If it's any consolation, everybody's first map sucks. I've never seen necros' first map, but dollars to donuts it sucked. Same goes for xen, Speedy and myself. 

remember beta.bsp is madfox's first ever map.

"dollar to donuts"....nice american phrase. :) 

"QuakeTree, shut up."

Well I was expecting that but it DID get you to be more specific rather than the generalized:

"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."

Comment. Don't forget that at the time I wrote the post I stated that I "Had Not" seen the level as I was under the impression that it was in a .rar format, and I have no desire to clutter up my system with several pieces of different decompressing software.

And mega kudo's to you for explaining the problems you had with the level, in detail.

I've noticed a distinct lack of easily locatable information in general Quake editing information on the internet of late. (Yes I know that there are many such sites for other games that cover much of what you described above. But for someone who is new to it, they probably don't realize how much of it "can" pertain to Quake (Brushwork, Texturing, Details ect...).

If you want to help fix this shortcoming, I have an idea, start collecting various information from whats left on the internet (and what you know) and compile it into a package that is easy to use off-line. If you want to colaborate with me on this I would be more than happy to do so. Then you (and evreyone else) can point to a file and say RTFM.

And MadFox, After looking though the .bsp above, all of what Necros said is 100% correct. Don't look at it as a slap in the face but more as a lesson learned, and just use it to better your skills and the "art" of making a level. 

this might be somewhat interesting for the noob mapper/madfox:
http://xen.quakepit.com/tut1.htm 

Well, that really did make me feel good.
More like a child, who's is asked to get out of the way with his scooter-pet after he has passed for his drivers-license.

You have a point Necros, and I won't feel angry with you, but this dude is still waiting to hear from you about the level "MirrorMan" he sended you. Now I got the feeling you pinpoint all your argues on a map that was made in the times there were no editors. I wonder how many of you ever have bought one.
And if you have ever worked with an editor like Thread, which easilly puts two brushes on eachother, maybe you would talk otherwise.
Have you ever transposed 600x6 brushnames to make them fit in Qmap? Ever worked with the first version of Qmap or BSP256?

But that is no excuse.
We were talking about the 2003 standards of Quake1 gaming, so what the hell?
Allright, you didn't meet the Shambler, you played only Normal skill.
The count of monsters was wrong? Can't help it, the console told me so, blame the quake engine, not me. That you only had one shotgun is because you are in the first level.
It seemed to me people are so fixated in construckting one level, they almost forget, the game was a sequel of maps!
Sorry, but let us qualify a minute of ten Quake, and start reconciling, Indeed Jesus!

Not so long ago I read a revieuw of someone, who was complaining he had to fight with the axe, because there was not enough ammu.
So he though the level was bad. Make sense, why did they put the axe in it afterall?

Right for the statement of texturing, but I get the feeling you don't like the orb, because it has not cut its nails in a decent way. But if you levellords mutual are so devided, than I guess I still can learn something.

You are certainly right Speedy. This map is not perfect, in fact it is quiet a creep. But why hasn't there been anyone who said anything about "GraveyTrail"? I get the feeling that when UndergroundFan had not released it, it still had been unknown. The only thing I hear is that people cannot wait for ten minutes to download it. Than it certainly won't be worth the joy of five minutes playing!

Than the good request for mapping. In the time the site of Qmap still excisted, there was some kind of simmilar opinion.
Don't put too many monsters in your level, other people must be glad to play it, not get wrenched up in a masacre. But this site does not excist anymore. Same for the people who try to make a sequel, and if they were still there, they suddenly have to satisfy the standars of nowadays mapping. It makes me a little concearned. I guess you never have waited 48 houres to collect your failures and start again.

Still I am gratefull for your attention and answers, I will rejudge my statement of making a sequel, or get lost in the standards of profesional mapping of the Quake Team and the ancient times of the stomping grounds. 

i'm posting the feedback to this map here because i've emailed you about it but obviously, you didn't get the mail.

download this file:
http://www.planetquake.com/necros/temp/ne_kwarq05_demos.dz

i enjoyed this map. it's better pretty much all around. better lighting (sourced now, with good contrast in places). better gameplay (clearer route, although still got confused a couple of times). more consistent texturing. better brushwork.

still is a boxy looking map though... the fancy bar work does do a bit to alleviate this, but some of the areas (the underground area comes to mind) are very boxy... little more than a six sided room --which is bad.

thanks for the weapons this time! it was really nice to be able to use different guns.
--
even though bonus.bsp is supposed to be the first map, it's no excuse for putting vores in there with only the shotgun (and a shambler, apparently). either remove the vores, or put in more weapons because not everybody plays with god mode on.
--

there were some strange artifacts... you mentioned you used quark? make sure you are using one of the txqbsp tools, because it is the only one which supports floating point coordinates. quark uses floating point, so if you don't use txqbsp, you'll get seems and cracks after compiling (there were quite a few instances of this in mirrorman. i tried to point them out while playing)

also so strange texturing choices... in general, don't have light textures tile... it just looks wierd. also, align the textures!

