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New Q1SP: Ne_ruins
Here's my QExpo map!

Stuck atop frozen mountain peaks known as the Fingers of the Gods, your only way out lies in using the Altar of Storms to open a gateway and escape. You will need an ancient Rune to activate the Altar, conveniently held deep below ground in a buried city...

One lonely screenshot

This is a two map mod for Quake. (This is NOT a quoth map. DO NOT use quoth).

Engine Requirements

This mod requires a FitzQuake variant as some parts are completely unplayable without fog interpolation. If you just hate FitzQuake variants, then you will need to turn off fog from the console whenever you can't see.

Installation

unzip the pak0.pak file into a directory of your choosing, eg: /quake/ne_ruins

Running

run quake with: -zone 2048 -heapsize 192000 -game ne_ruins

Make sure 'max_edicts' (in the console) is set to AT LEAST 4096. 8192 to be safe. Failure to set this may result in the map crashing the engine. The pak0.pak contains a config file 'ne_setup.cfg' which should take care of this on it's own.

When using a fitzquake variant, make sure sv_protocol is set to 666 (or whatever your variant requires, 999 for RMQ I believe), otherwise you'll probably get invisible items or other oddities when recording demos (wink). I could not include a default protocol setting in config files because each engine has it's own protocol number.

Playing

Once the engine starts, select your skill level in the console by typing 'skill #' (Replace # with a number, 0, 1, 2, 3; for easy, normal, hard, nightmare.) Select 'New Game' from the menu.

if you want to record demos, you can use the "quicksave, disconnect, record, quickload" trick to record demos mid-map.

Additional notes

This mod includes an autosave feature. Every once in a while, you will see the message 'Saved to ne_autosave.sav'. You can press 'F8' to reload to that point and pressing attack or jump when dead will automatically load the autosave instead of restarting the map.
HOWEVER, if you quit the game and wish to load your autosaved game later, you will need to type 'load ne_autosave' into the console instead of pressing F8. F8 will function correctly AFTER the map has been loaded from the console.

Finally, I recommend playing with gl_texturemode 3 to disable bilinear filtering! :D

Download .zip (47mb)
Download .7z (37mb)
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Spirit 
Please do a test for me: Do a normal build from quakespasm-r524.tar.gz (i.e. without using my Makefile.test or anything fancy) and try again: If it doesn't crash either, than we are good, and I will then assume that your crash was _possibly_ due to this bug which is indeed fixed in the svn for 0.85.5:
http://quakespasm.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/quakespasm?view=revision&revision=440 
Success 
Builds and runs fine 
RE: Success 
Thanks for testing! quakespasm-0.85.5 (pending, in a week or two) will have the fix integrated. 
Linux 
my head hurts 
 
cp /linux/painkillers ~daz

there you go. :P 
Swinging Door 
Iv read that 10 times, trying to understand, but Im no good at qc at all so... would you release the code? 
 
i don't want to be a dick here... but if you didn't get my post, you'll probably have a hard time with the qc... but take a look and see i guess: http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/temp/ne_rotation_pushableRotaters(17.12.11).qc 
I Was Just Thinking 
A remake of E3M2 in this map's style would be ace... 
 
in theory, with the map source, anyone can make new maps with the same style since i left the brush groups intact. just copy/paste some stuff around and build a little bit to fill in whatever gaps. 
Hm 
The original maps are extremely crampt, and badly built by modern mapping standards.

Blasphemy maybe, but true.

Having said that, the compact mapping style in id1 isn't really used much anymore.

Makes me wonder if there was a technical reason for the caution. Possibly inaccuracies in the movement far from the world 0 0.

Unlikely though. 
 
I believe the reason was rendering performance back in the day? They couldn't just make open spaces like Doom 2.

They might be built badly by modern build standards, but the actual flow makes them very lean compared to Doom which I approve of :E 
I Spose Yeah 
It's not so much the scale of things that caused problems, it was having more than 100 enemies in a level to fill all that space with.

Remember when the courtyard fight in czg07c was groundbreaking - 5 HKnights vs 5 fiends. Then later on came stuff like Masque and Marcher, with tons of enemies and tons of detail.

