Each map listed here at Quaddicted has its own sub-page with various information on the file, the level and its contents, as well as user ratings and comments. The map descriptions are kept short and precise in order to give a brief overview of what kind of map the particular release is. It usually states the approximate size of the map, its texture theme or style, and special or memorable features. For example: "Large Wizard castle in a canyon leading to a dungeon with many traps. - Rating: Nice."

Here are a few hints on how to interpret the terms used for size, theme and rating.

The maps are measured in three different sizes: small, medium, large. The size of a map is determined by its scale, complexity, the number of rooms or areas, and the average playtime. These sizes only serve as rough indicators and may vary considerably from one map to another, particularly in terms of playtime.

• Small: Short and simple, with only a small number of rooms and a low monster count - average playtime around 5-10 minutes. An example of a small map is E1M6.
• Medium: Average size, pretty much like most of the stock Quake levels. Often with a monster count of less than 80 and an average playtime of around 10-25 minutes. An example a medium-sized map would be E2M2.
• Large: Many rooms, spacious or intricate layout, often interconnected and involving lots of backtracking. The monster count is usually high, above 100, and the playtime is around 25-45 minutes or more. An example of a large map may be E3M6, although custom maps are often considerably larger than all of the stock levels.

Quake's bestiary and texture themes allow for a large variety of science fiction, medieval and fantasy settings. The textures the game uses originally came in four individual resource files (so-called texture wads) which were grouped by theme: base.wad, medieval.wad, metal.wad, wizard.wad. At Quaddicted, each map is categorized according to the wad in which the corresponding textures are, the wad name usually being capitalized. For example: "Large Wizard castle" means the level uses textures from wizard.wad.

Each map has a fixed rating on the description page. Unlike the user rating further down, this one is given by the Quaddicted staff. The purpose is to give players an indication of the quality of the map and whether it might be worth playing or not. Of course it is not the final word, and in some cases may even be quite questionable, but the main idea was to approach it in a somewhat objective way by taking a variety of factors into account, such as release date, technical aspects, and creativity. As of now, there are five text ratings that roughly correspond to school grades.

• Excellent: Near perfect map. High-quality construction and great execution of a theme/idea, or unique gameplay. Highly recommended.

• Nice: Good map in terms of looks and gameplay, possibly with small nitpicks and room for improvement. Recommended.

• Average: A map without any particularly outstanding or memorable features, often fairly plain in looks and with somewhat sloppy construction. Sometimes there is an additional marker in the description that modifies the rating in a positive or negative way, like "OK" (C+) and "Barely average" (C-). Not that recommended.

• Poor: Bad map. Usually visually plain or ugly and with a poor construction quality. Typically beginner maps. Not recommended.

• Crap: Rubbish map. This rating is only given to maps that are obviously unplayable because of critical errors or absurd construction. Avoid at all costs.

The users' rating on https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/ is not a plain average value but a Bayesian average. This means that outliers are given less weight, for example if there are 10 votes with a rating of 5 and 1 rating with a value of 1.

Some background on why this was chosen and how it works:

http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html

http://www.evanmiller.org/bayesian-average-ratings.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_average