I actually think the original concept is great. Not every map has to do the usual thing. There are loads of DOOM maps with monsters already.

Going only for atmosphere of the place and exploring that sounds great.

Plus, I'm sure someone will mod it to have monsters quickly enough.

nakasuhito: Trying to grab the player's attention without any combat will not be easy, I look forward to your solution. I'm doing the same in one of my maps atm, which is why I'm doubly interested. I use small puzzles, though, to keep the player nominally busy while they explore. To keep their interest, I use somewhat unusual setpieces, a lot of new mapmodels, stark contrast in lighting and a lot of sounds.

The first part of Doom3's Delta Labs was an inspiration, since it also has no combat (but does require getting a key).

I think such alternative angles to making a map can be very interesting. 

Map is complete for easy skill (skill 0). Please take a look. Should be easy fighting. Getting lost/stuck? let me know. Pak file for Quoth. Use fitzquake 0.85
Pak file
http://www.adrive.com/public/2ed6ad3c0211d30e24cc796746348ae6e087ccfd357893b0faaa26c57c400620.html
Readme
http://www.adrive.com/public/01588fade44f7594489b7534ee76735fc2d1c82f471393e4e3a38cd3361bf5b7.html
Screen (for people who love quake crates)
http://www.adrive.com/public/b892c1ea241e014af5bd62592c16771c1b0e641b169d23b0378c906785465473.html

Links will die in 14 days :(
Email me or post comments
Thanks mechtech 

 

Packing in .zip would have been nice... 

After a longer vis I wanted here's the beta of Tarratorium.
It has only one skill setting on normal, as I'm still corecting the gameflow. I have the feeling it is a bit too dark.
If you have some sparetime and want to try out, you're welcome with good advice!

screeny:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/torm2.jpg

map:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/tor.zip 

http://members.home.nl/gimli/torm2.jpg

http://members.home.nl/gimli/tor.zip 

Wow. Coloured lighting a bit too much, but other than that very cool, nice rock structures indeed, decent textures too. 

Nice job, madfox. 

yeah, brushwork looks great, but the coloured lights make no sense at all. blue liquid but red light for no reason? 

I admit the colored light is a bit overdone.
I needed some brown color to lit the green tex.
Then again, without the lit file lights are still sufficient. 

someone please make a demo of MadFox's beta, wandering around in circles and saying "is there even a goddamn silver key in this level?" Thanks in advance. 

Aight, played it and recorded a demo. Comments and thoughts during the playthrough, overall it was good, but needs some work. Most importantly, the layout is pretty confusing, probably substantiated by the same-ish look of most of the areas. This could probably be avoided by varying the textures a little, as I also note during the demo, and making the rooms more unique in other ways. I also noticed a lot of misaligned textures and corners of brushes extruding through walls and such, especially with the curved pipes (which were nice by the way!), probably caused by the vertices not being exactly on grid - but I know how difficult such structures are to work with and such problems are almost impossible to avoid. I didn't really get stuck on any architecture either, so I guess it isn't more than just an aesthetic problem.

Also, I think you should indeed tone down the colored lights a little, as in some areas they were overdone - make them more subtle, and also add some more neat, subtle light/shadow effects like I noted near the exit in the demo - it works wonders for atmosphere! And yes, I thought it was a bit too dark overall as well.

On the gameplay side of things, I thought it was pretty good, except for the confusing layout that makes it easy to get lost. I found it a bit empty though, maybe add some more enemies and interesting ambushes, perhaps some powerups to keep the action flowing?

Pretty good stuff, looking forward to more. Oh and yes, the demo of course: http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/grad098_bern.7z 

The architecture is interesting, though rather small. And yet all raw. The key, I could not find. Sometimes get stuck in the pipes. Maybe this should be at the bottom of the tube put noclip texture?

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/digs_grad098.dz 

You could have at least vised the thing. 

Mech's titan is really good and alienish. I didn,t expect the level to get much larger than it was, but the extras really added to a great space outpost atmosphere. Hope the regular and hard skills add a challenging battle though. Excellent ending too! The only thing I would change is the static solarflare in the skybox. I think colored gaseous clouds and smaller astro objects would look better. Moon's could be large though.

