The_Underearth's live playthroughs

Quake
1

I am updating this thread since it looks like I will be streaming more than one Quake map in the near future…

I have a Twitch channel called https://www.twitch.tv/the_underearth - I mostly stream Skyrim there but recently I have taken to streaming Quake maps as well.

Here’s a short list of what has gone on so far, and an upcoming schedule:

Maps streamed:

13th Feb 2022: A Verdant Dawn [zigi] - rating 4.5/5
15th Feb 2022: Honey [cgz] - rating 4/5
19th Feb 2022: Oozing Blasphemy [Zothique] - rating 4.5/5
20th Feb 2022: The Dark Portal [than] - rating 3.5/5
20th Feb 2022: Witch House Mixtape [cgz] - rating 4/5
20th Feb 2022: Arcane [Matt Sefton] - rating 4/5
22nd Feb 2022: Adamantine Cruelty [Vondur] - rating 4/5
26th Feb 2022: Tears of the False God [Bal] - rating 4.5/5
27th Feb 2022: Grendel’s Blade [sock] - rating 5/5
19th March 2022 - Onyxblack Fortress - rating 4/5
20th March 2022 - Wroth - rating 4/5 [Spoot] / When There Were Wolves [Mrtaufner & Radiatoryang] rating 4.5/5 / The Stars We Lost To Grief [Suzy Wills] - rating 5/5
22nd March 2022 - The Horde of Zendar [sock] - rating 4.5/5 / Arcane Monstrosity [sock] - 3.5.5 / The Mire [lasoul] - 4/5

Upcoming:

29th March: Tomb of Fenrir / Waldsterben

Queue [to be played soon]:

Warpspasm
37th Relic Retrieval
Nehahra

https://discord.gg/UeJyn262rc

Any suggestions welcome, please post in this thread!

A little about me: I am a Quake player who first started playing the game in 2001 and who used to play on the old FvF server. The first third-party maps I played were the IKSPQ series. My playstyle focuses on the appreciation of map ambience and mood rather than just speed, and I try to make my streams inclusive, fun and atmospheric. There is no compulsion to chat, lurking is great too :slight_smile:

At the end of each stream I will give a mini-review of the map and a rating. I will try to focus on more recent maps rather than older ones.

Hope to see some of you on the channel…

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Original post:

Hi all,

I don’t know if this is the right place to put this, I’m sorry if it’s wrong, please move it if needs be.

I have a Twitch channel and normally stream Skyrim but yesterday I had a go at streaming Quake for the first time, specifically Zigi’s amazing map “A Verdant Dawn”. If anyone wants to have a look, please do so here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1297094934

I give my thoughts on the map around 2:35:00. But in short I thought it was a very good map indeed and gave it a 4.5/5.

I may do more Quake map playthroughs in the near future. Maybe Underdark Overbright next, though I don’t think I can fit that in one stream.

Maybe something else? Any thoughts or suggestions welcome.

2

@‘Lysander’, since you are a streamer, probably you want maps that are visually the most impressive; take a look at https://www.quaddicted.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=6491#p6491 post, it is a good list. I would disrecommend “smej”, though - in the context given - as it is more inclined towards gameplay nuances and difficulty spikes.

3

Hi Triple Agent,

Thank you very much for the reply. I really agree that yes, visually impressive maps are the way to go and I appreciate the suggestion.

I will draw from the list you linked to. The next map I am thinking of streaming is Dwell or Honey. I’ve played Honey before, and I apparently [according to my review] loved it, but I cannot remember why! Therefore I am thinking of giving it another go onstream [possibly today] to see what the hype was all about.

I think I will go with individual maps before episodic, just till I get my Quake chops back. And when I have two or three more streams under my belt, I will go with Underdark Overbright and consider more episodic maps.

Really appreciate your help.

All the best,

L

4

If you would like something less conventional, there was a map by ‘Entsoy’, entitled ‘Approach of the Second Sun’. The map, appeared in the https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/hwjam3.html, based on ‘Arcane Dimensions’. Not an easy play, but it achieves something quite extraordinary in ‘Quake’-scape - the element of illusion; smoke and mirrors. Very atmospheric.

5

OK great, thank you for the suggestion. Less conventional when done well is great. There are some truly talented modders out there in the community, and you’ve really intrigued me with this one. I’ll add it to my list.

By the way, I see from your avatar that you’re a Debian user! I use Debian myself on my secondary machine. My primary machine [which I stream from] runs Ubuntu. All the mods I use launch from .sh executables, and they run very well in Linux.

EDIT: I’ll be streaming Honey at around 7pm UK time tonight if anyone wants to drop in. The channel link is https://www.twitch.tv/the_underearth.

6

Hi all,

The Honey stream yesterday was very good and it’s still online and archived at the channel. Funnily enough, the map was not quite as overwhelmingly brilliant for me the second time around, most likely because I have played things since which I prefer.

