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Posted by Vondur [91.77.220.50] on 2010/11/04 11:26:15

Out of a sudden, new QSP just fell from the sky.
Screens:
http://vondur.net/maps_files/eels_...
http://vondur.net/maps_files/eels_...
File:
http://vondur.net/maps_files/eels....
More info if you will:
http://wp.vondur.net/?page_id=1047

A New Vondur Map !!
#1 posted by JPL [82.227.228.57] on 2010/11/04 11:38:53
.. can't wait till this evening to play it :(
This Is What I'm Talking About!
#2 posted by negke [88.70.54.232] on 2010/11/04 12:12:02
Nice little map with casual gameplay. Very enjoyable. Simple but effective construction and style, thus short build time - I hope there will be more maps like this in the future.
Cheers for this. Demo
Need To Install Qukae On My New Comp
#3 posted by nitin [124.148.128.70] on 2010/11/04 12:42:23
this will give me the incentive :)
I'm Happy
#4 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2010/11/04 12:50:29
But have to wait to play.
Nice
#5 posted by rj [82.13.31.251] on 2010/11/04 13:06:21
this was like a nu-skool version of roger staines' ancient aqueduct if anyone remembers that. very strong vondur vibe naturally; solid designs, fairly solid combat & nice progression between themes. died once on normal but that was only due to thinking i had nails when i didn't (=boom)
Vondur
#6 posted by JPL [82.227.228.57] on 2010/11/04 13:24:24
What others said: very nice map, solid brushwork, and fun gameplay. Very effective lightning effects, and nice sense of details.. How have you been able to build such map is so few time ? I am so jalous !!
Died twice on Hard, found 1 secrets..
Have to replay it to find out more secrets ;)
I can't wait to play next of you maps !
Looks Great
#7 posted by dfsp_spirit [141.2.14.1] on 2010/11/04 13:40:34
Screenies look great, especially the 2nd one. I'll play it as soon as I get home!
Vondur Stop Posting Silly Threads And Go Map
#8 posted by czg [213.132.100.2] on 2010/11/04 13:42:57
Vondur You Eel!
#9 posted by SleepwalkR [80.187.111.209] on 2010/11/04 13:53:48
Now I have to set up my computer properly so I can play this!
Vontastic.
#10 posted by Shambler [86.25.164.3] on 2010/11/04 14:46:46
Nice map, good style, like the contrast between the various areas tied together by the archy designs. Didn't get too samey. Fog looked good in it. Gameplay was good standard Quake although I died getting past the lava as I was too casual. Lava wasn't too annoying tho.
Opened the health secret but couldn;t find it, argh!!
Quake Running Through My Veins
#11 posted by Berntsen [217.14.11.155] on 2010/11/04 16:34:19
I really liked this map! Nice architecture, good flow and great gameplay. First-run on nightmare, died right before the silver key though: http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
Sweet
#12 posted by Tronyn [205.200.199.146] on 2010/11/04 19:33:07
awesome a new vondur map. always liked your ability to do out-id id maps. you must live in a basement dungeony bastard. should have a review up this weekend.
Played It
#13 posted by RickyT23 [86.31.77.199] on 2010/11/04 20:23:37
Liked it - good flow. Copy/past gradeur architecture and fun rooms, plenty ammo/room.
Got to rush about now in real world, so cant really write more :)
maybe 16/17? :P
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
Too Hard
#14 posted by RaverX [79.113.46.69] on 2010/11/04 23:13:21
Nice map Vondur, simple, but beautiful. Only one problem - I played on easy and it was too hard for me. I was able to finish after a few save/load, but I had to play with great care, backing up and luring monsters after me. The room with 2 shamblers and a lot of fiends was way too hard for the easy skill. Then I tried to load the map in nightmare skill. 82 monsters vs 80 monsters on easy !!!
WTF man, no offense, but that's an insult to less skilled players. I like Quake a lot, but I want to play it relaxed, not stressed and jumping like a mad mad to avoid monsters.
It's ok if the map is very difficult (almost impossible to finish) on nightmare. It's very good it the map is hard on hard. But man...please make easy EASY !!! Please...
..
#15 posted by Vondur [91.76.146.78] on 2010/11/04 23:20:52
Thanks guys, glad u like the map, and thanks for the demos.
RaverX, sorry i didn't tune this map for easy thinking there's no need for that. I was wrong it seems.
Consider Pants Officially Shat.
#16 posted by Drew [70.53.220.238] on 2010/11/05 00:03:17
thanks vondur.
side note: fuck easy.
To Be Fair..
