also

demoes

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/arcextra2_drew.zip

recorded in RMQ engine. 

them both, as my constant comments in the demos (especially the 2nd one) will attest. That 2nd one has a great unique style - I would have loved 2 or 3 more maps with variations on that style. I'd be proud to call that B side my own! 

I have just played the first one. Sure, the textures look a bit cheesy in Quake - but I love Heretic, and the original was a great map in terms of visuals, so your recreation was also highly enjoyable for me. Besides, Drake's monsters and weapon modifications make the proceedings even more fun. Kudos for including the original midi as background music. 

Well, Gateway to Earth is simply beautiful. Its highly-interconnected, angular, old-schoolish yet subtly detailed and slightly surreal design is a joy to explore. Textures of different themes are blended extremely well too. Most importantly, it plays great thanks to the ingenious monster placement and its vertical progression.

Overall, it's like a mixture of all things that make Quake great. Amazing job. This would make Arcanum even better if it had been included. 

Agree with erc. I actually found it could have been a touch harder, for once, like Shamb noted.
A minor nitpick: I feel like there were a lot of areas where secrets could have been stashed that went unused.

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/arcextra2_drewsk2.zip 

you're so right about secrets in arcextra2, it should have 5 or 6 not just 2. my next release will do better that way. glad everyone's liking the style - har har, I finally made a "Base" map, but it's still about as "wizard" as base maps get.

PS reviews of the other recent map releases should be up soonish at Quaddicted. 

are you referring to the "boring brown" one you posted shots of a while back?

PS I was thinking just now that I'd love it if you remade Tale of Abbot's Rune. Not a request, just saying you're obviously the man for the job. 

Can the new Drake work with the Old Arcanum and Unforgiven? 

what gives?

Actually it looks like drake isnt loading. 

Re: Nitin
What engine and how are you running it?
I'm not sure how Drake could not load... try old DOS prompt Quake -game arcextra.

Re: Yhe1
Yes, this will run older Drake releases. Actually, the next release of Drake should be the final one, and it will include all of my maps.

Re: Drew
Yes, the "boring brown" map... progress on it has been glacial, but it's close to done now. 

never mind, it was because I was trying to use other pak files (there must be a limit of 3?), one for idgamma and the other for the fish count hack. Took the latter out since no water and it worked fine. 

Fish count hack is a progs.dat with fixed code, so would override drake progs. :) 

anyway shouldn't Drake already fix that bug? 

yeah realised that later when I opened the pak to investigate. 

probably, it didnt even register when I decided to move that across. 

Is there a place to find more info on the Drake mod? 

not at the moment, but when the final Drake is released (in the nearish future), that release will include full documentation. 

 

I didn't say anything since I helped test this and felt posting about it again would be redundant... :) 

like 20 times 

Map 1 - This felt like a tribute map for people who loved the original. The architecture looked chunky and the map layout felt doom inspired. The first room sadly set the tone for the map with the button location and a message to tell me how stupid I was! If you design stuff and need to remind the player what to do then the design is wrong.

My favourite memory is the arena with the knight pillars, was a cool setup. I am not sure why you design floors with giant holes in them (first big room, upper area with key) I was expecting to fall down and then realized it was all clipped. Architecture for old locations should feel solid, floors should look like they could be walked on. Overall it was a fun (no ammo/health balance issues) but it was missing loads of opportunities for secrets. I am not sure if this is your play style but the map lacked exploration and reward.

Map 2 - Wow this was visually awesome with giant vertical architecture and a real sense of progress (climbing up). The architecture felt solid and the layout felt quake with plenty of up and over routes. The greatest downfall of this map is the lack of encounter progress with the constant use of shamblers. The fights just became repetitive with no sense of building up or down. Encounter design should be like a roller coaster with gradual building up moments, a peak crescendo of intensity and finally a down period to relax and enjoy the victory. I was also surprised you used nail ogres for the vertical walkways, I would have thought grenades would have been more fun.

The second map is certainly the better of the two and had some amazing visual moments. I wish you would spent more time adding more secrets because I like to go back and explore a map again.
Anyway thanks for the maps. 

Thanks for the feedback Sock.
You're right about secrets. I am kind of tempted to add a bunch in each map for the final release of Drake, just because it's a common and reasonable issue people had with these maps, and it wouldn't be that hard.
Your point about monster progression in map two is also a good one. I wanted to use Shamblers because of the lightning/machinery theme and the fact that they're unusual for "Base" maps, but shamblers everywhere makes them less... shamblery (ie scary). Still, I hope everyone had the experience of being launched into a shambler by a wind-grate, heh :)

anyway, as I've already said: next map: lots of exploration, lots of secrets, lots of reward. I've been constipated on that map, but it's not entirely my fault. still, coming soon. 

These maps were very enjoyable to play. Thanks 

I must be the only person that doesn't give a damn about secrets.

The first map felt very old skool with the flat layouts. The outdoor bits were the best looking, or to be honest the more modern/todays-standards looking. But yeah I agree this is better as a standalone release rather than included in Arcanum, it's definitely not as good due to the old layout style. Gameplay was good, though the arrow shooting guys and flying imps can get old after a while.

The second map looks great, or what I could see of it. I guess you HAVE to play in a completely dark room. I was playing in half-lit room and I just couldn't see anything for most of the map, but it was the middle of the day so I couldn't get the room much darker. Way too dark. But yeah what I could see looked great, and the layout was good too. The big problem is the inclusion of the magic wand. This rendered the whole level easy as hell, as I just used the wand which kills everything just about as fast as any other weapon when you keep using using it fully charged. And like Sock said, not so many MH's and less Shambler's would have been good. But it was a good map still, glad I got to play it, if only for better lighting. 

Old-skool is the best skool. I loved both these maps - The first one made me feel like I was back in the good old days of the late 90s with monsters to shoot and no bullshit. The second map was even better.

I always feel a bit too powerful with the Drake weapons - The perfect situation would be an optional mode where you have vanilla Quake weapons and a tweaked monster count to compensate, but that's a minor quibble, it was still fun as hell.

Makes me extra sad that I can't play your latest release because RMQ doesn't work on my computer.