Hey, are you still fixing up that Q2 oblivion pack? 

Argh of arghlite fame? 

I didn't play original Rubicon :(
Are these 2 episodes linked by sort of plot/theme ?

-I take this chance to thank CZG for his "mapcols.wad" very handy textures! 

Minor touches: The new help screens are very useful (Baker mentioned a few years ago that mods could use them, but this is the first time I've noticed them being used). The main menu option does look like it's grayed out, though. A different colour would probably have worked better.

Dreadnaught: This felt like Quoth's Pyro done right. Does enough damage to be dangerous, but not too much to leave you without a chance. The lingering damage is enough of a deterrent to not get hit, but not enough to leave you with no chance. Slightly difficult to tell apart from a normal enforcer, but doesn't need the bright yellow skin of the Pyro because you don't need to terminate with extreme prejudice. Not sure of how much health it has (and this, for all of the new monsters, felt a little unsettling), but feels to be around 150.

Centurion: Probably the most "fitting" base monster with MOVETYPE_FLY I've seen. Dangerous enough to need to be respected, without being impossible. Would possibly be an unfair fight if the player doesn't have the nailgun. Tough (200?), but killable before its stream of nails gets old. Feels like it would be best when used sparingly, which is seems you did. My only gripe with this monster is that the reward for killing it doesn't feel enough. Maybe 10 nails instead of 5 would have been better.

Floyd: First impression is an immediate comparison to Super Metroid. Is that the same sound effect that I hear? And then it starts shooting. Damage feels maybe a point or two too high (but I can see why it is what it is, as it makes things simpler). Seems that this monster doesn't open doors when near. If so, this is a nice touch. Health (200?) feels enough, and the explosion (don't know how much damage this does as I was never close enough) is a nice touch. Comparisons to the Spawn may be made, but this moves slower, so is less dangerous by being more avoidable. I feel that it should do less damage than the Spawn, maybe 80?

Welcome to Rubicon 2: Nice start map. Demonstrates how ladders work for those that didn't RTFM. Being able to climb down them (with +movedown perhaps) would've been nice. I like the skill selection system. Wonder if the nightmare switch can be reached without assistance. Obvious homage to The Slipgate Complex.

Hydroexploitation Plant: Take note people. Small arms play is fun. This is how to do it right. Played on normal, as from past experience, you have a good feel for skill levels. Completed first time, 24:13, 73/73, 1/7 (the mega health that everyone seems to notice; was very much needed at the time). The boxes that looked like misc_explobox were worrying. Noticed a texture homage to Doom (the exit sign font). In a few places, it wasn't obvious that you had to jump to progress, but the jumps were easy to do. Another homage to e1m1, which suggested another secret, but I didn't find it. I'm also disappointed that items were reset after the map was over, as the lack of firepower would be unlikely to throw off the balance of the next map (and I think that the next map would not need much tweaking to accompany it).

Other observations: The lighting felt overall slightly darker than I'm used to, but not dark enough to make me want to fiddle with brightness controls. Was getting some crashes when trying to load the maps from start using RMQ engine (Jan 25th build - mh, can you take a look? rj seemed to have the same problem), but wasn't able to reliably reproduce it or isolate what causes it.

So far, though, a solid release. This + digs05 = 2011 might be the best year for Q1SP we've had in a while... 

Once again congratz on great release. Alsmost perfect sp piece. My only remarks would be that maps in few places are a little bit too dark, and tbh it's all rather low fps :/. While the dark maps are not big issue, I must admit it was first time I had so low fps in DP (sometimes even about 20, while normally I have ~100). 

Darkplaces problem... same happens in other, er, pretty detailed/large/complex maps. 

