Played all but the final 3 levels.

Episode 1 was good, but the first two maps needed more monster variety and the third was FAR more challenging than I was prepared for, and had a number of frustrating parts. Still decent maps, though. Fourth map was my favorite, boss was decent.

Episode 2 was where it really shone for me, and being by the author who then released "Ruined Nation", I expected no less. I was knew it would be a challenge, so I conserved and sure enough, it was tough. What made it so good wad that frustrating moments were fairly rare and brief despite the difficulty (unlike qte1m3). The deep underground secret level was nice and different - definitely had the "get me out of here!" feel to it. The final fight wasn't the greatest, but it did little to taint an excellent episode.

So, one nice episode and one excellent episode, worthy of excellent overall I'd say. I might give thoughts of the last three levels later, but a very worthy "unofficial mission pack".

Played final 3 maps.

The Coagula map (qtfin1) was great, and the first fight with the boss was good, but it fell down in the last level - too easy, nothing new, although the crypt wasn't bad and the ending text is worth rading.

Overall thought largely similar to before, distrans is the better of the two mappers but even the scragbait maps are pretty good. Especially when considering that there are at most five good or excellent free mission pack out there for Quake, there's no excuse not to play Travail.

Two episodes of good and big levels, need I say more? Well I guess maybe, this is like another mission pack (joining Nehahra and Soul of Evil in this category). Episode 2's maps were best but the others weren't a letdown! The only letdown really is the final boss, it's too easy. But Nehahra messed up its boss sections worse than this.

Wow - some blindingly awesome mappery in here. Overall, this package is absolutely brilliant because of the sheer amount of excellent quakey gameplay and levels - which are all of perfect length, I must add - not too big and not too small. However, I must say that the pack starts off on its weakest foot - the first 3 levels are strangely cramped and fiddly, full of 64-unit corridors and tiny walkways with all sorts of bits sticking out to snag you and send you plummeting - but these problems largely go away after about level 3 or so, and in the remaining - I dunno is it 12? - levels, it pretty much reaches Quake perfection!

I'm replaying this. So far I have just played through the opening maps - just like I remembered, totally the high-watermark for functional architecture in Quake. Great sense of exploration, and thoughtful design. Good secrets too.

Among all the great custom Quake addons, there are two legendary ones: Nehahra and this. Words can hardly describe both magnitude and beauty of this mission pack. Rarely will you finish a map under at least 20-30 minutes, and often because you have to stop for a while just to admire the landscape. It's really THAT beautiful. Sometimes, it's not about playing through a level, it's walking through a piece of art. There's always something new to see and you won't stop before you have seen it all. Beautiful skyboxes, wonderful architecture, fantastic soundtrack (really try to avoid playing without it!). Even the boss levels are special and go far beyond being plain boring arenas. General gameplay difficulty is above average, yet managable. An absolute must-have/must-play/name-it-what-you-want experience! - Two technical tips at the end: A) Playback of the first demo deactivates weapon bobbing (cl_bob 0). You can fix this by starting the game like "-game travail +map start" (which will simply skip the demo). B) If you want transparent water, search for the Travail "Epsilon Build". This one has VISed maps which looks nice, even though sometimes there are some visual glitches due to level design decisions (underwater parts that weren't meant to be seen and therefore aren't properly continued/finished).

Worst map building ever. You will stuck and jammed every lift, corner, lamp on wall. Gameplay with this shorcomings feels like torture.

You are probably talking about the first episode? I don't like that kind of style either. Try the other one.

5 stars

this is the best pak to date a five stars mod the main flaw is texturing of an episode one i'm a huge fun of the classic id texture but the episode one should've been dressed in the custom set ala ep2

Gave it 5 stars after completion episode two. It is waaaay better than the first one.

In qte2m4 (Excision), how the heck are you supposed to grab the gold key. On Nightmare, even with full health and new yellow armour, I get smashed before I have time to kill more than two of them, wherever I run. Is there a trick?

OK, it looks like you have to find the secret quad to stand any chance. I admit I cheated, and looked up the secrets on the Travail web-site.

Such is Nightmare. Try Hard.

I think I finished Travail. At least, I chased Azoth through the teleporter, then at the end of the next level, killed him. From there, I went through the two teleporters to end the level and get the congratulatory message, but then I was dumped back at the Travail hub. Is there still more to play, that I've missed? Where?

No, that's it. You may have missed the secret maps, but Azoth is the final boss.

I realise I forgot to score this. In 2007 it would have been amazing, but I think that in 2015 it just falls short of five-star status, so I'm going with four stars -- perhaps a little harshly. There are just too many niggles (crudity in some architecture, irritating bits of gameplay, places where you absolutely have to find the secret) to give top marks.

I'm having a problem with the second map. When I open the gold key door and press the button, I get stuck, the screen turns red, and I get "squished" after a couple of seconds. Is this a bug or some sort of punishment for not doing something else first?

Very fun set episodic pack with lots of unique charm about it. Using the optional soundtrack really captured the atmosphere for me.

I have to say I prefer the second episode to the first, but E1 still has some pretty nice moments and is fitting if intended to be played first. Another one of the "Must plays" in my book.

