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Comment by Tao3300 | Hacker News Reader

> the engine really just lends itself to these environments

So I used to think "this would make one hell of a Quake level" in places that it would be really inappropriate to think that: government buildings, hospitals, a school or two. It occurs to me now that these were all Brutalist-influenced buildings. This is something I never ever talked about, growing up in the wake of Columbine.

In retrospect I guess it's not that I'm a psychopath, but that I unconsciously recognized that that sort of design was smack in the middle of the Quake engine's wheelhouse.

Still probably going to keep those thoughts to myself.

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My friends and I made levels of our school campus dorms, etc. for both Doom and Quake. This was all prior to Columbine and nobody thought it was strange in the slightest; on the contrary everyone thought it was awesome (faculty included). A couple of years later, and who knows how it would have been perceived or if we would have even felt that it was appropriate.

We only had two buildings with an architectural style that favored the game environments though. They were both built as "modern" buildings some time in the 70's. Somewhat unsurprisingly the school has since torn them down at great expense and replaced them with buildings that are stylistically compatible with the rest of campus.

We did that post-columbine. One of our friends made the map in something like CS or something. Our little friend group thought it was awesome, but it was also tacitly understood that at no point could we tell anyone outside our tiny little trust circle about it, god forbid they thought we were like the columbine kids, instead of just trying to play a game in like, one of the two buildings we spent half of our lives in thus far. I don't know if he ever even ultimately shared it with us. We also made the school in a starcraft map using the blue resources as hallways IIRC, and were quiet about that one too, for the same reason haha

Toys R Us. 90s. Teammate made a map of our store.

Pure. Therapy.

9/11 happens and those maps are now dust (no pun intended).

What’s the connection to 9/11?

People and authorities becoming hyper sensitive about anything that could be interpreted as simulating or preparing for a real world attack.

Do you guys really think you could have had issues with that?

I mean it is only natural to want to recreate with a good amount of fidelity anything you know well. Be it a map for an FPS or a racing track for a racing sim using a known road/city.

This was right when “zero tolerance” school discipline was in favor of administrators. Doing something like that could get you put in A) in school suspension, B) suspension or C) expelled where I lived.

Can you be suspended/expelled from a school for things that are done outside of school? I don't think you can in the several countries I've lived in.

For threats (real or implied), absolutely.

I don't think making a map for a videogame, as realistic as it can be, ever qualified as a threat.

I can only speak to the US, but this didn't stop school administrators - their interpretation was more important than credibility when it came down to decisions made immediately post-Columbine. Parents demanded action from the administrators, even if none was needed, and so administrators needed to demonstrate that they were doing something. Bans on long coats, primarily black outfits, discussing video games, etc. weren't uncommon.

Activities done outside of school that were discussed in school absolutely made it onto this list and would result in suspensions.

Moscow subway (which have had terrorists blow it up) just have officially released a counter strike bomb map based on a fictional station a few days ago.

https://transport.mos.ru/mostrans/all_news/117153

This reminds me of the time I made counterstrike skins based on me and my friends. Seemed like a fun idea, and at first it looked great, but once we started killing each other in game, it quickly felt very ghoulish.

It's okay if it's Quake, just don't suggest it to be used as a Postal level

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