Here’s my last answer to the question of “what Quake maps to try”, from a couple years ago.
Tulpa also linked this once which still seems like a solid recommendation.
100+maps considered aces but the list is over a decade old now so no doubt it’s missing newer quality stuff that’s come out since then.
I’ll also recommend checking out Warpspasm if you like bigger maps. The whole schtick there is the maps are stupidly huge and have hundreds of monsters. It’s honestly overkill but some have some neat architecture.
Yang is also, in my experience, an admirably thoughtful and creative designer, as well as friendly and approachable, so if he doesn’t already have a list of recommended maps he might be willing to put something together if asked.
edit: and you should try some of his maps! i still haven’t got around to trying them but i’m sure they’re at the very least interesting. and certainly beautiful from what i’ve seen.
damn i really like the options and mouse support that vkquake comes with but it looks like my particular machine has a variant on this “solved” bug which causes about 10% of the geometry to flicker on and off when in motion.
edit: i downloaded ironwail and that seems to have all the same stuff that vkquake has (as far as i can tell) and only required a little bit of controls setup to get working. so i guess that’s what i’ll be using? i’m going to try out its multiplayer capacity today or tomorrow and that’ll really be what dictates whether i use it for level design this year.
downloaded the quake injector from quaddicted and it’s a delight! it’s so nice to just be able to pick from a huge list like that, and i love trying to gauge levels based on one tiny screenshot and a description that says something like “basically a box with monsters in it. pointless level.”
i played a couple standalone levels then opened up arcane dimensions cos it’s clearly the most popular and honestly i kinda hate it. i’ve been playing the one random level i picked for the last 4 hours and fuckn that is too long. yes it’s beautiful and it’s impressive that each brown green zone is distinct from every other brown green zone but dude this is too much level. i think i might play on easy from now on instead of normal because it’s just exhausting at this scale.
also idk if this has already been litigated further up the thread but if someone wants to split the quake talk into its own thread that’s cool idm either way but idk about others?
Yeah, I’m not a fan of Arcane Dimensions! I know it has a lot of mainstream hype to it, and a lot of talented people worked on it, but it feels like “Quake 1 for people who don’t like Quake 1” to me
i’ve now completed 5 arcane dimensions levels. more out of curiosity than enjoyment.
boggy fogbottom (lol): too long and circuitous. looks great tho. i’d hang out there. i am also actually really impressed at how distinct each space is, especially considering how tightly packed each area is; you’re constantly looking down and going “oh i was there like 10 minutes ago”. i think i’d hate it less if it was shorter, easier, and less labyrinthine.*
obsessive brick disorder: not too long but i did get caught up tryna get all the secret keys. visually not horrible but too samey and i spent wayyy to much time being turned around in rooms that loop back on themselves. also its gimmick could literally just be an elevator.
necromancer’s keep: i liked the narrative framing of this one and it’s extremely cool to use a ladder literally one time for climbing out of your own grave and then never again cos ladders suck. the encounters were kinda rough sometimes but it did a much better job of making each room feel like a distinct and memorable place. also not too long.
ogre fortress: one of the lost maps. it’s a remake of an original quake level, which i actually really enjoy. it’s fun to see familiar spaces recontextualised. i felt like it went on for a bit too long, but otherwise idk it was alright.
tears of the false god: this is the only one i really liked. i think i just enjoy open-air levels in the sky. it makes me happy. i got all the trinkets and fought the super secret mega slaughter dungeon final boss so maybe my sunk cost fallacy is making me think i liked it more than i did. i really enjoyed this designer’s approach to secrets, and the fact that each secret had a name was a nice touch. map is defs too long but it tricked me into feeling like that was my fault. i’m gonna look at who designed this one and see if they have any smaller stuff.