#17 posted by rj [82.13.31.251] on 2010/11/05 00:14:08
..it takes a few seconds to select a dozen or so random monsters and gwarn the 'not in easy' flag. and maybe chuck an RA or two in. no excuse ;)
#18 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2010/11/05 00:17:06
source is included ... someone can remix the map with easy skill implemented :)
Nice!
#19 posted by generic [67.233.197.34] on 2010/11/05 00:43:52
Awesome atmosphere and architecture for such a small development cycle. Everything is straightforward and interesting at the same time. Although the layout and gameplay seemed a bit simple at times, it kept compelling me onward!
Thank you for another great Quake setpiece!
1st Run Demo
#20 posted by Drew [70.53.220.238] on 2010/11/05 01:12:26
skill 2
2/3 secrets
agree with post 19 - great product for that short amount of time. longer than I thought it would be too.
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
Classic And Classy
#21 posted by ijed [190.22.60.24] on 2010/11/05 01:17:22
I liked the underneath a lot, no longer a staple that.
VERY NICE !
#22 posted by Barnak [76.68.249.53] on 2010/11/05 03:25:15
This map rocks ! Simply perfect ! It's now part of my permanent collection.
Thanks a lot Vondur ! 8-)
Classic Von.
#23 posted by the silent [80.17.142.66] on 2010/11/05 12:24:39
Nothing new or interesting to say. Great map, solid gameplay, well balanced.
Clean atmosphere, great architecture.
Found 2/3 secrets (+) ;)
Only gripe: the impossibility to backtrack upstairs to search for last secret. Being backtracking impaired lessens somehow the good flavour of a great map, for me.
Loved the lot anyway.
Great Map
#24 posted by dfsp_spirit [78.51.224.237] on 2010/11/05 13:11:49
...just as I expected. Great architecture and atmosphere, I love those archs and the fog. It's best where you start and in the first hall imo.
Here's my first run demo:
http://rcmd.org/tmp/eels_dfspspiri...
I didn't find GL during that demo (and the QUAD secret only when the battle was already over) so I was short on ammo and died after the lava where those 2 vores are.
Only minor issue: I couldn't see shit under water with the fog in Fitzquake 0.85 - but maybe my settings are weird.
I'll keep this one, that's for sure.
#25 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2010/11/05 19:08:00
http://necros.quaddicted.com/temp/... <-- demo first or i'll forget to post it. :P
2 demos, first one died when first entering air section of the map.
the trick is to pull the pairs of shamblers individually. (same at the end of the lava section).
skill level felt about normal skill to me, edging on hard. i picked up the quad just before going into the lava section, so i rushed right in there and zerged all the vores down quickly before the quad ran out. i was actually right at the two shamblers at the end but i headed back to get all the kills.
i played better on my first run (before i died, obviously) because i was a little annoyed with myself that i hadn't been saving when i restarted the second time. :P
i loved the strong colour theme throughout. very cool. the air section being much higher up was very thematically relevant. excellent use of textures, although the texture palette was maybe a bit light.
architecture was great, of course. the consistent use of those circular curves gave a very solid, well built look.
clean brushwork, i don't remember being caught on anything or being tripped.
thanks for a great (surprise) map! ^_^
#26 posted by Trinca [81.84.135.90] on 2010/11/05 20:25:21
finally had time to play!
very very nice little level, played on hard and didn't add much problems... just near the end because I invented to much after lava :)
clean brushwork and enjoyable gameplay!
very vondur stile with great arches
thanks vondur for this nice surprise, more please ;)
1ª demo on hard!
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
#27 posted by Orl [69.242.50.144] on 2010/11/07 03:13:23
This is a nice treat :)
I have to agree with everyone else when they say good brushwork and gameplay, nothing really negative to say. I didn't find hard skill too hard, but from my first run demo you'll see that I almost didn't make it. Really good stuff.
I'm very impressed that you managed to build this in a mere 4 days. I think this will certainly inspire everyone (including myself) to get up off their asses and do some mapping.
Well played Vondur. :)
First run demo. 10 minutes and no secrets found, so I missed a chunk of the monsters: http://qrf.mine.nu/~orl/misc/orl_e...
Lots Of Unaligned Wizmet Though
#28 posted by negke [88.70.227.69] on 2010/11/07 09:52:12
Should have used an unriveted version on top and bottom faces. Yay for the Vondur secret.
...
