Played the Zendar patch the other day, for some reason it felt substantially smaller and scaled down than the original and it took me way less time to complete. I remember the original took me about 45 minutes, whereas this AD version took me only 20 minutes. Still, the map looks more beautiful than ever. Truly amazing stuff sock! 

hi sock, i've tested this new version of zendar and i've encountered a bug. when i choose difficulty level and step into the teleport, level reloads but i start again in the skill selection area. the selected skill is set, but the teleport leads back to square one. i had to noclip to the real start location... not a big deal, but it worked in non AD version with the same dp engine version.
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one good news - i had some serious fps issues in the original zendar, but this new version runs flawlessly. don't know what you've done, however the fps stability in amazing in comparison with the previous version. thanks 

Clipping issues on some geo
Yeah, most of these happen in non-combat areas so I left them. They seem to be coming from the compiler/client side of things, there is nothing odd in the map file.

I get lost for about 3 millenia trying to find all the silver keys
The problem is you wasted a key on the central SK gate which means you need to use the church way into the secret garden as the final SK was inside the garden! :)

The multiple shambler areas are brutal
Indeed it can get crazy with the rune room but the pillars are big enough to block one while you fight the other. Plus at this point the player should have access to most powerful weapons (sng + lg)

for some reason it felt substantially smaller and scaled down
The map did not change in footprint, I suspect this is partly due to you knowing what to expect and where to go. The layout is really small, most of the detail is concentrated into small area.

i've encountered a bug. when i choose difficulty level and step into the teleport, level reloads but i start again in the skill selection area
This is partly due to me using a new AD feature which I did not use in the main release and not fully test with DP. This is something I need to fix with a AD patch, something for June.

i had some serious fps issues in the original zendar
I did do another pass on optimization and reduction of portals with more detail brushwork. I also used a newer compiler and it may have arranged the portals in a better layout. As always stuff like this is really black voodoo magic!

For anyone else interested the AD version of Zendar is very much about a visual update and the chance to use AD features. The Z aware enemies are disabled via worldspawn, but if you want a greater challenge they can be easily enabled with the console command 'zaware'.

There is an extra route to the rooftop and the RA/SK in the roof area is no longer locked by the GK. There is no extra AD enemies, just the original Quake stuff and lots of subtle AD stuff. The source map should load into any editor for the curious and also has an excellent example of particle templates (check the church torches). 

When you wake-up a monster by damaging it, the monster's pain sound and wake-up sound often both get played together.
This is hidden in the original Quake because lots of different sound events use the same sound channel. The engine will always clear any previous sound and then play the new one. AD splits this out into different channels and this is where the problem is happening. I need to set the QC to let other functions know what sounds are active.

I often gib a monster but it plays its normal death sound on top of the gibbed sound
Yeah this is a bad bug, can you remember if this happens on specific monsters or all of them? It is certainly something I can add to my ongoing bug list. 

I have to be honest, I was expecting some of the knight and ogre variants from AD. But then again that would create a lot of extra rebalancing work, I considered doing this with a few of my own maps and I even started doing it but it's tedious horrible work. 

I was expecting some of the knight and ogre variants from AD
This new version was driven by visuals, I think the gameplay is really solid already and does not need to be changed. This is why I disabled the Z aware monster function so that I could use the new models but without the new AD functions.

it's tedious horrible work
Yes totally agree, I don't think many people will appreciate the time or effort that goes into updating a map for AD. It really is a low reward compared to time involved. 

I'd be up for an AD map jam. Updating existing maps wouldn't be so fun, but creating a new small AD map that uses at least 3 new elements would be fun. Especially in the vibe of exploration. 

I also would be up for a jam with AD as the theme. I have been working on maps using AD. Quite frankly, the extra tools it provides just makes mapping a much more pleasant experience! I have some cool ideas that can be partially or fully realized via the expanded tool set. 

https://www.twitch.tv/gogcom is streaming ad right now 

Neat! They had about 80 viewers when I checked. 

It appears to be absent from the FGD file but present in the ad_quake.def file. Just throwing that out there! 

Its a very unique entity, something setup for arena fights so that items stop auto spawning when everything is dead. It was something I added at the very last minute (literally 2 days before release) and forget to duplicate around documentation. I never used the FGD file (I am a radiant mapper), I just maintained it for others! :D

There is also the ghost knight (monster_dknightghost) stuff missing from the FGD as well because its really something unique for my mountain map and not for anything else.

