I gave it another go today.
Insane.
In one map I could only escape by grenade jumping through the escape, or fight 2 Shamblers with fuck all cover and -60 health. In another map I went down for the gold key where it was unavoidable to be cannoned by 4 Vores. I like though gameplay but this is just madness.

But the maps are beautiful, I'll give you that ! And I really loved the first episode, Contract Revoked.

A beautiful set of maps here, all very well done. But as the previous commenter mentioned, it suffers a bit from having too many monsters in locked rooms.

Absurdly hard, some maps are nigh impossible to finish without cheats.

The original Contract Revoked was much better.

Perhaps excepting necros' map, I didn't find this too hard at all. Some maps are better than others but this is most worthwhile. Also the ending text - possible lead in the Quoth?

Fun excellent map pack! All the different styles were fun and interesting. Jumping into the teleport of each new level without knowing what was next was fun and exciting. Each level has 5/5 imo. Truly awesome mappack and not as hard as others say it is.

Interesting, but mixed quality. I love the start map/hub and like the whole concept behind this, but the actual maps vary greatly in quality.

Still worth downloading, though.

i hate this. i seriously don't understand why this has such high marks.

contract revoked is AWESOME. this, is garbage. it is not fun to fight monsters you aren't armed for, sorry. that is not hard, it's just annoying, boring, and not worth playing. i do not play quake to spend an eternity fighting each and every monster because i don't have the proper guns and ammo, and i am not interested in learning a map inside out before i can efficiently play it.

Would have loved to give it a 5 for the great level design, but it's really so insanely difficult that you'll have a hard time admiring the landscape while desperately searching for some ammo - and I am talking about "Easy" mode here. Facing situations with 3-4 Death Knights while you are just left with the axe is definitely possible! No idea how this was playtested, but practically every map would have needed significantly more ammo to survive. This way, all that I could do to finish this pack was to cheat. A shame.

Odd that different people have such different experiences of how difficult this is. I am not a particularly good player -- at least I often find other levels hard when others don't seem to -- but I didn't have too much trouble with this. I wonder if the order you take the levels in makes a big difference, and I just happened to choose lucky, getting the weapons early?

Anyway, this is just sensationally beautiful, and that was back in the days when most maps were much uglier than now. Given the shedloads of gameplay and the general awesomeness, I couldn't score it less than the full five stars.

an incredible set of maps by talented people.

gameplay is tougher than contract. i saved & reloaded a lot, especially in chapters_secret.

Replaying this. The hub is beautiful and mysterious, the best I've seen in any pack -- but it seems silly to award it a standalone mark.

The first level I replayed was Vondur's False Esteem. It's beautifully constructed, but suffers from two problems. First, too much time is spent manoeuvring in tiny spaces, or on tiny ledges, above certain death. I enjoy a bit of that in a map, but here it's not just seasoning, it's the main course. It becomes wearing. The second problem is that the Chthon at the end is super-easy to kill (I'm on Hard skill). Still, at the very least a solid 4* map.

More individual-map comments to follow.

And Wears a Golden Sorrow by Kell shares one failing of Vondur's map (and if I remember rightly, with several of the other maps in this pack) -- it feels more like a series of puzzles and challenges than it does like an actual place. This is a tricky balance to strike, because of course we do want maps to be puzzling and challenging as well as feeling like real places.

That said, I enjoyed playing this one more, especially the hefty challenge of surviving the get-the-gold-key moment. I like that there is a neat tactic that you can use to win that combat (retreat to the nearby room where you can stand on a ledge over the droles that follow you, showering them with grenades). So I make this a 4* map.

And so to Necros's Undreamed Shores. Generally, I love the horde combats in Necros's maps, but somehow they felt a bit cramped and arbitrary in this one. The relentless brutality, which can sometimes be invigorating, left me feeling drained instead. I can't explain it. I wonder if others feel the same?

I enjoyed the final room, though, where it's not too hard to win out by getting quickly up onto a ledge, letting infighting clear the crowds, and then dropping down to mop up with the help of the SNG and the Trinity. All in all, though, I have to rate this 3*, well below Necros's best work.

Next up: Kell's He Falls Like Lucifer. This is definitely the best-looking map so far, using the library theme in a beautifully twisted way to yield a bizarre amalgum of Quake proper and an old-fashioned Sonic level. The gameplay's good, too, with some nice surprises and a few opportunities to be clever. I'd have to make this the pack's first 5* map.

