A mission pack of epic proportions with impressive architecture and above-average storyline. I loved the outdoor areas with their autumn feeling, and books scattered throughout the area give you hints about what to do next. The most amazing (and also largest) level is "The Morbid Manse", a huge underground fortress with libraries and caverns. Features two spectacular boss fights and tough dragons with quite devastating attacks. You should only skip this if you don't like Quake at all - otherwise, click that download link right now! [Side note: In the "Morbid Manse" (soe2m5), Fitzquake Mk V crashed many times after obtaining the gold key and approaching the fitting door, no clue why. In the end I only managed to finish the level by bypassing the problematic area with noclip.]

This one has all kind of wonders... The character enhancements are all really good, I thought when dragons were mentioned that the green Shambler must be what it was referring to, glad I was mistaken... Really enjoyed it, thanks for making it Dustin :)

For those how like to get medieval on asses, its a must.

5/5

in the level soe1m2 game crashes, console says "rubble1.mdl cant precached qc function error..." ore something like that.

I have the same crash with QuakeSpasm, so I switched to Darkplaces to play it.

What part does it crash at in soe1m2?

Damn, after a clean install with just id1, soe and QuackeSpasm I'can't reproduce it... This occured in the begining of soe1m2 when you find a "dark altar". If you "select" it, a cuscene showing the circle of stones from above is supposed to play, but boom back to the console with a dump I remembered looking like hfc's.

BTW, amazing package nonetheless :)

Playing through this. In The Morbid Manse (soe2_m5) I have killed all the mages in the library -- about a dozen, from counting the corpses -- but the exit to the next room is still sealed (and the door I came in by is locked shut). What should I do now?

Same happened in my recent playthrough. I think I eventually noclipped to proceed. Possibly some hitch on newer ports, or skill 2. If someone knows more, please post details here.

Thanks, I will do the same, then!

It seems there's one enemy missing or the counter value set 1 too high on hard skill, so you're unable to complete the trail and get stuck in the library. Normally, the doors of the 'tower' open and reveal a button which then spawns a shambler and dragon, and ultimately the second library doors opens.

Hmm, surely it can't be that this was only tested on Easy and Normal :-)

lol, not sure if that was the case but it seems at least possible! Sorry about the error guys and thanks for noting it in a place where I can see it. If that was the case, I am hoping to do an entity tweak on all my maps for Drake (looking through Quaddicted comments as a major source for things that need to change), if I can ever get time to do Quake stuff.

Nice! (Although I do think your recent work is just miles ahead of this. It may make more sense to keep looking forward instead of doubling back to fix this one.)

Well, I finished. I have to admin that Haunted Shadows (soem2e6) was a bit of a grind, and I had to do an awful lot of save, attack, die, reload. But I got there in the end. Then the quad appeared right at the end when there were only two monsters left. Well, thanks a lot!

Looking at this pack as a whole, it's very hard to score it. In 2002, it must have felt absolutely epic. But now, the early levels feel rather crude and artificial -- push this button to open that door; go through and kill the monsters to push this other button to open that other door; vamp till end of level. The levels definitely improve as they go on, but it's a real shame that the best set-piece in the whole thing (the library in the screenshot above) is afflicted with a bug that makes it impossible to complete on Hard.

All in all, I am scoring this three stars, because while I respect the craftsmanship tremendously, it did end up feeling like a bit of a slog. Tronyn has gone on to much, much better things.

This gave me a huge surprise while playing through the first levels Arms of Darken Wood- FallenVillage. After Devil's Pass I really got the feeling being in a tide Quake level that's supremely good interconnekted and has the glare of a real classic. Found no bugs, only secrets as my curiosity. Sometimes poor on armor and health which made it rather medieval harsh. Star in my collection, knocked me back to the 9ties. Must be my classic Quake favour. Cheerz Tronijn!

Voiceherkenning!

I'm in Devil's Pass (soe1m2), in the area surrounding the long lake. I know the way into the town is through a secret door at one end of the lake, but I can't remember (or figure out anew) how to open it. Anyone?

Oh, it's trivial! Just shoot the barrier at the right end, and it will open. (That is the one that's to your right when you first enter this area.)

Replaying this -- I'd forgotten how huge it is, and that there are two separate episodes. Enjoying it hugely. Just one question: you know those upgraded death-knights with red highlights on their armour, lots of health and a fireball attack? Why do they keep shouting "oysters"?

I can't believe I gave this three stars before. I must have been out of my mind. This is the very definition of a five-star pack, with an enormous amount of content including fascinating set-pieces. That locked-in-the-library bug is a real disaster, unfortunately. But even with that included, I'm upgrading my mark to the full five stars.

(For anyone else who faces it: after killing all the wizards in the library, go and stand by the exit door that should have opened, then noclip directly upwards until you're above the balcony walkway. Then come out of noclip mode and continue.)

(But I still want to know why the red-highlighted death knights keep shouting "oysters"!)

Great, but I find this pack very uneven. Everything leading up to E1M4 disappointed me even though I like the naturalistic brushwork. Combat and exploration just didn't feel up to par with parts of Phantasmal Garrison 2 until I reached the palace, which is definitely a step beyond Tronyn's previous work. That map effortlessly combines the best elements of maps like Gloom Keep or Wizard's Manse, but with a fittingly autumnal theme and color. Secret placements/hints works well and the challenge at least doubles from this point forward, excepting E2M3. I didn't much out of E1M5 and E2M6 is a tedious waste of a boss finale. The new wizard enemies are fun to fight but only start to threaten in E2; dragon arenas work fairly well however.

