At first I was eager to find out how the stronger shotgun would work. I liked it, it feels powerful (even with the huge spread, off-center aim and sound). Going through a bunch of grunts is fun.

But then I realised that it dumbs down the game a lot. If do you not kill with your first shot, you have to decide a lot more what to hit and when. Now you just "point and kill" which might contradict with your overall design, I am not sure. 

i find it odd that so much of the early criticism is on the map itself when the map is really just the table that they're laying all the food down on.

i think the map looks great except for absolutely terrible lighting (did you not know some areas are completely full dark?).

i'm not sure, but it seemed to me like the monsters have some kind of random roaming, which (if it's there, and not me hallucinating) is pretty cool. (also, nice job setting up walk paths. i find people tend to ignore that a lot these days but i like that it feels like the world is more than just there for you to blow up).
the npcs mostly just annoyed me. a lot of times i just killed them because i didn't care to differentiate between npc and monsters or they just got in my line of fire.

on to the mod itself.

sounds are a mixed bag. weapon sounds i don't mind much, they are ok and do the job. monster sounds though, especially the ones where you got some guy to yell... very cringe-worthy. i think i actually did while playing.

also, shotgun exploding underwater (and weapon misfiring) is, not only nonsensical, it's pointless. underwater combat in quake is already extremely limited, and now you are artificially hobbling it even more which pretty much means it will be non-existent.
same goes for the lightning knockback while firing. why? it's not like the lightning gun was amazing or anything. it's incredible damage rate was tempered by it's incredibly fast consumption of cells. in fact, i've found players are conditioned against using the LG except as a last resort or to use on shamblers. (which is a shame because it has the potential to be an incredible weapon for gameplay due to it's unique limitations).

i didn't get the SNG in the map, so i didn't get to see whether nerfing it's accuracy actually accomplishes anything or not. i hope to get a chance to play through some old iD maps tomorrow (and maybe some custom ones that don't require mods) to see. i'm thinking maybe ceremonial circles would give some more interesting combat. any other suggestions?

monster dodging: this i actually really really liked! finally a monster that dodges, but doesn't result in an automatic miss! i positively despised Unreal's AI because it had psychic-dodge. if the AI decided to dodge your ASMD (hit-scan), you were guaranteed to miss because the monster would dodge as soon as your crosshair moved over it (maybe even before, i think the check was not just the crosshair, but a radius around it.... or it felt that way anyway, which is essentially the same when it comes down to it).
it's handled here well. most of the time, i hit what i aimed for but every so often i'd get a dodge, but i *never* felt cheated out of a kill. i suspect you are using a system similar to unreal's dodge. i guess the reason i don't mind it is because it's just not a very fast dodge. i'll miss if i'm slow or off center, not just because it dodged.

on overall weapon poweruppage, i don't really get what's going on here.
it means they die faster and so do you. but it also means you are reducing engagement time with monsters.
this means they are depending on their AI more because they have less time to shoot at you. something to keep in mind.

voreballs are wierd now. i'm not sure if i like it or not as the old voreball tracking code itself was tricksy in a way. (a good way).
while iD's choice to only update the tracking every 0.3 seconds was probably done to save on calculations per frame, it had the added side effect that ducking behind a wall at the last minute was futile.
the new voreballs seem to behave like drunk missiles and are erratic and confusing. (this may just be something to get used to).

that's it for now. i don't know how to make FQ run at higher audio frequencies so i just leave it at the 11khz.

if you want a rundown, i'd say i've neutral, leaning towards positive. there's some quality stuff in here. there's just also a lot of chaff. 

A percentage might work. I just like knowing how far I am into a level. It allows me to conserve ammo and such and play with some intelligence.

i actually find this disturbing. do many players do this? 

Well, there's really no other way of knowing how close you are to the end. When the monster count is running low, I know I'm getting near the end and I can stop hording cells and rockets and open up a little.

It gives my virtual world some boundaries and I, personally, enjoy that. I don't know how other players feel though. 

yes I do. 

oh well I was suppose to be in the team, but my time at work and at home don�t let me do nothing... and honestly I�m not liking many stuff in the mod :\ maybe is just be but in the demo I totally lost the feeling that I�m playing Quake... and this in the major reason why I play Quake after 12 years...

