I want you guys to alphatest, betatest, gametest, cooptest, critise, perfectionise and finalise your maps. Or are you all really done with that already?! 

My map is ready since mid december... I made several round of beta test... so I'm just waiting for a target date and an update of Quoth... that still not come... 

we should have done this at the start, but we should probably set up a mailing list for this maybe?

mail andyp.123 <put the at sign here> gmail.com and I will send an email around early next week to everyone.

Personally I haven't done any mapping for a couple of weeks, but I am still at the stage where my map could be finished in a few days of quality mapping time. 

So, it has been said that target date is fixed to end of march, then I think we now have to say it will be the pack delivery date (i.e pack downloadable from a server). IMHO, building a pack that would include necros' first Quoth Update beta and all the maps is not a big task (let's say 2 days in the worst case)
So can we consider that the target date for all mappers would be within week 12 (23rd of march last date).. So it would give a week to build the pack, upload it on a server, and share it to the world, with a proper News thread ?
Is everybody agree on this ? If not please discuss.. Any other idea ? 

Quoth is not our content to mess with, just uploading a beta of Necros and Kell's work is just not cricket. If Kell and Necros are happy to release that beta with the basepack then fine, but I really think we should get something a little more polished before we release the pack.

Kell/Necros: if you are reading what do you think? 

We also have to take into account that the Quoth update has been beta released last year, and that there are bugs, and since this time, we didn't get any news neither from Kell, nor necros... and we just know that necros is more interested (at the moment, according to the latest post here above) by D3 mapping rather than us... So I wouldn't rely on them to release something buggy, as Kell seems to be perfectionist... So I guess you will not have any reply from them... And If yes I would be very happy...
BTW, what about HeadThump progs.dat task ? HT: some news ? 

I'm not involved in the programming at this point. I never really had an acceptable build of the Quoth QuakeC to build base content from as there was no tech monster code to build from.

I was rebuilding the based content from scratch and had some of the Quoth monsters at a basic level of functionality and at the same time getting a feel for Necros'code base at the time Necros joined in the effort. I didn't feel it was my place to continue on the coding side without being formaly invited by both Quothist, so I bowed out and have been drafting and redrafting (I'm on my sixth version) a map for it ever since.

I skipped working on it last weekend because it was my birthday, but I'm building on it again tonight(btw, Merciless Ming is dead, long live Jackboot Primate !). 

but if a new quoth release can't be relied upon, then don't rely on a new quoth release. 

You are so dreamy in your obviousity.

Meanwhile, my map is still being tweaked, populated and tested -- yeah, a slow progress, but my free time has been rather scarce as of late. I will, however send andyp some vociferous fanmail soon =D 

expect to see at least 3 mods released soon (in month or two/three): base pack, travail and arcane wizard.
Am I correct, base pack guys? 

what Metl said needed to be stated.

What if we are left high and dry? I have been building around original Quake content for my Tiddle rip-off, I mean homage map, with the idea of cut'n'pasting Quoth-base content if everything pans out, but that solution wont work for everyone.

Trinca's map is dependent on Quoth content to a great extent, and I have the feeling he may
have hit the road as far as the func_board is concerned given his last post a few weeks ago, and I haven't seen him online to IM with in months (likely, more my fault than his though). Also, extra content is expected from this pack, so not having Quoth or something similar would be a let down.

So assuming for the sake of argument that Necros and Kell can't complete the base pack what should we do? If it becomes necessary, I can build an alternative version of the pack that can read in the entities that are Quoth related and spit out alternative entities.

The enforcer and grunt types are easy enough, a reskin and improved A. I. should do the trick, though the trickiest would be the flame thrower guy. Bob and the Sentry can be replaced without batting an eye. I have a few models of this basic type (flying mini gun ships).

Eddie is a pretty original idea, I would not wont to try to duplicate out of respect for NecKell, but as an alternative I could shrink Armagon (or my Tarsagon!) down to human size, weaken him quite a bit and reskin. It would be
a pretty formidable alternative.

There is an energy weapon included, I would use one of my own from the Mortisville project but they are high poly, so a better replacement would be the gun from ClubShub.

Trinca used some monsters from the Quoth-elder
pack so some of those would need replacements
as well. If we do this, I'll need a list of the ones that are used (please don't be the gug, please don't be the gug).

Than, I recall you wanted a forcefield. If I'm not mistaken there is one in Custents, and anything from that QC is easily transferable to other projects.

Monsters and weapons are no problem coding wise, the toughest aspect for me would be coding some of the map linking code that Quoth uses that allows you to trigger events in one map, and have an event occur in another map, but I don't think anyone is doing multiple maps, am I mistaken?

I would only be willing to do this much extra work if we are entirely certain that Quoth-base is not going to happen. I don't want to step on any toes, but we need to know where we stand at this point. 

I've a got a good qc for the newboss, baseboss as I call it. Also a qc for the earthquake, which I must say is fine to work with. I think there are no arguments in it that would affect the quote.qc

I asked Kell about adding them to the Quoth pak on mirc and he was rather brieve on it. That was about two months ago. The eartquake.qc I placed earlier in the old tricks progs toppic.