RMQ winter demo is nearly ready by the way, which will include BSP2 tools. For those who found Masque and the like a bit too small... 
Q1bsp Is Just Bad 
It splits large surfaces into chunks to fit lightmaps, it would be a waste to make large scale maps in 96, besides id wanted sp maps to be playable in DM, so the designers made nice looping layouts. I still marvel at those.
I have to admit I got lost in Romero's e2 maps when I first played Quake, they were too confusing with all the nonlinearity and a fair bit of swimming. 
Amazing Work 
This is such a cool map pack on so many different levels. The lower level (tomb) is not over populated (initially) and the suspense of turning a new corner is brilliant. This is how the game should be at time, the pause between encounters is fantastic for building tension. Plus it gave me a chance to look around and be familiar with my surroundings.

Played the map on easy and died a couple of times! Yeah I know I am not some Q1 god but most of my deaths actually felt cheap. A couple were to mobs spawning behind me (the running zombie things) which felt cheap like in D3 spawning cupboards. One other death was to the blob creatures, it shattered from a vase behind me and I pretty much died instantly. Besides that the game play was flawless. I even died on the corner lava trap! :P I got caught on the stupid vases and could not get out in time, my own fault.

The textures and architecture was a thing of beauty, the place felt structural sound and the texture detail matched the shape of things perfectly in places. I loved the whole deserted feel to the place, the dark ceiling space pushing down and the various misc models (used extremely well).

The new monsters certainly had me running circles, especially the spawner one's. I must of killed a whole army of ogre's at one point. I could not reach the spawner creature at the back and it seemed like forever trying to kill the ogre barrier.

The final boss was extremely clever, well scripted with good defined waves. Certainly felt like a boss but I got a bit bored with the second phase (through the teleporter).

A very original release, certainly hits all the right notes with layout, pacing and finally a map with proper skill levels! Amazing piece of work necros, something to keep in my collection for a very long time :) 
 
thanks :)

i admit the zombies spawning behind the player was a little bit me just showing off the pathfinding (they spawn quite far back and have to path through a fair amount of map before they get to you), but in retrospect, i should have realised the player would never appreciate that nor care. :P
otoh, they only hit for like 3 damage and have 5 health... so i kind of don't really feel bad for you on this count. :D

sorry about the tarbaby thing though. that sounds like just dumb (bad) luck. i toyed with lowering the explosion damage, but i preferred just slowing them down (neg calls them tamebabies, hehe).
it's the golem stomps that cause them to break though, but it takes more than one stomp so the idea is you either try to lead them away from the vases or be prepared for them, but it's not really an obvious thing.

re: respawning armies, i think i should put internal cooldowns on individual monsters so a single monster can't be resurrected in quick succession. there were a few times when testing where it looked like it might be an issue, but it wasn't a major one so i just let it be at the time. thinking back, the archvile in doom moves a lot more spastically and so doesn't exhibit the same kinds of problems because it tends to not be in position to resurrect the same monster again. that or i should have used weaker monsters instead of ogres there.

about the boss, i agree, the second phase seemed to be a common complaint and my only excuse is i ran dry on ideas at the time. oops!

glad you enjoyed it! 
A Rare Gem 
I do think it is worth stressing that an essential part of Q1 was traps and the lava trap you have in this map was awesome! Yes it killed me (my own stupid fault) but it made me smile because it was something I could have avoided. I have not seen a good trap in a custom map for such a long time I forgot they even existed and to be wary of them!

Also damn you necros and you grease lightning zombies who chewed my ankles off and killed me! :P

Yeah the re-spawning monster was a little hard because I don't think the spawn rate was linked to a skill level. It just keep spawning new mobs faster than I could kill them. (especially the ogres) At first I did not even know the re-spawning monster was there, I just kept seeing ogres coming down a corridor at me.

