Or in Linux you just use an alias like
alias qs="cd ~/quake && ./quakespasm -zone 2048 -heapsize 192000"
for example in your ~/.bashrc, then you source ~/.bashrc once and then you can use it the same way (from any location, or if you are in ~/quake already you could use tab completion for the game). 

cheers guys,

i'll ring him 2moro and tell him to try those out. 

yep, that sorted his problem out, so excellent stuff all round.

thanks again, guys. 

Been meaning to post my thoughts on the map anyway, so here goes. I have to say I am seriously impressed with the quality of the QC work on display here - the attention to detail is awesome - the "physics" door in the start map would have made my monocle fly off had I happened to have been a Victorian gentlemen.

On one playthrough when I was just checking stuff out casually, I ran past the enemies at the start to reach the building - and whilst I was bumbling around in there, a bunch of dogs (who were miles off when I left them) had seemingly pathed perfectly to track me down inside the building. I wtf'd for a bit, until I vaguely remembered a func post where you were talking about implementing A-Star in QC and it was at that point when my second monocle became airborne.

In general I liked all the new QC and the new monster stuff - I found them mostly tough but fair - and the fast zombies nearly made me shart my pantaloons on a couple of occasions. The spawns-in-a-vase were annoying until I realised what was going on, then they became cool. I must admit that this map (along with Tronyn's stuff) has reminded me again just how much I friggin' love the Hexen II monster models.

I loved the architecture in general although I think a bit more variety would have helped with my orientation, but that's a minor quibble. For me it was all about the gameplay setpieces and there were heaps of them and all were stellar.

A special mention must go to the final boss fight which was seriously the most impressive finale I've ever seen in a quake map. The way the lava spawns froze was fantastically cool and is another example of the amazing attention to detail I mentioned earlier.

Really, really awesome job :) 

thanks!

yeah, the hexen2 models are really quite good. some of the animations i find are a bit iffy, but the meshes themselves are solid.
it's too bad that the hexen2 and quake styles are not a little closer together to allow them to be used more often in quake. 

it's too bad that the hexen2 and quake styles are not a little closer together to allow them to be used more often in quake.

some good skin-fu can fix that :} - I'm working on a super quakey reskin of the archer for my new stuff.

With H2 models i'm always tempted to use their full 20hz anim framerate but imo it doesn't fit with quake's 10hz crustiness, so i always skip every other frame in the QC - I keep all the frames in the model unchanged though because I always felt that if i chopped them out and resaved the .mdl then i'd probably get "noise" (can't think of a better word right now) introduced into the vertex coords as the model might have new bounds or something, so the verts might get shifted around or some bollox. I haven't tested it. 

i removed a LOT of frames from eidolon. in ruins i left the animation rate of the h2 monsters at 20fps because i didn't really notice much problems with it at that rate. in retrospect, it does change other things like ai updates and such, plus you need to halve the yaw_speed because at 20fps, the monsters think twice as much and so turn twice as fast, so i should have just gone and reworked the animations for 10fps. oh well. :P 

I'm a pernickity old fuddy-duddy of only the mustiest leather-elbow-patched tweed, who these days will only play Quake in software-rendered WinQuake (or Aguire's WinQuake for those maps where a little more muscle is required). In fact, I played ne_ruins in software mode so I'm afraid I missed out on some of the intended graphical flourish...but my point with all this is that if you use an engine that interpolates frames then I suppose a 20hz animation gels a lot better with the overall visual style, and the difference between 10 and 20hz is not very noticeable.

In non-lerped software quake, a 20hz monster stands out like an elegant ballerina amongst a rabble of peg-legged drunks, which is why I tend to "cripple" them a little bit to make them fit in better. There have been a couple of exceptions in extreme circumstances - in my maps the Gauroch's charge attack uses the full 20hz anim because he moves so fast it would look crap otherwise. 

Is this almost fully coopable?

During a coop attempt of this, I found myself dead by the ice golem and couldn't progress back to that area due to a rock in the way that was blocked by noclip all the way up (preventing even rocket jumping over it.)

I've noticed that among map authors, your maps are almost always very consistently entirely coopable in every way. 

likely some graphics breakdown would occur for some players if you trigger the final lava flood before they have all entered the final stairwell.

Also monsters just pop in so if a player is triggering them, another one will suddenly have monsters in their face for no reason.

so yeah, not super good for coop. 

Just realised I still haven't played this. Shall add it to my list. 

