I really think the realism in Quake 2 and Half-Life is pretty limited. Cyborgs, Stroggos, tentacles, mother of all headcrabs. :)

But what I actually wanted to say is that Quake 2 does have a few different themes, it's just that the base theme is so iconic that few people used, say, the orange waste theme. I think The Reckoning does a better job at variation, and it has damn good level design on top of that.

https://spawnhost.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/xatrix1.jpg

https://spawnhost.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/xatrix2.jpg 

The Reckoning is good. The only flaw I can think of is that it doesn't have its own final boss.

I have the impression that Ground Zero is usually considered superior, but I don't understand this point of view. 

One of the Q2 mission packs was full of these really annoying fixed turrets, and that got old real fast.

Anybeans, was there ever an actual significant backlash against linear design in FPS games from the general games-buying public and/or the media? It certainly hasn't hurt the review scores, or sales, of the half-life games, and other "AAA" shooters in the last 15 years.

Not saying I want linear - I don't - just saying I don't think there's ever been a reason for developers to change :( 

"Linear" is a fuzzy term anyway. It can be stretched to describe any game unless that game is a complete free-roaming sandbox free of any ordering between events -- and it often has been, just as a shorthand for feelings of dissatisfaction.

Half-Life was good at giving you opportunities to figure out where you needed to go next & how to do so. In retrospect the successful path through/out of an area was usually quite limited, but I'm fine with that.

By some criteria one could for example look at all of the encounters necessary to get through the Blast Pit area and call that "linear", but I'd be happy if shooters had more of that kind of design. 

 

That's Ground Zero.

It also has an annoying tendency to run out of mission objectives mid-level, so you have to play the rest of the map in dead silence. 

I'll check out The Reckoning. I was less than impressed by the two mission packs when I played them - but that was ages ago.

Also, I think it's very cool and says a lot about the game that the Doom community still is so active. And Quake as well. I was just slightly surprised when just recently returning to the id classics that the Quake 2 community isn't, comparably speaking. 

has level design by mexx, so reason enough IMHO to check it out. 

make sure you check this out, best q2sp in years :

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60973 

are IMHO very good examples of linear games that dont feel that way as Johnny Law says. Trouble is that part has not been concentrated on as much by all the copycats. 

most copycats can copy all the superficial elements, but generally fall down on the "make it good" part.

"make it good" is the bit that Valve tend to do well at. 

Thanks for the tip, nitin, I'll surely check it out. The screens look great.

Also, love mexx's Quake SP maps. Had forgotten that he was a level designer for The Reckoning. 

few people used, say, the orange waste theme.

what are you talking about, everybody used that theme 

Yeah, those were some of the coolest textures and they were super easy to work with. 

Just finished the vanilla game. Disappointing boss fight. The Receiving Center is one of my favorite levels in the game - looks great and utilizes the features of the engine nicely - plus it's just slightly bizarre. If I made a map for Q2, that would probably be my starting point.

BTW, I really appreciate Knightmare's KMQuake II. Wonderful engine, staying true to the original game. 

Oh, the Processing Plant is also cool, by much the same reasons. 

Maybe that will lead to some new stuff also. Here's to hoping! 

using TB2. I haven't prioritised as much as my quake 1 work. 

So I've started playing The Reckoning - and it is very good. Well-built, detailed, often at least a sense of nonlinearity - plus clever and slightly sadistic combat, which reminds me of mexx. 

It's the community itself that didn't show enough creativity to use something other than Q2's same old base themes. There's plenty of texture sets for the Q2 engine, but no one ever really used them.

Any of the Quake themes could have been done in Q2. The enemies don't fit the theme, but does that really matter?

Sadly, there's probably only a handful of non-base themed Q2 releases (4 of which were mine). 

Then please tell me which and where to find them. I am dissapointed by the lack of custom textures sets for Quake 2, and almost all of them are base themed. Apart from that, what can be relied on are texture sets from other videogames. Even Tastypleen's huge texture pack is like that.

In fact I had to transfer some Quake 1 textures to .wal to have some non-base textures to map with. 

like quake wads, you can convert a lot of things to .wal. There isnt exactly a whole lot of textures created just for quake either. 

kona's q2 maps, especially the later ones, are very nice. 

>> The enemies don't fit the theme, but does that really matter?

I think it does.

Sure, you can shove aliens in a gothic castle, but it will always look a little weird. Certainly weirder than demons on a spaceship. Demons can be anywhere, you don't even need to explain anything. 

Although the main problem seems to be that the aforementioned aliens are perfectly explained: we know what they are, we know where they belong, etc.