Madfox's Tarraterratorium is excellent. Lighting, mood and level layout the way I like it. My crt monitor had that screenshot area looking good (better than the screenshot). I would keep the lighting as it is. Combat was just right for for the skill. 

...Some weird logical errors, like windows showing the skybox when they should show the wall that's right behind them.

Quite a few texture misplacing. Too much colored lighting.

Gameplay so and so, skill 1 is on the easy side, have not tested the other ones.

Add some details and variation, take care of the clipping issues...

You may have something really great here, but needs a lot of refinement...


BTW, the BK is quite easy to find. First playthrough demo:
tor_skill1_thesilent.zip 

Okay, a few comments.
Please call it tor.bsp so it corresponds to the mod dir and zip, ffs. There's no reason to give it a different name (see vidi).

Largely consistent theme throughout the map and some nice layoutish things. But also many sloppy bits in construction/brushwork and poor texture work. Aligning those textures on the pipes is a pain, but you could use a non-detail texture or modify the current ones not to have seams. Some texture choices are bad, e.g on transitions (or the lack thereof) and on sides of walkways, for example, where a properly fit trim would be better than wood or whatever else is used. Or clashing textures next to each other without proper transition.
Countless misaligned skulls and other textures, even on the same planes. The beams are good, but either align the metal4_4 texture properly or use a different one, especially on the ceilings.
The textures used on the arches don't work this way, either rotate/align or replace - angular cut off rivets and tiles look bad.

I don't like the skybox, it doesn't fit with the dark cistern theme of the map, but okay... At least fix the logical errors with sky windows placed where it doesn't make sense, or where they make the walls/building look thin and feeble. You can build little detail areas behind the windows that only show the wall of the adjacent corridors.
What's with the lame doors again? And why shootable buttons that suggest pressability?

Lighting looks like ass. Deleting the .lit file made it slightly better, but not only the weird colors are the problem, also the darkness. Keeping the map dark is not bad in theory, even beneficial for the atmosphere, but there are many areas that feel too dark. Plus the skybox is very bright in contrast. And there are light textures that don't emit any light. Put some lights with "delay" "2" and "wait" "2" there - that should look nice.

I didn't get lost; or let's say, I always managed to find the way somehow, but you should really consider making the progression a little easier for the player. Better highlighting of important areas or where to go next; maybe a few arrow textures here and there (possibly funcs), while still maintaining the openness and certain feeling of exploration.

No real problem with gameplay difficulty, lots of health and all. 

The chaotic and darkness work well to make this map interesting. Sometimes neatly brushed, mirror imaging all over the place, etc. can be boring. Like digs said about the rawness of the level. Madfox is Piccasso.

Also, the Jerry Springer show seems to have alot of Quake texturing on the set. Even green colored lighting. And what about the X-Files? Every room Skull/Muld is in, is dark! Operating rooms have doctors working on a patient with 1 spotlight in the center, and the whole rest of the room is plain dark. What's up with that?

Anyways, the truth is out there. 

@generic - I forgot to add a demo, it's my logic of knowing the map versus players, who are completely new to the map. Sorry for that.

@digs - I understand the error, but from the SilverKey sign it seemed logic to me you walk back along the cave part. There are two doors on the screenshot.

@Berntsen - I started with afloor3_1 and construckted the whole thing on grid. Always curves are breaking up and I started with alignment. There was a rather sticky hom I couldn't avoid. So I worked it up untill it wa gone. Often it are the hardest part in mapping.

Right then, it is a bit too dark. I thought as I turned brightness to 80%. Colors are a wicky thing compared the lack of lit file.

I'm planning for some static entities like machines and puffing tubes.

@neg!ke - The first time vising took 3h40.This one took about 13h40, I considered quiet long for 3.1Ghz. The bsp file slunk from 4.3 to 1.8Mb.
And dmm, no I installed radiant but i'm not that good in configurating. This one is Quark6.3.

@roblot - thanked you liked it!

@thesilent - I know the missing walls look stupid. RThat was the start room and there was only one thing I kept in mind. Keep the first 'till the last poly on grid. Now I want to add things as I think the map isn't that big. There was only one skill setting.

Thanks for your replies, and the demo's. I will take a look at them.
And at Mh beta, of course. 

at MechTech beta. 

those red caves remind me of Quake2 ! 

...and pack Mechtech's map as a zip, so that I can give it a try?