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Posted by Qmaster [50.40.189.213] on 2013/05/12 22:20:28

Hello! This is my first released Quake map. I've been a long time closet Quake mapper and I finally feel like I have a worthy enough map to share. And you can expect two HUGE ( emphasis on large) maps to be coming sometime in the next couple months.
Terracity is designed to be fully cooperative with coop. There are a few spawning and teleportation tricks that let you get back to the mayhem ASAP and help your friends. I was inspired by negke's Red Slammer (aka mappi) so special thanks to negke!
I hope you all like it!
Check it out over on Quaddicted:
http://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/...

Big!
#1 posted by Shambler [86.25.222.172] on 2013/05/12 23:20:55
Very old skool in design quality (crude and chaotic), but pretty good fun. Perhaps a little bit too much health and ammo?? Maybe only twice as much as needed, maybe 3 times as much.
Not sure what went wrong at the SNG area but I had to grenade jump to progress. The ending was fun trying to maximise LG water kills.
My favourite bit was the random blue room, funnily enough.
Awesome
#2 posted by FifthElephant [82.12.230.210] on 2013/05/12 23:22:58
I played this as soon as I saw it, I quite enjoyed it. Very classic Doom-like gameplay, took around 30 minutes to blast through (so it IS large).
I thought the brushwork was mostly good for the size of the map, I'd definitely have liked slightly more detail on the big outer walls and stuff but I don't know how this would affect performance because of the maps scale.
Wow
#3 posted by Drew [216.252.92.203] on 2013/05/13 00:03:07
shot looks very cool, old school... soulful? hahaha whatever, will dl/play soon! thanks Qmaster!
Thanks Guys!
#4 posted by Qmaster [50.40.232.40] on 2013/05/13 00:12:09
Glad you liked. This is like my coming out party or something :) . More maps to come for sure!
Ya, I'm horribly generous with ammo when I make coop-ready maps...mostly because people always steel my ammo! I should have done something like item_shells_coop, etc. like I was planning with monster_<name>_coop.
The "random" blue room is a bit taken from my Keep mappack - Unreleased! will be remedied soon!
The perforator altar needs to be hurt...sorry I meant to add a message like "Desecrate the altar!" or something though oldschooler fans of the Elder world will know that altars need to be axed.
Yeah,
#5 posted by FifthElephant [82.12.230.210] on 2013/05/13 00:24:25
I wasted the quad completely on the altar section. But it's ok, still got some nice radius damage from grenades and stuff.
Boy !
#6 posted by Barnak [69.157.142.151] on 2013/05/13 01:50:03
Tabarnak !
What a huge map ! Yes, it's crude, but fun anyway. Thanks dude for this !
Can't believe Quake1 is still living today, in 2013, after all these years. What a game !
Cool Map
#7 posted by mechtech [65.190.158.200] on 2013/05/13 02:53:45
A fiend is grinning over my fallen player outside the gold key room.
Arches and candles and tall spaces. I'm surprised vis took only about an hour.
Something satisfying about shooting hordes of knight with the double shotgun.
I enjoyed the map so far. But did not finish yet.
#8 posted by gb [46.142.39.4] on 2013/05/13 04:48:47
Nice.
45 minutes, didn't die on Easy despite the monster count, probably due to all the supplies.
With more polish, this could be an A+ map.
I did mostly enjoy it, some awesome very long range combat, but a lot of times I just used the abundance of rockets and cells to pretty much MG my way through hordes and even shamblers lazily. Many groups can be taken out from afar.
Nice platforming stuff.
I have a demo, but it is long and probably boring, and also probably a huge upload.
#9 posted by gb [46.142.39.4] on 2013/05/13 04:52:18
also, no link? Does Spirit need more traffic?
#10 posted by Qmaster [50.40.232.40] on 2013/05/13 04:57:08
Big!
..it IS large)
What a huge map !
You ain't seen nothin' yet!
Seriously
A fiend is grinning over my fallen player outside the gold key room.
How did that rascally beastie get way over there??
@gb: What do you mean no link?
Congratulations On Coming Out Of The Closet Qmaster
#11 posted by Drew [216.252.92.203] on 2013/05/13 04:57:54
Pure quake.
Here is my first run. 4/7 secrets, 5 monsters short I think. Forget how much time. But a while!
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
Kind of weird that you reference Mappi - don't really get that vibe. This kind of reminds me of soul grinder, to use a more fittingly old skool reference point. And kind of reminds me of some of the later, larger Mexx maps, style wise. And of course Conflagrant Rodent comes to mind.
