While I haven't been able to play the latest incarnation of Remake Quake yet (no OSX build, I have a feeling my old XP desktop may not be able to run the gfx ... has problems with DP) ...

I did watch the Youtube on PlanetQuake.

I personal enjoyed the miscellaneous game play challenges of the prior demos.

But the grunt sounds and possibly some of the player sounds to me are too ... loud or demanding of attention. Instead of letting the player get submersed into the environment I feel that the grunt sounds pull you out of that submersion.

Kind of like how I honestly despised the sounds in Q3. Especially Orb and the announcer voice. I once described it as a cacophony.

I don't know. Maybe the sounds could somehow be made more subtle and quiet with some sort of Audacity filter or manipulation or whatever people use for sound processing (I don't really know).

At least that's my perspective. The maps look beautiful and I look forward to playing them and I don't mind a few twists in game play to keep it fresh and I enjoyed playing the last one. 

This is how I love quake:
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/e3m2_e3m3.7z

Of course I know the maps by heart but I have also tried playing like this using rmq (previous demo) and I would usually die pretty quick.
Standard quake is forgiving, you are allowed too make some mistakes. 

It's been said many times before but ultimately the 'Remake' element is what's caused so much trouble. If you were making a mod in it's own universe as it were, people wouldn't have expectations. But people expect Quake, and the more of Quake's own rules you break the more you'll annoy people.

this.

it would be much better(imo) if the rmq continue the same direction as previous rmx maps ie modern/enhanced mapping style with an old fashion gameplay and some quoth qc here and there. e1m1rmx is good example. 

btw i have noticed some bug with e2m1 , the water in the starting area/cave just disappears to me. watching at different angles 

I agree with Spy's comment completely. New textures and monsters are okay as long as they open up new challenges and are in harmony with the original content (Quoth delivers perfectly in this regard) - however, all those extra sounds (which are mostly out of place) and completely modified game mechanics can ruin what would otherwise be a top-notch pack with high-quality maps and ingenius monster placement.

Being simple, raw and to-the-point has always been the key with Quake. Personally I wouldn't want it any other way. 

I know you guys have IQMs coming soon.

Any reason not to support Q3 mdl also which is a helluva lot easier on the engine that IQMs?

Or is there a good reason to not like Q3 mdl? 

Ijed, please give an cvar to turn gun jamming and fall damage off when Playing id1, nehahra, and quoth. 

It is a good point about the "remake" being the problem because people expect a sort of better-looking copy of Quake with some new mapping entities and a few new monsters.

I have said in the past that the name is unfortunate.

I know the development process, the people involved and the underlying tendencies of the project very well. The tendency of the project for a long time has been to become its own animal, in short, RMQ is different and wants to be its own.

There are other mods that don't "break the player's expectations", chiefly Quoth. This is actually a guiding principle of Quoth, as stated by Preach to me privately. We actually used Quoth as a base when we started, but abandoned it because ultimately we couldn't get what we wanted out of Quoth, because some of the ideas we had ultimately and unavoidably break "the player's expectations". This is by far not a new or recent development in the team.

I could ask "who is this rhetorical player with these postulated expectations", and a number of other questions like that. But that discussion is endless and not productive. In the end, there are different ideas about Quake, and that is OK. Freedom!

So let it be very clear, RMQ is its own animal and is not trying to be an extension of Quake in the same way as Quoth. It is accurately described as the team's vision of the Quake universe (isn't every mapper here taking the same liberty of having his vision realized?), but it stopped slavishly copying the original long ago.

A project such as this could not survive for as long if the design goal was so narrow and allowed so little room for modification (because then its creators would effectively be creative slaves to the expectations of others). Remember a large part of the RMQ team are NOT MAPPERS, and even the mappers on the team have their own mental image of Quake that isn't identical all the time. Our way of dealing with that was to allow some episode-specific developments. I believe this makes the game richer, even though it must be kept in check to retain an overall identity to the game. Since this overall identity is the sum of its parts, and not all parts think the same (we're not the Quake mapping Borg), it will differ from vanilla Quake for sure.

