And to compare it to multiplayer for baker & co., lack of skill settings is like no NAT fix. Some people won't be able to enjoy the game. 

t's unfortunate that 'nightmare' isn't a full skill level, because that would be the place to add the extra 9000 monsters and such for the 'too hard' mode. :P

Or modify a range of functions like health, attack speed, pain likelihood and shot speed all on a sliding scale with skill taken as a factor.

As a downside it'll make easy easier, but I can't think of anyone who plays on that skill. And if they did they probably wouldn't complain.

Hard becomes slightly harder and nightmare becomes twitch. 

There are an incredible number of brush errors, probably because it was made with Quark, but it played okay in Fitzquake085.

The texturing was really bad in places, it surely could have used a lot more tweaking.

I played on the default skill level and had no problems. Some areas were a bit strange but I found my way through.

I really liked Bones.

Nice job, I enjoyed it!
Your effort is appreciated :) 

@gb - You started playing Quake in 2006.
I started mapping the level in 2006. Can you imagine?
But you're skill skirmish is noted.
I played levels harder on my teeth!
btw Thanks for the SinTools.

@Ijed - It should be possible to play it on nightmare,
at least I'm still...ouch.

@Ricky - yes there we go again. Put the blame on Quark.
I spent evenings on counting out to get the blast without warnings.
Now I amon the point of 17800 brushes and a 32659 clipnodes.
That is 8 clipnodes under the maxcount.
I considder it a victory to catch a map this size without warnings.
The texture is disorder. And stop lightning.

Bones really hates you! 

you can reduce clipnodes by covering bumpy areas that the player can never reach with clip brushes.

for example, if you had a bunch of windows on a second story but that the player couldn't reach, just fill in the hole with a clip brush so that the overall shape of the front of the building would be 'flat' if you included the clip brush. 

won't the included brushes count?
At this moment I met excactly the max_clipnodes.
32659 > 32767max.

This means (I think), I have 8 clipnodes over. A cubic brush has 6 sides, which will be divided into 12 triangles.
Twelve triangles have 36 clipnodes, am I right? If the inner two triangles don't count.

Then there is one triangle left to add? 

clipnodes aren't brushes, perse. they are how the engine does collision, so the less pokey bits to do collision around, the less clipnodes.

it doesn't reduce clipnodes on a 1 to 1 basis, as clip brushes only affect hulls 1 and 2, not the visual hull, so it's like a 2/3 reduction or something.

same thing, for example, with fancy railings.
just plop a clip brush over the entire railing and it will greatly reduce clip nodes. 

@necros - That's the reason I used dxf for the railings.
I just compared the round railing which is the one left with brushes.
If I compile them apart I get an outcome of ~ 352 clipnodes.
If I use the same constuktion in dxf it goes ~ 132 clipnodes.
That's not the same as a covering brush, I know.
But mapping on the edge of max_clipnodes does strange things with a map. I just spent an evening without seeing I moved one brush.

@gb - You were right. I updated the map and now there are
easy - 124, normal - 153, and hard - 157.
The skillpath for easy and normal were twitched. I think the reason was when compiling without real vis the playing only goes smooth on normal skill. Hard and easy start cluttering.
So you might want to make a new try? 

I also added the qc. 

I've been meaning to comment on this for awhile now, but kept putting it off.

A very fun map with some interesting enemies, along with tough gameplay and good architecture. I did get lost a few times and some areas did look bland, but it wasn't bad enough to make me want to stop playing.

But overall an enjoyable experience with good replayability :)

First run demo on hard difficulty, protocol 15: http://qrf.mine.nu/~orl/misc/orl_veni05.zip 

I liked this map a lot. Each of the bigger areas was designed well for visuals and fights. Also the way in which the areas were interconnected was great. I liked how the water parts worked for interconnection.
The new monsters were good. They were enjoyable enemies.
I played on easy and there was always enough ammo and health. Couldn't find any of the secrets. The GK area was somewhat tricky on how to get to the key.
There was a lot of vertical fighting which was good. The map enforced a bit different fighting with help of vertical design, far away archers and lack of explosive weapons. This was good and refreshing.
The architecture looked interesting and I thought it was designed very well.

My demos (joequake gl):
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/veni_ankhdemos.zip 

for the demo! I am still watching them.
It is a remarkable effect to see how different people play the game.
Also to experience, that some of the assumable ways to go aren't that understandable at all.

One of the open facts I had was, that when catching the GK and go up again to the area with the three entities one could jump into the water without getting up. The halldoor spawned monsters in the castlepart, so by taking this track there was an easy endfight.
I sealed this part off again in the update.

@mandel - You are a strategic player! Do you use a joystick? In the caveslope I tried as hard to make the distance far enough, but you jumped over it. Of course the height is important, negl!ke also got over it.
You traced the hom I wrote about in the txt.
It was almost impossible to avoid it, every brush in this part made the effect only worser.
I saw it was a bit hard to get the GL so I changed it too. The easy skill wasn't that easy at all, but it had lots more of megahealth. Your demo showed me the oppertunity of how to loose the halldoor's trigger.
Fun to watch! 

let me assure you thet mandel doesn't need any joystics to do this jump :)
It is a speedrunning technique. 

...could you upload the original version? demos are asking for a sparcus09.bsp

Or did I miss something? :) 

In the original version were made two demo's, necros and mandel.
They showed me the wrong ways to go.
If you want to watch the demo's you'll have to take later versions.

I know the same download counted for two map versions.
This because I didn't want to change the download link.

