I play Quake purely for the gameplay, if a map has nice visuals/atmosphere then it's a bonus. What makes the game so fun for me is the physics; doing all sorts of jumps and tricks to gain speed and traverse the maps. I never really cared much for the game before I discovered how to abuse the physics, but at the same time, if it had just another generic sci-fi setting (like Quake 2, for instance), I probably wouldn't like the game as much as I do now. So I guess you could say I enjoy it for the combination of gameplay and style. Always play on skill 3, but arena fights and hordes aren't really my cup of tea - much prefer a well designed layout with thought put into monster placement and which allows for movement/dodging.

Haven't played this jam yet so can't comment on any of the maps. 

what do you think is missing from quake that makes you not want to design encounters for it? 

"I definitely feel that. I love the game and the atmosphere but the combat is just too old to really enjoy anymore. For me, at least." 

That feel when you play a game for 20 years and then realise the gameplay sucks :( 

It didn't suck 20 years or maybe 10 years ago. It just got old and moldy.

But I still like the melee enemies: a circle with two-three fiends or a horde of knights. 

The quake beastiary feels a little homogeneous. The somewhat shallow unit differentiation doesn't demand much from the player. In practice, you only have to "play one way" against pretty much every possible scenario. You master one enemy, you've mastered them all.

Even if there where more specific unit roles, it would be beneficial to lower enemy hp across the board so that you can have more enemies present simultaneously to make use of the new possible unit combinations. IMO, this creates faster gameplay with more depth. Which, to me, is more engaging.

An analogy: the Quake beastiary is comprised of a narrow set of colors, and when mixed, only produce a narrow set of shades. Not very interesting to look at nor very interesting to paint. 

Matthias Worch had a great rant about this one time on Facebook. Basically, the beastiary in Doom is FAR more varied and interesting than in Quake. Different monster configurations require you to switch up tactics and make decisions quickly to survive.

Quake, while an awesome game, doesn't really do that. There's a single flying enemy, for example. And it's basically the same as the land based ones except that it's, you know, in the air.

The fish are kind of pointless, and the only really interesting enemy is the vore as it requires you to manage the projectiles while you deal with other creatures in the room.

I dunno. It sounds like I don't like Quake. Not true! I love it to death. But a fun game to play? These days? Not so much ... still fun to make maps tho. 

So we can organize ourselves and take a deadline 

There is one monster in the bestiary you're all forgetting, and that's the most important one, the environment. The regular monsters' interaction spatially is where the level designer makes them shine. Hope this helps! 

That turd is only going to get so shiny, no matter how hard you scrub. ;) 

Sure, but you can mold it into an astonishing diorama of ancient evil. 

True ... Map Jam 7 : Polished Turds 

sure by today's standards the game looks like a turd, but that was never really what the game had going for it. Yes the game at the time was a technical achievement, but the atmosphere and mod-ability of the game is what kept people interested.

This community owes itself to how well the game can be modded, and to the modding communities creativity.

Think about it this way, this game presents a simple basis to build upon, and is restrictive so that achievements in programming or design can be fully appreciated by any who know the original game.

Maybe because this game is a dinosaur (turd) that we eek out every piece of gameplay interesting mechanic, design from it and feel a huge sense of accomplishment in doing so. I sort of feel in that regard like this community has a lot in common with things like the 64k demo-scene community, or the vanilla minecraft mapping community. Very simple concepts or tools doing amazing things.

On the topic of the mobs being vastly different than doom mobs, sure. The doom areas had large open expanses. How many of those were in vanilla quake? Not too many.

Anyway, I should stop ranting and keep mapping lol. 

I was referring to the gameplay as the turd. The atmosphere and engine are still awesome, IMO. 

Look at it this way ... replace the Doom monsters with sprite versions of the Quake monsters with the same gameplay mechanics. It would be less fun. 

Duh! 

I disagree, the strength of Quake's enemies is how they are placed in conjunction with the environment of the map, and the vertical element can often be a major factor in this regard. Sure, if you'd replace Doom's enemies with the ones from Quake then it wouldn't really work, but then again the gameplay/enemy placement in many Doom maps seem to boil down to "make a giant room and stick one million enemies in it and call it a day". Not exactly what I'd call interesting, either. 

Doom didn't start with the horde combat during any of the "proper" games. 

"but then again the gameplay/enemy placement in many Doom maps seem to boil down to "make a giant room and stick one million enemies in it and call it a day". Not exactly what I'd call interesting, either. "

Eh, now we're getting off the rails a little.

We'll agree to disagree. 

 

Go play some recent Vanilla Doom 2 wads, like Back to Saturn X. There are some slaughtermaps in there, but also a lot of none horde encounters.

Also one thing to keep in mind, Doom is 90% an arena shooter like Robotron and the like, just with more complex levels and in 1st person. But if you play it on the map with double IDDT cheat and only with monsters that are non-hitscan, it is actually quite playable. One could design levels to work very well with this. 

Thanks for the tip 

 

..but then again the gameplay/enemy placement in many Doom maps seem to boil down to "make a giant room and stick one million enemies in it and call it a day". Not exactly what I'd call interesting, either.

I don't believe that's very accurate. However, it may be rooted in truth in that Doom does more with less (in comparison to Quake); make a box map in both Doom and Quake and I bet Doom will be more engaging.

Warren mention Mathias Worch's talks on the subject, here's some stuff:

Matt's Level Design Retrospective - Doom, Quake and More

This is a pdf of a GDC talk that references a lot of Doom mechanics, including Orthogonal Unit Differentiation. It's brief, but tasty.

Decisions That Matter

A little write-up on Doom by JP LeBreton, a short but good read.

Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom

I'm not bashing Quake, I love Quake. But it's good to look at things critically sometimes; it helps you makes better levels, better games.

Of course, a lot of this is a matter of taste as well.

LONG LIVE DOOM AND QUAKE!