It is not "Quake RMX", I'm sorry. I encourage those who want that (and wanting that is entirely OK, don't get me wrong) to get in touch with Kell and contribute to the Quoth series of remakes. Let me say that our map and other sources will be released under some free license (this is a difference to Quoth that suddenly seems entirely logical because Quoth is protective where RMQ is permissive), and I have no objection to people using them for their own purposes. It would be decent to wait with butchering it until after we made our final release, but in principle there is no objection to it. I also don't object to the porting of my maps to Quoth, but I'm personally not interested in the job. ;-)

We try and go for a very similar core gameplay - like I said, kill monsters, push buttons. We don't necessarily stop there, which might be what irks some people. For example, some people bleedin' hate the idea of a laughing hellknight, while I think it adds to its sinister personality. He might even change more in the future.

Let it be its own game, and remember mod is short for modification. It would be fair to judge it on its own terms, not with an expectation of Quoth or "being the Doom2 to Quake's Doom" in mind.

I don't hate anyone for not liking RMQ, it is your good right, but it should be "allowed" to have its own identity please, that's all I ask for.

We gladly take all criticism on board that points out the technical faults of the project, because it makes RMQ better. However at least I am pretty unwilling to do this

continue the same direction as previous rmx maps ie modern/enhanced mapping style with an old fashion gameplay and some quoth qc here and there.

for the reasons I stated above. RMQ is more than a mapping project.

@Baker: No problem, the grunt sounds have been scheduled for replacement for a while, and I know what you're talking about. About IQM; I think IQM (and/or DPM?) would be a better choice for a possible Quake Standard Base than MD3 and MD3 also is no skeletal format (IQM can be animated from CSQC for animation blending and all that jazz, for example). 

Vanilla Quake *has* fall damage, so turning it off entirely would sort of go against the player's expectation. 

You know what I mean 

Well things like models and graphics and sound are not really what was getting at me, more elements of the game's 'feel' which is more about mechanical decisions about how the game plays (things like player capabilities, monster behaviour and abilities etc).

But this is an agree to disagree situation about what you think adds or detracts from a given experience, and since you confirm that the project is supposed to be it's own beast there isn't much to be gained on discussing that, so myself I'll leave it. Will still follow the project though :) 

For the record: I don't hate the idea of a laughing hellknight, I just hate that it sounds like a French pirate's Hohoho. It doesn't sound mean enough, and the unsheathing sounds more of a saber than a heavy sword.
This is something that also troubles me with the other sounds. The Ogre, for example, should sound meaner too, deeper voice. It's not a bad idea to have them talk in such a moronic way, but the sound has to back up their posture. Right now, it reminds more of goblins or something. Likewise, the grunts sound too skinny, if you know what I mean. I always imagine them as (according to the manual) braindead killing machines whose implants only allow for mindless grunting and other primal sounds.
The enforcers are ok, though they could be a tad more muffled considering their heavy masks.

Something for guiding the player: in E2M1RQ, where you have to drain the water, I didn't immediately realize how to exit the pit, because I didn't spot the ladder. It seemed like draining the water would make the elevator lower. This could be solved by placing a light, colored or better slightly flickering, next to the ladder to make it easier to see - right now it's fairly dark.
In E3M3RQ, where you have to push four buttons to open the exit gate, I had problems finding the fourth one beyond the slime pit, and only discovered the leap of face bit by chance. There should be something on the other side that catches the players attention, makes him realize there's something interesting or important there. Maybe also a subtle ominous sound near the edge to encourage him to jump. Because as it is, players, especially less-skilled ones, don't readily jump into a slimepit with no visible way out (after all, they learn that slime is a hazard that has to be avoided). 

Simple solution to appease more classic players would be, and I'm sure I've suggested that already, to release the complete game in several paks. One with all the essential stuff, one with all non-essential sounds (high-res replacements), one with all QRP textures; and a detailed description in the readme. This way players who wish to keep it classic can rename or remove the extra stuff and play the game without this potential source of conflict. 

Is the Linux engine borked or am I stupid?