So it's fair to say that as far as reference for easy/medium skill balance goes these maps are golden then? :) 

I really enjoyed these maps. Usually I'm not a fan of base/industrial style (though I prefer industrial) but these I liked. Nice moody, dark, quakey atmosphere. I really have no complaints except that maybe it could be a bit harder. (I was playing on Hard). And its devoid of fiends/shamblers! I know it's a base map, but its still fun to throw in the occasional elder world monster. Base experiments gone wrong! :P

Here are my demos (I played in Darkplaces latest autobuild, used sv_protocolname QUAKE before playing to ensure the demos are compatible with other engines):

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/monster_rubicon2demos.zip

rub2m1 was my 3rd or so time playing, rub2m2 my 2nd time playing, and rub2m3 was my first playthrough! :D Suprised I survived... Congratulations czg and metlslime! 

I missed the Nailgun I think, which lead to an amusing and truncated demise. Found a couple of secrets. Here demo:-

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/rickyrub2_m1.zip

Please watch it and pledge never to hide the nailgun in such a place ever again!!!

Full review comin later. Metl/czg(?) do you mind if I put some streaming footage of me playing the map on my site? Will just be an NH demo probably. 

I found the nailgun in the first map to be a problem, too. I died due to lack of shells. Had a feeling though that I should have had the nailgun when I reached the dam section, but it took me a while to find and get it. 

Nice detail and excellent construction. The texture theme is sweet, except for the blue sky. Proper industrial vibe, very atmospheric. The additional steam, spark and sound effects added nicely to that. Crates and pipes ftw. (goes without saying). The new monsters are nice, not over the top or anything, though I expected Floyd to be smaller. And I always caught at least one of his shots...

Played on Hard and it was very bearable. Died twice on the third map, but it was okay overall - only the end battle is tough when one doesn't know what to expect. I suck at finding secrets, though... only 2-3 on each map.

I don't mind the maps being individual like that, but it might have been good if they all had some kind of story or something to bind them together ("retrieve object X" from each facility) and some sort of concluding event like a boss fight. Guess you'll have to make Rubicon 3 after all. Maybe by 2016.

Demos 

Guess you'll have to make Rubicon 3 after all.

Rubicon 2 turtlemap pack?

A Lost Chapters-like event?

Rubicondom 2? 

The maps are awesome all around. I finished all three on Normal and enjoyed them all, I already feel like replaying them. The highlights are the e1m1 homages, the "new" slipgates brushwork, the dam, and the chasms in czg's map. (czg: finish honey.bsp please) In fact there were many more highlights but I don't even know where to start listing them.

Minuscule, pedantic gripes:
- Centurions should drop more nails to be rewarding, I'm thinking 10-20? I also felt they could use better weapons, like grenades.

- Once a Centurion dies, the hoverboard verts could be hidden inside the body and a separate model could be spawned as a gib - right now, it looks a little weird when they die.

- As been said before, it was a slight letdown to see that the maps didn't exit into eachother. I wouldn't mind seeing them connected at the cost of losing my weapons (Quoth style).


10/10 stuff, this was very well worth the wait! 

I'll go into more detail about how the other 2 maps were for me later, but this is worth saying now:

Floyds should be DAMAGETYPE_YES instead of DAMAGETYPE_AIM, so that grenades bounce off them. 

I wanted to play this weekend, but the new Spartacus episode took me the time I had available sunday�
:(
Need one hour of peace, to proper play and record this jewel with no interruptions(hate to make pause in demos)... 

This was originally intended to be a 4-map episode long ago with a real plot and ending, but as time dragged on I decided to cut the scope down to just two maps (map1 and map3 were the only maps that really existed at that point -- and some random fragments.) The dam was originally intended for another level, plus there was a half-finished e1m1 remake. So I started merging things together -- the dam and the e1m1 start got shoved into map1, the outdoor part of e1m1, plus some other scraps, became start.bsp, which would lead to the two maps. And the dam was built before i saw the dam in Travail! I think the travail one is bigger.

Then as the new map1 got close to completion, it turned out to be way over the marksurfaces limit. So chopped off the entire last section (which was some concrete tunnels with steam traps, and a large outdoor area) and started to build a new map around it, which became map2. The steam tunnels now appear in the early part of map2, and the outdoor area that was the end of map1 is now the end of map2. And i added the third slipgate to start.bsp.

