Good Quake maps

[Melan]

So, this may not be the perfect fit, since this is the custom Quake thread... but. Episode 4. What happened there?

I have recently replayed the original Quake to give me perspective on the fan levels, and Episode 4 is not very good. The new enemy (spawns) are bouncy lolrandom bullshit. That's one thing. But the main problem is that the level design seems significantly weaker, more basic. There is this repeating motif of a stair made of a bunch of planks that's aggressively newbieish. The elaborate mechanical devices of the earlier episodes are gone, or much downplayed. The level spaces are oversized and empty, huge arena-like corridors or passages that go on forever. The brushwork verges on the primitive.

It feels like a mission pack from a less experienced/talented author, or a prototype full of test rooms that never got properly developed and polished, and instead got shoved into the game at a final moment.

I guess the ramp up in difficulty has upsides; it feels like a good challenge on Hard. But still.

 

[skacky]

Sandy Petersen was never good with brushwork and his style is all over the place. Most of his maps for Doom are downright ugly and his Quake maps are no exception here (well, E4M4 is rather cool in some places), but while his maps are an eyesore they have interesting gimmicks, power-ups in the open with interesting strategies and a lot of really devious traps and moments you don't find in any other episode (the receding teleporter, the healing pool, the gauntlet area, the fake water basin). That and the constant onslaught of teleporting monsters make it a very fun episode, as well as the fact that the maps are rather big making navigation quite entertaining with the rocket launcher.

While not my favorite episode by any means (this award goes to episode 3 by a long shot), it is still one I have a lot of fun with.

 

[Astral Rag]

New monster type:

 

[Melan]

Are there any missions/mission packs which are similar to Zerstörer? I played the Zerstörer-themed func_mapjam maps, and they were good, but they focused on the gore fountains, and not the desperate, can't see shit, grimy aesthetic of that graveyard level. That level, and even much of the rest, really embodies the fun parts of late 90s map design: there is something special about the combination of a reduced colour palette, the restricted vision, the oddball weapons and the upgraded difficulty. Is there more of that thing in Quakeland?

 

[skacky]

Hmm. There is the Zerstörer Turtlemap Pack, but it doesn't have anything similar to the graveyard iirc. Aderlass is a must play though. Warpspasm fits your description as well since it simply has some of the most hostile, evil, desolate and desperate maps done in Quake. The difficulty is very high, the maps enormous and the monster count extreme so it's not for everyone (Nightmare Tangents has 666 monsters on Hard/Nightmare for example). It still is one of my all-time favorite Quake releases to this day, though. A masterpiece.
A Roman Wilderness Of Pain also features some really evil and desolate maps but it's sometimes even more extreme than Warpspasm.

 

[tormund]

Quake just celebrated its 20th birthday!
http://rome.ro/news/2016/6/22/happy-20th-birthday-quake

Everyone can have a piece of qake

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Looking at screens of the old Func Map Jam 3 which was posted already here. Truly a feast for the eyes.

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/func_mapjam3.html

 

[Riskbreaker]

Aye, Tronyn's stuff from Map Jam 2/3 really is something else. Map Jam maps generally tend to be gorgeous, I couldn't stop taking screenshots back when I was first playing thru Map Jam 2.
skacky's maps in sorta Arabian fantasy style are a sight to behold too (tho, one of them was from the Qonquer map jam, meaning wave based gameplay that wasn't exactly my cup of tea).

 

[skacky]

I have a full-fledged map like this in the works for AD, but I haven't worked on it in quite some time.

 

[Astral Rag]

Map Jam 7 - Back To Base Released

dl: http://www.quaketastic.com/files/Jam7/MapJam7.zip

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[Astral Rag]

Map Jam 8 - Film Noir Released!

After weeks of mapping, and a few delays, Quake Map Jam 8 has finally been released! This time around there were four submissions,

- Ionous with his map "Buried by Time and Dust"
- Newhouse with "Black Future"
- Pritchard with "One Ranger Two Boomsticks"
- Shamblernaut (myself) with "The Hackopolis" and the start map.

Screenshots:
http://imgur.com/a/a7Hpr

Downloads:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/108695968/jam8.zip
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/jam8.zip

To install, just extract the zip file to your quake directory (remembering to preserve directories). Run using your favourite (limit extending) engine with the commandline options -game jam8 +map jam8_start. Happy fragging!

 

[Baron Dupek]

 

[Astral Rag]

New Retro Jam:

Retro Jam 5 - The Wind Tunnels theme

Fifth "retro" map jam held at Func_Msgboard, following a E3M5/The Wind Tunnels theme, resulting in seven small to medium-sized levels.

 

[Astral Rag]

These old but previously unreleased episodes for Scourge of Armagon look mighty promising as well:

The "lost" levels

Classic singleplayer campaign made by Gotshun that was never finished or released: Two episodes with 16 levels of various themes including a start map and a secret map. The second episode lacks a conclusion/boss fight due to the unfinished nature of the pack, but it is perfectly playable. Classic singleplayer campaign made by Gotshun that was never finished or released: Two episodes with 16 levels of various themes including a start map and a secret map. The second episode lacks a conclusion/boss fight due to the unfinished nature of the pack, but it is perfectly playable.

 

[skacky]

And Arcane Dimensions 1.5 is out.



I've been testing the maps these past few weeks and Terror Fuma and Magna Leptis are the highlights imho. The others are remixes of previously released maps but with very welcome updates and AD goodness, so it's a very good reason to play them again.

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[skacky]

Astral Rag

Spoiler

All the sound effects are done with triggers inside the map itself.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Just getting back into Quake, been trying out the recent map packs. The Arcane Dimensions pack is amazing, Quake at its finest. Also played through Honey and the Altar of Storms, but they were just okay. Any other must plays?

There's one called Arcanum lololol.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Arcanum is great, and is one of saner later Tronyn episodes as far as the difficulty goes. All of his episodes (or anything he contributed to) are very much worth it, starting with Soul of Evil and Rapture (also, everything by Kona, co-author of Rapture, tends to be fantastic at least as far as visual element goes - his later works play increasingly like Painkiller in Quake). Tronyn is just a master of imposing architecture and horde combat.

 

[Astral Rag]

AD1.5's Terror Fuma map looks nice and has a great atmosphere. I was surprised when

Spoiler

that aircraft landed above me. I know scripted flying things are possible, e.g. Malice's intro shows a helicopter flying over a city, but it's very rare.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Yeah it was last time in Malice
I feel old [*pop a bottle*]

 

[skacky]

Terror Fuma has the best non-linear layout I've seen in a very long while as far as Quake levels are concerned. You can complete this map in so many different ways. The little tweaks the authors did before the update was pushed really helped make it even better.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Are there any mods/mission packs with a crossbow weapon?

Arcane Dimensions has enemies with a crossbow, but sadly you can't have it yourself. There's a crossbow weapon in Hexen II, and since many Quake mods are stealing reusing content from it, I guess there's bound to be at least one crossbow mod or too.

I think a crossbow would fit really well into Arcane Dimension's "fantasy" style maps. Eh, I might go and code one myself in QC.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Certain Tronyn releases, like Unforgiven, feature a crossbow, albeit one with extremely limited explosive ammo.