I found the quad, pentagram and trinity, but I never figured out how to get the gold-key platform to take me round to the doorway to the rocket-launcher. Does anyone know the secret?

Zwiffle's Born of Madness feels cozier than most of the other chapters -- not really sitting comfortably in the Fodrian theme. That said, it's a really neat little map with a succession of satisfying combats. In terms of gameplay it suffers from excessive linearity, though the gaps in the walls certainly help to give a sense of anticipation, as you see what's ahead without being able to reach it. Three stars seems harsh, but I'm going to go with it because of the recent elevation of what's the best of Quake, and because I didn't get much sense of atmosphere.

Eric's Beware the Ideas of March has some cool qualities: it's nice to start outside in what seems like it's going to be a void map, only to find that that much of the climax takes place in a big library. Most of it is good to look at, too.

I'm only awarding 3*, though, for three reasons.

First, I couldn't figure out the legitimate way to get down beneath to mausoleums, so I was Just Plain Stuck. In the end I had to noclip my way down.

Second, one of the secrets doesn't have a stash (unless I'm missing something). It's one of the two mirror-image tall library room that are also devoid of monsters, and whose identical secrets are almost impossible not to find.

Third, the final combat is just too easy. With the red armour, a shield of deflection and a quad (plus a megahealth if you need it), killing off a couple of shamblers and droles is not taxing.

(The first and second of these seem like the kinds of problems you might get my omitting -hipnotic from the command-line, but I am including it.)

Thanks for the comments Mike - my map is pretty rough, haha. To get in to the mausoleums you have to axe the contract on the altar in the upstairs room of the castle. For some reason this made sense to me at the time (and there's nothing to suggest that in the map)! I think the secret with no items is just a mistake, could be an item that was placed too close to the wall and falls out. Thanks for playing it anyway, and this reminds me to play Contract Revoked and this pack again some time.

Oh, of course! How sensationally stupid of me. I remember being told "destroy the contract", and thinking "I don't do that yet, I'll explore first and then see what changes when I come back and destroy it". Then I forgot to do it. Entirely my fault.

Thanks for putting me right.

On to Ionous's Last Syllable Of Time. Most enjoyable, especially the moment of dropping through the roof onto the gold key, only to find myself surrounded by four vores. But it loses some points due to the blocky and bland nature of the architecture -- lots of big, square open spaces. This is one map where the gameplay definitely surpasses the layout, even if there were a few more polyps than I can find enjoyable. The shambler one-two-three way particularly delightful. All in all, I make this a 4* map, just.

... all of which brings me to finale, Kell and Necros's Through Nature To Eternity. There's only one monster, but it's a good one -- the first ever appearance, I believe, of a Vermis. It's not too hard to kill, provided you get started quickly enough on the switches and manage to grab the shield. It's a very beautiful level, with a lovely arcane sense of hanging in a void, so overall I give this 4*. At the time, it must have been shocking, a clear 5* finale, but times have changed.

Putting it all together, although I awarded only a single 5* to an individual map (Kell's He Falls Like Lucifer) four 4s and three 3s, I do stand by my original overall five-star mark for the map as a whole. It was a sensational achievement at the time, and all the maps stand up well today. Very well worth playing.

In retrospect, The Lost Chapters was the first map-jam, though the term hadn't been invented. What a shame the subsequent jams don't have hub levels -- even if they're just the one from Lost Chapters with the teleporters repurposed!

Oh, and see also Hrimfaxi's The Rest is Silence (hrim_sp2), which is a sort of lost Lost Chapter, and uses the extensions from this pack before they were formalised as part of Quoth.

MikeTaylor, there have been numerous mapping get-togethers before this pack. ;)

Links, please!

Yeah! The Rest is Silence(hrim_sp2) was made to be included with this map-pack But due to lazynes and RL it was released on its own a few months after this pack.

Belting maps...how did I miss this lot??

I'd forgotten how irritating the Quoth monsters were at some point (they were toned down in recent years, AFAIK).

Undreamed Shores made me consider not playing the remainder of the maps. The questionable horizon work at the beginning was, well, just the beginning. I don't think you should do these things in Quake maps unless you can pull them off in a way that looks more or less natural (instead of "Just imagine there's a sea of blood beyond the cut-off OK?").

Then there were obvious inescapable pits. And then there was the fact that if you jump out of a window instead of dropping into the exit, you'll be stuck outside forever. Did anyone actually test this map? Maybe it's Quakespasm that breaks everything (except the horizon, of course)?