For instance, one of the things about the map is that it pins you in to a lot of small corridors and also there are a lot of buttresses and stone columns which it’s easy to get stuck against. Doubtless this is intentional! Just like one of the users in chat said, “cgz wants you dead” and I did die, quite a few times :slight_smile: But it was great.

That said, first time I played this map I gave it a 5/5. This time I would have given it a 4/5, which surprises me. Since even though it’s ingenious, the ammo placement and the structure of the map was a little too limiting for my taste. Maybe I’m just spoilt since I really enjoyed zigi’s A Verdant Dawn at the weekend and his use of more open areas, more ammo placement, and his atmospheric medieval feel. I will be looking to stream more of this stuff, definitely.

Next map will probably be Adamantine Cruelty or The Dark Portal on the weekend. Will update this thread with timings etc if anyone wants to drop by. I may also look at types of environment more and focus on map styles I like the most. The medieval/swamp/fortress style really appeals to me.

7

‘Adamantine Cruelty’ and ‘The Dark Portal’ are both excellent maps, but it is ‘The Dark Portal’ which I remember better. When it comes to ‘Honey’, I think the rating of 4/5 is fair nowadays, if to judge harshly - year of release is 2012, the scene has progressed since then, so it is unavoidable for the level of expectations, to go up.

8

OK, this is great to know, thank you. Both Adamantine Cruelty and The Dark Portal were mentioned in chat in the stream yesterday, so it seems good to stream them both. I have amended the thread title and the OP with a little schedule for if anyone wants to come along this weekend. Lurkers and chatters welcome :slight_smile:

Yes indeed, when I first played Honey it had been a while since I had played many Quake third-party maps so I gave it a very high rating. A playthrough of A Verdant Dawn a few days ago, however, showed me what a Quake map can really be like in the 2020s, so I will try to focus on more modern maps for now.

EDIT: I didn’t realise Adamantine Cruelty was from 2004! I have changed it to something more recent.

9

‘Bile Plant’ [warpb] from the https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/warpspasm.html pack, is a map that I personally find appealing, at least aesthetically speaking; the map should be playable from shotgun start. ‘Warpspasm’ depends on https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/quoth2pt2full_2.html mod. ‘Bile Plant’ may not be the best map by common criteria perhaps, but it has what I find attractive. It is heavily industrial-themed, with strong dark ambiance. On the flipside, it may be overly complex and monotonous.

10

That sounds great, I will give that one a go too! It’s probably a bit unbalanced of me to focus purely on newer stuff since there are so many great older maps, so I will add this one to the queue. As for Adamantine Cruelty, I will do that one as well since we discussed it on the channel, so I will mix both older maps and newer ones for comparison.

OP updated!

11

Tonight I’ll be streaming “The Dark Portal” at 6pm UK time, yesterday’s “Oozing Blasphemy” stream went very well and the vid is now viewable in the channel :slight_smile:

I haven’t played The Dark Portal before so don’t know what to expect. It should be interesting, but a lot of people rate it very highly, so I’ll see!

Other maps coming up soon:

Warpspasm
Adamantine Cruelty
37th Relic Retrieval

With regard to 37th Relic Retrieval this is apparently a massive map with 900 enemies? How long would it take to complete something like this? I’m wondering if it’s too big to stream.

12

Could be, it is also difficult.

13

Could be, it is also difficult.[/quote]

OK thanks for the clarification. I’ll put it on the back burner then for now.

I did The Dark Portal yesterday, as well as a couple of others, and TDP quite disappointed me. First of all, I think it had been hyped up as an incredible map, which didn’t help, secondly, the look and atmosphere of the map didn’t really appeal. It was a bit ‘light’ for Quake and I felt that the running round looking for the power cells in narrow corridors was quite frustrating, as well as ammo placement which was a little too sparse.

I did certainly appreciate the ending which was done pretty well, but again, it was a bit too relentless for me. At the very end point with the shamblers I had to just run out and avoid them on 1 health. In the stream I gave it a rating of 4/5, but on second thoughts I have downgraded it to a 3.5/5. The video is here, along with Witch House Mixtape by cgz and Arcane by Matt Sefton, both of which got 4/5:

Coming up this week is Adamantine Cruelty, which I have already played once before but which I said I would do, and also Tears of a False God. The latter has also been built up to be something special, but I’ve checked it out and I think it may live up to it!

Timetable is in the OP, hope to see some of you there :slight_smile:

14

Sorry you were disappointed, sometimes the memory tends to make up for what the eyes would liked to have seen. I think it is altogether reasonable for you to play a map ahead, so that you did know whether you want to play it again on stream at all.

I can also imagine that ‘Warpspasm’ - as a pack consisting of five maps, as far as I remember - is going to disappoint you as well.

15

[quote=triple_agent]Sorry you were disappointed, sometimes the memory tends to make up for what the eyes would liked to have seen. I think it is altogether reasonable for you to play a map ahead, so that you did know whether you want to play it again on stream at all.

I can also imagine that ‘Warpspasm’ - as a pack consisting of five maps, as far as I remember - is going to disappoint you as well.[/quote]

Hmm we’ll see, and thanks for the advice. I’ll give it a little go beforehand to see what I think.