-----
on the ax:
while forcing the player to use the ax can be an effective gimick, it will only last for so long. using the ax is a tiring and monotonous ordeal.
in general, try to stay away from the ax as much as possible.

on weapons:
all maps should provide the player with AT LEAST one other weapon to use. this is not because the map is too hard to beat without this weapon, but because the player will soon tire of using the same weapon to kill a large amount of monsters.
example: in bonus, i was able to complete the level without dying with only the shotgun, however i was bored unto hell of it.
example2: observe e1m1. although it's a very small level with only two dozen or so monsters, there are two weapons (not including the ones you start with): the doublebarrel shotgun and the nailgun.
Keep in mind, the supershotgun is a secret and the nailgun is out of the way.
however, they add variety to the killing.

on map length:
in general, level length (ie: how long you take to complete a given map) should be directly related to how much variation there is in the gameplay.
Bring yourself back to e1m1. since there is so little variation (ie: few different monster types, few different weapons) the map is short.
now think of nesp09 (i'll take an example from one of my own maps this time. ;))
the map is long because there is much variation.
also keep in mind that the map would not have been good were it not for the extra monsters. it would have been too long. the added leniancy granted by the addition of the custom monsters let me prolong the map more than what would have made sense. (ie: as opposed to mowing down 20 shamblers, you mow down 8 shambler, 4 fireshamblers, 6 weak shamblers and a smattering of chthons).
so perhaps, bonus.bsp should not be as long. if it were shorter, it would be possible to preserve the current weapon set up. it would, however, still be necessary to remove the higher powered monsters unless there were special circumstances which were in favour of the player (quad damages, pents, RA)

i'm sure some of what i said is arguable, but this is what i've come to think after 6 years of playing quake. 

Just to clarify, MadFox seems to be using an older QuArK version (4.07 I think) that generates float maps but he still claims to be using the old qbsp256 which absolutely does not support float values in map files.

With this tool combination, he can map off-grid and then the compiler will do the "grid-snapping" due to the accuracy loss. This will actually produce pretty solid maps (without too much clipping errors) but with big visual brush alignment problems. All non-axial planes will "snap" to the nearest integer adjusted position with interesting results ...

The bad thing is that since the maps apparently are made off-grid, it doesn't help to upgrade to compilers that can read float maps. It actually makes things worse by accurately trying to fit together brushes with tiny gaps or overlaps. This will cause major clipping errors and leaks.

A difficult situation indeed ... 

you made a little while back? it was more or less succesful in converting map which were made in quark407 to a map editable in other software.

i only needed to fix a few dozen brushes (as opposed to hundreds or thousands). 

would help much in this case, since it really tries to preserve the individual face direction and position when converting from float to integer coordinates in the map file.

Since the brushes/faces are off-grid the only thing that can help is actually what MadFox is already doing; snap to grid either in the compiler (by using an integer-only compiler) or in pre-compiler stage (e.g. using my ConvMap to convert map file to integer format by cutting off the fractional part).

There's nothing that I know that can automagically repair the brushes to whatever MadFox wanted them to look like. Except of course an extensive manual brush-aligning editor session ... 

Although my broken english is rather queer for a foreigner, I have overcome to an understanding point of what you are talking about.

First, sorry necros, email seems to be an "as if" medium. When it gets lost, only the spam-error will surprise you. And indeed thanks again. The last statement gives me knuckles, but it also reminds me of my poor technical insight. I hardly understand, what you mean with tex-clipping and all.
You are right,when you say the maps are box-a-like. In the time I made them (P100-32Mb ram) it was hardly impossible to make the map bigger. I just did not have the knowledge of doing so, and if I did, the programm collapsed.
Same for the reason, if I wanted to make the maps better. The count of brushes already used prohibbit me of doing so. And then I also get the feeling I am betrailing my own good
purpose.(Although you are right, when you are talking about the standards of nowadays mapping). Looks as if I will stay an "Old School" mapper anyway.

Indeed, I use Quark4.07, for its handsome vieuwer. I couldn't handle the one in the later versions.
And I am claiming nothing, argue, I just wanted to explain, how hard compiling was in old days. There are maps in this sequel I builded two or three times all over again, because after houres compiling, I received the message "Unexpected error occured" and I was left with a compiled BSP, but no map of it.