To play other game there are a lot of new ones with much better graphics, I don�t like the healthy the shields some of the sounds :| I think the feeling of Quake was lost :\

I�m a little sad to say this because there are some people in this project that I personally like a lot, and that I should be contribution not destroying but that�s the way I�m feeling

:(

I think that the project is not going in the right direction... I still think that can be tweaked to the right one... let�s see what happened... some items don�t fit at all... the remake should take the Quoth direction that was a great mod! the bad thing about Quoth is that most of mappers tend to make Quoth to hard...

Mostly only necros and Kell Quoth maps are fun as well with lots of good weapons to blast the evil Quoth beasts.

In short words �Quoth fits much more with a Quake Remake then this mod�� sorry :( 

Criticism Resistance:
Only when I'm not sure what's being complained about. For example, you should never see a health vial and a Q2 object near each other.

Not fitting together:
The Q2 stuff that's in there is because we don't have proper models yet - they need to become more Quake as opposed to Strogg.

Map lighting:
Ok

Quaketastic has a 50MB limit, but the upload was ~65.

Shotgun:
I think I get what you mean here, but one thing you seem to miss is the huge spread actually serves a purpose, forcing the player to get closer to the enemy in order to kill it. So you spend less time doing damage to the enemy, but more time manouvering - least that's the intention.

Roaming:
Yeah, there is. There's a few other systems in there as well, like grouping and randomised placement on map load.

Npc's:
The way I used them was to just kill them - they're mostly props that drop a backpack when shot in this map.

Shotgun Explosion:
Noted.

Lightning Knockback:
Like the overpowered RL this is WIP. The weapons now follow a toolbox format - so a SG in some instances will be better than another weapon - or much worse. The Knockback allow lightning jumping, but needs to be fine tuned. It was introduced so that the holdoff from using the weapon would be less, but we need to rethink this maybe since it's not supposed to be a movement item.

SNG:
This has much reduced accuracy but also monster piercing - making it a mid-range horde killer weapon.

Voreballs:
The Vore is not yet remade, but now uses our homing code. This makes it less predictable but also easier to avoid, like the aforementioned right angle turning of the id1 version. What's missing is the raft of other Vore abilities - like being able to summon multiple voreballs if the player dodges out of sight and then hurl the lot.

Trinca, be specific - say what you don't like.

This is a very early ALPHA version. We want to hear gripes. 

We will be thick headed about some because func_ is our toughest audiance.

And some will hate some changes no matter what. 

"Quaketastic has a 50MB limit, but the upload was ~65."

It does? OK, I'll make a note to look into that. I certainly didn't set that up on purpose... 

ijed

I just wanted to say that I think you're handling a pretty sour wall of negative criticism with class and style. This easily could have devolved into a flame war so, well done. :) 

 

I haven't actually played Cermonial Circles under this mod but it should show off the revised Ogre combat fairly well - would be interested to hear your opinions on that.

Mostly I was playing any releases that came out whilst the mod has been under construction and were id1 - so speed and turtlemaps, and a few other larger releases. 

yeah, a real tricky one, how to be advocative and honest, without causing offence. I personally am not so keen on the new sounds for the player and the grunts, I dont know, it just sounds a bit amateurish (which it is obviously) but I think the original sounds are what a lot of people would expect (and love) from such a mod. We want it to still feel like Quake....
"Quoth"
Quoth achieves this by adding to the Quake bestiary, and improving bugs and a few gameplay tweaks, but ultimately it feels like another improved chapter of good old Quake!
RemakeQuake is a remake of all of the levels of Quake, with improved level design, and modified gameplay, but if we deviate too far from the feel of Quake we will loose our audience.
My angle is to re-make a level so that it has a different style of design, and is extended from the beginning or end of the original, or both. Rotating entities, ladders, environmental effects, new Quake style monsters, custom environmental sounds are all attractive to me and along with the use of extended limit engines to play the map in I can make a remake which is very rich in detail and gameplay, and offers a lot more immersion and ultimately more gameplay than the original.
BUT
It should still feel like good old Quake!

my 10c

Ijed and Gb as well as a few other talented contributors have been working on this for a long time now (I had a very strong flurry of work on my map back in february, and have probably only equalled the amount of work I did back then, since then, but hey - im still going), it would be a terrible shame to see it fall to pieces (which I dont believe for even a second that it will)
I think Ijed DID get his coffee this morning because he hasnt posted a message on the SVN threads, but he has updated the content with changes or additions numerous times, just today!
So I would say that comments are noted and often acted upon, this WILL work! 

before I rambled too much that I DO like the new sounds for the feind! Last I heard it was pretty scary....... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_(narrative_mode) 

I'm not thin skinned enough to be offended, but saying 'I don't like it' is about as constructive as 'the sky is blue'.

