You should put up a map review site. 

Gameplay wise Quake is Doom only smoother (ie better collision detection).
The fundamentals are the same

Super human player -> Player is very fast and tough, can can avoid a lot of damage via movement and not tanking it then sucking their thumb behind cover.

Varied monster types -> Not quite as varied as Doom but still, Quake has a small but great monster set, with lots of different attacks, strengths and sizes.

Complex environments -> Not necessarily complex in terms of being labyrinthine, but featuring interesting, abstract geometry. This combined with the monster set creates an enormous degree of variety in potential gameplay. This is the main thing about mapping I love, creating interesting fights with a given toolkit.

Simplicity and predictability -> Monsters are dumb, and the behaviour of monsters is only slightly randomised (even less so in Nightmare). Experienced players are used to how these monsters act, and when they see one, know what it will be capable of. So when that monster is placed in a different position, or around different geometry, the actual monster is predictable but the fight is different.


Regarding stuff I've noted about this in the RMQ mapping guide. I've no doubt the team will disagree with me, but I'm interested what other people think about this point:

Remember Quake and Doom can still be hard as nails despite having very basic and dumb monsters. This is where I have an issue with ideas like removing Shambler Shuffle. Why remove something good players can do, instead, why don't you test there abilities more? Give good players two shamblers instead of one. Give them less cover. As you make monsters cleverer or given them more attacks, you reduce the potential environments and geometry you can have a fair and balanced fight against them. If Shambler shuffle doesn't work, then you now make it impossible to fight a shambler in an open area without taking damage.

I feel the same way about the idea of having monsters that can be flagged to have additional attacks, without any way of the player being aware of this. By all means expand the mapping toolkit by adding additional types of monsters with new attack patterns, but don't just given different monsters of the same type different attacks. It will most likely frustrate a player, as they are constantly wrong footed and not allowed to settle into a groove, which imo is fundamental for an action game. 

I don't have the exact quote, but I recall reading Romero's hype talk for Quake from 1997, and it went like this (paraphrase):

instead of shooting lots of cannon fodder you'll be focusing on a handful of enemies which take longer to kill, it's like a virtual fighter almost

Some releases went completely 180 degrees on that, of course... 

Ijed has made a point - and I think he may be on to something - that monsters are actually not a punishment for the player.

Many people play Quake to kill the monsters. To do the Shambler Dance. That's not punishment, that's a clear case of monsters being a reward, of being a cookie that you're given for being a good boy.

The context was something that randomly spawns monsters - a player will keep on hitting that button to get their monsters and get their fight (and then get pissed at you when they use up all their ammo).

I don't see anything in OTP's post that contradicts any of this - it quite clearly supports it, in fact. 

It would be hard to argue that monsters are a punishment since they are pretty much the sole interaction that Quake has with the player. If they aren't there you have geometry and a few buttons to press. The monsters ARE the game. 

what I like in quake changed (obviously) over time. while (iirc!) when I first played it these factors were important:

it being a violent banned game

the dark evil atmosphere

not knowing what the hell was going on but feeling tremendous joy when that pixel blob (lowest resolution and dark, the monster were VERY inrerpretative) stopped hurting me or when I finished a level

the graphics and 3dness compared to.other games my pc could run

while today I care about much different things:

the pattern based gameplay. I know how the monsters react, how many shots they take so I can approach most situations "smarter" then them

and most importantly being in full control of my alter ego. i control it perfectly (heh) without thinking about it. I know all the world's rules and feel at home. there is nothing outside my control and nothing that keeps me from doing stuff (inside the game rules). it is the same reason why I consider quake 3/live the pinnacle of competitive fps, because I played it so much that it is pretty much only me who can improve, it is not the game I have to learn but polish on my actual real life abilities.

this is probably also why I don't like quake mods that alter the things I have mastered. it takes some new getting used to and since I feel quake to be perfect (because I know it) most changes will be negatively received.

eg blurred vision if I take damage is a double punishment. I already lose health and now I am also partially disabled in my abilities. no thanks. 

This: It will most likely frustrate a player, as they are constantly wrong footed and not allowed to settle into a groove, which imo is fundamental for an action game. and on the same note the pattern based gameplay. I know how the monsters react, how many shots they take so I can approach most situations "smarter" then them are very important aspects of why I like Quake so much. Sometimes everything just feels perfect and I play almost like in a trance.

For me, it is very satisfying to be able to win a fight without any damage. In Quake, I am able to do this because the monsters are mostly predictable. Sometimes I'll have to try a couple times and learn the environment better, but usually I'll be able to do this if I time everything right and there aren't too many enemies with hitscan weapons. Many other games don't allow me to do this because the enemies are randomized too much and thus have no learnable patterns. The game becomes unpredictable and frustrating.

The Shambler is actually a great example because while being very threatening and tough, you can fight him (or even several) without taking any damage if you got your timing down. And it's even more fun if you fight a combination of enemies because you'll have to combine their patterns in your head. If you have enough experience, you'll do this automatically without thinking, and that's where the fun is for me. 

Is that the predictability of classic Quake puts people in their comfort zones. It's like going back to a favourite bar, or putting on a comfortable old pair of shoes.

Which is ironic cos when Quake was released it was nothing like that. It was a shock, it jolted people out of their comfort zones. Suddenly you had to look up, because the classic gameplay that people were used to didn't have monsters coming from above. This 3D environment thing? Never catch on. Bring back sprites! And all the brown! Doom wasn't like that! Having to actually jump into water and swim for a bit to get to where you need to go next... the list can go on.

