Requesting the composite screenshot for this instead.

+1 that request

-1 that request

I agree, but keep the current shot for the frontpage thumbnail (just like the jam 2 screenshots, with the best map for the smaller shot and the composite for the map page). I also think otp should be mentioned in the description, since he organized the jam. Finally, the news item says there's five maps when there's actually 6.

-1 Tronyn's request, it's a community event, not an onetruepurple event.

I'll try to get multiple screenshots per item implemented soon so no rush in my opinion.

+1 for spirit

Wow ! This is the kind of maps I like.. fresh, new, original themed, at least not the usual boring brown/dark theme !

Loved every map!! Thanks for lending your time and talents yet again!! Best Zerstorer theme award goes to JAM3_DAZ An excellent and unique map that could fit into the original

Most enertaining award goes to JAM3_ERICW Great opportunities for monster in-fighting (ie horde of zombies vs shambler, lol)

Most evil/difficult award goes to JAM3_IONOUS I died a lot on this one -- it's a challenge! Found a minor clipping error in the spiral staircase.

Most beautiful award goes to JAM3_MFX In awe of the map, with its great design. Some monsters in the blood flow room did not fall down, but stayed up there. So I was stuck until I realized this to be able to continue.

Most classic Q1 award goes to JAM3_SCAR3CROW I really enjoyed this map because it reminded me of simple/raw Quake1 designs and gameplay. Some unique ideas, and the end battle is tough but hilarious

Most epic award goes to JAM3_TRONYN Probably enjoyed this one the most because of the vast number of monsters and details. You never really get too far lost because every area is connected to one huge open space, so you see you are making progress in this epic (great for coop). Fun to explore for secrets as well!

Awesome Mappack once again, its amazing how much output this produced so far! My favorite this time is mfx´s awesome bloodtemple, followed by Daz´s and Ionous maps. Perfect theme for helloween aswell. Tronyns map feels a bit uncostumed for the party tbh, its an awesome map nevertheless.

5/5

I played the first map, The Crimson Slipway (jam3_daz). A very impressive start to the pack with truly nasty scenery and some nicely judged combats. I got all 80 kills (on hard) and found three or four secrets -- including the "useless" one, which was indeed useless! Very satisfying, though, having spotted it right at the start.

My only criticism is that the last part of the map felt terribly anticlimactic. After the big fight around the silver key, everything else was a walk in the park. It felt as though Daz had got bored with placing monsters, and just given up in the last 10-15% of the map. A real shame -- the ship spoiled for a hap'orth of tar.

Bunker of Tears (jam3_ericw) is a nice followup, although the title seems terribly inappropriate. The setting is a marvellous hybrid bloodbath/space-station, and to call it something as mundane as a bunker is selling it short.

Lots to love about this, including a very distinctive visual look and a pleasing vertical progression. But on hard, it's ... kinda easy. The final combat in particular, is a cinch if you just run back to a safe distance and pepper everyone with nails. Only after that can you get the second secret (the quad), at which point it's useless. In fact both secrets are very unsatisfying, and I found three or four much better positions where they could have been placed. Still, I don't want to be too harsh about what is after all an excellent map, well worthy of a standalone release, that was presumably created in a very short time.

As a standalone, I'd award this a slightly harsh 4/5 for the balance issues. (And I didn't mention it at the time, but the same score to The Crimson Slipway for the same reasons, though in that case the mark seems even more harsh.)

Hemophilic Clot (jam3_ ionous) is one of the maps I was most looking forward to in this map, because his Probable Carcinogen (jam1_ionous) in the Honey-themed jam is one of my all-time favourites for atmosphere alone. Clot certainly ramps up the atmosphere in its own way -- there's no shortage of brooding evil, dark mutterings, sheer bloodiness and creative use of actual darkness to obscure enemies without actually hiding them.

So it sounds like I should love Clot -- but somehow, I don't, quite. I admire it enormously. The conception is novel, the execution all but flawless. But somehow it doesn't quite charm me the way Carcinogen did. Maybe I just prefer the grand loneliness of the Honey theme to the relatively in-your-face Zerstorer theme.

Finally -- and this is becoming a bit of a refrain -- I found the ending anticlimactic. Having won the chain lightning gun, I held off from using it in the next combat, thinking I'd save the ammo till I really needed it ... only to find the level was over. I know I'm hard to please, not really like big arena battles either, but do like to feel I've done something special at the end of a level.

Anyway, taking all this into account, I have to award another very, very harsh 4/5. (Really, all three maps that I've played so far should be 4.5s, but I'm scoring on an integer scale and I want to leave some headroom so I can save the 5s for maps the move me.)

