4-13-07
Level for Quake 2: Preview of Past Tense v0.5
(Start map: pastpre.bsp)

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Here's a short look at a Q2 unit I've had in the works partly on and mostly off since not long after finishing Defensive.  With the lack of new SPQ2 material being made this will give you Q2 fans a little bit of new mappage to enjoy.  I started this to be a no-nonsense, unadulterated single-player Quake II fun-fest, a bit of a throwback to all those memorable addons that were made in the first year or two after the release of Q2, hence the name.  This is the first stage of the episode, which is roughly the first half of map 1.  I consider this a permanent public beta, and it works out quite well as a complete mini-episode.

During the course of infiltrating and securing various regions and installations on the Stroggos surface, a number of carefully-concealed bases have been established by squads based in their general areas.  These facilities, euphemistically dubbed "Last Homely Houses", have generally been designed as comfortable rest areas for ground-based personnel, in addition to serving as "underground" centers of operation as needed.  The founding of several of these "safe-bases" in and around the partially-secured logistical sector is desired and being planned by those stationed there, due to the shaky nature of the present occupation.  A large complex containing fluids-processing and water-works facilities is within this area, and is currently occupied by a sizeable remnant Strogg force.  The securing of this facility would allow for better use of the area by ground forces as well as improve the integrity of the planned installations that could make use of output from the facility.  Yesterday you were on patrol with a group of troops and discovered a series of cave passages outside the far side of the complex that, based on analysis of noises and air currents, could afford a covert way in.  You volunteered...

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                  > How to Install and Play <
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1. Extract pastpre.zip preserving directories, then move the resulting pastpre\ folder into your quake2\ folder.
2. Start Q2, go to the console and enter (leave off the quotes) "game pastpre" to switch gamedirs, set the difficulty if necessary with "skill n" (replace "n" with 0, 1, 2, or 3 for Easy, Medium, Hard or Nightmare), then "map pastpre" to start.

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               > Unit and Gameplay Information <
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Game:                   Quake 2
Title:                  Preview of Past Tense
Author:                 HighLeveller aka HLR Productions
Website:                http://www.netxn.com/~poinsettia/
Current email:          poinsettia@netxn.com

Archive filename:       pastpre.zip
Files:                  pastpre/pastpre.txt
                        pastpre/pak0.pak containing pastpre.bsp and a few textures

Single-player:          That's what it's all about
Cooperative:            No. In the full unit it's not practical because some
                        elements aren't designed for multiple players to interact
                        with. But they could probably be modified to allow for it
Deathmatch:             No (one DM start for the sake of compatibility)
Difficulty settings:    Not implememted within the level in this version, although
                        of course the skill setting does have global effects like
                        damage taken and enemy reactions
Number of maps:         1
Basis:                  None--all original
Q2 textures used:       In this part, some e1u1 and e1u3 themes plus a mix for a
                        more original look
New textures/images:    Yes
New sounds:             No
New/replaced code:      No
Editor:                 QERadiant 1.47 -- nothing but the *BEST*
                        (and Wordpad for minor entity tweaking)
Build time:             Dunno; the portion in this release I did back when I
                        started the unit.  It wasn't long.
Compile tools:          [GDD]QBSP3 by Geoffrey DeWan
                        Enhanced QVIS3 by Steven Boswell
                        Arghrad 2.01
Build/compile machine:  Varied.  I think the same P133/64MB I used for Defensive,
                        which later became a P200 with a TNT2 (I still use this
                        computer, and kept the voodoo2). Also an icky off-the-
                        shelf VAIO (PIII-650/128MB/icky voodoo5) but it was given
                        to me and just needed a hard drive; it mostly works so I
                        can't complain.  I use this for kmq2 and to compile.

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                       > Map Statistics <
Brushes (world/total):  1776 / 1898
Enemies (all skills):   56
Compile time:           QBSP3 and QVIS3: about a minute for both
                        Arghrad (using -extra, -bounce 64, -chop 64,
                        -chopcurve 64, -chopwarp 128, -maxlighta 255): 35 min 12 s

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                 > Previous levels I've made <
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Quake II:
# Defensive Measures (single-player; 3-level unit)
# Station Ansari Alpha (32-64-player DM; untested but complete and I consider it a permanent public beta)
See http://www.netxn.com/~poinsettia/levels/

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                     > Comments on things <
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I haven't come up with proper help messages yet.  But this preview version is straightforward SPQ2 and short enough that it doesn't have a bunch of objectives or places to keep track of.