*i played like 30 mins of the forgotten sepulchre, which i’m 90% sure is by the same person, and yeah they sure know how to make a space which is constantly winding back on itself in fun ways but they sure do not know how to move you through that space; collect the 10 fucken gewgaws is not an interesting objective my guy. i didn’t bother finishing that map cos it basically felt like more of the same.
i don’t really feel the need to play more of this pack but it was cool to see how beautiful you can make quake look if u try real hard.
anyway i’m gonna go try to teach my siblings how to use trenchbroom lole.
That’s my main issue with a lot of AD stuff, too many “Oh you must find all these things to get the whole true level” bits. I mean here and there I’m fine but it happens too often with them, just let me get the silver and gold keys and move on. And mind you I generally like AD.
AD is a bit too much of a total conversion for me to find it tasteful, though the level art is incredible and the design talent on display is something I can’t disparage. The one heretical quality about it that I do like is that I find it fun how all ranged enemies are fire projectiles instead of being hitscan. I would never modify OG Quake to play like this though.
Edit: I can’t seem to find a mirror for undergate anywhere, and it’s not coming up in the injector under any search term I can think of. Any advice?
this is my experience with a lot of Doom modding as well. a lot of modding tends to end up falling into a “aesthetically pretty, too long, too hard, too montonous” pit imo. just kind of like maximalist wankery. there are a lot of popular Doom sets i skip or have not played much of because they majorly fall in this category for me. which is why i keep flogging Doom wads like A.L.T. or whatever because their appeal is generally not that at all. re: Quake that’s also why i’ve stuck with like those jams with shorter levels and like specific recommendations.
has anyone done much multiplayer/coop stuff in quake? for my class this year i had to use QSS for multiplayer and i just tried out QSS-M today, and it seems to work alright, but both of those engines are kinda lacking in other areas when compared to VKQ and ironwail (and, given i’m going to be playing student levels which i expect to be improperly compiled, i would really like ironwail’s speed), and they don’t run some of the more common community maps properly (weird UI errors and missing effects etc). i would ideally like to just give the students a single engine, and it should be an engine that can run community stuff like quoth or progs dump or whatever.
i haven’t tried port-forwarding w ironwail yet (cos i don’t have access to the router login where i am) so that might be the solution to my multiplayer problems but idk. any suggestions?
played through all of snack pack and it was pretty nice. a much better scale than AD. each map was at most 10 mins long (usually <7 mins) and it was so good to play such small maps that didn’t have time to wear out their welcome.
my favourites were:
Dumb Place (map 9), for its great atmosphere and really thrifty level design. shame it fell apart at the end, but i think it’s still my favourite. Laser Party Vigilante (map 4), for its dense geometry which made encounters with small numbers of enemies feel really crowded and hectic. Humming Tunnels (map 12), for its cool atmosphere and scale. its encounters were a little whatever though. Fever Palace (map 15), which i liked because it had basically no frills and felt super honest and strange. the geometry was very peculiar, as were many of the traps and encounters, which made each section distinct and memorable. it was a cool choice for the final map.
i played through all three coagulas as well, and i think i liked 2 the best (flesh), although i enjoyed how doom-y the third one was (all those reds and blues!) but it felt a little less… grounded? idk. i just didn’t vibe w it as much as the other two.
i’m definitely going to play snack pack 2, but i’ve downloaded a couple other speedmapping packs (“overgrown” and “episode 4”) so i’ll give them a go first.
this is basically the most fun i’ve had w videogames in a long time. merry christmas to me~
you mean the students? i think just regular old netquake. i’m pretty sure i haven’t tried quakeworld at all. unless one of the engines is quietly using it under the hood, which i suppose they might be. i feel like i’ve seen quakeworld.exe in some of the engine directories.
ohh ok well then I’ll give that a go, maybe ezquake (so long as its claim that i can “turn superfluous graphics effects off” is robust) which seems like the go-to.
ok so ezquake doesn’t have weapon bob, movement tilt, or underwater fx, or the ability to run map packs??? it doesn’t recognise the “game” command at any rate. so it’s a solid no from me, regardless of its online capacity.