#29 posted by Vondur [91.77.222.139] on 2010/11/07 13:44:08
thanks again people, for the demos.
negke, ye, was toooo lazy to fix that ;)
#30 posted by [Kona] [121.73.104.148] on 2010/11/08 03:24:48
nice little level. unfortunately i wasn't in an explorative mood so i never got the gl. without that, it's a bit impossible to complete without using the axe, unless you get a bit of infighting.
Icon Honoured.
#31 posted by MadFox [84.26.187.83] on 2010/11/08 03:27:10
Started a demo on normal, and died after 20 monsters.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/fox_e...
I'm a bad shooter and had lots of ammu short.
Decided to play on when I found the first secret.
I was amazed by the layout which had a real old Quake feeling, which was accuented with the retextured Quake textures.
Gives me the creep someone can make this in four days, where I need four years.
Good Stuff
#32 posted by Kinn [193.119.19.210] on 2010/11/08 17:12:34
I figured this was as good an excuse as any to play Quake again (for the first time in about 3 years).
Really enjoyed it, although was always a bit short of ammo until I went exploring and found the GL. Loved the 3 different themes btw.
Not much else to say other than this felt like a mug of mulled wine by the roaring fireplace of a winter's evening, the warmth of the fire bringing out the musty aroma of a pair of well-used trousers.
~_^
#33 posted by Vondur [91.77.220.39] on 2010/11/08 19:27:21
http://vondur.net/tf/kinn.htm
Well.
#34 posted by Shambler [86.25.164.3] on 2010/11/08 19:52:13
Those last two posts worked as well as they could.
#35 posted by Zwiffle [66.170.5.18] on 2010/11/08 20:03:08
Hey! That's nws! Weeeee!
I Dunno Like
#36 posted by RickyT23 [82.31.31.196] on 2010/11/08 20:05:35
I dont even see a nipple!
#37 posted by gb [89.27.206.185] on 2010/11/08 22:22:27
Nice architecture. I got lost early on, because I couldn't find out how to open the teleporter. So I went noclipping around. I found the GL, btw. Whee. I also found the megahealth button, but for a while couldn't make out the MH itself since the closet it's in is pretty dark and easy to miss.
As was already said, this is largely a copy and paste deal. Part of my getting lost was that literally everything looks the same, before the SK door at least.
I guess "elements" refers to the building blocks which were copy and pasted around to create the layout; something you can see really well while noclipping.
I would appreciate a full map in this style with more variation and details, because what's there is really solid.
#38 posted by Trinca [81.84.135.90] on 2010/11/08 22:57:02
gb more epic releases? this comunity need maps to play :)
fuck epic stuff ;) hehe
Nice Spot Of Quake
#39 posted by Scragbait [174.88.22.33] on 2010/11/09 00:33:46
Not that hard on Skill 2 but fun and with bite in a couple spots. Simple solid clean build with nice texture themes to separate elements. Cool little spacial trick that faked me out by putting the water level below the soggy starting cellar. Easy secrets. It had atmosphere - the most important part of a Quake map for me - you need to feel far away from anywhere sensible.
May this map inspire more quick but good looking maps with basic Quake gameplay. It's nice to have an excuse to stoke up FitzQuake to see something new.
Thanks Vondur.
Kinn Is Inspired By Vondur To Create Another Quake Map!
#40 posted by generic [67.233.197.34] on 2010/11/09 04:17:40
What?!?
:^)
#41 posted by Zwiffle [97.87.57.94] on 2010/11/09 05:57:37
Thanks for making! Really fun romp through Quakey halls. Forgot to record demo, but that's okay because I kept falling in the lava.
#42 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2010/11/09 07:45:43
yeah... the lava.
i think my one main gripe with this map is that i didn't get a good quad run in. i nabbed it just before the lava area and then i just kind of hopped around and only got to wipe out a small handful of monsters. :( :(
Secret Item Placement Is Important....
#43 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2010/11/09 08:33:01
it's actually kind of tough to make sure that secret items are all placed in locations that they will be useful. Sometimes i struggle with the best item for a certain location. Quads obviously need to be placed near a section of combat (ring and pent too). Megahealth and armor are slow acting so you can place it in an area with only exploration or backtracking. But the armor has its own requirement, you shouldn't give the player armor that he may already have, because then a player can't use it. Then there's weapons, which are nice because their unbalancing effect can be mitigated by giving the same weapon in normal progression just a few rooms later if you want to. Or you can withold ammo so the weapon has limited use (such as a secret GL in a base map with no grenade ammo.) Secrets in areas that the player visits multiple times are tricky, because they might find it on the first time through the area, or later when they revisit it. You can't assume either case.
...