Mod_LoadBrushModel: maps/e2m1rq.bsp has wrong version number (1112756274 should be 29)

37c955a4cfe94f02541b1e0aafb624cf RMQEngine-Linux32

a912586e7c357c0ffb380d3f91b3d240 rmqwinter11/maps/e2m1rq.bsp 

Hmmm. BSP version number 1112756274. That's a new one! I'm no genius, but I would say that either:

A - something has become corrupted
B - there is an engine bug

If it's corrupted, you could try and download it again I guess. :(

Negke - thanks :) 

Negke: Thanks for pointing out the problems there.

Release in pick-and-choose parts: While worth discussing, unfortunately what appears to be different ingredients are highly interconnected.

Some examples:

- Monsters require the progs.dat to function correctly; however the progs automatically comes with all the gameplay changes. The progs also in turn requires other ingredients to be present, for example it precaches sounds when a map is loaded...

- Maps also require the progs in the same way unless "ported to Quoth" or something.

- Monsters use completely new sounds that vanilla Quake or Quoth do not contain. Footsteps; taunt sounds; drowning or burning sounds; spell effect sounds; talking sounds.

- NPCs and so on require completely new sounds in the same way.

- Maps require tons of new ambient sounds in the same way. Custom mapping entities might require new sounds and of course the progs.

- RMQ will have a story, and at least 4 different player characters. All of those require sounds.

- Maps require tons of new textures, not all of which have fully realized low-res counterparts. Technically, a low-res texture in RMQ is only a placeholder - it could be just a picture of Goofy or whatever, since it is never seen in game, and I can't be arsed to make great low-res textures if they are never actually seen. That would require development time and resources that we don't *have*.

In short, it gets very difficult very quickly to separate something that could be packaged as individual parts.

Spirit: The Linux build included in the installer is old; I'm sorry, please try this one:

http://icculus.org/remakequake/rmqe_linux32.zip

I hope that works for you. 

"- RMQ will have a story, and at least 4 different player characters. All of those require sounds."

"That would require development time and resources that we don't *have*."

I think I see somewhere you could recover some time. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I thought, "Man, Quake really needs a better story". That's because I have never thought that. 

The story (stories) actually slowly developed out of some mixed gameplay ideas that we accumulated;

- wanting both male and female player models, and an enforcer player character, and wanting identities for them;

- having 4 bosses, some of them pretty mystical, plus Shub-Niggurath;

- key events in episodes that I don't want to reveal yet;

- having new monsters and slowly developing something like "cults" or "factions" among the monster lineup (a bit like Quoth's "Death Brigade" but deeper), and wanting an identity for them;

- having more of Lovecraft's pantheon in the game;

- needing to tie it all together.

It wasn't really that we one day decided "OMG! We need a story!" but that we wanted to do a number of things that would be nice to tie together as parts of the same... story. It grew organically, instead of being decreed while sitting on the shitter. This is again due to how the team and the development works. 

... decreed while sitting on the shitter.

Hi Willem. 

You do realise you don't need cutscenes or any more "high quality" voice acting to tell a story, right? 

 

Hi. Good? Everyone doesn't need to say hi, let's stay on topic. :) 

Quake is like the blind men and the elephant - if you ask 10 different people you'll get 10 different answers.

The intention is not to try please everybody, because if you do that you'll just end up pleasing nobody. A consequence of that intention that should hopefully be obvious is that not everybody will be pleased.

It's also important to remember that RMQ is very clearly envisioned as being more than just maps and gameplay. RMQ is a toolkit, a bunch of odds and ends that people can take from and reuse as they themselves see fit. The maps and gameplay presented in the demos just happen to be what one particular group of people have done with that toolkit, but they are in no way, shape or form prescriptive.

An irony that is not lost on me is that Quoth makes several radical (and sometimes breaking) changes to Quake style, atmosphere and gameplay, but yet is accepted. Discuss. 

k I'm curious now what radical or breaking things Quoth did?

The key problem with Quoth is that it's not open to the community, which is a huge shame :( 

I take it back
It plays very well. And I have enjoyed it.
Standard maps with rmq.

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/e3m2_e3m3_rmq.7z