I think most of E2's great, becoming awesome in E2M2 and E2M5 respectively. The former map starts off unassuming before turning into a labyrinth of tough ogre/(hell) knight encounters with plenty of variation and inviting architecture. Latter map has amazing moments everywhere you go, disregarding the buggy library portion (which still gives you a bona fide shambler vs. dragon duel!). Monster count tells you nothing about how many upper-tier enemies lie in wait, and so it helps that ammo placement/box types are well-judged. The rest of Soul of Evil builds up to this map exactly, though I think E2M4's really good as well (just skip E2M3 if you aren't here to snooze).

Overall this pack's worth playing since even the disappointing maps are fun.

Probably my favorite map pack. Very nice level design, very challenging, played on hard and did not regret it. The only problem I encountered was the wrong counter in the library soe2m5. I tried to contact the author but I guess the email is dead, so I used quark to fix it myself. Here's a fixed version: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6qj91UlSYlYTW9TU0tCa0l4LUk If the author wants this taken down, just let me know

@dosse91, Thanks for the fix. I haven't played through this for a really long time. It'll be nice to play it without having to resort to no-clipping! :)

Anyway, regarding the mapset. 5/5 from me too. I pretty much agree with everything that's been said. Huge and fun. Excellent atmosphere. One to remember.

The brushwork and textures seem a bit crude, and there's plenty of visible seams here and there, and I got stuck on the scenery a few times. Still, not a bad map pack. Very retro, very oldschool. Good challenge and plenty of variety in the set pieces. Play it in WinQuake for the max nostalgia effect.

It's a good map pack, but there's a lot of switch pushing leading to more switch pushing, and just locked doors all over the place. Like when you push a button and it puts some text on the screen saying some vague shit like "The mud has rescinded" and you gotta wander around to see what the hell that meant.

Fair play to the author for the effort, but this is the worst Quake map pack I have ever played. I have no idea how it earned 4.7/5 stars.

Raw assets such as randomly placed solid color white/red floor tiles, reskinned Quake monsters, bizare looking new monsters, Strogg soldiers and Ogres all mercilessly crammed together into some kind of a barebone fantasy campaign without any sense of thematic coherency.

When I saw the dragons I almost spilled my drink. Avoid. 1/10 stars from me.

Well, I must admit, my feelings are very complicated about this mod. It is full-fledged "mission pack", in vain of "Abyss of Pandemonium", "Travail" and "Nehahra", which is exactly the type of content any game needs. Levels are well-designed and interesting to blast through (even mines... usually I hate mines, but not in this mod). The complaint comes with enemies... Most of them are just reskins of vanilla bestiary. Goblins, drakes, black shamblers and vores - all behave and attack like their normal counterparts and in case of Drakes (reskinned Scrags) and black Shamblers/Vores, even fight ALONGSIDE their normal counterparts. Dragons are great, though, and some new knights and mages are good, even though they all appeared previously in Tronyn's mods (Phantasmal Garrison and Coven of Ebony). Bosses are... well, the first episode's BANE was hyped. Really hyped... and I did enjoyed the battle (and level) with him, even though he was basically a buffed-up UBER-version of Death Knight. Final boss is...... re-used from Coven of Ebony, with added challenge of 30+ enemies spawning around him. C'mon, Tronyn, what the point of finishing the Project of Love like Soul of Evil with the same end-boss from your previous work? Maybe reskin him a little... I dunno... It would be much better of an ending if the final enemy is something UNIQUE to this particular game.... Anyway.... Tronyn, if you read this, I still VERY MUCH enjoyed Soul of Evil and want to thank you and your team for your effort back in 2000 - 2002.

I loved Unforgiven so what went wrong to make this so bad? I tried to love SoE but found playing it tedious. It's is beautiful of course and a lot of work went into it which has to earn respect but the gameplay is godawful. Four vores on a distant promontory with just a shotgun and only just about enough ammo? Yes it can be done but it is so boring this way. Unforgiven was MUCH better. You could choose, be creative about how you dealt with the challenges. Here you are straightjacketed. Then there is the matter of the music (not up to the visual quality imo) that cannot be turned off. I don't like game music and you really need to have these as separate audio files rather than embedded so the user can delete them.

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Bear in mind Unforgiven was released nine years later.

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Very cosy mod, but the grenade launcher no where to be found at the beginning though.

Nice but the designers seem to like to waste the player's time trying to find entities/ items that should not be hidden, compounding the problem lack of clear or coherent clues to read.

3/5 I will play it again with fun.

Bad points: The road is linear and confusing. Mamy closed doors are blocked doors; bumping in front is repetitive. Secrets are hard to find. New enemies have too much HP, there are too many ogres and insufficient weapons. The sound of knights armor and some skin colors are bad choices.

Didn't get far, just past the initial dragon free for all battle pretty much. It's the 2nd time I had a go at this episode and got to about the same place before deciding to abandon it.

The level design is good, the reskins and so on all fit the aesthetic, there is an attempt at scripted sequences and a story-line, there is a level of polish to the whole thing. No doubt, it would have impressed people for these reasons back when Soul of Evil was first released.

But for my money, well I wouldn't pay money for it, neither then nor now, as it's simply not up to the standards of the base Quake experience nor its expansions. All the new enemies are bullet-sponges, are used far too much, and require the minimum of finesse to defeat, its just a matter of tediously pumping bullets into them. The dragon battles you can only win by getting them to in-fight. The medium-size open maps set in valleys and across bridges aren't an ideal fit for the Quake engine and its combat. The cramped fighting inside houses isn't ideal either. The aesthetic is consistent but IMO all that orange and brown is just ugly, I'm not a fan. The narrative did nothing for me.

3.4/5