Dolor Non Color (jam3_mfx) is definitely my highlight so far: an absolutely gorgeous map with a very powerful sense of solid space, an intricate layout that somehow contrives to keep you from getting lost, and some lovely monster placement. I mean no disrespect to the first three maps when I say that this one drew me in and compelled me to finish it in a way that very few maps do. Apart from the aberrant appearance of grunts and enforcers in one section, there is a deliciously consistent quality to this map, which helps to build up the immersion.

Bizarrely, the ending felt anticlimactic for me yet again -- but this time it was my own fault. I fell off a ledge and landed up back in the rune-door area earlier than I was supposed to, before I had the rune, so I was able to mop up the zombies and knights in advance. So when I returned there having collected the rune, my path to the door was wide open. But that's not the map's fault, it's mine. (Well, unless we say the zombie spawning should have been delayed until I had the rune.)

Only one criticism. It seems that once you go through the crushing-walls trap, it stays shut forever, and there's no way to get back to the area you reach when you go through. Did I miss something? One reason this is a problem is that it means once you drop down to the secret rockets off the left-hand edge of that area, there's no way to come back up again and complete the map.

Still, it's a small point. Wonderful experience, many thanks to mfx! A clear 5/5, and now I feel vindicated in having saved by 5s when scoring the previous maps :-)

No, MikeTaylor, you did not miss something. Many others (including myself) had the same problem with the map. mfx has released a fixed version. Here's hoping Spirit adds it to the Quaddicted database, as it deserves a map page of its own, in my opinion.

Personally, I agree more or less with FUBAR's assessments of the maps.

My favourite is ericw's (which I've played a few times by now), with Daz's map coming a close second. Both are great fun and well balanced, although I agree that the ending in Daz's map is a little anticlimactic.

Were it not for the critical gameplay flaw, mfx's map would have taken first place for me. Visually, it is in a different league from the majority of Quake SP maps released to date, let alone the other maps in this pack. The gameplay is likewise great, apart from that one problem.

scar3crow's map is on the other end of the visual scale (sorry, scrar3crow!) and borders on unfairly hard, but it is kind of fun all the same. And it's a debut map, hooray! It's always good to see a new mapper's work, and this is the second mapjam to feature a debut map. May this trend continue.

Tronyn's map was my least favourite on initial playthrough, although I did enjoy it more the second time around. It is pretty standard Tronyn fare, i.e. huge and impressive and featuring too much of everything. The very open design coupled with the humongous size meant that it was very easy to get lost -- but at least while wandering around semi-aimlessly there is a nice environment to look at.

ionous's map has some really fantastic geometry, but sadly it just feels unfinished and I did not enjoy playing it. I hope someone (either ionous or someone equally talented) will take the source and give it the polish it deserves.

As an aside, these maps gave me a new appreciation of the standard Quake arsenal. Variety is nice, but I definitely prefer the super shotgun, standard nailgun and rocket launcher over their Zerstörer counterparts.

Oh, minor thing: in the composite screenshot, mfx's and scar3crow's maps are switched. Worth fixing?

I think it looks better the way it is now.

Ways to the Grave (jam3_scar3crow) does stand out a bit among this very exalted company. I don't want to be too critical, because it's a debut map, and they are always to be encouraged. It's worth sometimes taking a look at the debut maps of some of the people we now hold in highest esteem, and realising just how far they've come. I hope that this is just the beginning for scar3crow. But for now, I'll have to award 1/5.

Very good, a 4 star for me. I will say however something that came across my mind as I died (I always stop playing after I died so I'm not sure how the rest of the maps are but I'm sure you did a great job my dude). The thing I said is "not enough health, too much lag". Lets work on that one okay

I just finished In a Forest of Flesh (jam3_tronyn). Amazingly, I got all 583 kills (on hard), despite only finding 8 of 13 secrets. That final combat was a proper sod. I don't know whether anyone will ever do it without finding the quad.

As is so often the case with Tronyn (e.g. jam2_tronyn, something_wicked.zip), this is just CRAZY big. But not merely big-and-lumpen, but lovingly crafted in every detail. Numerous beautiful room, towers, hallways and temples, every one of them different from all the rest, and all of them packed with breathtaking scenery. Given that jam2 came out at the start of August and this at the end of October, the implication is that Tronyn built this from scratch in just three months. Which beggars belief. An absolutely incredible achievement.

I don't have a single bad word to say about it. Awarding a mere five stars seems like an insult.

All of which brings me to my final mark for this release as a whole, and it would of course be ludicrous to award less than the full five stars. Even if the debut map of scar3crow brings the average down a little -- and I bet he will hugely improve on this in his next map -- all the others are on a scale from Very Good to Insanely Great. It's just incredible what this community continues to create. Incredible.

Given that jam2 came out at the start of August and this at the end of October, the implication is that Tronyn built this from scratch in just three months.

MikeTaylor, no, it does not quite work like that.