As for the lack of connection between the maps, this was part of "reduce scope and ship it already", it seemed easier to tune 3 separate maps than one big episode. Plus then i would need a boss or something to finish it off.

As for timelines, map1 was mostly built in 2002 and polished afterwards, map2 was mostly built in 2009. Development actually began in 2001 i think, but none of the brushwork from that era was good enough to keep.

Another note about my maps; map1 was largely grown organically with no real plan, other than the basic idea of spiraling up to the top of a tower (inspired by apsp1.) As a result the tower is somewhat confusing, but also interesting. map2 was designed on paper and built section by section in a planned way. I basically had a flowchart with a bunch of bubbles with text labels like "teleport hub", "robot lab", "turret lab", "helicopter pad", "4-story freight elevator", etc, (for each of these bubbles i had the basic gameplay concept in my head) and then built those sections in seperate map files and put them together. In the end i used about half of the original planned areas because marksurfaces built up fast.

The teleport hub was originally going to be a "teleport lab" where you had to repair each teleporter with electrical components collected from the previous area. I changed this to colored lasers because the "repair" idea seemed too complicated to tutorialize.

You'll have to ask czg for details about his map, but i know he discarded away a couple of partly-finished maps before creating the final version of map3. There was one or two from 2002, then there was one around 2005, i think, and then final one which he mostly made in 2010.

The monsters are also interesting. Floyd was the first; he was (obviously) based on the robot from Super Metroid, which is where his idle/pain sound come from. Floyd didn't change much at all after 2002 until last year, when I doubled his skin resolution.

The dreadnaught also was made really early (around 2002 probably) and at that time there were no flamethrower enemies in quake (quoth was not out yet, and neither was pbrsp1.) The dreadnaught was actually a standard enforcer model until sometime last year when i finally made and animated the new backpack and hose, and retextured him. There was actually a really old model i made of sort of a fat, linebacker-looking dude with a flamethrower, but i realized i do not have the patience to animate a human in qme.

The centurion didn't exist until 2010; I had for a long time wanted to make a quake enemy based on the "air centurion" from the Masters of the Universe movie, and when I finally had some momentum going again I realized it would be pretty easy to create a platform and modify the enforcer model to stand on it. 

Holy F**k!

This felt great.

These are Quake maps. These have the Quake atmosphere. These have the Quake Gameplay.

These show the very reasons why we're here, squeezing life from a 15 years old game.

Thanks guys.

(I'm on my 3rd playthrough, trying to find all secrets, gonna write something more about the experience later on) 

the outdoor area that was the end of map1 is now the end of map2.

"This feels like it would fit the first map well" was exactly what I was thinking at the end of map2 :D

When playing, I did wonder how much of these maps come from the beginning of the development, so this was a nice read. 

I thought this bit in map2 was funny:

No animals were harmed in the making of this 10 second demo 

I like the separate-map nature of the pack, actually, so one can play them in whatever order. I think I played the Subterranean one last. Felt OK to me.

I still think that there is a ... noticeable difference in feel between the czg map and the metlslime ones, which mainly comes from the use of heavy fog and Quake 3 style bottomless pits of death, which doesn't exist in all of the pack.

Having noticeable fog in the metl maps as well would have helped to visually pull the entire thing together. czg's fog is also very default grey.

Quake needs volumetric fog so doing the bottomless fog of death pit thing doesn't require the entire map (area at least) to be fogged.

This is the main criticism I would level at the visuals (plus ladders could have been less blocky, ne_tower has good ladders) - it could be overall more coherent.

Main criticism at the gameplay is the lack of heavy weapons in rub2m1, but this is a matter of taste. The only other thing is the turrets - it can take a while until one notices the buttons.

I don't have more to criticize :) 

Rivals and beats up Quoth in more than a few ways. The ambience of the two mods is quite obviously different, and it's nice to have some variety. 

it seems nonsensical comparing it to quoth; one is a map-orientated mod with a few extras and one is a generic expansion pack 

to compare this to Contract Revoked. 

0.27 0.21 0.229 you filthy heathen. 

... AWESOME !!!