8-) 

Enough small talk. Seems when someone starts about beta-testing, it gets so crowded, you'll
end up alone.
So I decided to post the start-level.
It has nothing to do with nowadays big architecture levelling. It was the first level I made with Qmap in 1997.
Tell me what you think.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/beta.rar 

Donnuh what it is. I got the right adress. Or doesn't fit the rar.extention

ftp://gimli@members.home.nl/gimli/beta.rar 

 

I have opened this toppic, and you tell me it is the wrong place to post it???
http://members.home.nl/gimli/beta.bsp 

Seems only pictures can be downloaded.
How do I post a bsp? Don't tell me I have to pass PlanetFile first. 

It was just an answer, Starbuck
Did not have any pretention with it.
I never post the same answer in two toppics.
One can get irrelyable, reading the next answer. 

http://members.home.nl/gimli/Beta.rar 

i mistook this for the thread for gmsp3 (in which case it would have been a bit harsh taking the attention away from his map :)) 

Error in packed beta.rar.

i.e. it won't open... 

Looks as if the Squad Gloom doesn't like messin with rar.

Try again:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/bonus.bsp 

what is wrong with the completly acceptable and widely used .zip format? 

Thought you would like to play the level.
But knowing Necros as a good beta-tester (mirrorman), I'll explain.

I have only 4Mb Internetspace in my possession.
Winzip is a good archiver, but zipping a BSP of 1.4Mb will lead to a BSP.zip file of 1.4Mb
Winrar makes it to a BSP.rar of 582byte.
That is the difference.
But sure. Winrar is a commercial zipping program, and Winzip is free.

I found the corrupted file.
I have replaced it for a good one.
So the ones above are gone.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/Beta.rar 

Alright, once and for all.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/bonus.bsp 

are you sure your actually compressing the file in the zip archive instead of just storing it? because winzip has different levels of compression where one level doesn't actually compress anything at all, just is used for storing lots of files in one big one.
because i zip all my maps, and i've never seen a 1 : 1 zip ratio. 

All I can say is if you use WinRar or WinAce you are most likely going to lose some people playing/showing interest in your map.

That being said, I can understand your concern about space and bandwidth but,in my experience, a 1 to 1 ratio only happens with images . (nothing to compress as it were) but a bsp is mostly "text" (for a lack of a better way of putting it).

I just looked at gmsp3 and it is 5,616,200 unzipped and 2,316,496 when zipped (59% compression). I also un zipped it and re-zipped it just to see what Glassman did and he did it at maximum compression (slowest). It took me about 5 seconds to re-compress btw so slow is relative. 

Thanx for the good advice.

Anyone played the map actually? 

if you want my honest to god expert advice-no mallice intended-0% sarcasm: do not release this map.

i'm dead serious here. you've got to work on the brushwork a lot. quake is not cramped mazelike passages with 0 attention to detail. play through the quake episodes again and some of the custom maps released to get a feel for it.

12:19
0/0
77/129 (which begs the question, where the fuck are the rest of the monsters? mind you, there were quite a few fish.) 

As I mentioned in post #102, this map was the first one I made. I had no pretention with it.
If you say I should not release it, then you can forget the whole convertion.
It was my own idea to let it be this way, because it was just the way it proceeded.

Alright. I could make some changes, but I showed it here, because I thought I could get some good advice.
That doesn't mean I won't hear of any critism, but then again, where is your command on the "MirrorMan" map I send you?

Sure I believe there's a lot of work to be done, but I have not seen anyone trying to make an episode of 24.

And I get quiet amazed of all that straight-to-the-top levelling I see nowadays. But that are all stand-alone's. Never gave me the continuous flow Quake1 offered me.(And will not be seen again, even not for the fool I am.)

After all...I do it just for Fun!
But thanks for the command, and I do mean that! 

All Necros was saying is that it's not up to the current (2003) standards. Now while I have not seen the level yet, I'm willing to bet that it most likely is up to 1997 (or so) standards. That's probably when a lot of these guy's started mapping themselves.

And Necros, lighten up, if your "first" beta got hammered by someone who was "experienced" after you had put a lot of work into it, wouldn't you be a bit testy?

How about putting in some constructive critisism(sp). Point out to him WHY the brushwork needs some work not just to look at what somebody else did. There's a lot to look at in any level. Some done right and some done wrong (including the original Quake levels I might add).

And before you start to flame, I've played around with WC 1.6 quite a bit, I never released anything because I don't feel the need to subject myself to the attitude you expressed above. 