I never liked the tarbaby even in Q1, any mob that can one shot kill is cheap in my books. What confused me was the vases could only be broken by the stomp attack and not by me, so I assumed they were just window dressing and ignored them. They should of initially been presented in a better way to the player. Saying that, I did like the surprise, just it killed me! 
 
well, vases have 100hp , but the axe does 3x damage to it (it takes 2 axe hits to kill a vase, but like 4 or 5 shotgun shots).
it follows the HL model except for different reasons-- to avoid breaking them open from stray shots in combat.
my one real regret was not finding a better way of communicating that the tarbabies in the large vases didn't count towards kills.
i think a few people went out of their way to kill them all which probably made it harder for them seeing as how the map wasn't balanced around that much ammo usage.

the 'tamebabies' are much slower now though. what happened must have been just bad luck because they are no where near as lethal anymore. neg actually said once they were too easy now. :P

i think flattening out their explosion damage would help a lot-- keeping the explosion radius the same, but lowering damage all around creating a more 'shallow' damage curve.
or even just replacing it with the quoth poly 'hurting gibs' damage model. dunno, needs some thought.

heh, anyway, i could go on all night talking gameplay. :) 
Visual Clues 
When I first saw the vases I thought 'wow that looks awesome I wonder if I destroy them!' I shot one bullet at the vase and it gave off white dots which to me means 'this is like a wall and will not take any damage', I was disappointed. If the vase had used a common visual clue of red dots - meaning 'take damage' or something different to the usual white I would have taken it a stage further. The visual clues are important and if they give the wrong message, players will have different expectations.

I am personally against any monster in any game that can one shot kill a player with explosion/combo/critical hit damage. The exception to that rule for me is bosses, because well they are bosses! They should be able to hit harder and being more dangerous.

I have always hated the tarbaby because it can one shot kill most times and even bounces around the screen like crazy. If there was ever a list of retro game mechanics, that would feature on it! After I knew about the tarbaby it was fine because I could plan for it and death by it would be my fault. 
 
I really enjoyed them... perhaps they do need some tweaking in some way, would have to go replay it to make any suggestions, but I enjoyed the 'moving explosive barrel' effect. I usually tried getting them all out in the open when big fights started and tagging as much as I could :) 
 
If the vase had used a common visual clue of red dots

this. usually the argument is realism. :P
i was really on the fence about it when i implemented the grey particles. there was some big discussion about this here or on i3d at the time.
otoh, blood sort of indicates you SHOULD damage it. the vases are somewhat optional, providing only 25 armor after many coins. like a non-secret secret.
and the large vases most definitely are not meant to be shot. :P
i guess the real problem with vases is that there is nothing like it in stock quake.
when you see something moving, you shoot it. if you see something on the ground, you pick it up.
there were no decorative yet destroyables beyond barrels which only showed up in tech maps and had an animating texture.

this is serious business. ^_^; 
Visual Language 
If the visual language is missing from Q1 about breakable objects then something else could be done instead. Maybe use a 'cracking' sound clue?

I suppose the ideal solution would be a damaged skin. I've got no idea if Q1 can support them or if QC can switch to a damaged skin based on health, maybe it could be possible?

I can see hiding a monster in the vase is cool, like a jack in the box type surprise but when the surprise is lethal at close range it feels unfair. Something like that should offer clues, otherwise it is just random. Like someone finding out if they shoot a certain wall texture an ogre falls from the ceiling on their head. Could be funny! :P 
 
Vases were blueish no ? Then particles of same color as the vase, simulates bits of vase chipping off there you have slight realism + indication of something different happening as its not usual white/grey particles. 
In Quake Extras 
Destructable objects that aren't monsters emit yellow (vaguely like sparks) particles. 
Particle Colors 
I went back and forth with this on rubicon2 ... for a long time Floyd had yellow blood (to resemble sparks.) But then I thought, why do shootable buttons bleed then? Should I make them emit sparks too? And then I realized, if I'm changing how shootable buttons work to make Floyd make sense, that must mean there is already a convention in place (all damageable things bleed, even non-organing things) so I changed floyds back to red blood. 
 
I actually hate bleeding funcs. You get more than enough visual feedback when they move or change textures.
And yes you could make breakable models change skin on damage too.
Even worse if you play with proper blood particles instead of dots.

Breakables don't bleed anywhere.

On a sidenote RMQ's lazer prodicing ogange particles hitting brushwork was... sigh. 
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