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SM 176 - Quantity Over Quality
The 176th SM pack features Quoth maps by Cocerello and Drew, and a vanilla Q1 map by DOOMer.

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/single_player/speed_maps/SM176.zip

Please record demos and leave feedback below!
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Feedback 
DOOMer: You really love grunts, don't you? You overpopulated your map for sm173 too with them. :D

Looks good. 2D layout is a bit of a minus, but it is a nice one. Surprising idea wih the gold door. I can see how you extended the texturework to the rest of the map to make a quantity over quality one and the different colours blend way better than what i expected.

The bad point is the gameplay: very repetitive and mainly a single monster. Placement is dull and that makes the map too easy, even easier than your previous ones. Add some variations and ambushes, or turn it into a gibfest with the NG and a Quad, for example.

Drew: i played it, but i couldn't enjoy it at all. It is running VERY slow, and that's weird, it is the FIRST map that ever run slow on any of the engines i use, apart from when i put lots of Darkplaces' high resolution eye-candy in Honey or other very big map.

As it was running so slow, playing became very hard and frustrating, and moving was a pain, so i died early. Is there something that i need to add to the comandline to make it run OK, like -heapsize or something?
I'll play it again to see if i can finish it this time, but i don't have many hopes.

The DEMOS will be uploaded when i finish Drew's map. 
Will Play Record Demos Soon 
Vey busy with real life lately. Havent opened quake since doing a quick playthrough of my map just before release. runs slow for me too. It's 2 maps which already had a lot of issues merged. And the build quality really is atrocious even by my standards.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun making it! 
No Problem 
And i do think that as an speedmap-turtlemap it has enough quality, even more considering the theme, but i do understand that you wanted it to be at the same level as sm169_drew. Well, considering its two maps in one, that explains a lot.

By the way, I am interested in why it runs slow, as a mapper. Do you have any idea? I don't know if the long list of error it gives is one. As far as i know it doesn't have leaks, but if it had, the first sympthom would be brush entities and later world entities dissapearing, and there is nothing of that. 
 
coce: Awesome concept! Annoying CD track (NEVER EVER USE THAT ONE EVER!)! Hard! Had to cheat in the end because I think I missed a weapon or something.

doomer: too many grunts (doom grunts & doom shotgun = fun, quake grunts & quake shotgun = grind) plus very well built.

drew: too many grunts :( don't remember much else but quitting frustrated 
Spirit 
* First of all, Spirit. Was Drew's map running slow on your computer too? If there is a way to play it well i would like to know.

* Well, the awesome concept was tiresome as hell, even more considering it is my first speedmap, as i wrote on the text file. Sorrily for you, i won't repeat it again, probably. But I am glad you liked it.


* About the CD track, i used this one, which i think fits the ambient of the map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8hWdQBBvHw

I find your comment strange, as I always thought that the only hated track is the first, which i find tiresome and angers me. Is that the one you are hearing? The first?


* About the weapons, the non-secret weapons in this map are the SSG and the NG. Secret ones are the GL and SNG. This map is the one i made that relies the most on exploration by a large margin, but the NG, which i suppose you were missing, is very easy to spot, on the middle of one of the islands, on top of it.


* If you are going to play it again to check what i pointed out, keep in mind that you can't find all the secrets on the same run, to add to the replayability. And if it is hard for you, try to play it as a speedrun map, you can finish it without a single bruise or killing a single enemy even on hard skill, or try easy skill. 
Quantity Over Quality Eh.... 
...not quite! I was impressed by the quality for speedmaps too.

Coce - some really neat ideas in this. It's like a crude showcase for some good stuff that could work very well in a normal map. I like the tunnelled islands design, felt pretty fresh. Crystals were cute and the Voreling gameplay was actually rather fun. Go make a proper map!

Drew - fuck me there is a lot of quantity here, I got a real shock seeing the underground section. And actually a fair bit of quality too, given it's kinda 3 maps in one. I'm impressed how you managed to get the Quoth gameplay well balanced - just the right amount of items for the monsters. Even the end seemed okay. Basically amazing for a so-called speedmap, and has the basis for a great normal map (or 3) with some polish.

Doomer - ah now this is more like it, proper speedmap style that does what the theme promises. Still quite fun. 
 
By the way, I am interested in why it runs slow, as a mapper.
i did check Drew's map, I think it's unvised. try r_showtris 1 to see everything that's being drawn, and r_speeds 1 to see how many world / entity polys. It has about 50k epolys in the starting area which is a lot for quake.

still have to play these :) 
Played 
Doomer: agree with comments re gameplay, but other than that very good! Like others said if you beefed it up, it would be fun.

Coce: This is very strange and cool. A very STRONG but not quite explicable HL xen/ early custom HL1 feel. Like Shambler said, lots to enjoy here.
You'll hate my demo, since i cheated a lot, partially due to weird trigger push issues (which would have been resolved with a sensible shortcut) but also due to hardcore derpiness on my part. Will post both derpy demos soon. 
And Yeah 
vis didn't work on mine? I am doing something stupid that Negke will be able to diagnose without even playing the map, I'm sure.

Even if you don't play my map, make sure you play the one it exits to. 
 