What a difference almost 16 years can make. 

But I believe that learning to master a game and then be predictably good at it has a lot of appeal to many people. Of course, I like to be surprised by smart monster placement and hard fights in custom levels. But if they are unpredictable (and remain that way), it's just frustrating because what was a game of skill and practice becomes a game of luck. 

mh ... I don't remember anyone (or many people, anyway) asking to go back to 2D or Doom when Quake came out. I remember a whole lot of oohing and aahing and people diving in, head first. Mods appeared, web sites sprung up, communities formed ... it was new, yes, but it was readily accepted. There was a lot of, "Oh, THIS is what Carmack was talking about - fuck yes!" 

There is a difference between wrong footing the player with random or unexpected behaviour and giving them the ability to mouse look or swim. The former is irritating for an arcadey action game (save for designed traps and such), the latter is an expansion of gameplay possibilities. 

GHD: there really isn't anything much like that. Maybe just Serious Sam and Painkiller, but the latest SS3 seems to have gone more consoley.

Developers won't make games as old skool and straight-forward as Quake anymore, because the critics rubbish it for being too basic, which equals poor sales.

I still play Quake #1 because there's still the occasional new release and #2 because it's a quick fix and nice little stroll now memory lane. If I didn't already have just about every SP release on my hdd, I wouldn't really play it. But I suppose Doom2 was just as fun as Quake, and I haven't played that in over 15 years. 

Doom re: Quake is a good way of showing what's so good about quake. I love Doom don't get me wrong, but if you play so many Doom levels, you are really just getting the same thing. Doom 1, Doom 2, Doom 3 with both episodes of that, and Doom custom levels, and even Heretic, it's all very similar, whereas Quake seems a lot more flexible. Although, nostalgia really biases me toward doom (I was basically a kid, seeing Satanic stuff - for example the last maps of e1 and e2 - seemed amazing at the time), Quake is more flexible. 

But Serious Sam and PK are extremely straight-forward and very basic arena shooters. Not even on the level of Doom2, when it comes to variety of gameplay and level design.
That's the problem, everything that calls itself old school is simplified to a primitive game with less depth than Crimson Land.
Is there no middle ground between that and 'Ramirez do barrelroll' cinematic experience games? 

Is my 2nd favorite game, ever! 

Descent 1 came out over a year earlier than quake.

and it had most of the revolutionary features you associate with quake. Palette, solidness, monsters as rewards, lighting, minimal interface, 3D, no sense of exterior environments... 

 

i played descent before quake but i still prefer quake.
playing descent felt like being in the map by proxy (you are IN the ship in the map) whereas quake was you directly (YOU are in the map).
it's maybe not a huge distinction for some, but for me it was everything back then. 

My nephew dislikes Quake because it's too fast, too direct and too unreal (and he should know because he is studying game design). These. of course, are the reasons why I like Quake; those and the atmosphere created out of a couple of chewing gum wrappers and a piece of imaginary string. The fact that I wiped the floor with him and his ego last time we deathmatched in Quake has nothing to do with his opinion. 

...Never mess with da big boys, kid... 

Not even close. The game has zero immersion compared to Quake.
And you probably forgot how it looks and feels, sure it was a technical step ahead compared to Doom, but its boxy closed-in maze environment design and the lack of gravity sends it back to the abstract 2d shooters of pre-PC era. 

 

When I first played Quake I was terrified. Completely keyed up, no idea what assemblage of pixels was waiting around the corner to gib me with meaty sound fx and voxel blood trails...

We want to take the game in a new direction with RMQ - not do a map pack, because that's finite. Clever monster placement has been done a hundred times, and yes, knowing everything is very comfortable and safe.

So we went with making the game feel fresh - trying to reacquire that bowel loosening fear of the first time you sat in front of the game.

Sterility isn't conducive to creativity.

I doubt you could convince a team to recreate 28 SP levels, sticking to 'the rules'. Although lots of people build scale models of the Eiffel tower out of matchsticks or massive 'computers' in Minecraft - so maybe I'm wrong.

----

Terms like harcore / console / casual / old school have so much baggage tied to them it makes the terms objectively pointless. What something means for one means something else for others.

The only sure yardstick is 'enjoyed playing? YES/NO'.

Would like to pursue this rambling, but its late. 

I agree, a few moments I remember from the original Quake:

-The fiend's appearance in e1m2, after the floating blocks. This created a real sense of wtf, holy shit.

-Shambler in e1m5 with the gold key. Frightening.

-Swimming, going into the underwater areas which had air in e1m4, also swimming onto the beach, looking above and seeing the bridge to the castle: thinking "I don't know how this world works - at all."

-First playing e1m8: the low gravity, the pyramid, the fast elevators, all the damn ogres, shamblers - thinking again "I don't understand this world, but there's something behind it."

e4m3, e2m8, e3m5, and e4m6? (azure agony) all created the same sense of weirdness/fear for me. My favourite episode will always be E2, with that medieval feel, but for sheer weirdness, the maps I listed are it. 

If that is your goal with RMQ may be you shouldn't buff half weapons to overpowered status?
Nothing makes you feel safer than a basic shotgun that makes quick work of fiends or a pewpew - another starter gun - that obliterates everything better than SNG.