"The story certainly does nothing to preclude anything else being sent through, though."

Just because the only "death squad" members that were sent through were three different types of troop, it doesn't mean they can't send anything else. They apparently just didn't choose to, it seems. 

When you say troops, I'm assuming you refer to enforcers, grunts and their dogs. Those weren't sent through, they were zombified on spot by the actual death squads. All this happened in the backstory, not in-game. You never get to meet the invaders in military bases because you're one step behind and they've already left. Though unofficial, Nehahra did a pretty good job at telling this backstory. That said, nothing prevents you from creating a base map in which the invaders are still here. For me, it would beat including semi-bosses who seem to have lost the way back to Stroggos. 

Of course, to each their own, and not everyone has to like everything yadda yadda...

It's a good point to mention that the player is "one step behind" in the first mission of an episode. It wasn't something that had really crossed my mind, but that's more a fault with Quake's plot "delivery" (is it even fair to call it that?) and my own poor memory than any of the actual evidence.

One wonders though what that original invading force would have looked like. I can't imagine many of the enemies we see in the game being a part of an invading force. I suppose the knights would be the ground troops? Or zombies, or ogres...

This is all very subjective. Very, very subjective... I think I'd rather go back to not caring much about the lore and just existing in a simple FPS playpen with "bad guys". 

Shamblers, Fiends or Vores can be scientific experimentation creatures. They fit into base theme 

 

It's more likely than you think! 

That's an interesting take on it. So many fresh ideas! now I want to go put a shambler in a cage... 

Yes, I was referring to the Edie Pritchard and I were talking about earlier in the mapping help thread. 

Well in Nehahra, pretty much everyone except the bosses show their mugs.

If I'm not mistaken, the "story" in the game manual does touch upon the fact that you arrive too late to save your fellow soldiers.

Of course, you're perfectly entitled to ignore all this, as the scenario was never relevant to the game itself. But it is there nonetheless, for those who want to pay attention to it.

Bottom line: do as you want. Quake with Edies is still better than no Quake at all. I must say I do like yhe1's idea, if you really feel like pursuing it. 

HTH. 

Granted, medieval knights look a bit out of place in a futuristic setting, but since you travel to their world, why couldn't they do the same like the rest of Shub's army? 

Granted, mechanical ogres look a bit out of place in a medieval setting, but since you travel to their world, why couldn't they do the same like the rest of Shub's army? 

Imagine a base on a planet. Shamblers, vores and fiends could be fauna in the surroundings. 

...but it's hard to make good looking flora in Quake. 

not "hard" per se, but totally off-limits in any way i'd say.

Get Quakespasm to render 10000k* of polys smoothly, and we talk again.

*thats 10 mega polys actually, so ten million at a time.

Where is Baker when we need him? 

i forgot my pw long ago. 

Mark V supports "fence" textures on models. Good for leafy stuff.

You could do a lot of cool vegetation stuff with that at fairly low polycounts. 

Latest Quakespasm supports gamepads on osx, should just work. there are some config options in the readme 

I agree it's impossible to expect "modern" foliage in quake, but I've often wondered what's stopped people from using the methods people actually used in the era around when it came out (and for quite a while after)?

I'm thinking something like this, which I could see as being achievable with mods that allow loading custom models. Has anyone tried this method? 

Yes, I intend to do it in my ex-jam7 entry. 

Sprites work fine in Quake1, like the light bowl.
It's perfectly round, so the turning of it won't matter.

With trees I tried once, but the turning of its flat side was rather anoying. It could work with round bushes or cactus though.
I remember having a hard time to get two sprites diagonally at the same point, or in clude it.

For now I'm happy with statics like tree, because it hasn't that detailled surface, while quake's objects are rather cubick. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmVOH1r7Els

This is what I had in mind when thinking of billboard trees, in case that wasn't clear. Sadly I don't have any pictures of trees to try out, just some of the grates that are included in Quoth by default.

MadFox, i'm not quite sure I understand what you mean by the "turning of its flat side", sorry. :s 

how sprites always face you, looks weird with trees. example.

I've done tests using the method you're talking about. It has its own problems that are annoyingly obvious with asymmetrical, organic shapes like trees. If you use the same sprite you'll get mirroring. There are a few ways around this, but they all take time because you have to draw a bunch of unique face. Fuck that noise. Also lighting these trees will be a nightmare chore.

Here's a test (vid might need time to process) using the method you described with two unique tree sprites. Not great, but at least there's no mirroring.

For quake, models are probably your best bet.