Without construction nothing will change with regard to what's not liked. 

Feature X is bad because of A B and C is much more useful. 

you will never fail if you you do nothing

At least the effort has been performed, and the outcome is far away to be ridiculous. While things are not perfect in all areas, it was a good piece of fun in anyway.

It deserves to be said: just keep it up and improve it ! 

Thanks necros etc. for constructive criticism.

I find it not so helpful when a lot of people just say "I don't like X, Y and Z" or "it doesn't feel like Quake". After choosing to, well, not help the project. It's very easy.

Not liking X,Y and Z is a question of taste. Would you rather have the old sounds back? Just because they're the old sounds? You don't like the grunt sounds, well, please create better ones. You'll soon notice that it is hard and time intensive, unlike saying "bah, I don't like it".

I could go on, but my opinion on the func_ bunch is probably very well known. Wrong place to ask if you're doing something unconventional. I'm not alone with this opinion.

Quoth is basically Scourge of Armagon with new monsters. Very cool new monsters. But it doesn't change gameplay or weapons. Incidentally, this results in you facing these hyper-enforcers with the same crummy old weapons. I think Quoth went only half the way, sorry.

Quoth made it a point to never go against the player's expectations (citing Preach here). The player, pretty much, being defined as "the peer group", ie func_.

You can't realistically expect the same from a mod that openly says it wants to remake Quake.

It is unlikely that RMQ will greatly change its direction or philosophy.

Let's see what other parts of the Quake community think. 

You don't like the grunt sounds, well, please create better ones.

I don't think anybody's saying they could do better, just that there's no point in remaking the sounds if they're not going to improve upon the originals.

Furthermore, I happen to believe that 'Deep Impact' is a rubbish movie, but I certainly couldn't make better. Constructive criticism is a wonderful thing, but even people without technical know-how or extensive skills in the expression of thought can have a valid opinion, and if you choose to blinkardly ignore it the only person you're hurting is yourself.

Nobody here has to play RemakeQuake when it's finished, and the more their opinions are ignored, I imagine the less likely they are to do so.

I'd like to second the praise of ijed's decorous handling of feedback so far, and feel that it can only help the mod, so bravo ijed. 

I gave czg03 a go in RemakeQuake a while ago, and it swept the floor with me on skill 2. Ogres and DK's definitely aren't what they used to be :)

Nastrond is also worth a try, as is dm3rmx, with the updated base monsters line-up and the limited supply of shells at the map start (in RQ you start with 10). 

I'm ignoring what I can't understand or put into a clear framework. Other stuff mentioned is stuff we were either testing, is on the to do list or will be looking at again.

Like lighting maps properly :P

Bear in mind that these are the sounds for basically the entire game. And it's not just a case of "don't replace them then" because lots of stuff didn't exist before.

Like multiple sight and death sounds, taunts and so on. If we didn't create those then we'd be working on a much less ambitious project. 

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/rmq_ankh.zip

here are some demos of me playing rmq on stock id maps and hdn. I have started with e2m1-m4, e1m5 and hdn.
You can see how I learned to play the mod.
I like the combat all in all.
There are some problems with the power of HK trail. It was the most often cause of my deaths. Also the vores see me from too far away which causes me to hide all the time. 

 

The sounds are obviously, measurably even, an improvement over the old ones. In addition like ijed says, we introduced new mechanics that needed new sounds, and only doing those new sounds would have been inconsequent and led to an audible difference between old and new sounds. "All new" was the only right decision. But the main reason for the new sounds is that 11kHz really is a pretty bad sound quality, and improving the game would naturally also mean improving the sound quality. I realize this is a matter of philosophy or preference, of course.

And this

I'd like to second the praise of ijed's decorous handling of feedback so far, and feel that it can only help the mod, so bravo ijed.

is really an old and worn tactic. Julius Caesar knew it already. It's pretty low.