@drastic_bb saw you asking about a modern sourceport that felt true to the original experience, so this might interest you
oof I would not recommend using it at this point, that’s some nasty looking aspect ratio correction
you’re better off just using ironwail, unlike doom the unfaithful branch of ports is mostly self contained and niche whereas the fitzquake/directq/quakespasm/ironwail branch is already pretty close to vanilla with limitations removed (and ironwail is able to downscale to a precise recreation of software quake at low resolutions)
assume i love quake but have no experience with any community-made maps. what are the must-plays?
There are episodes created by individual mappers I could recommend, like Honey, or Underdark/Overbright, and a couple others. But I think an easy way to get a sense of the aesthetics of Quake community maps these days would be to download a high quality jam project like the Quake Brutalist Jam 1. You will see a variety of maps with different influences and goals. This pack I can personally vouch for. There is an equal and illustrative variety of astoundingly well built maps and rougher amateur efforts, which is really the landscape of Quake community map making. It uses a version of the game called Copper Quake, which is really a very popular flavor of Quake and a tasteful improvement. I don’t recommend the recent QBJ3 because I believe it has new weapons and monsters.
oh and this episode is highly recommended too
Travail (2007) and Zerstorer (1997) are the classics, I would start with those because they feel like a nice bridge between the level design of the original game and the sensibilities of modern mappers
Newhouse is probably my favourite mapper and spiritworld is 50% his maps (the other 50% are still cool but Newhouse is unmatched).
i recommend getting the quake injector and trawling by whatever metric takes your fancy. it’s such a dope program.
after playing ~50 hours of Doom over the holidays it sure is weird playing a game where you can look up
Agreed. This is real emblematic of the best of the old school Quake custom mapping ethos. The expansions to Quake give you a similar impression, though they are official releases.
Has anyone dipped into Q3 source ports in recent years, especially those with Apple M-series support? I take it ioquake3 is still the big dog, but I haven’t messed with it in nearly a decade, and I still feel kinda clueless with Mac gaming off the beaten path.
I’d rather not fuck with Quake Live for obvious reasons, if that’s even still a thing.
I use quake3e which is an ioq3 fork with a bunch of bugfixes and a vulkan renderer, unsure how well it works with apple hardware
i beat zerstorer – found it mostly pleasant save for a couple points where i got very stuck (mostly in the graveyard where i missed switches TWICE). there’s a nice mazey quality to many of the levels that echos the main game’s level design. some of the elements are a little more ambitious than what they could do in the engine at the time (found myself getting stuck on bits of geometry a lot) but it was definitely a vibe the whole way through.
also played a few maps of spiritworld and am loving it so far. lots of variety, weird otherwordly levels. seems cool!
oh i also played some of qbj1 and more of qbj3 – i would say neither are my favorite. quake enemies work best in cramped areas and these packs tends to emphasize big open spaces. some of the spaces look very nice, but it all gets a bit samey feeling after a while. many people interpret the theme in a very similar way. there are some good maps in here, don’t get me wrong, but in congregate i wasn’t terribly impressed. my favorite maps were either 1) cramped or 2) built like multiplayer quake maps that loop in on themselves over and over.
qbj3 i have additional issues with and it mostly revolves around the balance of the new weapons & elements:
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wrench – a much punchier axe that takes longer to swing but does so in an arc and has significantly more damage. don’t really have a problem with this one; certainly more pleasant to use than the axe.
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pistol – has infinite ammo and hits about as hard as the single barrel shotgun, but with all the damage focused in one hitscan so it’s even better at long ranges. has to reload after every 10 bullets and you can manually reload by pressing the weapon’s key. the reload animation is really satisfying and if it’s already loaded you do a fun gun flip animation that i found myself doing a lot while navigating. unfortunately it encourages really passive play for two reasons: 1) infinite ammo means it literally costs nothing to sit back and shoot and 2) its accuracy means you can shoot enemies from way farther than they can threaten you, which is a problem when the majority of brutalist maps are giant open areas.