Aaaanyways - very nicely done! Everything Shambler said - though that curvy archy area gets bonus points for sure - a nicely built set piece...
Took me a while to figure out that I needed to destroy the blue altar... should have been made more clear or dressed up in traditional altar textures I think. Wasted the quad but luckily tonnes of ammo so no worries. WOuld definitely be fun in coop!
I made a few minor comments in the demo, but just to underline - very enjoyable map, looking forward to the rest!
Read Above Comments
#12 posted by Drew [216.252.92.203] on 2013/05/13 04:58:52
ammo - especially lightning - could definitely have been toned down.
...
#13 posted by Qmaster [50.40.232.40] on 2013/05/13 05:29:08
@Drew: Thanks!
mappi - Made me think "These textures have some potential...hmm" and got the juices flowing
Soul Grinder? - will have to check that one out
Conflagrant Rodent - Oh! I'd forgotten that I was thinking of this when I started the large water area. Thanks to ORL for this one!
The curving arch hallway was one of my favorite parts to make.
Getting an unrecognized protocol number (666) error for the demo file. :(
Quad wastage: I forget that my unspoken playrules aren't the same as others. I always do Find monster(s)->get quad. rather than Get quad->find monster(s). Thanks for the play insight.
Demo
#14 posted by Drew [216.252.92.203] on 2013/05/13 05:55:30
I recorded mine in fitz Mark V - is that why you can't watch it?
I also waited after getting the SNG but then couldn't find enemies, so thought that maybe the quad triggered them...
Nice Debut!
#15 posted by erc [46.197.69.124] on 2013/05/13 06:04:46
Old-school architecture always gets me - this one is no different. Even though some bits can be considered slightly repetitive (texture-wise especially) and could have been spiced a little, I generally liked your personal take on a theme I have a soft spot for. I loved the second area, where you expanded the map greatly, cranked up the atmosphere by balanced lighting and gave the player a chance to roam as he wishes. As Drew noted, the overall feel reminds me of Mexx's maps, which is a good thing. On a side note, I perceived that the first area is too 'busy' brush-wise compared to the rest of the map. This is most likely a personal thing but it felt like two different approaches to the same theme.
However, the overabundance of supplies really hurt the proceedings. It had already turned to a stroll in the park way before I stopped caring about conserving ammo. This may be seen a plus by some but I usually want to be on my toes and constantly challenged while playing Quake maps, especially in larger setpieces. I don't remember the last time I had a chance to use LG this much. Besides, all those ammo boxes lying around also detracts from the overall quality of the visuals. It would have been better if the supplies were distributed accordingly, by making most of them co-op only spawns.
On the technical side, your .pak contains all of the SoA content - does its progs need those models and sounds always present, even though the map does not spawn any of them, apart from gremlins? I also missed five enemies, may it be the broken fish count, where one counts as two - was it fixed in SoA?
Slight gameplay issues aside, this is a very good start and makes me wait more from you in the future. Congratulations.
1stRunDemo
QuakeSpasm 0.85.9
skill 2; 33:19, 5/7 secrets, 291/296 kills
#16 posted by Johnny Law [76.126.53.122] on 2013/05/13 07:55:49
Folks have already said some of the obvious things I would mention about the ammo, and the altar, and the architecture, and probably other a-words.
I'll just add that as someone who really enjoys doin' work with "pineapples" and quad nails, for me this was a fine way to cap off a nice Sunday night of poking around in some classic games.
#17 posted by gb [46.142.39.4] on 2013/05/13 10:36:19
@gb: What do you mean no link?
I mean there is usually a direct link to the file in news posts here. I was just a little surprised.
Aye
#18 posted by Spirit [80.171.127.31] on 2013/05/13 10:38:12
Someone add https://www.quaddicted.com/filebas... and https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews... to the first post.
Fun
#19 posted by Cocerello [83.46.158.41] on 2013/05/13 13:02:57
I am hoping to see your next one soon.
It was a fun one to play, with nice secrets, horde like-combats and doses of humour. Even if they don't have detail, the brushwork in some parts is very good looking, like the candles passage or the parts farthest from the door in the second room.
The knight horde surprised me a lot. The combat at the gold key was fun, but next time put the shamblers in a way they get to the player.
The amount of cells was fun, so used to save them a lot, i had to remember myself that i could use them whenever i wanted.
I found it weird that you could get the same weapon twice or thrice, even thought the first one wasn't hidden.
Got 6/7 secrets, couldn't find the last.
**I found four issues:
-A knight near the button to open the last door, looking through one of the windows doesn't move and it is invulnerable.
- Sometimes there is some knights on the platform you are teleported to, the first on the map, sometimes not.