Firstly, mapjams do not automatically follow one another, and they last for a relatively short period of time (with not all participants necessarily joining the project immediately). Mapjam 3 was started at the end of September and lasted one month. See Func_msgboard for more details.

Secondly, if if you were to read the documentation included in this mappack, you would see that not everything in Tronyn's map was made during that one month period. He built upon both content he had made earlier and some scraps from other authors (of course this does not preclude the possibility of Tronyn's having put together the final product over a total of three months all told, but one cannot surmise how long he worked on it just by looking at the map jam release dates). In fact, mfx's map was also started earlier and then modified to fit the Zerstörer theme -- which you would also know, had you read the aforementioned documentation. :P

Which is not to say that it is not amazing how fast people like mfx and Tronyn are able to map, because it is astounding.

By the way, mfx, is there any chance of your releasing the unzerstörte version of your map? That just looks too beautiful not to be finished and released...

<a href="https://twitter.com/MaikFranzXaver/status/531228220512038912/photo/1">under construction</a>

And the daylight version?, sorry no. maybe another map with the same atmosphere..

what a bs

The level of effort is insane in theese maps! Truly awesome.

mfx -- I meant the daylight version that you showed in the screenshot I linked to above. I did not realise there was actually a literally "undestroyed" version of the map; I meant "unzerstörte" as in "non-Zerstörer-ified" (guess I was trying to be too clever for my own good). Anyway, I understand why you would not want to release it, but thought it was worth asking. Thank you for your response.

I had not rated this pack until now, as I find it hard to decide what standard to hold the maps to: technically they are more than speedmaps/turtlemaps yet less than full releases.

Still, I'll buck the trend (and brave the potential backlash) and rate this collection a 3.5. To me, the maps range from 4 (ericw; daz; mfx -- not the fixed version) to 2.5 (scar3crow; ionous -- even though I love the fact that scar3crow released a debut Q1SP map for this pack, and would rate a finished version of ionous's map much higher). Tronyn's map falls somewhere in between to me; it is objectively impressive (though not without its flaws), but subjectively not my kind of gameplay. If the editor's rating were up to me, I would probably have rated the pack "nice".

Please note that I do not wish to disparage any of the authors. I think you are all doing amazing work, even though I do not consider this a collection of masterpieces.

Orbs has recorded some amazing speedruns for all of these maps, which are really fun to watch (I hope Orbs does not mind my linking to said demos here). To quote ericw later in that same thread, "speedrunning always looks like magic to me". I still cannot quite wrap my head around Orbs's speedrun of Tronyn's behemoth...

Xmas is bathed in blood, hell MFX, how do you build such stuff?!? Awesome.

You just gave this 3/5 by accident. Doesn't make sense with 5/5 on Jams 1 and 2.

I replayed Bunker of Tears (jam3_ericw). For some reason, this time I never found the grenade launcher, so I had to play the entire zombie-infested map without explosives, and chronically short of nails and shells since I was never able to take monsters out with grenades instead.

Oddly, this made the map better if anything: much more challenging. I finished with 51/61 kills, not having had time to pick off all the zombies during the short time I had the quad.

Played through a few of these so far. Pretty impressive all around. I love the zer weapons so I'm glad to see that.

Tronyn's is actually my favorite so far. Very busy visually, as per his uje, but lovingly crafted. I actually found the progression to be much less confusing I sometimes do with Tronyn's other huge maps, which tend to become straight-up labyrinths once enough doors have been opened. In this case I felt like the strategy of linking all the interconnected buildings to a large central courtyard made exploration feel much more natural, and made it much harder to get lost.

I know Tronyn is supposed to update all his mapjam maps and release them as an episode. If so then I hope he keeps the zer weapons in the new version of this page—hell, preferably in all of them!

I hope he keeps the zer weapons in the new version of this *map

Played through them all except scar3crow's. On that map I got stuck after the shotgun get. I killed the scrags and now all I can see is barred-off teleporter. The rest of the maps are good to great.

The "fixed" version of MFX's map seems completely broken to me. The silver-key door opens without the key, and more importantly the right-hand passage that leads upwards from the rock bridge over the silver-door area is blocked, so there is no way to reach the main area of the map.

Am I missing something clever?

Mike i just checked the map, seems to be working fine here. SK door is SK locked, and the passage opens as it should. Strange thing.

Could it be you loaded a savegame from the old version?

Very strange, mfx. Could it be because I have the map in my Quoth area rather then regular id1?

Negke, no -- this is a new game, no save.

Oh noes, this map needs the zer progs and assets to run properly. It is included in the release.

Ah, good! My mistake, then, I'd not appreciated that I needed the pack as well as the map. (Also explains why I got a bunch of fiends very early on, hard to deal with!) Thanks.

http://i68.tinypic.com/30rqgrs.png

I finally played "In a Forest of Flesh" (jam3_tronyn) in skill 3 and everything signed "Tronyn" it was a great experience. The difficulty is spot-on to be played without load and save in one go, the gameplay fantastic, the visuals great... In my opinion one of the best maps I ever played.

