Level playtime depends not only on the gameplay mechanics, but also on the savegame style and on the talent of the people making the levels.

For reference, Leptis Magna is the largest AD map which I've enjoyed enough to feel like giving it another full run someday. On some of the other maps, I feel a little too overwhelmed and it gets a little hard to mentally track down all the tasks (books, keys, secrets, etc, and their respective locations and puzzles). Without real-time saving and detailed status info (let's say, maps like Foggy Bogbottom would really benefit from a Metroid Prime style automap and a Doom 3 PDA style notes system), the more complex maps become more difficult.

On the other hand, some games out there feature big levels whose encounters/puzzles/etc are not complex enough to take advantage of their available space, and becomes boring. In this case, the way to improve them would be to make them shorter.

TL;DR: Great level design can benefit from expansions to the game's scope, while not-so- good level design can benefit from a reduction in their scope. 

The decision between episodes and a hub system should depend on the length of the levels.

Turok 2 uses a hub system where you can select each map individually, but each map takes a long time to be finished. Quake features an episodic hub system with multiple levels packed on each episode and where you can't select the maps individually, but the playtime of each map is way quicker. 

Whenever these sorts of surveys come up, small maps arranged in episodes are always overwhelmingly preferred compared to a single megamap. For the time and effort it takes to produce a modern style megamap, a mapper could produce a really decent episode of smaller maps (something like the scope of Terra, or DOPA), so why don't we see more of them? It is just that mappers find it more enjoyable making big maps rather than episodes? 

Modern mapping is about dick-waving. You want to make big, convoluted map with super detailed brushing. Gameplay must be at least 8h long. 1000 monsters is mandatory. If player's demo file is less than 20Gb, you're doing it wrong. 

@shambler - Is that so? I appreciate your vote ;)

@mankrip - I definitely agree.

@kinn - The current poll results corroborate the data I already have and it makes sense to me. Intense gameplay can become fatiguing rather quickly. It's nice to be able to get quickie rather committing a chunk of time to something you'll grow tired of half way through.

@khrathor - Hyper-detailed megamaps are awe-inspiring, incredible achievements IMO. The rub is that I have much more fun noclipping around slack-jawed than actually playing them. 

It's nice to be able to get quickie rather committing a chunk of time to something you'll grow tired of half way through.

That depends on the age of the audience. When I was a teenager with no job it was certainly easier to play long sessions, while in the last years most of my gaming has been on the bus. The megamaps in AD would certainly make it one of the top FPSs in the 90's, maybe the top one.

What's weird is that people who have lots of free time nowadays seems to prefer less intensive entertainment such as MMORPGs or binge watching Netflix.

I'd say to just define very well the kind of audience you're targeting, and go for it. There are all kinds of niches out there, you don't necessarily need to target everyone. 

Yeah man. I rate protagonist (as long as he's not as dull as fucking Jensen in DX), map linkage (as long as there is some and it's not unconnected gibberish like the latest Wofl), and map length (as long as it's not crazy short or days long) as pretty low factors compared to a game's, say, theme, flow, pacing, physics, movement, setting, aesthetics, exploration, gameplay-focus, architecture, bestiary, etc etc. 

Map length is a very important property. It hugely affects the gameplay experience IMO, and is also a big factor in deciding whether or not I can be bothered to replay. I agree the others aren't terribly important though. 

@mankrip - That and there are so many games now vying for people's time like never before. As for the target demographic, seems to be 30 year old males (20ish on the younger end, 40-45 on the older).

@shamber - Yeah, I get what you're saying and where you're coming from. When it comes time to make fairly concrete decisions (which it has) in regards to scheduling, staffing, allocating funds, etc, these are absolutely pertinent questions that have 100% relevance to the final quality of the game. These being some of the questions currently at hand does not mean that I haven't, and won't continue to, consider deeply the other aspects of a quality FPS that you mentioned.

So yeah, I'm coming at this from a logistical angle as opposed to a general theory angle. 

40-45 on the older.. I think you are out by a decade for some people ;) 

Or two! 

Definitely. I would say the average age of retro fps players/buyers is in the 30-35 range. 

To get blocked by @quake_txt on Twitter? 

Quakeulf, maybe he just doesn't like Quake II?

Who knows, especially if you don't recall have any interactions with the account.. 

I only retweeted and replied to some posts. Others who have done more for Quake 2 who have also strongly critisised the account are not blocked. It does not make sense.

What is going on? 

The original Rubicon turned 20 last Sunday. 

Happy Birthday so... 

Don't worry about it; if it was a mistake (automatic filtering, etc.), they'd be already aware and unblocked you.

I've also been unfollowed by a number of people, and likely muted by some, though I don't remember seeing anyone block me. Anyway, social networking is... It has the potential to be a good thing, but the downsides are prone to be mentally degrading, so it's important to not let stuff like this cling to our minds.

It's important to train ourselves to not care about people's negative reactions to us. Particularly, I prefer to not even know when people block or mute me. I'm fine with anyone hating or avoiding me, it happened a million times in my life with lots of different people, and eventually I've figured out that caring about such situations is just a waste of time. Plus, nobody can hate me more than myself, so usually it's just laughable.

And some people just need time. Having the initiative to try to "make things right" when the initiative to "make things wrong" came from the other person is awkward and would just make things worse.
People change, and someday some of the people who hates us end up changing their mind, so there's no need to rush things. If they never change their mind, it's their problem. 

I'm sentimental about Rubicon.

I have a memory of looking up behind a pipe and seeing the trigger to shoot to access nightmare and I felt "smart". I was using FitzQuake because I thought that was the "right thing to do" for obvious reasons, despite preferring aguirRe GLQuake because at the time that was the only engine that could "play everything" including maps like the Red Masque of Death (huge Tronyn map, first limit buster map).

The next thought I had was realizing that GLQuake wouldn't have the texture visible because GLQuake didn't support fullbright textures.

At the time that meant engines like ProQuake and aguirRe's GLQuake. I think that might have been the first time I understood what the goals of FitzQuake were. 

But I'm still blocked and there doesn't seem like I can get around it the way things are on Twitter.

I do suspect it is run by someone who is on here and/or the Discord-channel, so if you see this post:

What happened? 

For when DM4 Jam and any subsequent ones have finished:


End Map Jam.

Make a replacement End map for Quake's original rather underwhelming End map. The idea is to stick approximately to the End map's theme and to the original Quake's style, but make something more suitably climactic both in design and gameplay.

Rules:

1. Id1 only. Run in Quakespasm or whatever. No coloured lighting no fog.
2. Id1 or subtly modified Id1 textures only.
3. Map must start with dropping into the pit as per the current End.bsp, and must include Shub in some form.
4. Map should feature some form of cavern/cave system as per the current End.bsp , mixing this with other themes and structures are allowed and encouraged.
5. Map should stick to approximately the maximum level of detail in the most complex stock Quake maps. This isn't a rigid requirement but is to focus mappers on making a suitable End map that would be the finale of the Quake game, rather the mega-detailed mega-complicated 2018 epic.
6. Any other queries just stick to the fucking theme okay.


Thoughts? 

Sounds like a great way to get people to focus mostly on gameplay instead of spending 90% of the construction time wanking over brushwork :D 

Like the Jam Idea, but hate your rules, especially 1. (cause of coloured lighting & fog) and 5. (I want to make a mega-detailed mega-complicated 2018 not-epic.)