repackaged at quaddicted so the injector likes it 

Arrcee - not bad for a newcomer to mapping, and I think gameplay would have actually been very good had the map been just a slightly enlarged version of the upper section. The addition of the basement, however, disrupted the flow of the map quite badly by making the map too large and dividing spawns too thinly, meaning that the general pattern of play was to fight off any monsters on the upper level fairly comfortably, then descend below to mop up the ones that hadn't been able to navigate upstairs. Visually it was certainly uneven, with rather jarring texture clashes, but I did like some features such as the lights in the stairwells (or 'rampwells' perhaps).

FifthElephant - overall very good. Lovely texture work and architecture, while gameplay was excellent too, with the map being just the right size to keep up the pace, and with sufficient connectivity to ensure good flow (Qonquer is quite like DM in terms of how a map needs to flow, though perhaps leaning towards a Rocket Arena 1v1 map - as Fifth's resembles - is the best method rather than a traditional DM arena). Might have been good to ensure another cover spot from which to hide from vore balls, since the green armour alcove was generally the only viable spot to do this).

Hypnos - quite an original visual style well executed, though perhaps could have done with greater texture variation (though I read you're still working on the set). In terms of gameplay, I found it a little cramped and travel through the map was rather awkward, though I did like the series of jumps one had to routinely make to keep ammo reserves sustained. Difficulty seemed to suffer from a bizarre spike btw, with it being fairly easy up until the point, about 10 rounds in, that I suddenly found myself fighting 4 shamblers at once o_O.

Ijed - this one was certainly architecturally nice, and executed the metal/runic theme quite well (I liked the faces vomiting lava), though the lighting came up looking a little lurid. In terms of gameplay, it was rather too big and it generally felt a bit laborious tracking down remaining enemies. Also the 2 quads meant one could be powered-up almost all the time, and the lack of shotgun ammo was also a bit strange.

MFX - amazing to look at, only second to Skacky's in this regard, though in terms of actually functioning as a well-rounded Qonquer arena, it wasn't great as the monsters just couldn't really find their way between floors. Would love to see a standard single player map done in this style though.

Scampie - your map was by a distance the best in the release, with the 3 arenas being of high quality aesthetically, and with gameplay that either showed Qonquer at its best, or provided a gimmick that was genuinely imaginative and interesting to play.

Arena 1 was the first map I played and I still think it's the best in Jam 5. Just the right size to keep the pace up, and just enough geometric complexity to be interesting without being so detailed as to result in the player getting snagged on the scenery. The use of triggers to push the monsters around was an excellent idea too, since the Quake AI's lack of proper pathfinding tends to show up quite badly in a mod like Qonquer and some of the other maps suffered from this.

Arena 2 was good also, with the gimmick actually working as a functional game play idea, though I did keep feeling like I was going to crush myself with one of the traps if I clipped one of the buttons right on the edge while moving at high speed. Might have worked better to move the crushers slightly further away from their activators.

When I first entered Arena 3 I thought there must be a bug preventing me from reaching the correct area of the map, but then I realised the idea behind it, and thought it'd maybe be just a mildly amusing silly gimmick that I'd play for 5 rounds or so. It was actually surprisingly fun and well balanced and I ended up playing 20 rounds.

Skacky - one of the most gorgeous Quake maps I've ever seen, it really was spectacular to behold. It was decent enough as a Qonquer arena, though in common with many of the other maps here, it was a little oversized. Also, the long, thin walkways placed some distance apart tended to result in monsters getting stranded a long way from the player, and use of somewhat slow lifts to connect floors tended to slow the pace quite significantly (it would be really interesting to play this map with the A* pathfinding from ne_dynamic, however. I'll get back to that in a minute). As with MFX's map, I'd love to see this art style reappear in a more traditional release.

WarrenM - yet another one with a cool new aesthetic, though it might have been good to dial back the fog slightly so players could see more of that stunning architecture. It was quite fun to play, despite being another entry that was pretty vast in size, and it was good to see the sadly underused minions making an appearance. 

As for the mod itself, it was one I'd played a fair bit of and always felt it had got less attention than it deserved, so it's nice to see that being redressed now. I like the changes Scampie has made to it, though it would be welcome to have more of a sense of finality accommodated by the mod's design; ie to enable the player to win by completing a certain number of rounds, or let the monster spawn rate reach such an absurd level that the player has no chance of surviving. As it is, it seems possible to pretty much go on forever, certainly on maps that contain health and armour respawns.

