I'd like to start off by saying viewing Ionous' stream last night was the most enjoyable thing I've watched in a very long time. And not only that, but listening to the reactions of others as they witnessed the maps for the first time. I was not at all expecting the response of "What in the hell, I've never seen anything like this!" and "I want what Orl is smoking". It put the biggest smile on my face.

These maps in particular, are very special to me. Why is that you may ask. When I was younger i would brainstorm all kinds of themes and gimmicks that might or might not work in Quake. I would get lots of ideas, but these five maps were ideas I had for a very long time. Even as far back as oms2's release, I had invisioned a Quake map set on a tropical island with an enormous golden gate bridge in the distance, a western town filled with foilage and old houses, and a far east pagoda fortress sitting on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a vast valley. Sadly, Quake's tools were not yet ready to create something like this, so for years these ideas just stayed ideas, but I never forgot them.

Once I felt Quake had matured enough, both through engine and tool capability, I had set my goals into action, and from the very beginning to the very end, I knew exactly what I wanted to build, and how it would look. Thats one of the reasons why it didn't take long, five maps in 18 months. Each map built exactly to my liking, and the end result was even better than I had anticipated. But I certainly didn't do this by myself.

EricW was the main reason these maps were able to exist. Starting from the very first map, requesting that he expand tyrqbsp's capabilities to larger map sizes, through trials and tribulations, all the way to the end, where he entirely re-wrote the leak code just so the map would compile. EricW was at my side through the whole process, and I thank him greatly for help making these ideas of mine a reality.

I took a drastic approach with each of these maps, setting aside my usual mapping habits for something different. I knew many had complained in my past works that it was too cramped, and not enough manueverability. I made sure the player got lots of room to move around in each map. Likewise, I ignored my instinct to make each map ridiculously detailed, and just settled on decent detail, never going overboard. It was the right decision.

Of course we can't neglect Xaero and the Jack editor, which is an incredible piece of software.

Ken Chennar is not my real name.

While I love each map, if you were to ask me which one is my favorite, it would be the third map, Sun. The asian theme. I imagine the knights are highly trained samurais, the scrags are ancient Japanese ghosts come back to life. Unfortunately, as shown from Ionous' stream there is a game breaking bug for those with less powerful systems below 30 frames per second. It prevents you from proceeding through properly without having to noclip your way. I will have a fixed version hopefully soon.

So, the episode is released, what comes next? My hope is to see more of these themes, and possibly even new ones from you. BSP2 really opens up an entire world of possibilities, and with the soon arriving Quakespasm 0.93.0 that removes the leafs cap altogether, the sky is the limit.

As for me, I can't promise any more maps from myself in the future. I am at a really hard time in my life, and I have a lot of personal battles to overcome. I can't give you an answer, or even an estimate on when, or if I make another map. I'm sorry to have to say this, but I have to get my life together first before I can spend time at the editor again.

But to everyone who has played, or are planning on playing soon, thank you for doing so. I feel as if I achieved a life goal seeing these maps now at last complete.