#44 posted by Vondur [195.218.191.171] on 2010/11/09 08:47:23
gb, noclipping? shame on you!
necros, you used well the main idea behind the quad there, congratulations!
Slime
#45 posted by Vondur [195.218.191.171] on 2010/11/09 08:54:20
Exactly, when placing secret items i'm trying to imagine at what time during the gameplay player might discover it. Usually it happens after the room is fully cleared and player is about to proceed further. So i put an item that will help player in his next encounter.
Particularly, quad secret in air section wasn't designed for fiends. If player did his job carefully he might guess that silver door key is given before the silver door itself, so he might wanna save quad for that moment. Another payer will use quad on fiends in air room and will be happy too. But wiser and more rational player (like necros) will score more fun by keeping quad till the very end of air room gameplay and will use it on exit and gib everything behind silver key door and proceed over lava with ease.
That's the point of secrets in my opinion: not use instantly, but think and plan a bit.
Postmortem
#46 posted by Vondur [195.218.191.171] on 2010/11/09 08:59:10
Judging from player's feedback:
Only two major mistakes that I think I did in this map are: 1. not obvious GL placement, 2. air room is locked for ever after it's cleared.
Minor mistakes: 1. didn't tune for easy skill, 2. didn't align wizmet properly.
So, 1-2 hours of work more and map would be nearly perfect ;)
Vondur
#47 posted by JPL [82.227.228.57] on 2010/11/09 10:15:54
... so now go map a new jewel !!
#48 posted by gb [89.27.224.212] on 2010/11/09 14:33:58
gb, noclipping? shame on you!
This is a dev forum, what do you expect :)
Trinca
#49 posted by gb [89.27.224.212] on 2010/11/09 14:35:06
> gb more epic releases? this comunity need maps to play :)
Then finish your speedmaps next time.
#50 posted by Trinca [194.65.24.228] on 2010/11/09 14:51:17
you got me gb :(
I need time, and I'm not having much of it at the moment :|
Btw
#51 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2010/11/09 19:45:49
props for using kell's olos skybox. i love that one; a very atmospheric skybox.
#52 posted by negke [88.70.246.98] on 2010/11/10 14:19:57
If Vondur can finish a map in such a short time, why can't Lunaran?
#53 posted by Ankh [88.199.103.6] on 2010/11/11 21:52:58
A solid map. The architecture is ok. A bit repetitive but still looking good. Very good use and choice of texture I thought.
I liked the atmosphere with the fog and heavy, thick, simple brushwork. The curves were looking very good. The scale was also perfect.
Too many teleporting monsters for my taste. It made the fights random in a way. The GL was a welcome weapon as it could be put into good use in this map.
Here is my skill 2 demo: http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
#54 posted by ZealousQuakeFan [86.19.231.96] on 2010/11/14 00:52:26
I wish people would not place powerful weapons in secrets. Or if you do, at least make it not too far ahead of normal progression. Wandering around with no nails or shells picking up large rocket packs is just insulting...
Find a lot of secrets irritating in general really, especially when you replay something you remember being really hard but suddenly find an LG or RL or something right at the beginning and suddenly feel like your struggle was being mocked. It's how I always feel about it anyway. Contract Revoked gave me just such a feeling on replaying it recently. random secrets with three large ammo packs or megas and quads :(
Normal Skill Playthough
#55 posted by Preach [77.98.129.22] on 2010/11/14 14:41:23
Cool atmosphere created by the old school textures with wide arched architecture. Compared to the screenshots the level seemed darked when I played through it, but not in a problematic way, and it worked well with the subtle fog. I really liked the change in textures once you got passed the silver key door, although I was expected the fire element section the transition made it feel like you were exploring - penetrating the heart of the place.
As usual, I'm far to forgetful to set a skill before I load the map so I played normal. Found the grenade launcher secret but not the other two.
Ammo-wise I found it pretty well balanced - there were passages where it seemed natural to be heavily using the shotgun, and other sections where the nailgun was clear weapon of choice. These sections did drain down their respective ammo types to zero, but I never found myself using a less-preferable weapon in those situations before I found more ammo and moved to a new section. Perhaps if I didn't have the GL things might have been tougher, even though I didn't make the best use of it.
I liked the escalating combats that were set up in several rooms. The teleporting waves in the water section were the most frantic. I bit off more than I could chew in the air element section, triggering hordes and one of the shamblers at the same time. I then failed to create any infighting and so spent a while diving down the elevator between shots on the shambler.
I ended up dealing with the ambushes in the fire element mostly by fleeing - which did turn the lava into a fair hazard. However, it slowed the pace of the combat down compared to the previous sections. I also sniped the shamblers in the final room to engage them one at a time, and was a bit disappointed by myself that I'd tackled what turned out to be the final battle in a 'cheap' way.
