SonicQuest - Beta 0.6 [mtf_sonicquest_beta06.wad]

Status
Not open for further replies.
I agree with everything Kyasarin said. Even if you put lots of sector-based scenery in the level, it would still be so wide that nothing would prevent it from being a thokfest. I think it needs to be narrower, more varied in the textures, and have sector-based obstacles all over the path.
 
My last and final comeback.

As you all can see SonicQuest is dead, and I want it to be dead. The reason for this is that I no longer have interest in SRB2, I find it boring, and I find that making levels for it feels more like a task instead of a hobby. I've simply moved on and that's it. Many of you may have, or may have not been expecting a new release of SonicQuest. To those who were not expecting: A fine good day to you my friend you may now leave this topic if you wish. To those who have been expecting: My sincere apologies to you all. I let you down and it was wrong of me to do so.

So as a token of my gratitude for your patience I give a; what may seem like a nice treat for you all: everything SonicQuest. Every scrapped level, every unfinished level, every unrevealed textures and scenery, every song, every text file, everything. Everything that was ever associated with this abandoned project is here in this .zip file.

forbiddenSQlibrary.zip

I give anyone the sole permission to do whatever they please with the content in this archive. Anyone can take whatever is in this archive and do whatever they want to do with it. The only thing I ask in return is that you let everybody else know that I'm the creator of the levels contained in this .zip, no matter how much you edit a level - even if it looks entirely different I request that you at least let everybody know that I created the original. Thanks.

Lastly, I apologize for the major thread bump. I understand this topic may be a few months old but I just wanted to let everyone around here know that I'm done with SonicQuest, I've stopped work on this and I'll never work on this again. I've also quitted SRB2 for good as I have more important priorities in my life. As to Sonic Team Jr, and all it's affiliates I give a great thanks for a wonderful game that I have fond memories playing. And I hope anyone who may stumble upon SRB2 recognize the great minds that created it. Also, I'm talking to any administrator reading this right now to please lock this topic as I do not wish for any further comments regarding this map pack as I will not read it. If anyone wishes to contact me for anything you can send an email to xnjr64@gmail.com

Thanks and Farewell.

-Agent Hack(ugly name)
 
By bumping this topic I presume you intend to work on this level pack again. In order to continue this topic, please upload your file as an attachment, as that is now mandatory in the releases section.
 
Just played it, overall not too bad.

Icicle Ridge Zone

This one I think is the most seriously flawed map in the pack. It's just WAY too small, and offers quite little for such a small sized map. I recommend either scrapping it all together, or remake a larger and more improved version of it, with a little more open space.

Combat Coast Zone

Now this one is much better. The size is quite reasonable and there's lots to explore. There were quite a lot of blue springs though, some of which were completely uneccesary. Some of the platforms were easily jumpable as Knuckles, making the blue springs for some parts completely useless. You should also narrow down the amount of flower Things you put on there. There are so many flowers and bushes put so close together it's almost distracting. Narrow it down to about half of the amount of flowers put on there.

Green Canyon Zone

It doesn't look much like a canyon, other than the large mountains. But anyways, this level isn't too bad. Sonic has quite a big disadvantage though, since there's only one way to climb over different areas, and those routes are just a bunch of springs. Maybe in the middle of the areas where there's empty space, you could add a few platforms here and there. The Waterfall gimmick works nice, though the speed it flows you should be lowered, it feel like it flows you through too fast.

Emerald Valley Zone

A pretty small-medium sized map, which isn't too bad. The main problem here though is the huge amount of the same weapon cards. For a map this size, it's just too much to give to the player. Narrow it down to two or better yet, just one card for each weapon. The overall structure of the level is nice though, I like it.

One thing I noticed about your levels is how pretty much all of them (besides that one CTF level) is GFZ-styled. Try using different themes for your future levels. Just patch up the mistakes, and keep up the good work.

Also, I have yet to find any glitches or bugs in this, so far so good!
 
Oh boy, here we go again! Again!