As I mentioned above, Qonquer would really benefit from proper AI pathfinding such as that found in ne_dynamic or In the Shadows, as it would increase the pace and challenge by letting monsters find their way to the player, while also decreasing the likelihood of the player having to scour the map for remaining monsters that have become stuck somewhere. Also, I always felt that ne_dynamic was another sadly overlooked mod, and as such would make an excellent candidate for long overdue recognition via a map jam. For those who don't know, it was a mod that basically enabled Left 4 Dead style gameplay in Quake, with the use of an AI director who would respawn monsters based on various factors similar to those used in Valve's game. Perhaps necros could comment on whether it's in a suitably polished state to be used in a map jam? 

That sounds like a fun map jam! I love L4D style games. 

I was a fan of Scampie's arena 1 too, and fifthelephant's... actually I was going to come here and post a bit about that & how they reminded me of good Rocket Arena maps in some ways, but someone has saved me a lot of typing! 

4 arena styles in one, weapon and monster palette varying with each.

I agree that the mod is not aggressive enough, testing was very laborious.

Dynamic pathing would be cool. Something like the Nehara or Awakening system. 

Enjoy my tweaked version folks.

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/single_player/maps/jam5_hypnos2.zip

I added the source and a readme explaining what tweaks I have made and compiler settings etc. Just pop it into the Jam5 maps directory. 

Enjoyable secret. 

Even better now. 

i haven't tested all the conquer jam maps yet so it's to early for any final verdict. still, i have a question skacky, how you do it? there are plenty of talented mappers, but your map are the best from the technical point of view. i use darkplaces primarily and your maps always run flawlessly.

from what i see yours and warrenm's maps are comparable in the aspects of size or complexicity. however, your map runs smoothly at 50 fps while warrenm's is totally unplayable with average fps around 5 frames/sec. with the same engine settings...even though your map seems to me much bigger. i don't get it. it's not the first case, i tested yours previous maps it's the same story everytime.

ok.. dp is not the recommended engine, but still.. your maps work like charm in darkplaces while a lot of the other maps run significantly slower. 

Mine wouldn't VIS. :) So there's that... 

never! 

#64
Lots of func_detail I guess, and I run level4 VIS. 

darkplaces is a great engine. i don't understand the hate against it. i love quake game mechanics but it doesn't mean i have to play quake in oldschool graphics. i'm not a purist. i've been playing quake since 96
for its gameplay mechanics but the oldfashion fitz/qspasm graphics is not appealing to me anymore.

to warrenm: your map is fastvised only? well.. that expains a lot. it's a pity, architecture is impressive. i thought that today's compilers with extended limits capabilities are able to crunch anything.

to skacky: level4 vis is not everything. your levels run usually faster than other level4 vised maps. even the smaller ones. admit it, you are simply good. :-) 

I dunno. The source was included, I think, so take a shot. I was never able to get a VIS to complete. It gets to the end and just ... sits there. 

No, DarkPlaces is a pretty engine (depending on your tastes). It's also, from my understand, the least compatible. :) 

been using darkplaces for more than a decade now and have come across only a handful of incompatible maps/mods... and by handful i mean like six. 

Others can go into more detail. I know it's been an issue in the past. 

you're right.. there were problems indeed. nehahra was playable only partially with dp, but back then nehahra had its issues with any engine except for nehahra.exe. travail was pretty fucked up in final levels. there were others too. i know about only one persisting game breaker - zersterer.
-
there are still some issues with strange shadows here and there... yes.. that's anoying. 

Sock has convinced me to use dp and im liking it now after tweaking it.

I had a look at warrens map and I did notice on some of the angular stairs that it wasn't flush with the wall. Stuff like that can cause leaks leading to failed or long vis times. 

It doesn't leak. It just won't VIS. 

i'm trying to recompile warrens map... currently at cca 19% of fullvis, but something is wrong. whole process got stuck 4 hours ago. however, vis is still running.. i'll give it some time and we'll see. temporary vis file is about 90megs right now. 

but it's not going to help VIS if your map has areas where it's not sealed 100% in areas because it will have all these other areas that it has to work out visibility for.

I'm not saying it's 100% that but it might help. 

I haven't noticed any real performance issues with Warrens map and I'm still running on my surface pro (not exactly a powerhouse of a computer). I've not run it on dark places, I'm using Fitzquake. Infact Skacky's map runs slower for me than Warren's map. 

i thought darkplaces used its own vis system calculated at map load time, which would mean vis data is ignored. Anyone know if this is true? If it is it would account for wide variance of performance on the same map in different engines.