If you could e-mail me the item in question (in a non-rar form) I would be happy to look at it and give you constructive critisism.

tedsam1963 (at) Yahoo (dot) com 

Thanks Quaketree.

I knew there would be an argue on the point of
imperfect mapping. But that was just my point of state. The diary of a mapper.
The whole convertion is almost done, so you can
bite yourself on that kind of queer-talk.
But I can use some hard critism, after constructing so long. Two know more than one.

I can only say I had a lot of Fun with it.
I had to thank Armino Rigo instead for his free
editor.
Ever bought a commercial editor "Thread"? That costs money! And my maps are freeware. Thanked be the good folks at Quake for such a good game!

Post #114 delivers an unzipped BSP, so you're welcome. 

And Necros, lighten up, if your "first" beta got hammered by someone who was "experienced" after you had put a lot of work into it, wouldn't you be a bit testy?

How about putting in some constructive critisism(sp). Point out to him WHY the brushwork needs some work not just to look at what somebody else did. There's a lot to look at in any level. Some done right and some done wrong (including the original Quake levels I might add).
QuakeTree, shut up. he wanted my honest opinion, so i gave it to him. i really don't think the map should be released. there are so many things wrong with it, that i don't even think underworldfan (in his infinite generosity ;)) would be able to justify reviewing it with a decent mark.

and I did give constructive criticism.
you've got to work on the brushwork a lot. quake is not cramped mazelike passages with 0 attention to detail. play through the quake episodes again and some of the custom maps released to get a feel for it.

i told him that he needs more detail and to look at how the original quake mappers did it.

MadFox, if you want me to elaborate:

brushwork:
do not make a map purely out of boxes, stretched boxes and other similar primitives.
Use the grid
Don't make protruding small brushes which impede progress
Don't make areas which require trick jumping to get to unless they are secrets.
the map should have a general flow, not just blindly stumbling through different areas wondering what to do next.
Details! there are no details whatsoever! trying varying textures in long corridors more. try adding some curves, or something. try adding trim to where floor textures change
DO NOT have the waterlevel of a water brush equal to a solid brush. it looks really stupid in game.
Do not make door which open into a solid brush on the same plane. what results in bad z-fighting (where two polygons compete for the same space), aka flickering walls

lighting:
unsourced lighting sucks. by unsourced, i mean light which seems to emenate from thin air. it's bland, and leads
there were a few instances of shadows which was nice.
don't make everything so bright. darker areas (obviously, not pitch black) are a welcome change.
the quake symbol shadow was neat.

gameplay:
Jesus christ! playing the whole map with only the shotgun is retarded! with 77+ monsters, i got really pissed off killing vores with a god damn shotgun! (at least there was plenty of ammo, i never ran out).
i never even used the gold key, i think. somehow i beat the map without it.
i had no idea where i was supposed to go. the majority of my time was spent wondering around backtracking trying to figure out where to go next.
at least there were no spawns
at least there were no shamblers (with only the shotgun, that would have been ridiculous)
don't put fiends in small enclosed spaces. it completly negates their jumping attacks and makes them stupidly slow and easy to kill.
don't put vores where they can't get easy los on the player. again, it negates their longrange tracking attack making them useless.
FISH GET BORING TO FIGHT AFTER THE 20th ONE!

misc/textures
The new door texture, besides being a tech one (which was just a recoloring of the normal base door) sticks out like a sore thumb in the medieval theme. besides the fact that the texture just plain sucks and doesn't fit with quake's palette at all.
trim would really help as well.

maybe that information will be useful to you, maybe not. maybe you'll just hate me and never talk to me again and never play my maps/say my maps suck from now on. maybe you'll go into self imposed exile. and maybe, you'll take what i said at face value, screw up your ego and go map. 

What editor do you use? Does it have grid snap?

#1 most important thing in this case would be to use it, and do all the bulk of your main architecture with the grid set to 32 units. Most of your corridors should be at least 128 units wide/tall (4x32). Think of the player movement.

Then start gradually taking into account what necros said. You're wasting any talent you might have by overlooking simple things like this. 

well, lets put it the other way

The goal of game level designer is to create an interesting map. And that requires both - the playabilty and the looks.

Your map absolutely fails in the second department. It could not keep me interested for more than couple of minutes (thus I cant say much about the gameplay) and I dont see anyone willing to play the entire episode of such nubish dull maps.

Please dont go defensive here. You have to understand that if you want people to play and enjoy your maps, you need to make them visually appealing and interesting (even badly made but imaginative and original map can be interesting).

You have to learn.