Tronyn if you read this message, how did you become so good writing maps? Are you a professional or something?

Just.. I did not get the Screw Cannon. What is the point of shooting a rocket with that instead with the usual Rocket or Grenade Launcher?

Zerstorer is one of my favourite releases, so this for me is mandatory. Every single map is outstanding: ironically the less zerstorer map is the one made by Tronyn and at the same time my favourite: very huge, beautiful use of colored lights, huge variety of textures, tons of enemies and lot of actions (a lot of zombies!! and the final fight with the nemesants is awesome). I wish this map was included in some Drake mod release or even Arcane Dimensions

Did anyone know there was a single player campaign on top of the six jam maps? I was playing and beat some levels and when I came back to rate I noticed that I never touched the six jam maps.

Anywho, all levels were made very well. Beautifully designed. Good challenges. A must download.

This mappack sucks!!!

The new weapons are annoying, especially the chainsaw, I just can't stand the sound of it. The levels are plain in architecture and most of them are very cramped. The first level is very basic, 40+ monsters, base like style. The second level is too dark, and there are zombies coming out of everywhere. I mean, who likes it when there's too dark?

There's also a drawback to some of the levels, you start without seeing the health/ammo info on the screen, pressing "-" two times fixes that, but what's the point of that anyway?

Could not progress through the level where you're supposed to get the Zerstoer skull. After jumping into the portal I can see the skull, but I cannot move anywhere.

There are some much older levels around there, even from 1997 that play better than any of these levels. You can walk around normally and explore, using normal weapons, not the ugly weapons in this pack!!! The general complaint for all these levels is not enough space to move around and explore and very straight forward progress.

First of all, your issue with weapons/ammo not showing has to do with game settings, something which as you discovered is easily fixed, not the map pack itself. I'm not sure why that is happening, to be be honest; maybe there's a rogue config file that slipped into your Quake folder or something.

Second of all, it sounds like you started playing the original Zerstörer campaign, which is included in this pack and actually is from 1997. Check the readme and you will see how to play the maps that were actually made for the jam.

Thanks MikeTaylor for the tip about the quad in Tronyn's map. Those damn nemesants take the hardness to a whole other level, and at first I didn't even think I'd make it past the ones that guard the entrance.

I remember having mixed feelings about this pack but I played it too long ago to rate it now, I'll have to give it another try. As usual, Tronyn's map stands out with the kind of over the top insanity that I've come to enjoy from him, from level design to the hordes. So get this if only for that map :) But the other maps as I recall also had their sadistic bits which matched the theme perfectly.

A brilliant pack imo, the mod is a classic.

The ending was dumb.

i have to say i'm enjoying replaying the old mod a lot more than the new maps.

having a pack like this, that is 2 mods that are supposed to be a new, shiny version and an old version of the same thing, helps me understand just how little i care about modern quake mapping.

i can't explain it and i guess i sound blinded by nostalgia but somewhere around 2011 quake mapping lost something. and this is the case for some authors here like ionous and tronyn that used to make better stuff when their maps weren't the size of small towns.

and technically this mapjam is kinda old itself at this point.

The Pack is a perfect 10 for me. And the Temple was a new definition of EPIC. Thank you so much.

Amazing maps pack. All maps were good. Perhaps 3 stand out. Ionous'es for being extremely gloomy tru dark bloody fantasy - really loved atmosphere. Tronyn's - well obviously it's gigantic map & quite fun to play - I didn't like crowds, to me it's lazy mapping - but in general map was gorgeous; Heretical jorney. And finally mfx. Damn! That's one of the best maps I ever played and it's 2022 now. It felt like invert, corrupted twin to his AD Realm of Enceladus. Same flying stones with chains (I realize AD chains and rocks were added later). But this time it's bloody hell. Really cool rocks/caves - and I know it's pain in the a$$ to make 'em in TB. All in all from now on it's one of my all time favs. I wish it could end up in AD pack with AD expanded mobs pantheon, because to me it's like a twin to Enceladus. THANKS to all. I like all maps and played them all with 80-100% of secrets

I have to take back some of my previous comment, which was made under a less than ideal mental state. At the time, I only finished Tronyn's map actually, and expecting the rest of the maps to be the same, I did not even give them a chance (pretty dumb). I was also just fresh of being tortured by Soul of Evil 2, which is by far the most difficult Quake thing there is. Yes, Tronyn's map is still complete bullshit, I don't care, but after playing the rest of them, they are ok.

I also still don't believe the quality of quake mapping went up over time as most others would say, maybe when compared to the nineties only.