I will include all the extra stuff in the web documentation so everyone can add it to their FGD/DEF files if they want. 

Just thought I'd share so your fancy pants document is as complete as possible! I was studying Test map 10 from the AD test maps to learn how to use trigger_itemrespawnupd and needless to say I was confused when I couldn't find it on my FGD defined map!

I simply added it to the FGD file and all is well. I'll be sure to poke in if I see other things missing. I had no idea about the missing ghost knight definition and this saves time should I ever decide to use it in some shape or form.

Cheers 

Quakers,

the HD pack for Sock's "Ogre Bastille" (ad_e2m2) can be downloaded here:

http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-mod-releases/works-progress/11588-hd-textures-sp-maps-30.html#post164598

have fun ! 

Thank you all for making Arcane Dimensions, the mod and the maps. I have enjoyed it a lot.

I'm sorry not to have demos for you, but I was feeling a bit stressed when trying to play the maps and record decent demos at the same time. The secrets in these maps are *hard* to find, and with me dying a few times here and there even on Normal the whole demo business became too distracting to manage properly. (Or in other words, I screwed some of them up and got annoyed at myself.)

I am still in fact playing and exploring some of the maps. There's so much stuff in them and much of is the non-vanilla monsters, items and features AD brings in, so I am having great time.

And by the way, it was I who suggested to Flaose that he should take a look at Arcane Dimensions and perhaps do a stream on the Gogcom channel. He really liked the mod and decided to stream it, and I'm glad he did. AD definitely deserved it. 

it was I who suggested to Flaose that he should take a look at Arcane Dimensions and perhaps do a stream on the Gogcom channel
That was a really cool moment for me, to see the MOD being played on a high profile account was awesome, thank you for the recommendation! 

https://www.twitch.tv/cubeface21/v/54469444

https://www.twitch.tv/cubeface21/v/54847138

Enjoy :) 

download it here:

http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-mod-releases/works-progress/11588-hd-textures-sp-maps-31.html#post164621

Enjoy 

Ha, cool. I think most the textures I used were stock I'd textures :) 

this is way this pack is only 20MB.

This make my life easier !!! 

Looks like cubeface didn't patch his copy of AD. 

I've finished ad_lavatomb.

The story is pretty cool, and it's nice that we can beat the whole map first without it getting in the way.

When the ghost knight is walking, if we walk through him and stop inside him the ghost gets trapped in our body and can't move.

The atmosphere is much closer to a Tolkien-ish fantasy universe than to Lovecraft's horror universe. The fog is partially responsible for this, but all the other smaller elements also helps.

The enemies breaking through walls got a bit overused, but after reading the whole story it made more sense.

Thankfully I've saved right before walking through the end-of-level portal, because I didn't think that it was the exit. This allowed me to finish the knight's quest afterwards.

As a map made to tell a story, it's pretty good. The feeling of finding mysterious stuff and only figuring out its meaning afterwards was really nice. And the backtracking was quick to do, which helped to keep the pace of the storytelling.

Despite me finishing the map the wrong way (beating Chthon before finishing the quest), it still felt satisfying at the end. 

Does the gravity worldspawn key work as intended?

If you change it to anything but null it will have the Ranger suspended in perma-low G with never being able to land. You can even change the value to 800 (default gravity) and the exact same effect.

Just curious if this was missed or I am missing something!

I can post this kind of stuff in Mapping Help from now on, but it is AD specific I suppose. 

Does the gravity worldspawn key work as intended?
Its broken! The gravity key on worldspawn is never passed to the map_gravity variable and the console variable sv_gravity is set to 0!

There is an undocumented feature you can use:
* Create a new entity called "info_stuffmd"
* Add the key "message" "sv_gravity 200"
* Add the key "targetname" "start_target"

Find the "info_player_start" entity
* Add the key "target" "start_target"

When the player is spawned into the map the server console command "sv_gravity" will be set. If you are using co-op or multiple starts then you will need to target them all at the info_stuffcmd entity as well.

You can also use this method to change the gravity on a map at anytime because the info_stuffcmd will always work if the client server is active. 

Thank you Sock, that will do nicely. Even cooler that you can change it at anytime using this method.

Appreciate the response...glad I wasn't missing something obvious!