So, right off the bat, I can clearly see you have a very small understanding of 2.0 standards. And by that, I mean none. Multiples of weapon panels scattered about with no rhyme or reason, no randomly respawning monitors & the use of random monitors (which are NOWHERE NEAR the same in terms of balance, as randomly respawning monitors are weighted), usage of the Eggman monitor, and BUNCHES of CONTANTLY RESPAWNING ONE-UPS (which is fucking retarded even in 1.09 days). And this is just the thing placement!

Speaking of, your S3 rips are terrible. The static montor is borked, as it is both off-pallete, and has blue pixels on it. Not only that, but they also appear just as dull as S3&K, with no advantage taken of SRB2's brighter pallete to lighten up the colors of the monitors or the electric shield (which is the only shield with its on unique icon, natch). The Ice Cap music is also looped poorly, and the quality of the Genesis tunes is terrible compared to the normal SRB2 tunes.

As for the actual maps, Green Canyon feels like you made part of a really lame map, got bored, and resized it by 4X. Emerald Valley is completely dominated by Sonic as it is way too flat (yes, there are layers, but they are all flat with the most cover being the houses on the top layer), and it only has a few monitors, none of which grant powerups (I may be mistaken on this). The CTF levels I can easily call "Straight Line" and "Longer Straight Line", both flat and with little to no base defense. Its something you could puke up in 2 hours and an hour of copypasting plants.

In short, this map pack is as weak as it has ever been, and it makes me wonder why you bothered to return.
 
Last edited:
@Bbop, I'll take your suggestions for my maps and improve on them. Thanks for your feedback!

@D00D64, so... what should I do to improve my maps? You're just criticizing without mentioning a way to improve my maps. Maybe you could list some for my maps? Also I bothered to come back 'cause PSN has been down for a while and I felt like doing something productive. :P I'll be on and off with this pack. I've meant it to be a community effort pack meaning people can contribute their maps to the cause if they want. I'll also be making my maps.

@Mystic, I'll get right on uploading to mb.srb2.org I just sorta copy-pasted this thread from another forum and completely forgot to upload the attachment. Will do soon.

---

Alright so I know what I need to work on right now:


  • Make a larger more sophisticated and detailed Icicle Ridge CTF (And to begin with this was actually a place holder map for something nicer. ;D)
  • Reduce the amount of ring weapons and panels in various maps.
  • Add some more platforming to the center of Green Canyon
  • Reduce the amount of Extra-life monitors and add random spawning monitors instead of just random monitors.
  • Work on getting neater custom item boxes.

Any more suggestions and feedback would be appreciated!
 
Agent Hack said:
@D00D64, so... what should I do to improve my maps? You're just criticizing without mentioning a way to improve my maps. Maybe you could list some for my maps?
Click to expand...

To be entirely honest, I'd scrap them all, except possibly sparing Combat Coast by cutting out some of the length and replacing it with something that ISNT just a straight line. Maybe that'll get you somewhere, but the other three maps are just lame.
 
Agent Hack said:
so... what should I do to improve my maps?
Click to expand...
You should read this, especially the parts about item placement. Here's how you should place your items:

  • Only one panel for each weapon, even in large maps. If you place so many of them, it's way too easy to quickly get every weapon in the game in a short time. If everyone has every weapon, the diversity of the match is lost and it will quickly become dull. Place one weapon tile for each weapon and use ammo pickup more frequently throughout the map. An exception is CTF, where you can (and should) put the weapon panels twice: one for each half of the map.
  • Never place ? boxes. Never. None. They're not weighted, so very strong items like the Attraction or Armageddon Shield and disruptive items like the Teleporter and the Recycler will be way too common. Even worse, the Eggman Monitor will show up, which should never happen in Match. Instead, use Strong and Weak Random Monitors (they're explained somewhere in the article I linked to). Use something between 2-4 WRMs (depending on the size of the map) and 1 SRM (2 in CTF and very large Match maps).
  • Don't put stuff like the 1-up box directly on the map. In fact, all boxes except the SRM should be Super Rings (even the WRMs should have the Super Ring as a base item). The SRM should have a not-too-powerful shield. Most people use the Force Shield for it. Sometimes, there might be exceptions where you want to place some items directly on the map, but that is very rare and you should think twice about it.
  • Place more Super Ring boxes in your Match maps. From what I saw, you had pretty few of them.
  • Last but not least: Put some thought in your item placement. Weapon tiles should be in easy-to-remember locations, so that the player knows where he needs to go to get a specific weapon. The same goes for the random monitors (again, NOT ? boxes). Weapon pickups and Super Rings don't need to be considered that much; just sprinkle them throughout the map (but please, not just randomly out in the open, it should look organized).
Then there is the problem of level layouts, because yours suck. I'm gonna tell what sucks about them:

