I backed away there as well, since the chance of those big fat 64 unit bbox's trapping you inside and mauling you to death is 100%.

Really needed a step down on that bit...

When challenging the normal gameplay convention of 'back off, snipe enemies' you have to do it in a very careful way. Look at In the Shadows and all the thought that Sock put into making sure people could understand the stealth game play.

If he hadn't it'd have fallen flat on its face.

Anyway, this is all theoretical.

Spending an extra 30 seconds thinking about what game play you want to achieve in each little encounter usually solves everything though, at least in regular mapping. 

I have found this for you:

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/screen_shots/mfxsp10_1.jpg

And, if you go into where the first death lord appers, and look to the other side of the chasm, deep down, even lower than the trigger_hurt, you can see something that looks like a grey door frame on the rock.

By the way, I have played the map in normal, and it's good, i don't think it needs more monsters, ammo or health, i do even think that you could transform some of the big ammo boxes after the silver key into their normal counterpart.


If you accept suggestions, not that i expect you to follow them, it's your map after all, i have some that i do think could spice the level and make it more thrilling after the silver door in terms of combats. But only in nightmare or maybe on hard.

- Move the monsters behind the corners some units back so the player can't get on them a free shot before they see you.

- If the player knows that there is a possibility of an ambush he'll be cautious and ambush from above from vorelings won't work, even more if you did it before. Maybe adding into these situations another monster on the same floor as the player to lure him and make him less aware of it's surroundings.

- Adding some monsters that flank you, on the sides or in the back/front after the third shambler dies (some appearing through the silver door could be cool), when you get the gold key some flying polyps or scrags on opposite sides with silent teleport except one of them that lures the player; or 2 scrags or death guards, or 1 vore on the arch, when you open the gold door; or maybe a vore or a drole behind the second pillar in the library, and maybe restrict the movements of the ogres so you can't snipe them. After that, a monster that lures you into the vorelings could be good, but i don't have any ideas.

- In some of the bottomless pits, make an ambush with a scrag or voreling for those that approach the border carelessly, just in 1 or 2 or the pits is OK, to make people more cautious, not to kill them.

- In the library, when you push the buttons, put a knight or doom guard on the same level as you so the player can't hide from the monsters in the pillars all the time and is forced to move, at least a bit.

- For the final fight, one less box of ammo of each type maybe. And putting less cover or adding monsters that come for you could be good. Maybe, if you holed the part behind the player, you could put scrags or polips in a high place, so they cannot hit the boss, is the only way i have thought that could spice the fight and not force monster-infightings.

Like i said this would be too much for normal and easy, but maybe it can be used in less quantity.

What do you think about this? 

pretty good designs, although needs more polishing/playtesting (I also noticed door like things in the pits as Cocerello mentions above and jumped down thinking they were secrets). Still, you have some very nice visual ideas and the execution is pretty good.

Gameplay wise, also not bad but it gets repeptitive with the knights behind the wall/around the corner method.

Overall, very enjoyable map but playtesting/polishing these up a little more will make them great ones. 

On Skill 1. Apparently I suck at Quake, because I died at the 3rd Shambler. Was a lot of fun though, and I'll try it again.

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/sleepmfx10.dem.7z

Only thing I'd complain about is the lighting, which looks a bit inconsistent (unlit light fixtures etc). Maybe you should spend a little more time tweaking such things. 

who�ve send me demos, it was very kind of you letting me see how you
fail...

Cocerello:

Long i have thought of your suggestions, and no
i�m not going to make a 2nd version of this map.
(Although i�m playing with the idea of building a A4(V2))

reasons are:

when reacting to everybodys claims, i should�ve sent a playtesting version to all of you...which doesn�t make sense, cause i want to surprise you with my stuff.

nothing else.

So much people moaning, means so much people caring, which is good btw. i think.
Your suggestions for improving gameplay are not totally new to me, actually i�ve played with some of them in this map.

Spawning monsters in the lib right after the button touched,i think it�s
a bit too hard..;)
Original layout had that feature btw.

Pushing some enemies further behind the corners i also did(regarding original layout), but somewhen the walls came in.

That lighting flaws are my fault, was hurrying and hungry.

To make this absolutely clear, i didn�t want to fuck you off with my earlier reactions(all of you regarding), i was terribly under the influence of some society acclaimed drug, my bad.

Nevertheless, that theme of this map was developed a long time ago, and though i�m a big fan (not to say the greatest) of THAN, it wasn�t meant to be a ripoff .

Now i go map again on that E3M1RMX, i care because you do... 

make changes, the .map file is included, so teach me the better! 

<Qoute>On Skill 1. Apparently I suck at Quake, because I died at the 3rd Shambler. Was a lot of fun though, and I'll try it again. </qoute>

Mfx, pay attention to this!

The player never fails.