Of course if the others would agree. I sended a beta test level to all participants( except biff I think). And from the answers I've got I must say there is some coherention. But I saw only Trinca's map and that's only two of the pak. 

mine is alos base on Quoth update: I use eddie, ogre_flak, sentinel, pyro, and plasma_gun... so it would mean a serious refine if we abandon the quoth update now... 

is that earthquake.qc from Armagon or the Rogue mission packs? I usually start from hipnotic's qc as a clean source (they did a lot of bug fixes too) when I start a mod.

Also, I got your message and downloaded the map. I'm not mapping tonight, so I'll make beta testing my number one priority when I settle in this evening.

Thanks, JPL that's helpful. I should go ahead and prepare a list of things that need to be done, so if it does become up to me I'll be ready.

I'll take any suggestions anyone feels could be useful to the pack. My strength is in synthesizing existing materials together. So if you need a little something from Custent, Peroxysm, Rogue, Minion-Coffee etcetera, as long as there is some code to examine I can most likely make it work. The exception being Nehahra, I've never been able to get that stuff to compile because it's style is not C code like (more Pascal like, I think). 

I forgot to mention there are also some eliminators...

BTW, I noticed that scourge are buggy (missing head or something like this when they die.. that's why I didn't used them), and I also noticed that when you gib a ogre_flak, the head is completly grey... don't know why... maybe a missing texture or model skin... 

and I also noticed that when you gib a ogre_flak, the head is completly grey... don't know why... maybe a missing texture or model skin...

I noticed that too.

I got the scourge working pretty well for Trinca's Underground Base back. Modern QC compilers give off some errors that earlier versions used for the Mission Packs didn't. A few things have to be deleted or rewritten to work with frikqcc, but that's no trouble.

Also, I'll have to note the custom environmental sounds if anyone is using the mini library of them provided in the Quoth pack. 

Yes Yes: sounds also ! 

I substracted the essiential qc from the Dissolution Of Eternity Pak.
I wondered if I could make it a stand-alone add on for modifying my own progs.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/Q1EarthQuak.htm

As it did. 

I don't need them, but I wanted the hipnotic ones really. I don't really need them though, because it was just for a visual effect on the keydoors.

As for my use of the Quoth update content, I can probably just rip it all out and go back to the original Quoth enemies without much impact on my map. The lack of these monsters would be a shame, but I'd rather rip them out in the event that Kell and Necros can't finish the update than having to start from scratch with completely new stuff based on Quoth.

That's just my map though. JPL and Trinca definitely use the Quoth 2 stuff a lot more.

HT: Do you reckon Necros would let you finish off Quoth 2 from his current code? Have you contacted him? 

If we did start with a fresh model pack, I wouldn't realy consider it a Quoth replacement
as much as having a code base that accepts Quoth definitions for entities and churns out a creature of equivalent strength and function. I share your concerns though. It would be a radical step to take and though I can skin very quickly, all the elements added together, new models, new animation, new sound, new code, and certainly some intangeables yet to be forseen, we are talking about adding a great deal of development time to the pack.

Still, it may be possible to minimize the time factor by only using existing models, and changing the skins to reflect a consistent theme (Necrotic-Mechanical and Ancient-Cyber are ideas I have sketched up a bit), and as for sounds, current Quake content can be remixed and screwed with for some nice effects.

I always underestimate time factors, and work best with set deadlines, funny, when I started the project as a coder, I was looking for something that would give me a breather from Mortisville for about a month. I enjoyed developing code and editing sound for Trinca, so I thought it would be a rather easy task, here it is a half a year later! 

post answer, but I got error message 42 for the first part, so the first part went something like this,

Trinca contacted me last night and said he could not get a hold of either Necros or Kell; I could try e-mailing Necros but I have no reason to believe that he would be more respondant to me than Trinca.

Perhaps a mass mailing from all interested parties would do the trick, with an attached message that stated Necros we understand you are sick to death of Quake. It happens, we can empathize, but if you could release the Quoth 2 contents in their present form and let the Quake community polish it up for a map pack release, we would be very thankful for your magnimity.'

With his in-box filling up one day, he might take notice. 

MadFox, I played your map, it's pretty wicked, anyone who enjoyed the lost mines map from Armagon will love this map, it's like an uber sized version.

I took about thirty screen shots while playing that I'll use to illustate the commentary on things I noticed while playing that I intend to write up and send via e-mail. It might take me a few days to get it all together though.

Now, go to bed, Thumpy! You make func_boarder's eyes sore with your endless chat chat. 

When is the deadline ;) for Mortisville? 

I have Quake Expo in mind if we have one next Summer; there is a media blitz of material not exposed to the light of day, yet, but I am holding back until everything is at a beta stage and can actually be publicaly tested. 

that there is a third option, if 1) Quoth-base can't be used, or 2) we don't have a consensus on an alternative pack replacement. I could build a Progs.dat that strips out the Quoth content, and replaces them with near equivelents from the original Quake source.

Two approaches can be taken. The mappers agree on a list of which monsters replace which, or if individual mappers have a different list in mind, that can be customized in the QuakeC as well . . .

[psuedo-code]

if map = "bifs_grunt_killzone"

then (monster_bob = monster_wizard)

. . .

That would at least save the mappers the trouble of going back changing things up and recompiling.