a brush can have?
255? 

on the opposite side of the ravine place a vertical wall with a skip texture on it. players trying to jump over will fall down. 

You have a point there, but i have my own reasons too:

1) I want that there is as much people as possible that enjoy the map like it is. Someone that cheats won't enjoy the map, the same happens with those that play a map in easy, they get a half-assed experience on the first try, and that is the most important one, as you won't get the same feeling twice in most parts.
That is the reason too as to why i always play the first time in nightmare, as the map won't feel as hard and intense on the second time and subsequent ones, and i will miss that if i don't do it that way. The problem is that i will miss the first experience in normal and that normal won't feel the same after completing the level in nightmare, but i can live with that.

2) People that cheat can activate triggers without noticing, and get as a a result a weird or unplayable map, and then think that it is the company or the mapper/modder fault. I don't feel responsible for them and don't care about them, but they should be taken into account too, as that people makes comments too, and those comments can make that some people that would enjoy the game/map/mod won't play it. This applies to 1) too, as if they cheat they won't get the same feeling (you don't get the acomplisment feeling when you see a secret, it isn't the same feeling if you see a room from one point than from other, ...).

3) I just pity those cheaters, as they are missing the good and bad points on maps, because the don't see that they are destroying their own fun times by taking unfair shortcuts. Same with people that exploits big bugs to defeat bosses. Yes, I like to get in the way of the problems of others if this makes that i can correct things that are blatantly bad for them, even if this can get me into problems. On the other way, I even feel bad and void when i use the architecture and the AI in Quake as a way to defeat the monsters, and don't want for more people to get accostumed to this as it seems that is happening more and more as the time passes.

4) That way of restricting players can be good. As an example, i recently played ''An evil new'' by Tronyn and Murderous Martin, that have ways to prevent the player from using cheat codes, and thought that it was a good experience, even if it was hard and at some times i wished for those cheat codes, the impossibility of having them made me put more effort on it and the feeling of acomplisment was far greater than expected and I enjoyed it and completed all of them. 

I haven't thought about that till now, but now that i have the distance for a normal jump i can calculate the distance of a strafe jumping by using the difference in their speeds when walking. I suppose the height will be the same. It won't be accurate but will get me a general idea of it, and that way i have that information there for subsequent maps.

Enliten:That idea ..., there is better ones, like the others that were posted before. But thanks for the intention. 

Cocerello: "I haven't thought about that till now, but now that i have the distance for a normal jump i can calculate the distance of a strafe jumping by using the difference in their speeds when walking."

...

You're welcome. 

Cheaters cheat, it's up to them. They won't have much fun and aren't worth catering to. All the time that you spend combating this problem is time that could be spent on improving the map in other ways.

It has a parallel with the DRM argument - people who pirate your stuff wouldn't have bought it anyway.

Someone who cheats through your level won't play it properly because you block their cheating.

I used to try and block speed running, before I realized that I was hurting the maps.

Frustrating the player on purpose, no matter how noble the goal, is a bad idea.

To solve your problem I'd propose something cool and taunting rather than a physical block. Have the player ride through the area in a func_train cage beforehand or have votes spam magic at them from it from miles away.

These tactics will annoy the player but not frustrate them, and anyone that cheats their way over the gap is gonna know they missed out on something important. 

The more faces a brush has the less likely the map is to compile. Not for the brush itself but how it interacts with all the other brushes in the map.

The clipper is your friend! 

Quake players get to decide how to play the map.

Getting too obviously in the way of this is annoying for everyone involved. So just make the gap sufficiently wide that its obvious that you're not supposed to try to jump across. Then, if a player wants to spend 40 minutes lining up the perfect bunny sequence to jump across, then (a) he/she probably knows that they are not playing the map the way the mapper intended and (b) who are you to say this is less of an effort/reward ratio than the long route you had in mind? Dismissing an effort like this as "cheating" is almost insulting, imho. Ages ago distrans sent a nice mail to SDA about this sort of thing, search for "distrans" on http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/oldnews/03_jun20-sep05.html to read it.

OTOH, someone who types god, impulse 9 into the console and rjs across... well, screw em. That really is just cheating. 

Achievements.... I remember when I used to play wow, the most fun thing I ever did in that game was explore off-limits areas, or take monsters to where they weren't supposed to be to create havoc.

If somebody tells me I can't or shouldn't do something, it makes me want to do it more. You could even consider rewarding them for their out of order completion or challenging them spawn mobs that wouldn't be there had they collected a key or rune.... 