  • Green Canyon: Laaaaaarge and eeeeempty. Too much of the level is flat and empty ground that is bound to be unused because there's not much of interest in it. Without having played the map in a netgame, I can tell you that the cave section will be crowded as hell. The southern part of the map will be used to look for weapons and get back to the cave section if you fell into the current, and the northern part won't be used at all. Navigation is a mess because the U-shaped nature of the map leads to dead ends. The constant usage of springs makes the map tedious, and it will make it very hard for Sonic to get somewhere without being hit. And of course, the whole thing is just flat-out boring because there's so little functional space that allows for interesting gameplay situations and so much flat ground that allows for nothing. I advise you to scrap this one, maybe retain the basic concept of the current and the cave, and otherwise start from scratch.
  • Emerald Valley: Three layers of flatness do not a Match map make. Nothing against layers, but just compare Sapphire Falls to this. Notice how there's considerably more content on each layer than in your map? By all means keep the layer idea, but make sure to design each layer thoroughly and make sure that there's an incentive to go to each layer. You might want to make the upper layer smaller and the other two bigger. Oh, and make everything less flat.
  • Icicle Ridge: You've already scrapped this, and it was a good decision, but make sure not to repeat the same mistakes again. The main path is a straight line (and it's a short straight line). Yes, the main path should be straightforward, but don't seal it off. This way, player can just run through it, grab the flag and run back again in a few seconds, and unless there's somebody on the same path already, they can hardly be stopped. The outside path is another straight line that takes a little more time than the other, so that's some pretty boring design you got there. The third path is, for some reason, much more difficult and longer than the others, and since it doesn't offer much reward, it will be unused.
  • Combat Coast: Much too large, and too much empty space that makes it easy to just avoid any contact with anybody. The more crowded parts of the map are too hard to reach to be a viable alternative (springs galore!) and there are enough ridiculously overpowered items scattered around on the lowest level anyway (three 1-ups packed together!). Keep the basic layout, shrink it, remove all content that's in it and fill it up again with some thought. Especially the bases should be more thoroughly designed. Oh, and it doesn't make any sense to have bustable walls in multiplayer, because once they're busted, everyone else can just go in.
There, I think that's enough feedback to keep you busy for the next two months.

Oh, and please don't let the pretty harsh criticism discourage you. Just because this bunch of maps isn't good, that doesn't mean all hope is lost. I'm sure that if you follow the advice we have given you, your next work will be substantially better. Making Match and CTF maps in much harder than one might think at first, but once you've gotten the grasp, you be building high-quality maps pretty soon.
 
Last edited:
Sonic Quest ... I had seen one somewhere. I think there was "Jade Coast Zone" with Palmtree Panic music.

The music of Sonic Megadrive. So ... I think you must have a large library of mp3 old video games. You must begin by using the best music you have, because in the life, we can't make a level with all music that you have if you have more of 800-1000 music !