 

not that its in my might to ask, but where do all the flickering edges occur from, and why?

detail brushes?

i've just noticed that, playin with fitz, qs too.

suberb it is nontheless..:) 

this was made before the detail functionality was added to compilers so they are all func_walls.

func_walls don't generate 't-juncs' on corners the way normal brushwork does and the t-juncs are what stop the flickering.

it's probably more noticeable because there are func_walls in almost every room for a lot of the brushwork in an effort to reduce various thigns to stay under map limits. 

that's it. was just curious, you know.
thanks! 

That should be fixed in RMQe - though it's not everyone's favourite engine. 

and never noticed anything 

My catch-up on big maps continues. I can see why you chose not to publish a screenshot of the outside, encountering that opening area with no expectations makes it much more breathtaking! The inside was solidly built as well, although I agree with some of the other posters that the initial corridors between the tombs were hard to distinguish - I knew where I wanted to go after I had the silver key but it took trial and error to get back.

The bosses were all awesome. My particular favourite moment was fighting the first ice giant, where I'd been running circles round him then he turned the tables by cutting me off with the ice spikes and making things close range. It worked exactly right. The final boss was also good at creating area denial through the flame attacks and the lurking threat of the fireball monsters.

The other monsters were pretty solid, I liked the necromancer one much better than resurrector monsters from other packs. In contrast to where it's an ability given to a boss in a lengthy combat, it was more of a priority threat - target down this creature straight away or you'll have your hands full. It worked well with the fast zombies, who were very easy to kill otherwise. The statues had lots of character in their slow, lumbering way, but they weren't much of a threat.

I didn't get the vases until nearly the end of the map, just before the lava boss. Then it was lots to take in at once and so I was opening all the spawn jars without understanding the difference. I had tried breaking one before, but after one tap of the axe did nothing I assumed they wouldn't break. Perhaps a place for the cool (but little used) proxy mine traps there - have a place where they drop right next to a vase and smash it when they go off. 

I had tried breaking one before, but after one tap of the axe did nothing I assumed they wouldn't break.

see folks, this is what happens when you make things realistic instead of just letting damageable entities bleed. :(

a lot of people had that problem and i think the distinction between non-spawn jars and spawn jars was not enough because a lot of people thought it was just random.
on the other hand, it's not that bad because it's only a small bonus for getting the coins anyway. it's more just to make it feel like you're collecting loot or something.

the necromancer monster is close to the archvile from doom. I consider that one of the best monster designs because of exactly the reasons you mentioned.
shifting priorities in combat is a great way of making things interesting.

in a new map i'm (very) slowly working on, i've changed the necromancer monster to use the same type of attack as the archvile (except it's electricity, not fire).
While the attack is more dangerous now because it is not affected by line of sight anymore (since it's not a projectile, but just appears on the target), it's actually better because if the player doesn't notice there is a resurrection monster around, when the effect appears on the screen, they are notified immediately of its presence while projectiles might be missed in the heat of combat. 

I finally played ne_ruins the other day and had a blast. It's still an impressive achievement and a must play. I loved everything about this mod.

Wondering if the source to the zombies was ever released? Or any of the other things like resurrecting monsters etc. 

Ayyy, what happened to necros? He just sort of dropped out of the scene suddenly. 

Those amazing swinging gates. I did love the way this one played out and neat things such as the ice golem effects, the lava around the fire golem, and prox mines. 

...really added a lot of insanity. there's so much to love in this mod. a shame to only have the one release. 

I'm still working on this map - only just finished part 1 but I am absolutely astounded by how incredible this is. I really can't sing enough praise. Props to ww for exposing me to this masterpiece.

--- Spoilers ahead ---
The architecture and atmosphere are beautiful. The custom enemies are excellent. The boss fights are amazing and my jaw dropped when the lake thawed after defeating the ice golem. The lava golem was fantastic too with his unique attack. Breaking pots to collect coins and static health stacks is pretty damn cool.

The pacing and progression are extremely well done. I really feel a sense of progression as you reward enemies with stronger weapons at very specific points. This feels like an adventure FPS akin to something like Half Life. There are elements of what feel like Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. The custom animations are beautiful between the water wheel and the elevator that takes you up to part 2.

I've played a lot of astounding Quake maps at this point and while I expected to run into many additional superb maps, I didn't expect to come across something of this scale. Unfortunately it doesn't look like you come around here anymore but I still had to offer some praise. To anyone who hasn't played this yet, do yourself a favor and get on it. 

what a gem, shame there are not more maps using this superB mod