quite ok overall.. although it had its share of good & bad moments.


the first episode i found particularly frustrating gameplay wise. there were quite a few situations where combats would be badly set up, or the player not given sufficient cover or movement space. in terms of design, the outdoor areas were excellent (including the caverns in maps 4 & 5) but some of the indoor sections felt a little pokey & fiddly. the texturing in the first three maps felt a little dull & slightly outdated too, especially compared with the rest of the pack


episode 2 i enjoyed ALOT more.. it was tough, but rarely in a frustrating way, since the combats felt like they were engineered better & player movement wasn't so restricted. i particularly loved the first map.. superb theme, solid, sturdy designs, and as mentioned by nitin the spider section was excellent & proved very tense. there was one point in map 2 where i had to cheat (got the SK, turned left out the door & went back into the dm2 bit to hunt for health, ended up getting stuck in there) and i could have done without the chthon bit at the end, felt a little old & predictable!


the last three maps were all pretty neat but i didn't really get much of a sense of flow between them. and the end boss fight was bizarre.. whenever the fight started heating up he'd give up & hide under his wing for ages (the second time he did this i got bored waiting & ran up close to him with impulse 255 on to finish him off). seemed a bit of a pointless feature imo, would have been a pretty solid fight if it weren't for that.

overall i guess it wasn't as strong as say, nehahra or soul of evil, but it had some pretty memorable moments. not given the dm maps a blast yet but shall endevour to do so later :) 

Oh, you changed the way the secret exit is accessed the last minute? I'm not sure if it's really less confusing now.

So people, better check your short term memory. ;) 

I especially like the map with the dam 

Beginning to wish I never mentioned the DM2 part.. (although I think two of us did) what with all the GPL shenanigans :/

But some cheap pimpage for our Belgian friend Polarite (Beast) who was kind enough to slap the pack on one of his servers -
flanders.servegame.org - port 26002

Although I got a connect error after the start map I know it works for others.

Sir H 

That's almost 1000 downloads for the travail.zip

Looking forward to playing it soon. 

Spirit: Thanks for the stats!

All: comment has been diverse but generally express enjoyment, vive la differance.

nitin: given how much I've come to respect your opinion, your comments are greatly appreciated. The brick texture is from q3test btw, it's one of the few that looks like it shouldn't be part of the Q3 set :) As for neg!ke's secret mini mission, it started out as a single additional level then grew so big it had to be split into two levels, both of which grew to the point where they started choking the engine. The man's a machine! Anyhoo, they're secret, and as such some work (memory in this case) should be required by the player to access them. The payoff is well worth the effort, as you pointed out. Besides, in two weeks the secrets and Easter Eggs will be common knowledge, and very few will miss the opportunity to play neg's awesome cavern level.

Sir H: the team is very proud to have brought you out of lurker mode. I'm glad someone got poisoned by the Archenids :) I was beginning to wonder if they'd lost the ability.

rj: sorry you didn't find it as coherent as we thought we'd achieved, but I'm glad you enjoyed things overall. I thought I'd sorted that return to the interior problem in qte2m2. Heh, even with long and careful testing something or two will slip through. Can I put you on the list for beta tester on the next project?

ijed: looking forward to you comments on the rest of it.

golden_boy: if you believe inadequate consideration was given to GPL by the Travail team then you assume too much. The various release dates associated with it and the longevity of Quake's appeal has made it, in quite a few instances, an anomoly with respect to GPL. This doesn't mean GPL is bad, just hard to apply in some instances (and in twenty years time these instances will be almost non-existant). In the meantime we appeal, as HeadThump politely pointed out, to common sense in the form of common law. If you wish to discuss the process and reasoning whereby my final approach to GPL was reached in this instance, please do not hesitate to contact me at quake -dot- travail -at- gmail -dot- com 

Can I put you on the list for beta tester on the next project?

sure! whenever it's ready just post a note in the beta thread & i'll contact you. is there one in progress at the moment?

also, in response to another part of your post, i too got a poinsoning from the archenids. i'd say that section was actually my favourite part of the whole game; i loved how the medkits were spread out so that you had to use them wisely, coupled with the panic factor of the screen turning red if you got bitten. i also managed to use up all my ammo on that section & had to fend the last one off with the axe, which was awesome :) (my fault as i missed the GL completely until seeing it in the intermission, d'oh) 

...you beat the level without the GL. I doff my hat!

As to 'in progress', I've a level about 75% done. It follows directly from "Recurrent Rumours," the first prequel to Travail. 

finaly finish playing travail!!!

great pack!

first episode is classic quake, not to hard on hard, was real real fun enjoy it a lot not so good like second episode but is normal becouse of textures quality but gameplay was perfect and fun.

second episode is more detailed and more new quake stile of maps with pretty textures that map maps much better, neg|ke and distrans made real great job on that episode.

final levels

love all great job love the red ciborgs :) made me run all over that basement :) the Azoth was fucking evil!!! both levels with him were great and the gameplay on hard was just perfect.

good work guys.. sorry my feedback but you guys already know that i suck in english :\

i will replay it again next week ;) must beta test a map this week before someone kill me ;)

thks guys!!! enjoi it a lot, will play again for sure. 

Maps are awesome.. not too linear and worth a second play straight away. Quite enjoyed the first boss level, and the long spider cave is fantastic - a ponderous and attractive segue - and a prelude to the next spider level. Up to E2M6 with tyrquake 0.56 and no problems so far. The graphics are just amazing. 

