Quake 1 Single-Player Map Design Theories (2001)

https://www.quaddicted.com/webarchive//teamshambler.planetquake.gamespy.com/theories1.html

by Lammy • 6 months ago

77 17 6 months ago

quaddicted.com

markus_zhang• 6 months ago

Similar article but for Unreal engine:

https://www.unrealsp.org/articles/level-design/conceptual-gr...

divan• 6 months ago

Does anyone really get something useful from this text?

I thought it's something at the level of "Designing Virtual Worlds" by Richard Bartle, but it's just a set of statements like "level should have an entry and the exit" and "don't do bad maps", for some reason labelled "theories", heavily pierced with phrases like "ummm, hard to explain".

eek2121• 6 months ago

I didn't read. One issue with BYD (outside of the quality level of the article, which, as I stated, I didn't read) is that they are government subsidized. The bigger issue, that I've read about at least, is that they phone home to China.I don't want my car phoning any data to anywhere, even here in the U.S. I had a car that definitely was phoning home to Hyundai, and I had to sell it for unrelated reasons. I now share a dumb car with my spouse and while I hate having "dumb" features, I silently do a small happy dance since that is one less way I can be tracked (license plate readers and other such tech also happen to be illegal/not a thing here)

I also use an eScooter which is dumb as a brick locally, so definitely doing a double happy dance.

paulryanrogers3• 6 months ago

Was this response meant for a different thread?

Neeek• 6 months ago

Did you mean to reply to the BYD lidar thread on the front page right now?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46579927

trashb2• 6 months ago

"level should have an entry and the exit"

You would be surprised how many new mappers don't include a clear exit in their levels.

heavily pierced with phrases like "ummm, hard to explain".

Good vs bad level design is always subjective as is generally the case in design, for example what is experienced as good or bad it is dependent on the preferences and the experience of the player, perhaps even the setting (competitive vs casual).

In level-design what quantifies a "good level" is very dependent on the game-design decisions learning this is very important to make good levels. For example even q1 and q2 differ in what is good design due to the technical differences of the two games (full 3d rendering in q2) good q1 levels are more fast pace "run and gun" while q2 enemies force a more tactical approach (they take more shots to kill). Even though some of the qualities of good design also overlap between several games, for example there is a overlap in all FPS game levels. Even in the same game multiplayer vs singleplayer maps have very different requirements.

And for my next trick, I shall <drum roll> attempt to... </dr> ...define the undefinable!!!

While perhaps not perfect I think this article indicates some of the common pitfalls for inexperienced mappers. This is important especially for beginning mappers as it will allow them to grow a sense of good vs bad design quickly.

I think the author also didn't come up with these requirements out of nowhere, these are echoed throughout the (quake) mapping community and I think it is a good effort to put it into text and allow discussion for this particular game.

paulryanrogers3• 6 months ago

The level should be completable without "trick" moves or gameplay:

Someone should have told makers of Quake Rally! Their menu level alone had a trick jump before you could do much of anything else :)

Still, I think there's a place for tricks in levels to provide novelty or sport like maps, such as jump trick levels. Ideally there would be some kind of tutorial or sign posting if it's not a commonly known trick.

Waterluvian2• 6 months ago

Which trick jump are you talking about? The one to get to a bonus difficulty level? If the menu is a level, getting to E1 Easy is completing it.

paulryanrogers3• 6 months ago

I recall it was after the logo geometry and before one could reach other levels. Perhaps I was just oblivious and thought the bonus difficulty was the only way. Now I have to reinstall and refresh my memory.

Back in the day I certainly got into the normal races as I recall completing quite a few, and being really impressed.

egypturnash• 6 months ago

1. When a mapper is learning to map, and indeed learning to make a good map, they shouldn't publicly release a map until they've made a good quality map. When they make test maps to learn mapping, or to try to make a proper map, those maps should be kept on their hard drive, or perhaps privately released to acquaintances and more experienced mappers for testing and feedback, until they manage to make a good map - the good map is the first one they should publicly release.

2. Being a first time mapper is no excuse whatsoever for releasing a bad quality map. Some mappers mistakenly think it is, and try to make such excuses in their texts - sorry, but that excuse simply isn't acceptable. Firstly, the reason above, bad quality maps that one makes while learning to map should be kept on the hard drive until a good quality map is achieved. Secondly, there are plenty of people, from all genres of mapping, who have released good quality maps as their first released maps, some of these have indeed been excellent maps.

Is the entire Quake modding scene this hostile to newbies or is it just this one dude?

This attitude may have made sense back in 2001 when Quake was only about five years old and you could presumably get your friends to check out your first attempts at levels when you hauled your computers into one room for bi-weekly LAN party but when we're talking about a thirty-year-old game I somehow suspect most of your friends are gonna be playing something slightly newer most of the time.

netule• 6 months ago

Yes, and also, how would a "bad mapper" know they're one without feedback? Seems like a bit of curmudgeony gatekeeping.

popalchemist• 6 months ago

IIRC, at the time, it was considered wasteful and annoying to download smoeone's WIP, half-assed map because bandwidth was a big issue, and these files (wads? paks? can't remember exactly) were hefty.

trashb2• 6 months ago

In my experience the quake mapping community is very welcoming to new mappers.

There are a had full of quake mapping discord channels where new and old mappers are sharing screenshots very regularly, tips and where you can ask for feedback and play-testing.

For anyone interested in what quake mapping is like these days, I can recommend the latest mapping jam "Quake Brutalist Jam III (QBJ3)". I believe there are a bunch of mappers releasing for the first time for this map pack.

https://www.slipseer.com/index.php?resources/quake-brutalist...

EDIT: I looked into it and it seems the article is first captured around 2006, at that time the Quake scene was perhaps less welcoming to new mappers or maps of low quality.

badocr• 6 months ago

It's not later than 2001 since the dude closed the site on "Sunday 25th November 2001 ". I used to frequent it all the time back in 2000~2001 since it was the only SP review site still being updated. He was notorously grumpy.

Here's what he posted when shutting down the site:

    Site closed.
    This site is now closed. This is because I haven't enjoyed reviewing at the site
    for about 9 months, and because I am no longer interested in supporting the Quake
    mapping scene. My email address is also closed. The current content will remain
    here as an archive.

binary132• 6 months ago

This is an interesting historic artifact. It seems this community effort must have gotten popular and attracted a lot of neophytes who didn’t know what they were doing. Otherwise why would the author feel it was necessary to specify that submissions should be of reasonably good quality, complete and lit, not broken, and have both an entrance and an exit? Seem like the subculture curse of popularity isn’t a new problem.

hgs3• 6 months ago

Tangentially, if you're interested in Doom mapping, John Romero has some interesting tips [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptHurafdCoQ

Quake 1 Single-Player Map Design Theories (2001)

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