I use bsp256, because it has a manner to seak for leaks, and it can force brushes which are outlined, back into the grid again.
But at the same moment, it turns all entities into functions, so the whole map has to be redrawn again.

Thanks for the hint for texbsp. I surely will use that one in the future, as for the better
compiler.
I devided the two packs of eleven back into four packs of six. So I have to change the ammunition setting, and the monster-count as well.And I am feeling somehow sorry, to do this work on my own.

But great to have this assistence and responds! 

this might be somewhat interesting for the noob mapper/madfox:
http://xen.quakepit.com/tut1.htm

Cheers ray, I'd forgotten all about that page :-)

Do you have any opinions on that article, madfox? I'd be interested to hear the views of a newer mapper.

(It's not totally accurate, I zoomed through the lighting section a bit and the reasoning behind detail sometimes contradicts itself, but no matter.) 

Necros, you zipped me away with your file.dz
Me so decent to send you the level by email,
and now I can go scratching on a side, to evaluate your zipping command.Did not work.
Who was argueing about compression programms?

I've seen the articel, xen. At least it looks
much about the legandary QMAP-site.
Wonderfull to get noob after all this time...
Xen, try GraveyTrail. 

.dz is Dzip format, specifically for demo files. they compress about twice as much (the .zip file size was 2mb, whilst the .dz file is about 800k)

here's the file in .zip (2mb):
http://www.planetquake.com/necros/temp/krq5demos.zip 

sorry about that. i often forget not everyone has dzip. :) 

...perhaps everybody should have it.

Madfox, get dzip here...

http://planetquake.com/sda/dzip 

I found some data-storing on Lycos.
I released the first six maps of Abandoned,
so if you have some time, you could try them.
I named them dummy.rar
Read the text, take only the leftback path in the Chapel!

http://members.lycos.nl/portable/dummy.rar

Lots of fun Christmass, and give me some support. 

Ah ...bad luck again 

It seems the data gets blocked.
Once the http//members.lycos.nl/portable
appears it gives a delay.
If you type dummy.rar behind it, it starts downloading.

Can somebody cheque this? 

problems downloading this, in fact it was a fast and solid link.

I haven't played anything yet, but I already have some suggestions. Please consider using the standard zip format instead of rar. I have absolutely no problems with it, but others might. The size difference is typically very small.

Also consider change the name of the pack/directory to something else than "dummy", "temp" etc. Use the real name "The Abandoned" (or a short version thereof). Otherwise some people might not take your work seriously. 

I clicked on the link and was redirected to ......nl/portable so I added /dummy.rar to the end of the URL and it started downloading. (note: case sensitive!) 

Don't put your personal config.cfg file inside the pak.

And if you absolutely must release a beta start map that is a maze of twisty corridors (all different ...) with most teleporters not working, then at least offer a correct hint to the only working one.

Which is in the back right corridor from the start position. 

I exited the first level (skill 0) with 30/103 kills. I killed everything I found and wandered around lost for quite a while. I would guess it's possible to cut off large sections of the map. ;-)

I'll post something more constructive once I've played a bit more. 

It's far too big and complex. A start map should get straight to the point: Selecting a skill level (which you did well), and then selecting a map to play (which you have messed up.)

For the final release, simplify your layout. Also, those two corridors with the sourceless, very bright lights look ridiculous.

On the positive side, some of your corridors, particularly the ones with the demon-head decorations, look very good. They actually achieve id level standard. Try extending that style and level of detail throughout the start map. 

First let me explain it is a wonder you could download the file, my intentions were just to show something, what has lingered for so long in this toppic.
Glad, because now there is a possbillity to talk about the subject.
I had put a readme.txt with it, but maybe you didn't read it. As for the extention.
I tried several times to upload a zip file, but it seems only the rar pack came through(?)

I admit, the startmap is somehow twisty and strange. As for the fact only one teleporter works to a sequence.
But as I got so queer of betatesting, I wondered how other people would relate to it.
And as Morfans says: the first map gives 30/130
kills. I don't know what causes this lack of 90
monsters.

For now I am just glad I got this part of the pack on the internet.
Probably full of small errors, but close to the target I was construckting too.

The exit to OnePair gave me a Alloc_hunc error, so I had to change it for a smaller map.

Please, give me more advice. I will be glad to change things, but I got so drenched in the beta testing, I have a hard one on keeping an
objective perception. 

On Zevon's last record, there's a line in "Rub Me Raw" that's "... to all you greenhorn chicken hoppers, find yourself a trade, or go back to the chatrooms and fade in the shade."
Just FYI