20 Years of ENTE’s PadShop

ENTE's PadShop (Q3A)

In 2001 ENTE continued to create PadMaps, including PadShop, ENTE’s ninth map for Quake 3 Arena. At that time it was called “The American PC Gamer presents PadShop”, because he created the map on behalf of the computer game magazine PC Gamer and therefore it first appeared on March 13th, 2001 exclusively on the magazine CD of the American April issue. However, since the work had to be finished far before the editorial deadline of the magazine, the readme file already documents January 30th, 2001. It is ENTE’s fourth map in the so-called Lilliput style, i.e. the player is not much bigger than a grasshopper, and at the same time also it is his last big map for Quake 3 Arena.

ENTE's PadShop on the magazine CD of the April issue of PC Gamer 2001

ENTE’s PadShop on the magazine CD of the April issue of PC Gamer 2001

ENTE’s PadShop represents a small store for computer games with a sales counter, walk-in shelves and cabinets with many game packages of the time, spinning ceiling fan, computers and everything that goes with it. The map contains a few gimmicks and a total of four side rooms, two of which are secrets. Even a flight to Mars is possible with a rocket, inspired by movie classics like Georges Méliès “Voyage to the Moon” and Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”! The many great textures and details are still a feast for the eyes and invite you to linger and contemplate. The editors supported ENTE with photos to create textures and they even got permission from id Software to use textures from Doom for one of the secrets in the map. Tone, 3D artist and responsible for player models like Rand and PADMAN, created exclusive map objects at that time, which distinguish the map in many places. Also Ronny, from the Swedish band Dieselkopf, provided again an exclusive soundtrack. The map made very high demands on the computers of that time, therefore the American magazine for computer hardware Maximum PC used a Quake3 demo with ENTE’s PadShop as a benchmark for VisionTek’s Geforce3 graphics card. After all, the card achieved an average of 51.4 fps in the so-called Quake 3 MaxPC Demo. This demo was then also on the magazine CD of the September 2001 issue.

ENTE' s PadShop presented in PC Gamer and Maximum PC

ENTE’ s PadShop presented in PC Gamer and Maximum PC

For ENTE at that time it was, as he expressed it, a real honor and a great feeling to have received this great offer to make a special map for a magazine like PC Gamer. In December 2004, in preparation for the fifth anniversary of his PadMaps, ENTE began to revise the PadShop and wanted to re-release it for the PadMod. As a special treat, the PadShop for the game mode Spray Your Color got a very special sprayroom, which consisted of a large part of the PadCastle and was modified especially for this purpose. Legendary are the confetti and the birthday cake in the throne room for the fifth birthday of the PadMaps.

PadCastle as sprayroom in the PadShop for the PadMod

PadCastle as sprayroom in the PadShop for the PadMod

Actually the map was never supposed to become a fixed part of World of Padman, but in 2010 it made it into version 1.5, of course polished up again and with great artwork for the many game packages, which ENTE and doomdragon designed themselves with a lot of diligence. Thanks to Chavez from Haus Enten, you will soon be able to play PadShop for Quake 3 Arena on the PadHouse server again for the 20th anniversary. All you need to play is an original and at best freshly installed Quake 3 Arena with the last point release 1.32c or ioquake3. You should definitely join the server with “auto download” enabled, so you are guaranteed to get the same files that the server has.

In the following, very extensive picture gallery, we take you once again on a journey through time and show you the development of the map.