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.. 

Have textured models show for entities in the editor:

http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-help/general-help/9998-how-do-i-see-actual-entities-gtk-radiant-1-5-a.html 

Are there any good tutorials to model/convert/and also program models for quake (with blender) ? 

The latest state-of-the-art blender conversion tool is this hacked together python-based thing:

http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/standalone-fbxtomdl/

To use it, make your model in blender, and then export one fbx file for each frame that you want to use. Extract the files in the fbxtomdl zip into a directory, then place all the fbx files into a subdirectory. Add all the fbx files to the directory, and add any skins in bmp, pcx or tga format. Then run the executable

fbxtomdl -d directoryname

General advice: make your model entirely from triangles, and skinmap your entire model in the same uv mapping - quake doesn't support different skins on different sections of the model. Be aware that the quake model format is not very accurate, so don't go overboard on the detail, and try to make sure that the model occupies roughly the same position in each frame. 

Does anyone, anyone at all have the source code for Worldcraft 3.3? Or even Hammer? Has anyone snuck into Valve and snuck back out with the golden gem of all mapping codery, the Hammer Worldbuilder Source Code?

Oh please say yes.... 

Main drawback of worldcraft, it can't be expanded with new functionality due to its closed source state.

I've never come across the source anywhere. 

I've managed to hit a very obscure glitch in tyrann's compile tools (it may be in others too)

*** ERROR 08: Internal error: map.nummiptex > map.maxmiptex


This says that the number of textures exceeds the maximum possible number of textures. The maximum number of textures is calculated as the number of faces in the map. My map is a cuboid, so that's 6 faces and a maximum of 6 textures. I have three textures, one of which is static but switchable (so 2 frames) and two of which are both switchable and animated (4 frames each). This makes 10 textures...

If you ever encounter this bug, the fix is to hide a smaller cube inside your brush: it will get clipped away, but it will raise the number of surfaces in your map to 12 for long enough to get all the textures. 

will definitely try it out! 

func_breakable

Is their a way to set how long the rubble will last? I'd like to have a custom rubble model hang around a minute or two. 

It's a fixed duration in the code. Not offering a guarantee lets us reuse the entities creatively - like replacing some of the rubble early if there's an explosion of gibs nearby and packet overflow is starting to occur. 

Use a func_door, func_train or something for your rubble that should stay around. Ideally I'd use a func_emitter (Extras/RMQ) for this, because it lets you set the particles' lifetime among other things, but I guess with Quoth you're limited to what's in the package. 

@Preach: Yeah, that's a bug from the original TreeQBSP on which my util is based. Pretty rare, but much more likely to happen on a tiny, tiny map. Good job on the workaround though - spot on! ;) 

http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/184783/the_metrics_of_space_molecule_.php 

That's pretty cool. I've been scribbling similar stuff for years without really putting further thought into it or thinking about how to make such sketches a stronger development tool.

Thanks.