And yes, it’s a great idea to give maps something of a playthrough before stream. Not whole maps, I think, but enough to get an idea of what they’re about.

Tonight it’s Adamantine Cruelty - the original, not the one in AD, so it’ll be running in Copper Quake. It’s been a while since I played it, but I remember thinking it was pretty incredible the first time around.

16

About the “37th Relic Retrieval” map

Yeah, guys. I have completed the passage of this map! But it’s not just a map - it’s a whole game! The whole Quake fits into this one map! Several evenings were devoted to the passage of this map. It is so huge that after I was standing in front of the exit, I turned on the “noclip” code and realized that I just slipped through half of the secret areas of the map! And there are more than 150 enemies! There are more than 150 enemies in secret areas! It’s crazy! But the map is just brilliant and difficult to pass because enemies pop out like cockroaches from all the cracks!

I just can’t imagine how you will pass it on your channel live at the nightmare difficulty level. Good luck to you!

17

[quote=Andrew]About the “37th Relic Retrieval” map

Yeah, guys. I have completed the passage of this map! But it’s not just a map - it’s a whole game! The whole Quake fits into this one map! Several evenings were devoted to the passage of this map. It is so huge that after I was standing in front of the exit, I turned on the “noclip” code and realized that I just slipped through half of the secret areas of the map! And there are more than 150 enemies! There are more than 150 enemies in secret areas! It’s crazy! But the map is just brilliant and difficult to pass because enemies pop out like cockroaches from all the cracks!

I just can’t imagine how you will pass it on your channel live at the nightmare difficulty level. Good luck to you![/quote]

Thanks Andrew, I didn’t realise 37th Relic Retrieval was like a whole game! For the really big maps like this I’ll check them out first to get a sense of how immense they are because something like that would have to be split across several streams, and at this point I am trying to keep to one map per stream. We’ll see!

On Tue we did Adamantine Cruelty which was very good indeed [original version] and which I’d give a solid 4/5 to. I loved the map when I first played it but this time I found it a little too disorientating. I’m finding it quite interesting how I am giving slightly lower ratings now to maps which I would have given full marks to years ago, and I would put this down to the experience of streaming the map rather than playing it offstream, as well as the fact that the standard of mapping has improved in the last couple of years or so.

I should maybe clarify my point above about why streaming a map can cede a lower rating sometimes - it’s mostly to do with the path one takes through a map. Some maps are linear where it’s very easy to find your way from the start to the end, others are intentionally disorientating. Playing the latter can be quite interesting, fun and you can revel in the atmosphere of the map on your own, but when onstream it’s not fun to just watch someone walking round in circles trying to find their way round the map, and as the streamer it becomes frustrating. This is no ‘fault’ on the part of the mapper though, it’s just an observation on the very different experience of streaming a map rather than playing it on your own.

In relation to the above I will make a point about savegames. I save multiple times during my streams and I am aware that one or two viewers see this as unnecessary. The reason I do this is because of the overall viewer experience: when a player dies, you don’t want to watch them going back time and time again to try and complete the same part of the map, neither do you want to see them try to find their way back somewhere and get lost, therefore I will continue to stream in this way since I find it makes the playthroughs more consistent. That said, I have created a channel point redemption to limit saves onstream if the redeemer thinks that that extra element of challenge would be fun.

The next map is “Tears of the False God” tomorrow at 6pm UK time. I haven’t played it before but I’ve had a look at it and it looks fantastic, so I’m really looking forward to that one :slight_smile:

18

About the passage of the map “37th Relic Retrieval”:

  • you will have to save the progress of the game very often, there are a lot of robots on the map, crowds of pyros and fumigators. And do not pay attention to the comments about frequent saves, otherwise you will go through this map for a very long time.
  • the map is like the rays of a star - you need to find 5 keys to open the final door. It is advisable to move to each key to the end, otherwise you may get lost. There are many books on the map with interesting descriptions of events and hints (these descriptions somehow resemble the game Doom 3).

Good luck, friend!

19

Interesting how a streamer would rate the map differently to an offstream individual player, but more interesting, how - basing on the stream contents - the viewers, would rate the map.

‘Tears of a False God’ is a big map, as far as I remember. There are enemy respawns. Perhaps though it can be finished quickly enough, if to skip some unnecessary combat. All in all, basing on the memories, I would rate that map 4/5 - it was fine to look at, but there was something insipid about it, in my opinion.

EDIT:

When it comes to the ‘37th Relic’, I attempted to play this map, but I gave up, for non-technical reasons.

20

I have taken this week off to focus on work and will be back next week streaming more Quake maps :slight_smile: I should note that I gave Tears of The False God a 4.5/5 [to my memory] for being beautiful and innovative, though it was the surprise Grendel’s Blade which was the first map I gave a 5/5 to - a stunning work of art from sock. It was beautiful, fun, well-organised, full of surprises and humour. Sock is a genius!

I should also note I plan to do a Ukraine charity stream on Sun 20th March. More on that to come.