I highly recommend playing this with KMQuake2 which uses Lazarus: it ROCKS.  This level should still be fully compatible with standard Q2 of course--no nonstandard features are being used; use at least version 3.20 just to be safe.  I play Q2 with skill 2 (Hard) and naturally this is what the emphasis was on.  This is harder than Defensive was--as well as the original id levels.  You're gonna get ambushed, but not subersively and cover is always available if you look for it.  There's less health and ammo to be had, but you won't run out altogether if you don't waste it, plus a lot of it is dropped by enemies instead of laying around.  I'll do difficulty settings the way I did in Defensive: more health and items in Easy, less enemies in both Easy and Medium.

You might need to think a bit if you seem to be at a dead end: there are some mimor puzzles.  A little bit of exploration for "alternative" routes will solve these problems.

For you secret-lovers, this is a secret-fest. :-) I'm anticipating at least 50 counted secret areas in the finished unit.  Several make their appearance here, and give you small extras or things you would use later in the finished unit. (As an aside, for future levels I've considered throwing out the secrets counter altogether and allowing the player to discover them in a more natural way without any up-front expectations, like you did in Half-Life.)

If you play this with KMQ2/Lazarus remember that if you jump off a moving object the extra motion will carry over and add momentum to your jumping.  If you decide to go jumping around this'll make it a bit easier, but if you're playing standard Q2 it's still completely possible if you strafe-jump.  Another KMQ2 thing that's strictly cosmetic: unlike standard Q2, trigger_spawn'ed enemies aren't counted on the "kills" counter until they're spawned.  This makes it look as though target_spawner's are being used to add enemies, a technique I discourage in most cases.

You'll see a few doors that look like they should open and some out-of-reach routes.  These will be part of the completed unit. (If you noclip past them you'll see they just dead-end right away.) Also in this version there wasn't a way back to the first part of the map so I added a temporary teleporter near the exit (the black/red stripe across the floor which will denote map transitions in the completed unit) in case you want to go back and look around.  In the completed unit there will be circuitous routes back to the beginning part.

I have a custom skybox planned and some knockout sunlighting will be used.  But it turns out the first stage that makes up this map is entirely indoors (underground actually) so it's not seen here--and I didn't have to do a rush job on the skybox to give you this preview. :-) If you're curious, you're going West (-X) when you go over the big bridge to the building across the cavern.

Thanks to:
Those who played Defensive
Those who posted reviews of Defensive, back in the day
Pavel Shangin for making SPQ2 levels and for consistently getting on my case about working on this thing and getting it finished ;-)
You, for downloading this

NO thanks to:
BIASED referee who seem to be out to make lopsided messes out of what could be good fair games--and has been in trouble for it in the past.  But as I assumed they would, feathers went *poof* at the vault tonight, and they were those "other" feathers *nods due north*, not ours; and plenty of train whistles and "There it is!" were heard. :)

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   > Permissions, trademark acknowledgement and usage terms <
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Preview of Past Tense: Copyright  2007 HighLeveller

Not-for-profit distribution of the unaltered archive is allowed and encouraged.  Like always, those (non-commercial) level authors who want to use portions or ideas from this unit as a basis for other levels may do so provided you extend this same provision in your resultant work.  Textures in the textures/HLR/ folder may be reused and modified with the only restriction being that it's not for profit. (Some credit would be appreciated too, naturally.) I plan on posting .MAP source for this and others once I find a suitable public license to release it under, like a GNU or Creative Commons license. (I'm one of the last people to copyright-monger; I just don't want companies to freeload off of it for profit because that would be ripping off not only me, but you the player too.  I give it to you for free -> you give it to others for free, you know how it goes.)

The end user assumes any responsibility and liability arising out of the use and suitability of this; it's provided as is.  It's impractical to the point of being impossible for me to be, you know how this goes too.

Quake II and related marks and indicia belong to id Software. For more information regarding Quake II, please visit http://www.idsoftware.com/

Go play this.