- After you open the second room, if you take the teleporters again, you get stuck in an eternal teleporting loop inside the dark room.
- I'm not sure if this is an issue or not, but the room with the LG on the bottom of the first room doesn't open even after i killed all and found 6 secrets. Do i need to find the seventh to open it?
**The map is good for a first one, but has room for improvement and polishing. Some advices, to make the next one even better:
The brushwork and texture usage is oldschool, but you could vary a bit it, and be less chaotic in the first room, both the monsters and the player doesn't have room to move. The second and those after, even though are less detailed, are better because of that. Some textures need some variation, and others can't be used in huge faces like that, like city5_4 and city_7. Maybe more contrast in lighting could mend it.
Combats are good for horde ones, but some hordes could be less predictable.
The map, even in nightmare is easy, but is more important if you make difficulties more different between them. Easy difficulty is OK as it is, maybe a bit hard for easy.
In the highest part of the first room, in the part were you have to lower to platforms to go on, it isn't clear that the second button is the shootable type, after you get used to the one before, that is a pushable one. I thought that you needed to move the column to get to it, thought it was a secret, so i jumped by myself to the other side and later i couldn't get to it again, so i passed on it.
The second secret, were it is placed, i don't see any good uses for the quad in it.
The issue of ammo: even if you use the coop flag, to avoid others getting the ammo, you could spread it more and use the smaller boxes in some places. For example, in the first room, put some on top of that brushes in the middle of the bottom part. For SP, one quarter of the ammo is enough, one third if you get rid of most of the rockets, maybe half the ammo for easy difficulty.
And that's all. Thx for the map.
Sorry For The Bad Use Of English
#20 posted by Cocerello [83.46.158.41] on 2013/05/13 13:24:35
I revised it twice, but even now i see lots of grammatical errors.
By the way, i forgot to mention that the platforming, the layout and interconnectivity are very good. The feeling that you can go everywhere ,that you get in the second room and after, without relying on a sandbox was very well used.
I'm curious, so i have a question. Is it needed to rocket jump to reach the secret near the gold key door?
A fiend is grinning over my fallen player outside the gold key room.
How did that rascally beastie get way over there??
I had two of them too outside that room. :)
Secrets.
#21 posted by Qmaster [50.40.232.40] on 2013/05/13 15:38:04
Yes one of the secrets requires rocket/grenade jumping.
Two require swimming.
Three require running off a ledge.
One requires hopping over something.
Technical Issue:
One of the secrets is impossible to get if the engine removes the items. Just past the SNG above the grassy area are some arch shelves and some engines may or may not drop the items in those alcoves one of which is a megahealth. It might have to do with items.qc: void () PlaceItem{
...
self.origin_z = (self.origin_z + MOVETYPE_TOSS);
...}
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean that item boxes must have MOVETYPE_TOSS(6) units of z clearance above them?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pn766znu...
Thanks for all the feedback. I fully realize how unpolished this map is. I made it almost a year ago and am too busy with a couple new maps that are way way better than this one already. I knew I needed good solid feedback like this, because even though I've played most of the great maps, I usually forget why they were so great.
Dope Slap!
#22 posted by Qmaster [50.40.232.40] on 2013/05/13 15:55:16
item_health = {
...
setsize (self,VEC_ORIGIN,'32.000 32.000 56.000');
...}
This Map
#23 posted by lurker [74.160.194.240] on 2013/05/16 23:32:56
was the first map I played for Quake in many years. As such, I found the abundance of health and ammo to be a positive.
Best bits were the dark corridor leading to the altar, the blue room (that ceiling!), and the first hub/atrium area, *especially* when coming back through it after the altar area.
In my first play, I lost my way after the altar. I saw the quadrilateral elevator, but I assumed it was a lighting bug or a mistake (a door from below clipping through), so I didn't try to ride it up. Haha. I tried grenade-jumping to the yellow armor (which also would have taken me to the same area), but I can't grenade-jump anymore. So if I had one suggestion for you, it would be to make sure that main-path lifts look suitably important. Put a flashing light near it. Or a special enclosure. Or arrow. Or something. (Or at least don't get mad at me when I, like an idiot, don't notice it.)
If I had a second suggestion, it would be: do something with your ceilings. In particular: on the ascent after the altar, there is a long sloped ceiling with nothing going on. But, since the player is traveling upward, the player's gaze is going to keep hitting that ceiling. Having it so well lit but with so little detail is a bad combo. Depending on the angle of slope, making skylights might have been annoying, but they would have helped break up some monotony of lighting as well as given the player something a little more interesting to look at. Or, alternatively, you can use the id solution of not letting the lights reach far enough to hit the ceiling. Just increase your wait values until the ceiling disappears.