If I start distributing two versions with the same zipname I'm afraid the error can't be repaired.
Why don't you play the map yourself? 

and getting through it

i got 4 demos out of six tires, fist play i forgot to record and 4th play i cornered myself and didn't get too far so i excluded it, here u go fox:
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/veni_meTch.zip 

Well, globally what others said is valid.

I liked a lot the new monsters. There are few misaligned textures here and there, but you have to really look for to find it.
Overall architecture is good, there are some amazing part (the bridge), and some less interesting (the zombie tunnel)
Gameplay worked for me, not really difficult actually, if you play in a non-run-over-the-map way... I guess speedrunners will suffer in some areas... thought...

Well overall the map is cool, and I really had fun playing it :D 

thanks for the demo meTch, had some fun watching them.

@jpl - thanx for testing, playing a map that you already know is another way than the first touch. I learned a lot by seeing how others play. Something to do with the attitude of being attracted to quake monsters by defending oneselves. It took me quiet long to see that the forelast room could give the oppertunity to escape to the last monsterspawn.

@ericw - I like the way you trash through the level! I t lightened up my precious balancing crafts and in some way you managed to get quiet far without getting hurt.
Alright, you died some times, but more by exploding thunderbolt than skill.
I was surprised you found a hom in the undercave, I hadn't seen it.
Also by falling in the water you lost the last part of monsterspawn, which made the
end somehowe poor. But that was my mistake by giving you no outcome to the halldoor.
Great to watch the demo's!

@gb - watching the demo you write it takes too long to turn out bones. I gave it a health of 150. That's way under the ogre, which ordinarely is easy to kill in spite of its fatness. Bones is smaller (simpelogic) and so chance you miss is at forehand.
The crossbowknight is health 120, which again is in oppertunity of its smallness a strong count. The damage is 15, the usual t_damage of the enforcer, who's health is only 80 so its easier to kill. I think you mean the amount attack gives you the feeling of too strong monsters. I just wanted to dislead the player seeing a knight, therefor it's easy to kill.

I changed the light of the silver key, indeed it was a little low.
You complain about too less ammu, but you're use of the double_barrel for the fishes is rather broad. At least if you take the time to climb up a wall without depressio.
It might have been usefull to inspect some mislignments, there could have been a secret.

You were right about the skill setting, I had matched easy for normal.

@orl - I was amazed seeing you play in hard skill! I tried several times, but I was afraid it was too hard.
I can see you're an experienced player, by landing on top of the lampost! You did have a good grip on the vormit by changing out its voreballs for a pillar without almost no way to move. And you had a good owl by not killing the crossbow
knight at the streetcorner. Good to watch the demo, it almost felt like watching a good adventure! Thanks! 

"in case you can't figure out how to load this map, the bsp is called "sparcus09""

Still don't know how to load the level.
-game veni05a: no
-game sparcus09: no
-game VeniVidiFutzi: no 

+map sparcus09 

Make a directory in your quake directory called veni. Extract contents of download into that directory, then start game with
"quakespasm.exe -game veni +skill 0 +map sparcus10"
If that doesnt work , try sparcus09. Seems it magically changed sometime ;>

I played this map a few times.. I *did* find the grenade launcher the first time, but having to shoot the door was a little tricky. Seems to have changed now. Madfox's maps are great value. 

Sorry for the trouble, as it is due to the fact I changed some things at last moment.
I know it's a little hard when the map won't load.
The new level is called sparcus10, the old one is sparcus09 as noted in the txt.

When I watched the demo of Orl I got so impressed by his way of playing I decided to add the old level back again on the net.
Just to watch the demo's, who are quiet remarkable.
The level aches some defaults like the switched skillpath and more.

So here is the first version, to watch (or play) the first #40 post demo's.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/veni05o.zip

lol 

Thanks. Great looking level. 

@ankh - I can see you're a cautious player. I watched you close inspecting the secret trails I left to gain acces to them, but for some reason you seeked them in the same spot.
The area up in the second room was easily to reach if you had looked more for the texture defaults in the upper corridor.
Also you have a naughty way to setup monsters against eachother. I have no transparent water so it was a miracle to see you shooting them.
You were very close to the secrets, but of course too attended to follow the gameflow.
Great you enjoyed the level, I enjoyed the demo!

@meTch - I had a little shattered screen watching the demo's on proquake. Mostly the metal2_5 had a bright glare on it.
In joequake one of the stone texture had the same lightup effect, as if some colours get changed in classic quake.
It took me almost all evening to watch your demo's. You got a weird sense of playing, almost like a cat who has chased a mouse, and then suddenly leave all and start exploring another part of the level, hoping the monsters break eachother.
You chased bones into the secret part in the sidehouse, but it was too hard to see. I made a light there. Good use of items. I think you set the record for climbing up the steepest slope in quake. 

I was using the latest WinQuake-Pro (449?) with the software transparent water (makes it in to cool color-shifting squares, lava looks neat)so that could be an issue. I don't know if anyone else gets this but when I'm playing a map, it's not me vs. the monsters; it's me vs. You and your tricks and assassins... I feel it's more of a headhunter situation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPpUFBVSyWs . Also, I change areas often because when I'm in one area I'm thinking of the others, and if I get an idea or something I may have overlooked comes to mind I go to it right away before I forget, and I also want the other monsters to kill themselves in my absence.

Slope climbing practice is from playing coop/ffa online, but when I made it to the top of your slope and found that edge I couldn't jump over I got SOOOOOO MAAAAAD!