special custom engine features that need to be added for this pak to run, i.e. any Q1 engine should be able to run this pak if just all the bugs were fixed and unnecessary limits were removed.

All files are in plain Q1 format, although utilized to the hilt. There are no q3bsps, md2/3, mp3 or other non-Q1 stuff in it, not even png or jpg. Just plain bsp, mdl, wav, tga etc.

Since WinWarp can run it, there are no required extensions. It'll look better with skyboxes, fog and external mdl/spr texture support, but it's not required to run it.

And those extra items are all in the most common formats that many engines support, e.g. tga skyboxes/textures. The external mdl/spr textures are e.g. in JoeQuake style (inherited from FuhQuake, I think)

You'll need to expand the engine protocol to accommodate for the higher limits, but that can be done in any way you see fit. The only time the protocol makes any difference is when playing MP (e.g. coop) or recording/playing back demos. In those cases, you'll need to have the same protocol in all clients/servers.

Otherwise the protocol is just an internal engine method that can be implemented in any arbitrary way. My implementation is as simple as it gets, just expanded fields for mdls and sounds. 

yeah i read that the runes open the secret level earlier. what i meant was it was useless for ME, since I wasn't on nightmare and never found the other ones. i just noclipped to the secret level anyway, hehe.

so ijed have u started your next big q1 pack yet? :) 

I played it fine using wine. :) 

Not working quite righ for me, but it's an interesting idea... I'll hassle you over details in IRC some time! 

Shouldn't be too hard. All I have installed is wine, wine-utils, libwine, libwine-alsa, libwine-gl. All 0.9.25-2.1 from the debian repositories. I had to append -noipx to the commandline (wine glwarp.exe -noipx -quoth -game warp). I had sound crashes (resulting in lots of noise) every now and then, that was annoying but I think it is my crappy onboard soundcard. 

Well, I'm messing around with some stuff and have a couple of test maps, and I'm maybe going to learn some Qc, or how to copy + paste it, anyway.

Nothing like the size of Warp, maps topping around 200 monsters or so. 

... spent the best part of last weekend(in and out) trying to get the last 2 secrets of warpe. To no avail. I only found crushing, ballache and fearless. Could not figure how to get to sneaky and , of course, the last one's missing(rune?). Please, oh, please anyone willing to lend a hand?
Pleasee... 

Here's some hints:

Jump through a hole in the wall near some Shamblers and Gaunts for sneaky.

The lost shrine is the final one, though it has no rune. Search for it after you've dropped through the Vermis pit teleport. 

Several attempts, obviously.

Does what it says on the tin really. Hard gameplay and a brief but brutal final battle. Not much finesse but fun enough. The challenge seems to come from the lack of cover, and those flying things getting where you can't hit them. It was pretty good. I like the architecture better, it had hints of WarpD but enhanced on it with increased grandeur and more fleshy bits. Being considerably shorter the void and the challenging gameplay didn't get tiresome. I do think a bit more variety in gameplay would have been better though. 

This is a hugely impressive pack. It has taken Quake into a whole new level of size and hardcore attrition gameplay.

Some of it I didn't like, a lot of it I did. I do think my attempts to get through the maps first go were actually the wrong thing to do - it was a pretty gruelling challenge. Playing a map in "episodic" stages was more fun and would have allowed me to appreciate the sheer scope more - this worked for WarpC, although I still maintain that's the best for objective factors.

However even though I found some of it gruelling, this pack has certainly been prominent in my mind in the last couple of weeks - it has got me quite addicted in fact. That in itself is a good feat for a map release!

Well done ijed, a hell of a way to make your mark. 

And the best way to play it is piecemeal, at first at least. For second runthroughs try the extra game mode options - I still haven't played it in coop modes myself; trying to get a group of four together, but not easy in Quake. 

...for those of whom it might be of interest, here's the high spec stereo version of the track I made to accompany 'warpe'.

http://shub-hub.quaddicted.com/files/misc/warpe-dis.mp3 

...worst English sentence ever. Sorry for butchering the language. 

high spec stereo version of the track I made

Hey! warpe soundtrack is way cool! Thanks for this!
Any other music files of yours accessible out there? 

Distrans - I called it starscream inside the pack's readme because of the email conversation . . .

Thanks for this stereo version - goes in the playlist :) 

...only the Travail soundtrack (in terms of ambient) so far. That should become very useful on Monday or Tuesday of next week.

There's other bits and bobs (some pop, rock and even country) but nothing I'd recommend. When the current Folk Noir project gets some stuff together, I'll point you at it.

ijed: I thought about it, but out of deference to tronyn I decided to go with warpe-dis :) 

So Travail is out next week? Nice.

Also, never heard of Tronyn's Starscream map - Ethereal Hell says it was part of the Coagula contest . . . have to play. 

