what�s with all the whining in the Quake SP community about too difficult, too large, and so on. Maybe DooM has some sort of gfx envy or similar, but I�ve never heard such complaints about legendary (and ultrahard) wads like HR/AV or the recently released Deus Vult II. I don�t get it guys... 

Granted alot of people didn't like it because it was too difficult thanks to the new AI 

...infact I think I just scratched the surface, first couple of levels. I seemed to be spending most of the time watching the (very funny) cutscenes.

Nyaaah

Does it have dudes which you could take through maps with you? I'll have to try and play it through again!

Sielwolf - People arent as hard as you and I ! 

Who is whining about too difficult? We're talking about map size and engine limits. 

i'd say 'frustrating' to be more specific. gameplay needs to be difficult to some extent in order to be worthwhile, but i think the downside to nehahra's gameplay was that you had to approach it differently to that of regular quake; if you treated the monsters the same as you normally would then you'd most likely get annihilated. you had to act more cautiously in order to get by, which i personally found frustrating (and i'm guessing others did too)

Headthump: comparing quake gameplay to a vagina is possibly the most beautiful analogy i've ever heard. 

...there's a lot of cunts still playing it. 

...because Quake is for pussies 

chortle 

was too difficult for me. I got stuck in that elevator downstairs push-them-crates level thingy.

There are good points. Atmosphere is sometimes important, choices are sometimes important, skill like aim is sometimes important... Exploration is a mix of the first two I'd say. Or maybe it's part of a "learning" and "understanding" experience. Hmm.

You can't really chop down this problem into neat bits now can you. :) 

As for npcs and dialogue in Quake, I think Nehahra took that about as far as you can before it starts getting really irritating, lucky for Nehahra it had a good story and Phil to keep me interested through the cut scenes and in game dialogue, but I can easily see how something not done as well would turn me off totally and go out of my way to skip past it. Quake at the end of the day is an FPS game in the same vein as doom, not Stalker. Its the reason I play it, I know that I can load up any q1sp and get some good fps action without any wishy-washy story getting in the way.

I think another issue here is that many of us (correct me if im wrong please) started playing quake in our teens when fast action was what we wanted, but as I have gotten older I want deeper game play and a good story to follow along with, but Quake still has that golden place in my heart, it doesn't need a story or deeper game play, it is perfect how it is. 

Environments that TELL a story on the other hand is something totally different, and I love to see this in levels!

Like in oblivion when your in some dark dungeon, and you walk into a dimly lit room to see blood on the walls a human skull on a small altar, it really adds a sense that the world is alive outside of your 90 degree view finder, and I think this could be explored a lot more in Quake maps, all the tools are there already, you have a creative mind and an editor, GO. make that nameless place feel lived in! 

telling is brevity. You get in, flash the camera,
and try to get the point across quickly. What Neg!ke did in ZerTM with the camera was awesome and fit the Quake feel like a love glove.

Nehahra's story bits went on entirely too long, even the glorious Seal of Nehahra (fantastic btw) could have used a lot of editing.

BTW,
The Zerst�rer camera code is fantastic and it easy to set up in maps. I have a few example maps using it if anyone needs a look (I was going to send them to Neg!ke, but he figured it out on his own). 

I think adding elements from 2D-shooters (enemies with interesting bullet patterns) would be more favorable in quake than going the NPC fancy story direction. FPS Ikaruga mod anyone? 

yeah design new patterns to bring more tactics and variety into the aim/dodge gamepay

HeadThump the fundamental difference between a cunt and a gameplay is that you can change or create one yourself, and with the other you just have to bear 

that humans are animals. We get joy out of some things just because we are kinda designed to feel like that.

So cunts or games that use our abilities like 3d navigation and killing monsters are stuff that makes us feel good. Or, straight men and lesbians at least.

The cat gets satisfaction of not only eating, but hunting and softening up the food. 

I�m still looking for a code for a camera. I made this new monster, and thought it good to make it function as a camera.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/urb.mpg

Once saw a mod, wherer the player could use some kind of robot to explore the level. It also could be killed at cost of the player's health.
The player could switch between selfvieuw and camera.
Forgot which mod it was.

I tried it with KasCam, but I couldn't fetch the camera to the model. I'll look to ZerTm. If you could send me the code I would apreciate. 

I didn't make any prog.dat changes with ZerTm, but I did make an example .map file for anyone who needed an example of setting it up.
Here you can grab it:

http://mortisville.quakedev.com/cam.bsp

http://mortisville.quakedev.com/cam.map

This one is really simple, as it does a spin around a shrine, there are two entity types that I didn't use that can add some depth to the cutscene, one allows the use of cvars and the other allows a synchronization of written messages. The Zerst�rer SDK shows how those entities can be added.

You'll notice the camera gets jerky when it starts going around the shrine. This can be improved by speeding the cam up.

The cutscene code (source code is also in the sdk) is well documented. However the implementation is dependent on functions in other files. One day I may clean this up and put the code in one file so it can be easily used in any mod, as is it is pretty sweet stuff. 