Okay, finished it. It really feels more like a jam than a proper coordinated effort. Little consistency, and not a lot of quality control, apparently.

Of all the things that baffled me there was one that stood out. It's how the map called "chapter_secret.bsp" isn't secret.

Still, some good maps here. Also, future Quoth. I don't even know how to rate it.

This was one of the first map packs I downloaded when I got into Quake custom maps a few years ago, and I didn't finish it back then.

After playing it through, I have to agree with the more critical comments on this page. This is a mix of some good maps and some bad ones. Some of them can be pretty tough, and not necessarily in a way that I consider fun, even on skill 0 at times, and I consider myself to be pretty good at Quake these days.

dwere singled out "Undreamed Shores" and for good reason. It's one of the worst necros maps I've played--and he's in my top 5 mappers, easily. I really want to know how it was playtested, if it was at all.

On the other hand, ericw's map stands out in my memory for some nice little details like the tombstones hanging in the void, and the white fingernail moon. Might have to rip that one off for a future map if I get around to it.

Worth checking out if only for the at-times excellent architecture but as far as the gameplay goes... your mileage may vary, apparently.

What does the trinity do exactly?

The trinity triples nail damage, but does not affect other weapons. I think it stacks with the quad, so that when both are in effect nails do 12x damage.

I see, thanks. Just finished playing this. Not as inspired as its inspiration but still a good tribute to it. The maps are quite modern-looking and challenging in a good way.

(Why do those new green flying monsters moan like the Quake guy? Are they humans trapped in monster bodies? Unsettling.)

A collection of mostly mediocre-to-poor maps. What's with the snot monster? It really sucks.

Some awesome maps and a couple of quite frustrating ones. For example, in Ionous map I'm at a point where I have two shotgun-shells left and no other ammo at all and the next thing I'm facing is 4 vores. And I haven't wasted ammo either. The only thing that could save me is perhaps if I found the secrets, which I haven't. But this is just ridiculous really. On the other hand, some other maps are just brilliant. So a mixed bag IMO.

Very hard, and gives you every reason to hate the then-new enemies.

Gioyo3aa, it's worth noting that these are their earliest appearances, and they have received balance changes in the Quoth 1, and later Quoth 2, releases.

Great mod! Mosnters from Quoth + wonderful Lovecraftian-style mapdesign + brutal difficulty (later on that) + quite hard secrets. Continues the ideas from original Contract Revoked. Also includes a wonderful, all-new, properly eldritch final boss! The only complaint: there were at least one level with not enough ammo. Clearly an oversight( Anyway, it's 5/5. Great episode for Quake, fair enough to call it unofficial expansion pack.

it's... fine? it's okay. the maps vary wildly in quality, difficulty, and playability. most of them have a very amateurish feel to them. the maps, by and large, feel spartan in architecture, having a lot of long, empty feeling hallways and cavernous, empty feeling rooms. monster placement feels haphazard, and much of this mod's "difficulty," especially on a couple of maps, comes from throwing a bunch of Polyps and Droles at you. Much more valuable as a piece of Quake history than as something to actually play for fun. Absolutely does not live up to Contract Revoked, which is actually really great.

okay, the boss fight is really cool, but it doesn't quite make up for the quantity of crap maps.

I do share some of the complaints about difficulty but not enough to ruin my overall enjoyment of this pack.

But "Through Nature to Eternity" is a pretty bad arena. The corners of the place look like areas where you could take cover, except the monster is adept at shooting around thin cover and most of the time the pillars just got in the way of my movement. Hunting for the buttons and getting the cross got me stuck so many times that I lost the fight, which on second try I would easily win by just circle-strafing and avoiding the corners.

Also, I don't know if it is a bug on my part, but I got the hammer early (Vondur's map I think?) and kept it between levels, the only weapon to do so. It was very useful in saving ammo against non-enemies like knights (and sometimes other things) which made things easier.

Why are Quoth base enemies so much better and more fun to deal with than the fantasy enemies? Those custom enemies completely ruin this pack. Those screaming guys that push you on a void map!? A horde of those screaming guys that turn invisible and push you in a lava-filled room!? Guh. Necros' map seems like a tech demo and not a proper map.

Regardless, than's Subterranean Library was a great map that I believe was supposed to be included here, but those monster really have to be used sparingly imho.