Mwh, enliten: You probably missunderstood my words, i consider cheating using the cheat codes, i do not consider cheating speedruns, strafe-jumping and bunny-hopping, as those involve tons of skills to pull them.
I still think that i have to prevent that the player reaches there, as that shortcut probably will avoid a big part of the map (i wouldn't mind if the shorcut wasn't so big). I won't prevent players to get there if they pull a good bunny-hopping or other hard to pull trick, but i will make it obvious that it cannot be reached with a normal jump or a strafe jump, if i finally put the chasm.

Ijed:

Have the player ride through the area in a func_train cage beforehand

I don't understand what you can achieve with this one. To have the player measure the place so he will know that he can't jump? Or to show him what he cannot reach?

or have votes spam magic at them from it from miles away.

I don't understand this one at all, all i get in my mind when i read it sounds so crazy. Could you explain it? 

"Overthinking" hits the nail on the head I think. 

I agree with mwh.

Map is a better map when it offers things that allow for increased replayability (aka replay value).

Don't worry if a player skips a big part of the map, because the player won't. The player will play the long route first time, then try the difficult shortcut in the future. 

I agree with what you say, ALL of it, as it is compatible with what i said. 

The two examples I mention are ways of making sure the player knows the area is important, but they're more complex than just leaving a hole.

Cage: This is done in one of the episode 2 levels where the cage goes through water. Basically drop the player into a cage (so they can see out) then move it through the area you want them to see. This means they look at it but can't interact with anything directly.

Vores: Players love monsters. They ignore everything else in favour of monsters, so if you put monsters somewhere then players will head directly for them despite everything else.

For example, if you've got a fork in the path and want player to take the correct route, put a monster in it.

If you put some vores (long ranged attackers) on the other side of your pit then players will know for certain that what's on the other side is important, even though they can't get there yet. They also have to kill the vores, which adds some nice dodge game play to your level. 

"You're not supposed to be here"

was a good command in one of the mission packs after rocketjumping.
So the developpers had foreseen these attempts. 

Terra - if you no-clip around a lot you get told off and made fun of. 

I've seen playtesters do all kinds of shit I'd never expect, tbh. It's true that they will go kill a monster if it's a threat to them, but they might as well go back and happily continue doing what they were doing before the monster came along - jumping on top of something, looking for loot, or whatever.

I'm always slightly hesitant when it comes to guiding players like that. Ideally, if you have a fork in the road, both forks should lead to something that makes sense even if the player takes the "wrong" one.

Like in DOOM. 

Thanks for the idea. I actually have a fork (which merges back together anyways), but on one side there is a weapon you can see, but I feel now I'd like to add a monster there too now. 

My latest map seems to be breaking compiler limits (I blame tronyn for wanting larger maps!) I know the models limit can be broken easily. The clipnodes I just need to be more aggressive with clipping ceiling space. The marksurfaces is black magic and can safely go up to 64k but I have not seen the face limit before. I can load the map fine but I was wondering if the face limit can be safely broken with Fitz engines?

(text from compiler window)
WARNING: Models 366 exceed normal engine max 256
WARNING: Clipnodes 35914 exceed normal engine max 32767
WARNING: Faces 35778 exceed normal engine max 32767
WARNING: Marksurfaces 42509 exceed normal engine max 32767 

Is a great example of 'follow the enemy road' since it's full of pointless loops that the player can take and get lost in.

I remember the chainsaw maze in one of the early levels that had lights flashing on and off - the whole thing was a giant time trap, but a fun one.

The player had two ways to know that they'd exhausted the area - the map and when there was nothing else to kill in it.

Since Quake doesn't have a map thanks to being 3d the player falls back on constant slaughter.

You're right in saying that players will do all kinds of mad shit (grappling onto scrags to swing across chasms!) but run away from monsters isn't a common one, assuming they're not out of ammo or on red health.

Which is something I'm experimenting with now - purposefully crippling the player to change their play habits. In other words, putting monsters where I don't want them to go. 

I got that In Hipnotic even when i wasn't cheating or trickjumping, probably because i like to look at everything to find new ways to go or secrets.

I remember getting that in the map where you see the mines for the first time, and thought that the way that was considered a cheat was more obvious to me than the one the mappper wanted the player to go. 

At least is was sowell maped that I could explore sideways without getting clipped. 

cthong 

What he's wearing under the lava.

And Mrs Chthon has to wear 30 bikini tops. 

I've been inspired to make my map by psp quake mods, and I was wondering how on Darkplaces I could get the texture filtering perfectly off so I can keep that pixel look inside my game.
Not being able to push the video setting under 1 (on filtering) makes me a sad man..