I never got the soundtrack going but the levels were nice and atmospheric nonetheless. Like many of the other comments here, the second episode was by far my favorite. And as far as bad guys go, I liked the new base boys and the uberscrag but Azoth looked a little too cartoony - his/her special effects were nice though :-)

The gameplay was spot on throughout even though I never figured out how to get to the last boards without cheating ;-)

I loved the architecture and all those texture combos, BTW.

Great work guys!!! 

hehe forget to saw replay travail again :p and found a secret.. on last level with the crew pics :)

neg|ke you are sexyyyyyyyyyyy
:p
distrans keep away from drugs
:)
scragbait take carefull with guns!
:p
Asaki got latin blood :p
:p
aguire is nordic nothing to say look like one!

Preach look like a english guy :p is for sure!!! 

Still playing through, just into the second episode. Yep, playing slowly.

And its good, I reckon it is better than the first, but for a single reason. The change in playstyle doesn't bother me so much; I'd say the firt 3/4 of episode one is more HL1 and the later maps more quakey - but this isn't a bad thing.

The problem with the earlier maps (I think) is that they're not as sectional as later on. It's nice to complete a large interconnected map (the dam was very satisfying) but it's also confusing; alot of the time some seemingly cryptic message pointed the way forward and the size of the maps meant a wrong turn resulted in a good five minutes of wandering before returning and trying another route.

'The door lies underwater' is a good example, after collecting the SK. It's not too helpful when most of the huge level has water.

But it was nice to explore, just sometimes it became tiresome.

This is going to start sounding like a plain chant whinge, but the enemy mix also began to grate - there was alot of reliance on the vore and Shambler, and in the later levels of episode one it became a bit tedious. I say this because pot shotting a Shambler (or Vore) who can't attack you because of the distance sometimes made the gameplay inconsistent. An increase in the Vore's max attack range + the RL would have helped. I would also have liked to see Quoth Droles replacing Shamblers in some of these areas, but that's a different mod.

Artisticly the levels shone. Getting into the Zerstorer style sections was cool and pure Quakiness. I liked the dream catcher thing in the boss prelude as well. The base / castle parts were well done as well - it did feel like an ancient place that had been taken over by a more technologically advanced culture; good work.

The superscrag was a bit of a typical boss combat - it would have been improved by the support scrags spawning from outside the edge of the arena and flying in rather than inside and just sitting there until the rocketsplash from hitting the boss killed them. Granted this would have made it more difficult, but with all that space it could have been done.

The opening levels of Ep2 were good, Somewhat basic in parts but very well done - the small improvements all over helped alot here, the HK especially.

I found the spider section a bit underwhelming to be honest. I under stand there's a second one so I'll withold judgement. The spiders are excellent enemies - thier jump reminds me of a hacehugger and the poison is really well done.

But the section is very lineal, I'dve preferred the switches scattered off in some otherwise pointless detours so that the player is more likely to reach a locked door than an open one. Thinking Shelob's Lair there with winding tunnels etc.

I'm up to the library after that, which works very well - the HK modifications work especially well there.

Hope all that doesn't sound too negative, it's just because the rest is so good. This is one of the best packs for a long while.

More comments to come. 

Preach look like a english guy :p is for sure!!!

Guilty as charged... 

..that us english guys had a *look* that could be recognised. learn something new every day i guess!

and i didn't find the hall.. but i extracted the textures & noticed the pictures in there. scragbait, i'm hoping you didn't take my episode 1 crtique too harshly; you look like someone i wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of... 

The Angles have a genetic component that makes us good at mapping.

And the Portuguese just make thier maps too difficult. </cough> 

I sure am nordic, but the guy on the pic is Klaus Kinski, a famous German actor of yore. His pic is taken from an early cult movie from which I borrowed my nick; a seriously disturbed spanish knight in armor ... 

hehe :p i will replay again to make a 100% on all secrets :)

second and third round are with my kid! he loves Quake more then me...hehehe

and guys hard skill is simply perfect... was realy realy beta tester! is perfect! 

hee, been meaning to see that one :) 

Qtfin2 is the best quake boss i've seen. Good work guys, amazing mod. Found the credits hall beneath the qtfin3 exit, though can't say the same about most of the secrets %/. TyrQuake played out the whole thing (skill 1). 

Soundtrack is seriously good. I don't know how it goes alongside the game, but IMHO it's easily better than half the ambient electronic stuff that makes it to commercial CDs.

> 'Quake' and 'DooM' are registered by Id so don't pretend you can use them
> without limitation (Activision aside).

??

--

Laugh. Trinca thinks aguirRe looks like a crazy Klaus Kinski, and distrans' a dealer. You tell 'em. 

how can i change the crappy textures of travail? 

... play something else! 

Still playing through; started again. Different machine. But still with limited playtime, so just completed ep1 again.

A few more thoughts, but nothing really to add. I do like the SuperScrag, could have seen some of her sisters, although that'd demote episode boss status.

And the Vore / Shambler combo in The Ugly Place still irritates . . . I'd have gone for a Thunderbolt near the start and a Vore / Ogre combination; though you can treat that as ijed generic map idea number 0.001.

The artistry and complexity continues to impress, very alot of nice brushwork here, over a huge scale. Even if it does sometimes get in the way.

I've got a few more thoughts but I'll try finishing the pack first.

Thanks for the Travailing, of which I still have another episode to play through. 

you can open any bsp (as if it were a texture wad) with a program called texmex.. others probably do it too but that's the one i use, it's free to download. you can then replace any textures you desire, providing the replacements are the same name & size

though i didn't think they were that bad, personally. just wasn't keen on the contrast between old-skool & nu-skool, which is quite prevailent throughout the pack (and was a bit of a problem with nehahra too if i remember rightly)