In summary, I found the concept unoriginal and the execution pathetic. I've made a few maps, each one better than this garbage, but still I wouldn't dream of inflicting my creations upon other Quake 3 players. It's rude to waste people's time by releasing such garbage that will be wiped from HDs after a single up-close look at the level.
Yes, there are a lot of tech and goth maps out there. First time mappers tend to these texturesbecause they come with Q3 Radient. And it it easy to use them. With that being said there are plenty of simple, plain Goth and tech maps that just rock because the are well thought out maps with a lot of care given to game play. Deek may be trying to do some thing but it is just lost in all the awful gameplay. In fact If you run all the way back in LVLs maps back to the first pages. I bet you wil find many maps simlar to Spacearena in playabilty and style.
I always encourge someone to explore new concepts but in the End I want a map to play on not just to look at and I want gameplay to be enjoyable. I base my reveiws of a map highly on it's playability and construction. Spacearena has nieither of these things working for it. Ideas and concepts are great but the succesfulexecution of a concept is what makes a map a keeper, not the concepts.
but the area where i completely disagree with you is when it comes to the purpose of a demo map... at this point we all have so many Q3A maps on our hard-drives that it makes no difference to me whether a demo has gameplay or not, because plenty of maps that are well-executed and DO have gameplay wind up sitting unplayed, anyway... at this point, i think most of us only have the time or the interest to play the maps that hit a 'homerun' on all design-fronts, so the only real virtue of everything else is whether it contains a good idea...
sure, we can agree that the gameplay is wretched on these spacemaps, but can't we also say deek has some GOOD IDEAS? if somebody was inspired by one of his creations to do a proper spaceport job, then i would say 'mission accomplished'... there's already a multitude of maps that are painstakingly-crafted in all areas and yet contain little originality... i mean, how many more fargin' base, goth and tech maps do we need? who exactly are we trying to impress? people who download it and say 'nice-looking map', and then a week later have forgetten about it for the next clone map to hit the scene?
what about encouraging people to be brave enough to try new concepts, like the entes and bubbas of the world? games like quake and doom are here in the first place because of their innovation (and quality)... if something stops growing, it dies, and i have seen little innovation in Q3A maps for some time... even quake is no different- people will defect to the new UT and doom unless there are new possibilities to keep Q3A fresh...
Some great concept maps are MDVo8 pure ugly, and look at Quint's Beast maps. All go in new directions and the gameplay is passable to allow you to enjoy the map.
The other thing about these maps is they feel so unfinshed, and no care was taken to fix small things that make a good map. Clipping surfaces is time consumming I know,Working on frame rates are a pain, but they are big things to make or break a map.
By the way, having no jump pads or accelerators is not by any means ground breaking. Quake 1 & 2 had just that, and lifts can be made to work fine, but not in tight little hallways that only one person can use at a time.
You also bring up a valid point on weather concept maps should be published, and in my view the awnser is yes if the concept is deserving. Look, I know how hard it is to make a map. I have made a few myself. However till my skills are good enough to produce a enjoyable map, I will not publish what I make. Ideas and concepts are fine but if you prouduce them in a unplayable map they will be tossed out as garbage. This map deserves to be tossed out.
give the guy some props for an imaginative layout and innovative design aesthetic... there's millions of bouncy spacemaps that all resemble one another, but this is a fascinating little taste of a new direction that one could go in...
some people are idea-men, not finishers... give this guy some credit for the positive things he accomplishes and stop making yourself feel so superior by dwelling on the negatives... it's not like this is the first time someone's made a demo for quake!