But those are just ideas for the future and didn't ruin Terracity for me. On the contrary: my favorite take-home from Terracity was being aware, minute to minute, of just how much I'd missed this game.
Thanks.
I Agree
#24 posted by Drew [216.252.64.154] on 2013/05/17 00:41:01
that more ceiling detail would have been nice.
BUT not skylights - I like that the only point where sky is visible is in the round room (which needed more intense combat on hard, I personally thought).
Keep it up, come out for a SM or something some time!
Thanks Lurker And Drew!
#25 posted by Qmaster [50.40.254.231] on 2013/05/17 02:55:19
Yeah, no skylights. The map is in a cave (chunky but still) after all. Round room did need a couple more shamblers ;)
Thanks about the blue room ceiling, I try to scale my detail such that in larger areas it feels as detailed in smaller areas or to that effect, so smaller areas I tend to add more brushwork in to enhance the area, but I sometimes underdo it in the larger areas.
@Drew: SM=speedmap right?
When's the next one? :)
SM
#26 posted by Cocerello [83.46.158.41] on 2013/05/17 11:19:21
Check the speedmaping thread. :)
There is supposedly one going on for 20th May, but it's been too quiet since Scampie put the theme and date, so i suppose it didn't draw people's attention and became a failure.
About the map, i'm up for the ideas Lurker mentions about the situations in map like the one at the elevator after the altar, it is hardly visible right now, and takes long to notice it. The one on the grass part is more noticeable.
Ouch
#27 posted by Cocerello [83.46.158.41] on 2013/05/17 12:00:05
Now i notice, it is a question for Drew. I'm sorry.
#28 posted by stevenaaus [49.176.101.171] on 2013/05/17 12:00:36
Great stuff man :)
Most enjoyable map for the last ages.
Demos
#29 posted by Mandel [80.217.79.210] on 2013/05/17 19:05:59
I liked this a lot. The vertical layout of the main area, jumping puzzles, and huge areas with what I perceive as being low detail. That weapon stealing bloke from Hipnotic was a nice addition. Easy skill was good for me with enough ammo and health packs to never really have to go defensive.
DirectQ "crashed" twice while recording my first playthrough but I used savegames and continued from where I left off - that's why there are three demos in the zip. Not sure what my finishing stats were but it took about 30 minutes and I believe I left around 10-20 blokes alive; mainly shamblers near the exit. Not sure about protocol but I believe it's 666; plays back well in DirectQ, I've watched the whole thing again today.
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
Not Bad For A First Release
#30 posted by nitin [220.244.163.153] on 2013/05/18 03:36:38
future maps need more polish visuals wise and gameplay also needs to be much more balanced.
Fun 20 min though.
#31 posted by Drew [216.252.65.217] on 2013/05/18 06:00:55
Yeah there's one set to be released Monday I think? Fun to play around in the editor, and a number of decent maps have been the end result of SM sessions, I think. The extrinsic motivation the deadline provides can be really productively galvanizing, you know? Anyways, I don't see myself doing anything in the next while - definitely not for this next one. Too busy with RL. So Coco - feel free to field my responses.
#32 posted by negke [31.18.179.222] on 2013/05/18 11:38:53
A level inspired by moi!! <3
I played this earlier not expecting you to make a news post, so I didn't record a demo. But it would have been a smooth one: skill 1, 30 mins, all monsters, 4/7 secrets, no deaths.
Nice map overall; I agree it could've used some more polish as many areas or parts thereof are quite plain, but for a first release it's definitely impressive. I liked how it opened up, quite surprising actually. I played your other map before, which I didn't like, and upon loading this one and looking up, I expected it to be a similar level, basically one vertical room. But then it turned out to be a lot larger.
The tomb-like area was my favorite part of the map. It looks pretty cool with the candles. I didn't realize at first that you have to shoot the altar and thought I was supposed to run past the monsters for the Quad (who, by that time, were already dead), so I was going to leave the area but then thought "this can't be all" and it finally clicked. The ensuing quad knight carnage was a lot of fun.
I think the gameplay would've benefitted from more monster variety. The gremlin seems like an odd addition individually and in the context of the theme. The large open areas almost seem to demand and expanded set of flying monsters.
Special attention to coop is neat, although it clashes with the normal single player, because the overabundance of ammo takes out most of the challenge. Simply killtarget the extra coop items on mapstart next time.
