If you had 1-3 releases to recommend to someone who never played a custom Quake map before, which would it be? I would like to make a simple page with recommended releases.
Mine: czg07, gmsp3 and that blue/gold map I tend to forget the name of.
- czg03
- Warp Spasm (unless you mean single maps only, in case of which warpc)
- marcher
are you presuming this mythical newbie is using a modern port?
Yes, Quakespasm or DirectQ.
Beyond belief, PSE, Rapture, all czg, DaMaul06, OUM, APSP 1\2(best single maps imo)
Warp Spasm only if you want to make him never want to play quake ever again )
Kinn’s The Marcher Fortress, absolutely. Vondur’s Elements is pretty cool, too.
Any other recommendations? I am the mythical newbie 
Though I played Quake 1 when it first came out, I moved on afterwards and never really played any custom maps, until now.
So what are some more really good maps? Perhaps some that would get 6 stars out of 5? Spirit I’m sure you’re full of plenty of recommends.
Kinn’s Marcher Fortress (kinn_marcher), without a doubt. Nothing else beats its truly epic atmosphere. Might be a little difficult for newcomers, but less so than other massive horde-based maps.
Backsteingotik (backstein1e), or anything else by Sock.
The mini episode Rubicon 2 (rubicon2) by metlslime and czg.
And if you’re looking for something a little different:
The Anomaly 2: Water (digs06) by Digs.
Ascending and Descending (mce) by negke.
Twisted Christmas (twxfinal) by Twisted Matrix – it’s quite dated by now and fairly hard, but still fun and very different from the standard gloomy zombies and monsters.
Tronyn’s Soul of Evil (soe_full) should probably be on a list of recommended custom episodes too (alongside czg’s Insomnia and Matthias Worch’s Beyond Belief).
Can be run with WinQuake. Quite short, easy to download, no require extra addons or texture packs:
Base Style: https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/hrimspeed.html
More base style with new textures: https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/xplore.html
Enjoy.
Rapture and Insomnia are my favorite episodes of all time. But the first maps I played when I got back into Quake a year ago, just randomly downloading things from the archive, were Honey, Subterranean Library, and The Altar of Storms. Great picks.
Yeah, Honey, especially the one called “Sheer hellish Miasma” is perhaps my all time favorit.
But all the maps Sock made last year are near that, i swear. Zendar at first.
Thans apsp2 is for me, as a idbase maniac, probably the best base map there is.
So what´s your favorite runic map? Swampy map? Can one put maps in those categories?
I still have to find a map that comes near that 4th episode feeling, that elderly world style.
Hmm, I can’t say runic or swamp are my favorite themes—I’ve definitely played quality maps in those categories but can’t think of the names atm. Honestly Quake episode 2 has some great swampy stuff—whatever the level with the Dopefish secret is called always stood out to me.
I totally agree about not having played a great custom map in the Elder World style of E4. Maybe the closest thing is some of necros’s hellish maps, which really get a cross a feeling of being lost in a labyrinthine world of pure, pointless evil. Still, not the same. I really want to play something in the vein of the final level of E4—any suggestions?
And yeah, Sock’s maps are amazing. Shame he’s no longer working on Quake.
Re: E4
There are some maps directly modelled on e4 which you can find by putting in “Elder World” in the maps list, but I’d try “My World is Your World.” I also have a list of elder world maps here, but as I admit on the list, there’s not as much to choose from in this theme unfortunately:
https://www.quaddicted.com/webarchive/underworld.planetquake.gamespy.com/tronynqexpo08a4.html
I have 4 other top 10 articles you might be interested in, if you haven’t seen them (3 accessible through that link and 1 more here on quaddicted).
Apart from favourites, likes or dislikes, if we are talking about maps to get newcomers hooked, a map with spectacular big architecture and without any new special feature would be the best, something like kinn_marcher for example. For that reason, excellent looking maps like honey, sock’s maps or altar of storms i think that they shouldn’t be that good for just this case.
But this is if the person is already willing to play Quake maps, if you try to hook up a person that for example asks you on why are you playing a game with more than 10 years, the choice needs probably to be different, like a good-looking map with very high-resoultion textures, like for example a base map from SoA in Darkplaces wiith RT ligthting on and with QRP and QReforged textures. That, or resigning yourself over getting that one into Quake.
Thanks Tronyn!
@Cocerello, I think it depends on whether the newbie is an old Quake fan who hasn’t played custom maps before (in which case almost any suggestion is likely to impress them) or a modern shooter fan who wants to try out Quake. In the latter case it might be good to recommend them a recent map with lots of setpieces and intricate brushes, textures etc. but other than the graphics it is also the style of gameplay they would likely have to get used to. Quake just doesn’t play like any FPS made since the turn of the century (at least the one’s I’ve played). Then again I think the genre has been mostly crap since 2004 (the year Halo 2, Half-Life 2, and UT2K4 came out—although I might be a bit alone among Quake fans for liking the first two Halo games haha) 
Re: Cocerello & Lane Powell:
Well, if the person has never played Quake before, I’d say the best place to start is Quake itself. Only then would it make sense to move on to custom maps. I converted someone to Quake earlier this year (without actually trying to) by introducing them to the original game (with no flashy add-ons). Ok, one person is hardly a persuasively large sample, but still…
As for shiny hi-res textures, reskinned monsters, RT lights etc., I wonder if it is really a good idea to try and use those to impress a newcomer. Quake 1 is never going to look like a modern shooter anyway: if you’re going to try and compete with the ultra-realism of a 2014 game that has had the benefit of an additional 18 years of technological development, you’re fighting a losing battle.
So rather than fight it, I’d say embrace Quake’s retro, low-res old-school charm. There have been many successful games recently that have even more primitive graphics than Quake (e.g. many indie games and browser-based games), which shows that one does not need flashy visuals to win players over.
(I am admittedly biased, though, as I am not a fan of hi-res textures and the like – although I do admire and appreciate the work people have put into them.)
For sure, vanilla Quake would be the best way, although I’ve had a lot of experience with younger gamers (and even older gamers who mostly play AAA games or indie games with high-res graphics these days) who throw around the word “dated” too much with respect to graphics. When the new Thief game came out I read a few articles praising the first two Thief games to high heavens… except they had to mention how dated the graphics are. I don’t know, I think those games still look as good as they play! I’ve gotten into arguments with friends accusing me of having “unwarranted” nostalgia for old 3D graphics. So it goes I guess.
I do like the use of “primitive” graphics in certain india games that you mention. The other night I played a game called Lost in the Woods, a short sort of adventure/exploration game. It’s definitely imo a flawed game in the way arty, conceptual games often are, but the one thing I really liked about it was how the pixellated graphics combined with the lighting really gave the rather small game world an atmosphere like few others. It was something like a more realistic, grounded version of the first Silent Hill without the monsters. Imscared is another indie horror game (though I haven’t played it yet) that has a similar graphical philosophy. Gamers who are into that sort of thing should have no problem with Quake’s graphics.
The game I’m thinking of is Night in the Woods actually. Lost in the Woods is something else.