Drew's map runs fine in reQuiem on my system.

sm176_coce.bsp uses CD track 2, which is https://www.quaddicted.com/files/music/quake/quake_track02.oga
Check https://www.quaddicted.com/quake/soundtrack for reference. I guess you have them installed with wrong filenames starting at 1? CD track 1 is the data. 
Music Tracks 
I knew that was the issue, because in Internet there is many namings for Quake tracks, from those that begin at 01 to those that begin at 05. For example, the one that i downloaded for Quakespasm begins at 01, the one that downloaded from Quake.one in .pk3 (for Darkplaces i suppose) have them named from 03 onwards.

I never cared about the issue too much because there is no way to solve it. How do i know which is the original namings in everyone says its theirs? How can i choose or trust one of them and not the others? And more important, which is the most used naming, the one i should look at because it will make my maps that the most players hear the tracks i want them to hear? 
 
They start at track02, because they are named after the CD tracks that they came from. I've not actually ever seen a different arrangement, and the common Quake engines don't accomodate any other arrangement. 
 
My link above has a download link.

The track names as on that page are "teh truth" because they are technically correct and match what would be playing if you had the original CD in your drive. 
Proof And Confirmation 
Now i know why i never found actual proof of the true order or naming of ther tracks: i tried to find them at the CD but they are nowhere to be found, the only files outside the packs that are bigger than 50Kbytes are the .exe files, so i can only think the tracks are hidden in them. Also all the searches outside the Quake installation folder that i can think of don't return results. And yes, that CD has them, if i make a clean install of Quake (i don't have any other Quake installation and nver had in ths HDD) with the CD the game runs the tracks. Where the hell they are?

While we are at it. Does the the 01 track is for data applies to SoA and DoE tracks too? 
 
the CD-ROM has 1 track of data, that your computer will show, and 10 tracks of music, that will play in a CD player. CD tracks don't show up as files in windows explorer, AFAIK. 
OK, Now I Understand 
never thought of that possibility, that the data would be in CD tracks, i thought of the track 01 as a support of data for the music itself, i forgot about tracks on CDs, as it is been decades since the last music CD or cassette i bought.
Thanks, Metl.

Loaded it in an audio player program, and can see tracks from 02 to 11. Going to change the tracks on my engines right now.

* Spirit, used ReQuiem and, even thought it reports low FPS on Drew's map, similar to all the engines i tested the map on till now, it runs smoothly everywhere, as if there was no difference from high FPS and low FPS. Going to play and record the demo, and upload all of them. Which magic has been used on that engine? 
I'll Have To Check That Engine Out! 
Here are my demos.

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/sm176_drew.zip


Cocerello, I'll definitely play again - will try to remember to provide a demo of 2nd playthrough 
Testing Engines ... 
So far:

Run smooth everywhere: DirectQ, ReQuiem

Run slow: Fitz, MarkV, Quakespasm, Darkplaces

Don't even load the map: Tenebrae2010, EzQuake

And that's all i have installed in this computer. Of course i haven't tried with WinQuake and the rest. 
I Would Love If This Map Became A Benchmark Of Some Kind 
Would really prove that I excel in this theme. 
WTF Drew 
Go polish this up and release as proper map! 
Meh. 
Meh. 
Meh 
Meh

I have a bunch of demos, fitting the theme perfectly i think. Demos

Only Drews map so far.. Man. That was gross..:) 
Drew 
Thanks for the demo, got some good information from it, but i missed you falling on the hole, the NG was there for that.

Found something strange in your demo. The intermission points you to 0 0 0, instead of what it was intended to do. I replayed the map several times and checked the .map file and it is OK from my part.
The issue is important in this map because it has a setup made for intermissions. I recommend you for the second run you promised to save before exiting the level and to exit it several times, it is worth the time (if it works as it should in your computer).

You'll hate my demo, since i cheated a lot,

Not really, if there has to be hate somewhere it should be more like you should hate yourself, for spoiling the map with cheats. I don't mind what you did.

I Would Love If This Map Became A Benchmark Of Some Kind

It's better to not expect: Benchmarking with games/programs is almost always a bad idea for rating and ranking hardware and software, the info you get from that is fallacious at most. 
Demos 
At last, here they are.

Demos


* DOOMer: the comments are already on the first post.


* Drew: i recorded it another time, and as you can see, died in the last room due to me understimating heavily gugs. Recorded a third, but that one got lost in the oblivion.
You have the dubious honor of having by far my biggest demo, also he first with comments.

Hilariously, playing it on my computer, which is way older than the other one, works fine, not a single moment of slowness in any engine i have. Maybe it has to do with this computer using Windows xP instead of Windows 7 ...

The map is very good, and should be made a proper release. Good amount of ammo/health but needs better placing of it across the map. Armour is overneeded in the first part. Good placing of enemies, if we don't take into account the darkness.

The first part has better layout, more quality and novel gameplay, the second part is more straightforward and simple, more to speedmap style, also fun.

It's biggest downside is the lighting. It is fun if you have to guess the enemies position by letting them fire first, but if it is half the combats like that, loses a lot. I lost way more health to darkness than to the actual enemies or enviromental hazards.

I'll probably play it again to see how i can reach the ring of invisiblity, i forgot about it when playing. 
Cocerello 
The intermission camera pointing in the wrong direction is an old issue and happens while playing demos only.

There are even utilities to fix demos which have the issue.

Ifix found here:
http://quake.speeddemosarchive.com/quake/downloads.html

Or ConvDem by Bengt Jardrup:
http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/ 
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