universe, there were enough similarities to know in a general sense where you were but you may have to do things differently to complete your goals.

As a simple thought example, in the original Start.bsp the easy and hard level teleporters might be swapped in an alternate universe where reading was from Right to Left. In that universe it would make perfect sense and not cause anyone to bat an eye but would certainly draw comments in the original Quake universe. I'm not saying that a simple transposition is the answer but that the basic idea's could be the same while still being very different in implementation.

In another example e1m2 has a lot of things going on as far as choices for the player to get around. In an alternate universe some of the original ways to do things would have to be kept while others wouldn't be there but replaced by something different. Secrets, weapons and ammo may or may not be in the same places but the same amount and types would be there, that sort of thing. Continuity is the keyword here. The player has to be able to say to themselves "Hey I've been here before but it's different now".

Let the levels that you are re-imagining keep the bones of the originals. Then you are doing a "Quake as ID did it" because those bones are what helped to make Quake in the first place. Otherwise you are just doing another original mod or map pack and that may or may not stand out above the others. Gimmicky gravity might not be the way to go unless you do some careful thought on it first.


Again, just my two cents and that's not worth a whole lot these days. 

I respectfully disagree Shambler.

There are at least a few (free I might add) engines out there that are at least as good as the software 1.0.8 and GLQuake ones that do allow you to break the limits. Unless you want to play on a x386 with 8mb of ram and maybe, if you are lucky, a 260mb hard drive there is no reason for not being able to break the limits, not anymore.

If FifthElephant wants to keep it inside the original limits I have no problem with that (what I said was pure conjecture, but I did expand upon it) but it might limit what he has said in the past about what he wanted to do (he was after all recently considering switching over to Quoth which is so far outside of the limits that it's not even close to being original Quake, so consider that). But ultimately it's his project and it's his call. I'll respect his decision either way and let the work stand for itself in the end. 

Quake The Way ID Did It?

There's a clue in the name... 

If it's no longer what the name implies, better call it something else. People take issue with those things.