Quake 2 Support - Yay or Nay?

Fairweather

Fairweather

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Feb 15, 2022
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@mdv asked in the Quake Mapping Discord previously if Quake 2 maps were on the table for support on the website. I said I wasn't sure, and left it at that for a while. However, with the Quake 2 25th Anniversary Unit project going on I think it's a good time to evaluate Quake 2's place in this community.

Personally, I don't mind the idea of creating a Quake 2 subcategory for downloads. Quake 2 is a game with a very scattered modding and mapping scene, as you can see by the link previous @Colonthreee is organizing things via Twitter, and I know of at least 2 new releases that were created for Q2 and hosted on other websites to a quite small audience.
The question is, where does one go at the minute to upload, chat about and download/play other Quake content?
Quake 1 has Quaddicted and Slipseer, and Quake 3 has lvlWorld... but as a layman I cannot for the life of me find where that would be for Quake 2. I've gotten all of the Quake 2 custom content I've played through @Colonthreee's Twitter page.

So, without a presentable place on the web for Q2 to flourish, do you think that Slipseer should attempt to serve this purpose? And if so, how should things be segregated (if at all)? I don't personally enjoy Quake 2 all that much, but it deserves a home. Is that our place? Would Quake 2 fans even be down for this? Let me hear your thoughts, thanks.
 
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There seems to be a fairly extensive file archive here and a semi-active Quake 2 community here, but nothing like Slipseer or Quaddicted. From what I've seen some releases just get lost in Twitter threads or between all those shiny "remaster" mods on ModDB.

While I'm not very familiar with or interested in the Q2 mapping scene, I wouldn't mind them getting their own download categories if there's enough of an interest on the mappers' side. The big problem I see is that a lot of maps are already out there, scattered all over various websites without a central archive, and new releases are few and far between. So you'd probably be relying on the authors discovering Slipseer and uploading their older works to warrant having a Quake 2 subcategory.
 
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A Quake 2 category sounds fine in my opinion, given that the current resources for it appear to be rather awkward to navigate or imprisoned in the 90s. I have noticed plenty of overlap between people who enjoyed Quake 2 and Quake 1, (apart from an extremely vocal minority), so it would mean having slightly more people on the site, and maybe get more people into Quake 1 who aren't as familiar with its community content. Sort of a win-win. It should definitely be its own category, though, and as mentioned, getting people to release here in the first place would be another consideration entirely. Slipseer was already sort of embedded in the Quake 1 community from the start in a sense, so people were drawn in easily, whereas I assume that isn't the case with Quake 2. Again though, lots of overlap, so maybe it wouldn't be so hard?
 
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Yeah, the Quake 1 heritage can already be seen in the site's name: Slipgate Sightseer. 😁 But, personally, I'm open to Quake 2 stuff at Slipseer. I actually went into a little bit of Quake 2 spree a while ago, playing a ton of Quake 2 RTX, and kinda wanted to have a go at mapping with raytracing in mind. I probably could've been able to hunt down the relevant communities/resources to start doing that, but wasn't quite motivated enough to go through the trouble. So, I wouldn't mind Slipseer becoming a modern centralized resource for Q2 SP stuff, as well.
 
Would be great to see some Quake 2 content, especially if it is dispersed and hard to find and if there is a community for it (mappers especially) to indicate them this place.
I plan to replay Quake 2 again soon in a modern port, more than 20 years after initial play through on a voodoo2.
 
Yes please, I also asked this when I knew Slipgate Sightseer was happening. My wishful thinking is that a small renaissance is going to happen in Q2SP with the anniversary and all. It is dreadful having to search and visit random Google Drive or Mediafire links for custom content. It'll also be important to present the community content to a new audience.
 
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truth to be told: i've meant this as a way of saving old q2 maps, organising them, and at the same time showing people how much fun these custom maps are (especially compared to the super boring vanilla campaign). mainly cause im currently going through the fileplanet files, uploading ancient machinias and custom sp maps for q2/doom3/mohaa/cod/heretic/kingpin.

the game on the other hand might blow up soon. not because of the new nvidia rtx trash technology magicly forcing cpu at 1%, but kaiser and the gang might come up with a fancy new port for microsoft...cause nobody likes money more than microsoft. the qex remaster was a huge hit on the consoles, and allowed the peasants to see there are 10 year old custom maps that are better than most triple A titles.

nowhere to go nowhere to hide: yes we do have quake 2 café, but you know...its a simple forum, not a proper custom map site where you can rate, add screenshots and playthroughs, maybe update, and actually have a fix download site instead of adding semi dead media fire links as mr németh said before rather wisely. also tastyspleen is multiplayer only.

anyway, ill keep hoarding old maps on the moddb site for better or worse. worse as in...im surely gonna die by doom2 modders cause people can download cacoward stuff outside the inbred doomworld forums, and this is a SIN.
 
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Alright, everyone has brought up some great points. I'd love to get something going, but I may need some help with reaching out to the existing Q2 community. I tried contacting Colonthreee, but it seems like he hasn't checked his messages in a few days- so, anyone who can mention this thread to a Q2 mapper/modder/ect and get their input / word out there would be great.
Right now I think it's a good idea to get down how categorization would work for Resources/Forum threads. I believe the Q2 stuff should be split off into it's own sub-section in resources, but the forums could be multi-purpose? I don't want to make and clone the entire forum just for Q2 maps / anything else we wish to support in the future. Thinking about scalability, here.
Whatever the case may be, things won't go ahead until we're fully decided on those factors. @mdv once we get the Q2 categories set up I see no reason to limit you posting people's maps, just giving the proper credit and making posts presentable should be good.
 
I registered an account here just to say that I would love to have a dedicated Quake 2 (SP) hub. :)

Most of my modding experience has been with Doom, and most of the Doom stuff is famously hosted on the idGames FTP. When I decided to start making my first custom Quake 2 level about a week ago I was really sad to see that there was so little community organizing when it comes to its custom content.

I know a lot of Q1 fans don't enjoy Q2 much, which is fine, but I think the first half of Q2's campaign is an absolute banger. It does get quite stale and repetitive towards the end, but then again I think most of us can agree that Q1 doesn't exactly have a perfect ending either.

Anyway, that's just my take. :)
I'd love to see Q2 content receive more love, and maybe if that Q2 KEX remaster ever happens the game's community will see a bit of a resurgence.
 
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I've mostly been trying to prod Quake 2 creators to make sure we actually have content / there is interest beyond the theoretical.
It'll most likely take a bit longer to get everything down, since there's also the question of how we integrate this into the site (front page, slider, ect) in a satisfactory way. This website didn't spring out of the blue fully formed either, there's a lot of background decisions made that influenced how the site functions right now that need to be gone over again w/ the inclusion of Q2.

That, and @khreathor is traveling right now, and I have been working very frequently these past few weeks. Patience.
 
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I'm probably a bit late to this discussion, but I'm all for Quake 2 getting some love on Slipseer. As an outsider looking in, it's not the most easy to really look for Quake 2 content outside of individuals hosting their own work. I'd love to see Quake 2 getting some support, and potentially a few new people to be interested.
 
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As long as it doesn't start diluting the website's focus. Adding categories can sometimes have that kind of snowball effect, leading to websites losing their focus over time. Which usually doesn't end well for the website.
 
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