Star Scream is a great name for a map. 

the Travail soundtrack

Yeaaah. I didn't miss this release some months ago, but I tried not to spoil my pleasure and kept it fresh for the - now soon to be released :P - Travail mission. (Once you've seen a good movie or played a great game, listen to its related soundtrack is such a compelling and addictive memory trigger!)
...Although my Travail soundtrack CD is burnt ready yet! 

my opinions..

start map. very nice, probably the most brutal nightmare entrance i've ever encountered! not that i went for it, once i'd found it i backtracked & went to the normal one instead =) solid design here though

warpa. wasn't too keen on this, mainly because of the snowy textures, imo quake doesn't handle them that well. the designs were pretty plain also, although i did like the end room. gameplay was so-so, got rather annoyed at the repetitive shambler ambushes. the exit was neat =)

warpb. wowow, fantastic! best new map i've played since marcher fortress. the scale & layout were both tops, with really neat architecture & great use of curves.. the end arena being the highlight. gameplay was also spot on, never once felt too crowded despite the huge monster count, and managed to stay varied with a few decent setpieces. the music & the fog really added to the atmosphere, too. ended up finishing in 76:14, somehow with only 397/427 kills, despite killing everything i came across. only found 2 secrets =(

warpc. also awesome, although not quite as consistent as the previous map.. it had some annoying parts, like the purification chamber (just seemed like lots of excessive running around) and the massive curved underground catacomb section towards the end (where you had to push three buttons & fight shitloads of droles.. got tiring), but plenty of good parts too, like the gk area, underground lava cave, final arena & library sections. overall i think the variety works in favour ; it felt more like an episode rather than just a big level the way warpb did. very epic.. finished in 92:48 with 5 secrets, 382/399 kills

warpd. considering the quality of the first two maps, this was a massive letdown =( i hated it. thought it looked really bland & far too 'right angled' with lots of samey looking sections & without much in the way of interesting/pretty architecture. the layout also seemed alot simpler & 2d, and the gameplay was FAR too repetitive; playing it felt more of a chore than an enjoyment, especially in the later stages. i think the main problem was it was just too damn big given the lack of variety, and went on for too long. in addition, the atmosphere from the two previous maps just seemed absent; maybe it was the bland lighting, change of mood in the soundtrack or the bright skybox.. but i really couldn't get into it. the gore sections didn't seem to integrate that well either, they just contributed to the randomness of the design. forgot to screenshot my exit stats after finishing but my time was around 82 mins, a good 10 mins or so less than warpc but it felt an eternity longer

warpe. better.. although some of the design work looked a bit messy and the lighting seemed to lack contrast on some of the more open sections. the vertical aspect was neat though; the gaunts were really effective as a result. the droles/vores/shamblers got a bit boring to fight though, since it was just standard ducking/shooting for most of the map, in a fairly linear fashion. the end battle i'm in two minds on... whilst it was well engineered, the only way i could beat it was by polishing off all the monsters before the quad ran out; which resulted in short crazy bursts of gameplay with lots of retry attempts.. when ultimately i'd have preferred a longer, more epic battle, with more chance of surviving on the first/second attempt


on the whole, i'd have to say kudos for coming out with something this size all by yourself, that must be one hell of a task. even if warpd was completely left out it would still be an epic episode, and i'd have probably rated it alot higher. still either way it's definitely inspired me & hopefully will serve as some sort of a milestone in q1, pushing the limits the way the the classics (mexx9, zer, insomnia etc) did. i look forward to your future projects, ijed! 

warpa and warpd are the weakest in the pack - and the last ones finsihed, they should have been more detailed.

Warpc is the map I like the least (horror) its built from scraps, more or less, even though all the scraps were built for warpc. It was assembled from multiple files, which is why its so disparate.

Warpb is easily my favourite map of the pack, even though its very sectional, which is belaboured by the scale of the environment.

warpe and s were pretty much fun stuff to build, even though the gameplay is fairly flat. I was stuck on the final battle of warpe because what I wanted to do wouldn't work since monsters cannot destroy scenery even by accident.

So I went guns blazing - maybe its a bit tedious to do the constant quickloads but its also a scraping through by the skin of your teeth feeling that gives a good sense of accomplishment.

Glad you liked.

I'm messing with a couple of maps at the moment, waiting for one to catch my attention enough for me to finish it. 

So, it took a while to finish the full pack, and I do not have more to say than others: what a pack ! These levels are really really big, and each needs hours to close it with 100%...
Nice job, I'm just curious to see the next one ;)
Keep it up ! 

 

I played it whole night, still stopped at warpd because I need to sleep sometimes =)

A great pack. Interesting gameplay, good design, large scale (which I liked the most). great job! But spawns were annoying. I kept walking with GL looking around the corners for spawns and tried to kill them before they begin to jump. Also I didn't like those ambushes of dogs/fiends behind you, but then got kinda used to them.
Good use of dogs. It seems like most of people forgot that these monsters exist in the quake universe. Good traps but you could have done a little more them in maps of such scale.

Well, it seems that mappers can simply use aguire's engine for their maps and forget about marksurfaces, clipnodes, edicts and other limits and make maps of giant scale with tons of monsters. Am I not right?

ps gonna finish this mod tonight 

The traps are a bit lame, I admit. There should have been more that involved the whole environment, with moving floors, walls etc. As complex as it gets is warpd with multiple laser shooters, but that's it.

I tried to keep the spawns natural, as if the enemies have entered the map from somewhere else and only just caught up to you, but that's not always as is in many parts.

AguirRe's engines are great.