Me and my friends played hundreds or maybe thousands of hours of Quake 1 back in the day, I don't think anyone played the single player more than once so level

Me and my friends played hundreds or maybe thousands of hours of Quake 1 back in the day, I don't think anyone played the single player more than once so level design there and all are irrelevant. But deathmatch levels were things of beauty IMO, purpose-built ones like DM2,3,4,6 and even accidental ones like E1M2. Quake's success in my group was not how it looked, we always played with all the graphics at minimum to extract more FPS, with FOV 120 just to see more of the scene to have the edge. Things made Quake different was playability differences like instant weapon switching, bigger rocket impact area (better rocket jumps), changing direction in the air etc. All the things that make a match fast, dynamic and unpredictable. All unrealistic but more fun. Anyone interested in DM scene back then may find Lakerman matches (especially on DM4), 9 vs DR series (that held in Sweden and surprised the US players with much more advanced gameplay by Europeans) entertaining.