Its the maps that make AD so great. Not the mod.

That is wrong IMO. The maps are great, yes. Fantastic even. But they owe some of their qualities to this mod and its features. The greatness of the the entire package lies in how the maps and the mod mesh together. 

It's sock that makes AD amazing.

here's a screenshot of sock contribution to the Noir Mapjam: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/bd/5a/36/bd5a363887ba75c0deb57f4c4b5ca067.jpg 

Too bad the levels in AD are just random maps. Projects with any semblance of a narrative don't seem to be very popular today. 

AD is sock's mod.

It comes with some great maps, but those are just the dressing around the incredible amount of work he's put into giving designers toys to play with. 

Do you mean episodes or sets of maps or just even individual maps lack narrative?

Anyway, I'd agree with #991 and SleepwalkR's statements regarding AD. I find that the maps were an example of what could be done with the new tools when at their highest forms of quality. 

As much as I love AD, I wish its maps were organized in an episode instead of single levels.

Beyond AD, generally speaking it would seem mappers have been lacking ambition lately in this department. But things may change thanks to the new blood. I know NewHouse is planning a two-episode game. I myself have a long-term project for a full-on lovecraftian TC, but I won't start on that until at least a few months. If my current Sin City experiment turns out good, I might make a whole episode in this style. 

Personally I don't care for episode formats. By that I mean that I enjoy taking each map as its own little parcel and challenge by itself, rather than progressing through large campaigns of maps that can sometimes take a day's worth of my free time to complete.

That's not to say I dislike episodic releases, or anything like that. It's just that with the format I like to enjoy Quake in, a mod like AD with a bunch of great maps that aren't necessarily interconnected is more suited to what I want out of the game, and what I strive to create for the game.

Just another side of the argument, I guess. 

Individual maps don't really count. I was talking about projects like Travail - at least a small episode's worth of maps, and they're tied together in some way. Just enough for it all to feel like a single adventure, instead of clicking through a bunch of unrelated setpieces. 

...it would seem mappers have been lacking ambition lately in this department. But things may change thanks to the new blood. I know NewHouse is planning a two-episode game. I myself have a long-term project...

Phew! It's gonna be alright lads! NewHouse and Mugwump are here to save Quake from all the lazy crap the likes of mfx and sock have been churning out!

Do you have a PayPal we can put some money into? 

Look man, if you have nothing else to contribute than troll comments, you might as well stay in your cavern. 

Look man, if you have nothing else to contribute than troll comments, you might as well stay in your cavern.

:ironicat: 

Can we please try not to "dirty up" the Arcane Dimensions thread any further.

Simply put, it's the culmination of awesomeness from people/mappers/coders/etc who have spent countless hours of their personal life to bring a breath of fresh air to game over 20 years old and give us all something incredible to play.

Mission accomplished :)

I just want to thank everyone involved... sock, mfx, necros, Lunaran, Scampie, FifthElephant, ionous, EricW, Preach and anyone else who may have contributed.

You guys rock, no doubt about it. And every time I think the bar cannot be raised anymore, somehow you guys always find a way. Amazing. 

Simply put, it's the culmination of awesomeness from people/mappers/coders/etc who have spent countless hours of their personal life to bring a breath of fresh air to game over 20 years old and give us all something incredible to play.
I agree, and it would be even more awesome in the form of an episode. MFX, Sock and the others make incredible maps, chaining them into multi-leveled adventures would be stellar! Not for Pritchard apparently, but I do crave for episodes made by these guys. Speaking of raising the bar, that would definitely do it for me. 

The AD maps I've played are longer than most episodes I've played though. 

seconded 

I actually thought some of the AD maps were too big. I would get tired of playing, save and come back the next day. I think swampy took 4 days, off and on. 

The current trend is to have larger and larger levels with more entities, more enemies, more secrets, more bigger everything. Hence the protocol 999 and engines with super ultra mega extended limits.

I for one have been stuck making 3 maps for years that just keep getting bigger and never seem to end. I remember when I couldn't even compile one until bsp2 support was around. And then AD came out and I just HAD to change mods it was too good.

Really I think we will see a trend back to smaller bite sized maps in the future. Limitations back in the day made this the omly option, but I can see it as a way of increasing the number of releases to the benefit of players as well as allowing mappers to truly polish their small map into a mapsterpiece. 

First time you say something I agree with 

You should maybe focus on one map to make faster progress?

I think we will see a trend back to smaller bite sized maps in the future.
This is already the case with jam maps.

On an unrelated note, I've just stumbled upon post #912 by Rick from last month. The LG is a Yithian weapon, so it is indeed very quakey. 

Yeah, I don't really care about narrative progression in custom Quake maps, but a thematic progression and some sort of gameplay evolution (even if just gradually introducing weapons) across multiple maps is good stuff. Especially if the maps are not super-gigantic, it's a nice regular sense of progress/completion/cleanup to finish one map, leave it behind you, and go to the next.

Howwwwwever I realize that level of inter-map coordination makes it even harder than it already is to put together a package like AD, especially when multiple contributors are involved.

Anyway, yeah, the "episode" ambition does seem to be rarer now in favor of single megamaps. But it might be cool for the wheel to eventually turn back in the other direction. This discussion kind of reminds me of the ECHELON megawad for Doom that was just released, where the author really kept a lid on the scope of the individual maps. 

ECHELON megawad
It's been a while since I haven't followed Doom news, except for The Tei-Tenga Incident. I'll need to check it out, thanks for the heads-up. 

I'll just skulk back into the shadows I guess...
You can post as much as you like, but you have to be aware you are part of the MOD team and what you say will have more impact because you should be aware of what is going on. If you plan to talk about the MOD, just try to be as factual as possible.

Not requesting, pitching an idea
There is never a shortage of ideas, but there is certainly a shortage of people willing to turn ideas into reality. My comment to you was certainly sarcastic and wrong. I know its not just a simple case of model+code, there are sounds, particles, gibs, gameplay balancing and often new functions to cope with new behaviour. Its certainly cool to hear about new ideas, but there is a fine line between small feature request and crazy amount of work involved. 

So, is there any sort of ETA on 1.5 or is it "when it's done"? Not to rush you in any way, mind you, just so we have an idea of when to expect it. 

By my count Sock created 156/249 of the models which means he created 62% of the models in AD
AD is mostly a large dump of all the assets I have created over the years for Quake. Some of them are certainly not my best quality, but over time they have got better.

Its pretty cool you have worked out the percentages of models used in the MOD. I do know the history of every model, but I did not realize the overall quanity involved. It certainly helps to counter the comments I often get that somehow AD is mostly ripping off "other" people / mod / game assets, when the overall borrowed content is lower than most people realize.

We need to start aggressively contributing models until we can perform a hostile takeover of the mod. Sock will rue the day he made AD publicly traded...

AD 1.42 had 285 models
AD 1.5 has 344 models

It looks like the hostile takeover might have to pick up the pace if it wants to catch up with my model output! :D 

AD 1.42 had 285 models
AD 1.5 has 344 models

That is exciting.