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flak shotgun – basically the super shotgun from doom 2 but with an even wider spread that bounces on surfaces. does sort of pathetic damage anywhere else than point-blank unless you can get favorable bounces. quake enemies in general feel like they have slightly too much health to me, and the slow fire rate of this thing just sort of exasperates that problem. feels much less active than the normal double-barreled shotgun, especially against shamblers that feel more tedious to kill than normal with the weapons they give you.
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nail gun – looks like two little uzi nailguns but otherwise feels about like the super nailgun. good for crowds or things you want to interrupt. no problems w/ it.
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rebar cannon – uses 10 nailgun ammo a shot, and shoots a piece of rebar in an arc that penetrates through any enemies it hits. the arcing means it can’t be used to snipe too far, and nailgun ammo is precious for panic situations, so it’s hard to justify using unless there’s a bunch of enemies in a line or something. does about point-blank flak shotgun damage, so it’s not bad, but again, hard to justify using in a lot of cases.
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grenade launcher – basically vanilla. still good!
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rocket launcher – this is where they really start to lose me. it shoots 8 rockets at once for the cost of 4 ammo but the rockets kind of a wobble in way that’s hard to aim precisely. really spammy and encourages map makers to make big dumb horde arena fights at the end of every map. just sort of a shame because of how well-tuned and good the og quake rocket launcher feels. simultaneously feels flaccid and like you’re forced to use it. grenade launcher & rebar can deal with smallish groups, but a lot of levels basically force you to use this in the last few fights. the maps LOVE spawning like 100 flying ghosts at a time that i guess you’re supposed to kill with this weapon but it feels like ass.
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illegal red diamond – another weapon that encourages big dumb hordes of enemies. basically hitscan in a thick line but has some windup before it shoots. can only ever carry 10 ammo total. any monster hit by it dies instantly. invalidates every other weapon when you get it, and is literally the only solution to many final fights. does feel cool to use, at least, but encourages a style of map that quake is not great at.
beyond that they’ve introduced a few quad-damage-esque powerups that of course encourage more hordes lol. there’s a high melee damage one and one that makes all enemies drop healing orbs. meh.
i do in general think it’s a mistake to have people make maps around a set of weapons they’re not familiar with. there might be a way to use this set of weapons well, but most maps do not hit that mark.
qbj3 does nail the aesthetics, though, so i’ll leave you with some of my favorite looking levels. if you do end up playing qbj3, i would recommend easier difficulty levels (i played on hard) just to reduce the friction of the combat so you can see more cool architecture.
start hub
qbj3_annihilazor
qbj3_pinchy
qbj3_quiet
qbj3_roj
qbj3_sze
and a couple from the previous qbj that were remastered:
qbjr_bmfbr
qbjr_draqu
qbjr_nickster
qbjr_strideh
Theres a lot of things I love about the quake modding community but they too often hype up these big mods that alter gameplay for the worse. It’s one reason why I don’t recommend Arcane Dimensions. Very pretty maps that just don’t feel good to play
yeah i think a lot of what makes doom & quake feel good is the subtle tuning of weapons & enemies, and it’s very easy to knock if off-balance. enemies in qbj3 feel spongier than normal because of how slow the cadence of the shotgun & rebar gun are. i’m not even sure if you actually kill enemies slower, but since you fire infrequently with your main damage tools you’re encouraged to take cover between shots and minimize your exposure to enemies which makes it feel slow because there’s so much “down” time. same with the pistol reload.
bad doom maps sometimes fall into this trap too where they throw too many beefy enemies at you but only give you a super shotgun to deal with them. it’s fine if it’s a couple, but it’s just a chore to kill 20 cacodemons one shotgun blast at a time. the better maps let you use rockets or plasma so the fights aren’t just peek-a-boo.
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