Don't exclusively test on Darkplaces, especially versions that have the sv_gameplayfixes enabled by default. In this case, it keeps a bunch of items inside the map which normally fall out. Also eww, the circular room is boxed.. :)
"...Also Eww, The Circular Room Is Boxed.. :) "
#33 posted by Qmaster [50.40.250.234] on 2013/05/18 15:22:59
Haha...old worldcraft hates curves sometimes! So I cheat with some of the curvy sections.
Thanks for all the comments guys. I assure you my next WIP is already loads better for all the criticisms you have given me. Also, I think it has much better pacing than this one, but that remains to be seen.
#34 posted by Spiney [91.177.72.171] on 2013/05/18 18:23:25
I'm not a big fan of the terracotta theme, but this map just might make me reconsider!
Replayed, Brain Dump Of Thoughts:
#35 posted by Shambler [86.25.221.209] on 2013/05/19 12:42:10
1. Obvious that the 3 main areas are all quite seperate and glued together, more coherency would help.
2. The jumping platform things are good - not too hard and no bad punishment for missing. Adds a little jumping skill without being frustrating.
3. The curved hallway with the knights in the arches and loads of candles is a cool design touch.
4. The quad + knights is an action setpiece of absolute beauty. So many gibs.
5. The little blue room could have done with some spawn in.
6. The main water room is really quite cool, but maybe a bit too much dead space in it.
7. It's generally very easy with all the ammo but is also good fun throughout.
8. The use of long vertical distances, high ledges, and Ogres is often good.
9. There is no 9.
10. Go map, this shows lots of cool potential.
@Shambler
#36 posted by Qmaster [50.40.240.99] on 2013/05/21 19:09:09
Thanks for the crits...
@#10:I'm on it. Current WIP at 70%. Was 55% last week, rough estimate.
Nice Map
#37 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/05/23 00:30:40
There was plenty of space to dance around the hordes in and things in general showed a lot of potential for future epic-ness.
My demos:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ccec9pqy...
There's two because I broke for lunch.
Thanks Qmaster
#38 posted by Mr Fribbles [118.209.226.99] on 2013/05/24 14:57:12
Hey, I really enjoyed this! Thanks for the new map, Qmaster. I played on hard and got all but a few of the enemies (maybe 5 or 6 left) but didn't find most of the secrets. I'll have to look a bit harder next time I play it.
At this point I'm sure I'm just echoing some of the above posts but I should probably make some comments (going from memory, I played it about a week ago):
+ Proper old school feel with a few modern touches.
+ Plenty of monsters to smash!
+ Some good arenas and ambushes, always fair though since there was room to move and cover
+ Plenty of ammo and weapons, no it may not be the most balanced map ever but hey, it's fun to blast through everything. This is Quake after all.
- Some areas looked overly repetetive or bland. Could have used a bit more architectural detail, more varied textures (or both).
- Blue room was nice but far too small, would have been nice to explore this further or omit it entirely since it felt out of place.
- Got stuck in a teleport loop or something (mentioned above), the only way out of it was to noclip and return to the map!
- Got confused for a while because I didn't realise I had to ding the blue altar. I wandered around the whole map 5 times before I figured it out.
Very Cool Map!
#39 posted by DaZ [92.26.170.184] on 2013/06/08 13:02:19
Wasn't a fan of the jumping stuff the rest was great! VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za...
DAZ...
#40 posted by Shambler [86.25.221.239] on 2013/06/10 13:55:05
What the fucking fuckomy is "cooop" pronounced "cupe"????
co-op
co...operative
Jeez!!
Shambler
#41 posted by DaZ [78.147.173.74] on 2013/06/10 14:08:29
cuuuuuuuuuupe
Chicken Co-op
#42 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/06/10 17:41:16
Coup DŽetat.
#43 posted by mfx [92.227.152.118] on 2013/06/10 18:08:59
English Like Wot She Is Writ
#44 posted by Mike Woodham [87.127.250.2] on 2013/06/10 18:23:18
Surely, that's co-op d'etat (yeah, but don't call me Shirley)
Jibs Or Gibbs?
#45 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/06/10 18:39:08
Jibs
#46 posted by DaZ [78.147.173.74] on 2013/06/10 20:21:41
That is all. (Hah, I realise I said gibs in the video, lol)
The Coup...
#47 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/06/10 20:53:49
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF...
G Ibs.
#48 posted by Shambler [86.25.221.239] on 2013/06/10 23:39:19
Gibbed
#49 posted by onetruepurple [91.240.47.30] on 2013/06/10 23:50:57
for her pleasure
Gibs You Gits.
#50 posted by Mr Fribbles [118.209.159.54] on 2013/06/15 15:29:20
Gibs with a hard G or go and get fucked jelly-bellies!

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