Real nice use of camera movement.
I've had this idea like the malicemod, to make a cutscene of a large landscape with small parts with the outside of a map. Then this kind of camera could make a path moving through the landscape. 

I'm still wanting a consolidated mod based purely on mapside development, like Q2 Lazarus.

Someone who approaches coding in a purely mechanical way (and not like a monkey with a knife, as I do) and doesn't want to add new monsters or weapons.

Things like physics, camera cutscenes, weather, breakables, pushables, maybe even misc_actors.

http://lazarus.planetquake.gamespy.com/

Is the Lazarus website, although it looks like another nice piece of documentation that planetquake have fucked up. Suffice to say the entity list doubled (it was in the broken bar on the left) but things like monsters and weapons remained pretty much the same with a couple of extra flags.

The nice thing about it is almost nothing is active unless the mapper enables it, apart from the slightly improved AI (which was mainly involved with jumping and Z-axis aiming anyway). 

try pox quake essentials 

its extras
http://quake.chaoticbox.com/downloads/extras_r4.zip (I think thats the full and the final version) 

 

I just played through Quake2: The Reckoning _twice_ (it's really good), and the main things that make it better (well let's say more interesting) than Quake1 from a singleplayer pov are:

- the hub layout, in which you first see one part of the map, and the rest later (they may be temporarily shielded from each other, like with a laser fence, and thus you have to find an alternate route.) You could argue that you can technically have that in a Q1 map, too, but it's just more convincing somehow with the hubs. Inside a single large map, the author will often hesitate to have too many different themes, plus you can't have so many different keys etc. whereas in Q2 you can have a progression like canyons - sewers - laboratory- freighter - refinery and lots of going back and forth between them.

- being based on objectives, instead of just "find the exit". If the player is a space soldier, this is the obvious thing to do. The easiest objectives are such as "disable red forcefields to exit". It's a given that you need the matching access key, and some button finding is required to get that. And that it is guarded - that's just assumed. In other words, giving the player a different goal in each map.

- the little stories which are attached to every objective, like the geek-stole-airstrikemarker thing which serves as an excuse for two entire sublevels; the bit where you get canned into a live food crate to infiltrate a freighter; the countless disable-strogg-device plots (with the maps built around the devices instead of dumping some computer into the map as decoration).

- the logical explanations for every button press (this opens Access Valve A, which is clearly marked, which you then use to open Access Valve B, etc, not just "uh, find 4 buttons" or "this nameless insignificant door opens elsewhere" like in Q1).

The technical differences are negligible, apart from rotating doors, forcefiels and the hub (plus keys) thing. A lot of this could be done in Quake, but isn't. The storytelling element is missing. It never existed in Q1 in the first place.

The Q2 guys built the maps around the plots: computers normally have a purpose or mark critical points (control room where you get a keycard for example.) Q1 maps are full of computers that do nothing. Machines give you power cubes (keys), or lower the water, or drill a passage. Most Q1 maps don't have machinery in them apart from doors and lifts. Satellite dishes move into position. You could have the same in medieval maps btw. Like Hexen2's ballistae, or catapults that smash a wall, dams that regulate the water level, plus you can use magic: statues, pentagrams, sacrifices. Or military tactics: Destroy war machines, blow up gunpowder, flood the fortress.

The "problem" is that the original Quake didn't do this. It was "find the exit" like Doom. Thus 95% of custom maps were the same. It's fine if you want it like that. If you want the option of having some background with your killing, you need a few technical means but not many. Most of those exist, but it would be desirable to have it in one place (pak) and that place doesn't need too many custom monsters or colored backpacks. This is where I agree with Ijed.

Clearly most people don't want to change anything though. Mappers typically build cool architecture, then put monsters in it, and 1% is overhead like buttons and keys. Quake is just very pure in that way, apparently any overhead (like objectives, inventories, cutscenes, hub structure) is considered bloat. It is pure movement and combat. Quakeworld is the logical pinnacle.

You could say that games like Q2 and TR are more grown up. Something like Quake and Doom (where the singleplayer is practically multiplayer with monsters and a few buttons) is just very streamlined and optimized towards adolescent males. It's like sports with a little eyecandy (to test your graphics card capabilities :-P). The only thing even simpler is "us versus them" as in Counterstrike. IMO Q1 is much closer to CS than to Tomb Raider. Q2, when pulled off well like in The Reckoning, is surprisingly close to TR, Hexen2, Resident Evil and all that stuff. 

Did you play my new map yet?
(It was built around a hub, and used a bit of what you're saying)
Probably why people said it was Quake2-ish! And not a single Quake2/Reckoning texture was used either!

;-P 

I didn't play it through yet, because it ran quite slow for me and I was occupied with other things. But I will. I thought it looked Quake2 like because of the way you used large panel-style texes together with chunky pillars.

I just looked at the extras pack, and it has some useful things, but again the problem is that all those different quakec mods would have to be stripped to essentials and then combined. Personally I would like a handful of custom monsters in, like the centroid. But I'd have to make my own mod to have, say, centroids, cutscenes and breakables. It all exists, but the pieces are everywhere. Perhaps we should make a list of what we would like to see and present that to the inside3d guys. Maybe.