You need to think of the game play narrative a little bit more. "After they shot this grunt this thing happens, they turn round and then they get surprised because this mad shit happens on their left..." 

you dont need to send it to everyone for playtesting, just 3 or 4 people. And then listen to and consider their feedback. Taek time during betatesting and dont rush the release.

You have made two very good maps but with a bit more testing, they could go to that next level. 

I watched the demo, and sleepwalker made it it the shambler an easy game to kill him. Not that SW sucks in playing quake, which i heavily doubted, but in dealing with that situation.

The player never fails, sometimes he just dies earlier...

Whats that quote from btw? 

I�ve tested this map on two fellow friends from the still not dead doom and quake community over here.
I sat next to them, sniping over their shoulder while they played my many beta versions( and i was silent).
they had no problems in pushing this map to be released.
I really don�t know what to do. 

sorry perhaps I didnt explain properly.

I was suggesting getting other mappers to test, like negke or ijed or others. They would give useful advice not just on gameplay but also technical stuff about mapping.

Maybe your friends already do both those things but the people on this forum really know what they are doing. 

i�m not that guru, i just wanna make the good looks;)
And yes, sometimes i really dont know what i�m doing, as negke mentioned with that newskip stuff..
Learning by doing, or sth worse than that i think.. 

if you got master-mappers to beta test. 

It's true, I failed there, and it was easy on my second play. Somehow when I record a demo I play differently.

MFX, I have the (missing?) gray sky on QuakeSpasm 0.85.9 on OS X:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7009168/mfxsp10_sky.jpg 

No problem. I understand. 

as negke says its the fog/skybox interaction. 

People aren't moaning, they are criticising -as well as praising many aspects of the map.

Speaking for myself, I have hugely impressed with your two released maps. You have obviously put a lot of time and patience into developing your mapping skills and releasing maps only when they are good enough. It's really cool to have a new mapper appear "out of nowhere" with stuff this good.

And that is WHY I criticised a couple of things about this map, because this map is close to being really great (same with SP8 too), and with a few tweaks to your balancing you could be releasing great maps each time. If your mapping wasn't good, I'd just call it bollox and not comment further.

I presume most people on here are the same - they care about getting good maps out of any mapper, they see the good stuff you've done in these maps, and think a little bit of tweaking and your maps will be spot on. 

Your maps ARE awesome, but there are couple of academic things that we could have probably helped you avoid, such as the missing faces,and the fog/sky bug. And just a few simple gameplay tricks, such as guiding the player to resources when they are scarce. Minor things though really, but nonetheless could have been avoided.... 

We just want your stuff to be even better :)

You're pretty close to having excellence, just a few rough edges to improve, like Shamb and Ricky say.

Can't remember where I stole that qoute from. Got lots of them that get invented while developing stuff.

My favorite: the definition of complex is lots of simple. 

I don't even understand what that means: "The definition of complex is lots of simple."

Lots of simple doesn't necessarily yield complexity. Complex things cannot always be separated in many simple parts (inherent complexity). 

Also I am sometimes rather critical of the Valve mindset of "the player must be led" and "the player must not die". Quake has quicksaving. Quake is also "oldschool". I think that while not dying on one's first playthrough is overrated and would not be considered so important if engines would just fucking support demos over reloads properly... 

and I think a reason for that mindset lies in "cinematic" games where there is nothing to explore but how to spent your time when a scripted sequence bores you again. if it is fun to replay from the last savegame and if the player can save when he wants, then make the player die with no remorse! 

It's about dev pipeline in code, art and design - whenever someone is trying to get a complex feature built typically it's dependencies are simple enough individually.

Spirit:
For me it's more an idea that the player should feel like it's their own fault when they die, not like the mapper or game cheated them.

Of course, if the player does something stupid then kill the silly fucker in the most gruesome way you can!

I work a lot on casual games and there's a general opinion in the higher echelons that casual means not dying. I point to games like TrailsHD or Temple Run and they get confused and start mixing terms 'Ah, but those are hardcore-casual' which is probably the most null sentence I've ever heard when talking about games. 

1) Some secrets are ridiculously hidden. Like that "another secret" in the beginning, or the rectangular wall stone in the ceiling which opens a door if you shoot it.

2) I came across several places in the terrain where you can't climb small steps; you need to jump over them. I thing the map has problem with polygons within the structure.

3) At the very end of the game, before that final boss crawls out, if you jump down to that door-like black shadow at the bottom of the cliff you finish the game before you fall enough to die.

Anyway, it was a good game. I didn't like the amount of popping up monsters in so narrow places, but still I liked it in overall.

Good work. Thank you. 

Looks like you got a hold of knave theme too. High interconnectivity, subtle atmosphere and pretty balanced gameplay.

Keep up the good work!

1stRunDemo
QuakeSpasm 0.85.9
skill 2; 19:09, 4/5 secrets, 91/91 kills