Absolutely amazing so far. Finished first episode, and, as most people here says: first episode is really not very good. You get stuck on geometry quite often, lifts etc...

Second episode, however, is so far A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. However, there is an issue on the second map of the second episode: missing gold key!

When I press all of the buttons in the cave, a elevator gets up, and, there should be golden key in there for me to open the last doors with knight hiding behind them and exit, however, the key is NOT there.

I am using Darkplaces though. I WANT to use Quakespasm however there is not build 0.85 of Quakespasm for Linux, so I HAVE TO play with Darkplaces as there is DP release (lol, sounds kinky) for Linux.

So, could be darkplaces format issue?

Ups, I meant first map of the second episode, that's where the key is missing.

Now, on the second map, on the very beggining - the doors that are supposed to open, won't open !

Try disabling DP's gameplay fixes, specifically the two svgameplayfixdroptofloor.... ones. Current versions have them disabled by default whereas older ones had them on.

There should be a Linux build of Quakespasm 0.92, why not use that?

I take offense at the statement "first episode is really not very good". It has its issues, sure, but the maps and locations are quite unique and imaginative.

@Anthalion the current version of Quakespasm is 0.92.1; there are x86 and x86_64 Linux binaries available here: http://quakespasm.sourceforge.net/download.htm

Depending on your distro there are probably packages available as well (e.g. it's packaged in Debian / Ubuntu, though you might get a slightly older version of QS)

In e2m2, returning to the gold key area after picking it up seems to trap you

No no no, it's definitely DarkPlaces that is at fault here. I was unable to use one secret at the end cause elevator wasn't working.

This isn't the first time in DarkPlaces when running mods, that elevators haven't worked.

So, I "finished" the game. Well, finished would be a wrong word... DarkPlaces crashed on me and wouldn't let me finish the last stage. :(

Is there any way I move the save points to QuakeSpasm somehow withouth going through entire mod again?

I liked it btw... negke, btw, it's not bad, it's just there are some cliches (monsters behind the corner) and some really annoying clipping and getting stuck issues.

So, pretty good, however, wasn't able to complete it cause DarkPlaces is crashing.

BTW, just tried QuakeSpasm... uhh, this will take some time to get used to. I played Quake back in 1996, but in QuakeSpasm, you can see there audio mixing is different then in DarkPlaces, a bit more muddy, and the color mixing is more akin to original.

Nothing wrong with that, maybe I got spoiled.

However, if it'll let me play the mod to the end, so be it... Oh, and the first part of the boss battle (hasn't crashed there, has crashed on loading the stage after he escapes through teleport) was OK.

PS

Also, music wasn't working under DarkPlaces and I read somwhere this mod has it's own music.

The part where I was answering negke was specifically about, I suppose, my opinion about his levels, not all of them. I really do not want to sound harsh, quite the opposite, I wish I could make levels that are at least half-decent in comparing to you, negke...

On the subject of DarkPlaces... I wasn't either able to finish Quoth mod with DarkPlaces. And also few others (which why I haven't wrote about 'em yet).

For all the good things DarkPlaces does (better audit and color mixing), it destroys good impression with so many compatibility issues...

Oh, before anyone goes with "are you sure those are compatibility issues or you just couldn't find the keys"?

I checked youtube walkthrough and forum threads about specific mods that crashed (including this one) whenever it crashed, and yeah, DarkPlaces at fault here.

Also, I play ALL mods on Nightmare. ;) So, it's certainly not my ability in question.

Thankfully, now I know QuakeSpasm will work perfectly, so yeah, thank you guys on links. :) Thanks guys !

Yep, the soundtrack is linked to at the top of this page under "Additional files". It's great (IMHO) and adds to the experience. Unfortunately the files need to be renamed for QS to find them, they should be changed from T03.mp3 to track03.mp3, and placed in the directory quake/travail/music/.

re: quakespasm sounding muffled, try "snd_filterquality 5" for a bit crisper sound. For really crunchy/distorted sound (nearest neighbour interpolation with no filtering) try "sndspeed 44100" (default is "sndspeed 11025")

I think negke meant "try ENabling"... Which DP build are you using?

You may want to try Seven's Travail extensions: http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-mod-releases/finished-works/12381-travail-quake-journey-some-extensions.html Nail position fix and some cosmetic enhancements like footsteps, particle flames etc... Available in two versions: one for DP and another engine-independent version without the particle flame & new particle FX.

Note that if you scroll down to post #11, you'll find a link for Travail VISed maps and .lit files manually crafted by jakub1, as well as a list of Seven's extensions for other mods/episodes. I especially recommend the one for Beyond Belief since it adds the sorely missing impulse 12.

Also, if you find QS a little too vanilla, you can try Spike's QSS. It's basically an add-on for QS with fancier stuff like extended particles and weather effects.

By the way, for those interested, this is the error report I get in my console when trying to play last level:

http://textuploader.com/d5g09

So, someone get make sense of it better then I do? It seems it cannot unpack for some reason the last map?

Had same problem under DarkPlaces with Quoth: played first 3 (PHENOMENAL, btw, imho) maps, and then the error report would say that he was unable to find fourth Quoth map that was looked upon for.

Anyway, lesson learned - *uck DarkPlaces, lol.