So ... First, I noticed that the music Ice Cap had a little problem when the music was over. It's not pretty. Or you can cut the end of music with software like Audacity, where the volume starts to drop, or you can look on Youtube the Ice Cap music in version 10 minutes, and download the video in mp3 ! Websites like FLV2MP3 or Video2mp3 are very useful for downloading videos from Youtube and keeping only the music of the video ! If I tell you this, it's because generally, the video game music are very very good quality on Youtube. Look for yourself !
(Here is the music of act 2. I think she would better.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&annotation_id=annotation_37811&feature=iv&hl=en-GB&v=X6eq03LnQ_A

Now the wad in general.
There is something in you that I appreciate very much, it's a simple style but effective. The levels of CTF and Match are not necessarily very hard to build, but I like them very much. I prefer this style levels as levels who have too much detail (style Egg Rock, where sectors are very very very small ...)
However, I think the sprites boxes ... are a bit small. I do not think you should touch the boxes sprites.


Before-all, know that you'd better put Items correctly. There's too much ...
I have a feeling that you like the springs. Try to put something else from time to time! Stairs, platforms where you have to jump, etc.


I noticed in the snowy level something quickly. It resembles a style of a standard SRB2 level... Yes, I mean Icycle Falls! There is a part with some floating ice, and a second part with a main road constructed in the same way ... It might be slightly modified.
The road in right straight linking the two bases is too short. You should complicate it. (huh...with stairs...I don't know...)

Combat Coast is fairly positive. I like it, except perhaps a little too much decoration (it blurs the vision), and even blue springs somewhere near the base ...

Emerald Valley ... you say you think it looks like Sapphire Falls? Personally, I see a mixture of 1 Meadow Match in the air and 1 Meadow Match on the ground.
Hmm ... there is not enough variation between the top and bottom. The Items are bad.

Green Canyon is my favorite. I saw Jade Coast + Meadow Match. But he remains well. This is a level that I rather liked because the items are a little better placed and because he is simple. However, it is a little hard to get out of the big pond underwater.
Exceptionally, I think you should put a little more spring here for the player can emerge more easily!
 
Well I know what needs to be done for the next release and I've updated my to-do list:


  • Make a larger more sophisticated and detailed Icicle Ridge CTF (And to begin with this was actually a place holder map for something nicer. ;D)
  • Reduce the amount of ring weapons and panels in various maps.
  • Add some more platforming to the center of Green Canyon
  • Reduce the amount of Extra-life monitors and add random spawning monitors instead of just random monitors.
  • Work on getting neater custom item boxes.
  • Find or remaster some songs.
  • Title screen is done, needs to be imported.
  • Emerald Valley is being slightly expanded. A lot more sector based scenery is being made for EVZ.
  • Level select pictures have been taken. I need to resize them and import them.
  • I've recently found out in a recent bug-test netgame that the SQCMDS script is non-funtional, also the CFG file never generates. I'll be fixing this next version.
  • Combat Coast Zone has a technical bug near the bustable block area. I'll be fixing that.
  • Add in an additional match map from an older SQ version. (Have you guys realized that all the current match maps are from older versions of SQ?)

Yeah... lot to do. I've got some learning to do also. I've never really used the wiki at all before but I guess its high-time I start doing so if I'm going to make more interesting maps...

I've got a question for you all, in Icicle Ridge Zone, would you guys want water that hurts you or no? If not, do you want water slides?
 
Well I've always been a sucker for visuals. (example: The scenery things in CCZ) But now that you mention it, maybe I might just redo EVZ as well. I've got an idea as to where to go with this one...
 
Agent Hack said:
  • Work on getting neater custom item boxes.
  • Find or remaster some songs.

I've got a question for you all, in Icicle Ridge Zone, would you guys want water that hurts you or no? If not, do you want water slides?
Click to expand...

I'll dig this. I think the rest of what you will do will be good.
Me, personally, I think the sprites from SRB2 funds are better than those of S & K or S3.
I advise you to keep the elders sprites from SRB2, after that depends on what others persons think !

- Music, eh ? If you have no idea where if you can not find good music, you can ask me! I have quite a collection of game music videos in HQ !

For your question about water ...
For me, the water musn't hurt the player.
My idea is to create water that does not hurt, but is a little shallow (We will say ... control sector of water values ​: height of about 150 or 200 ==> Blue springs, with a colormap of the same color as the water Icycle Falls.)
What I think !
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Who is viewing this thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Back
Top