Anyway, thanks for the map, had a cracking run through it.
HI
#56 posted by m4ch5 [151.66.162.90] on 2010/11/14 18:23:10
Hi I'm a new(but not n00b) european QuAKe mapper.. I' working on some sp maps..
hope to finish them soon :)
#57 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2010/11/14 20:05:07
interesting you considered it 'cheap', preach.
i felt smart pulling the shamblers individually. i would have felt it cheap if they were artificially linked together and vondur was laughing saying 'i don't think so, haw haw' in the background. :P
Arena
#58 posted by Preach [77.98.129.22] on 2010/11/14 20:45:33
Mostly because it meant I didn't fight at all in the final room, just crossed the floor and left the level. It made that ending part seem empty, but I had nobody but myself to blame for it...
VISing Or Not ?
#59 posted by Futur4 [151.66.161.56] on 2010/11/15 06:09:39
Sorry for my n00bness but .. what about If I don't VIS(or fast vis) a map ?
I mean is it possible to publish them anyway for the community?
Could Fast-Vis be enough ?
Thanks
Vising
#60 posted by Vondur [91.78.247.31] on 2010/11/15 07:08:08
If you don't vis, you let everyone know you can't map properly. Fast vis also isn't enough.
#61 posted by gibbie [130.37.64.193] on 2010/11/15 13:45:03
i love you vonder!!
#33
#62 posted by Kinn [86.156.163.109] on 2010/11/16 00:53:02
Damn, I think I remember having a "calm down Vondur" image lying around somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.
#63 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2010/11/16 02:19:27
lol
still though, vis is the mark of a proper map. especially these days with machines as fast as they are (and now with willem's multicore vis).
most maps will vis in under a day, and if it takes longer, then you'd have to vis it otherwise it'll run terribly.
Lol
#64 posted by RickyT23 [86.31.70.224] on 2010/11/16 03:14:11
A day - what if you have a 12 thread machine running at like 4.5Ghz or something stupid like that. Or two of them. Does WVis support 24 threads? My map takes 24hrs on either 2 or 4 threads @ about 3.5Ghz (i forget) but on the aforementioned uber-machine. So it wwould prob take a few hours. like 4 or 5 hours maybe? And on a single core athlon it would take 4 or 5 days!!!
Re: Vis
#65 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2010/11/16 03:17:26
Even if the poly count issues are less important nowadays, you can still run into packet overflows quite easily if you don't vis the map. Without vis data, the server will have to send all entities to every client, rather than just the entities in the PVS for that client.
Hmmmm
#66 posted by RickyT23 [86.31.70.224] on 2010/11/16 03:27:00
I haven't had that problem for quite a while!
Im using an engine which doesn't seem to give thee dreaded efrags bug either. My map is huge. I've got like 60000 marksurfaces and about 61500 vertexes. The are more gameplay entities than I've probably ever had before in there already......
And I was just running it with no vis and there was no packet overflow. No light data either. Would that have an effect?
Ricky:
#67 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2010/11/16 03:32:09
Some engines with raised limits won't have the packet overflow and similar problems. For example, if you're making a map for RMQ, which is using the RMQ engine, which is based on quakespasm, which is based on fitzquake 0.85, packet size limits are much higher.
Yup
#68 posted by rj [82.13.31.251] on 2010/11/16 18:33:11
pretty much all warnings are removed in rmq engine, and the limits are something like 16 times that of fitz 0.85 in some cases anyway :)
Oh Man
#69 posted by Tronyn [205.200.245.174] on 2010/11/16 18:43:18
Vondur I can't believe you had to say that in 2010. I say this as a person who has slacked off more and more in terms of making the effort to design areas that look awesome but vis properly. My maps usually take a 3-6 days to vis. But I remember back in 1997 reading that Ben dude's worldcraft mapping guide in which he was like "if you do not vis, you are an asshole and there is something wrong with you." VIS IT BITCH. If the map doesn't suck someone will volunteer to help you out with it. Tyrann vised a bunch of the original SOE maps for me for example. If your map plays well without vising it's too simple, and if it isn't too simple then you need to vis it. Btw still on old shitty pc (which cant even run quake) but review coming! when I get my good Pc back.
Good Style
#70 posted by nitin [220.235.43.69] on 2011/02/19 09:51:42
fog worked great in first part.
But too hard, I missed the GL until the lava bit when I realised there had to be one somewhere since it was the only ammo I had :)

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