I got really lousy fps outside, I think less than 10. And somewhat lousy inside too... The Quake engine doesn't seem to handle this outdoor stuff very well on my low-end p3-500. :(
(I can't check since fps showing doesn't work?)
No graphics bugs whatsoever though, I'm using glmarcher and nvidia gf4 mx400 :)

Otherwise it's got lots of incredibly nice stuff. 

Kinn,
I have spent well over four hours emersed in this world you have created (the mood is set quite well with the story line; it being kind of evocative in a solitudinal Robert E Howard sort of way) in two consecutive rounds of play.
I would clear out areas and then use console commands to see what was under the hood, how you organized your brushwork, and testing the r_speeds in various areas.

Mere technical interests aside, this map is pure pleasure in terms of game play and that quality we loosely call architecture. The Q3 Gothic style has not looked this fresh since December, 1999 when we saw q3dm7 for the first time.

More so than Bastion (I'll explain in a second), I loved the game play. A different tact had to be taken at every turn. From rounding up the spiral stairway slowly and rousing one creature from a group with a pop of a nail gun to leading voreballs down crashed-in attic ways into hapless zombie victims, the scenerios were just so nicely varied.

Bastion was quite the adventure, but the hoard combat was more overwhelming in it in many areas. As I joked earlier, I had to finaly cheat to get a victory out of Bastion. With Marcher, cheating wasn't necessary. I had to reload a save many times, or run past an area and regroup later, but god moding never became necessary.

It was just the most fun I have had in a while. It is definitely up there with Last Cup of Sorrow, Ceremonial Circles, Bestial Devestation, To the Death, and that level by RPG the name I can't recall, Pen- something . . ., in being my most memorable game playing experiences.

PS. I'm not Bob Hope this time. Yeay! ;) 

ha! Wonderful engine that fitz, it says in its readme that there's a new rendering codepath that should be faster for big scenes and boy it sure is!!
I must report this stuff to the quakeworld community so we get some of that sweetness too. 

<i/> it says in its readme

People DO use your documentation! 

well, fitzquake is not based on the quakeworld client, but on the netquake one.
you'll want DarkPlaces or something like that for a quakeworld client. :) 

darkplaces is a quakeworld client since when? 

thus the funky physics and bugs that are present in quakeworld (ie: bunnyhop bug)

at least... that's what lh told me. O_o 

QW does not have a bunnyhop "bug", but DP does. I specifically asked LH what is the bunnyhop bug caused by and he told me that he has no idea. 

i'm pretty sure darkplaces is based on glquake, which is a netquake client. However, it's not impossible that lordhavoc has added support for the QW protocol, since he's cool like that. 

well, dunno. i'm just saying it like i remember it. :)
i was pretty sure dp was a qw based engine though. 

Once again, I'd like to thank you all for the great feedback; there are too many of you here now for me to thank individually, but rest assured I have read through these with a big smile on my face :)

Also, I'm leaving for the USA tommorrow (for the first time), and probably won't be visiting this board as frequently for a while (well, it depends on how soon I can sort out an internet connection).

Before I delve back into the mappery, I'm going to buy that beefy computer I've always wanted, catch up with some of the newer games (Doom3 is out, you say?), and maybe start learning about more generic modelling in Maya. It's too early to say whether I'll be doing a Quake 1 follow-up to this map, but rest assured, I'm far from finished with this series.

^_~ 

What part? 

Minneapolis. Bloody freezing there this time of year, I gather. 

No truer words were ever spoken...brutal there this time of year. Safe trip/good luck:) 

I've just finishing the level after 1 hour and half, just fighting to survive, in easy skill, using god mode sometimes.. What a level !!! Like all other guys here, I love this map... Castle architecture is impressive, etc... etc.. All you did in this map is simply... gorgious ... pfff Sincerily, you really build a pure piece of art... It's for sure the very best map I've ever played since Quake was released (since 1995 in fact..) Kinn, I will look forward for the next episode; and relase it as soon as possible please, I will not be able to live without the next one...
Thanks a lot for this excellent fighting moments you gave me.. 

I was just trying to remember whether it was you who had an unfortunate run-in with a tour-bus while working on the architectural boat tour in Chicago. I took the tour myself a few months ago, but it was too short notice to ask you which company you were with, or when you worked etc. Not sure why I bring this up now, I guess something reminded me. 

I got clobbered many times but loved it! Atmosphere, Textures, Architecture - all 10/10. Really liked the Blue Key Door, and I spent some time exploring - neat reservoir/dam, and the little moat - and I found both backdoors into the fortress ;) Really enjoyed the three dimensional aspects of the combat (climbed back up into the fortress for a better firing position a few times during the end battles).

Great map - very enjoyable experience! 

bloody hell that was good. It's hard to believe that people are still producing such gems for a game that's 8 1/2 years old.

I only played on normal, since I haven't played quake for a while, but still found the map quite challenging. I loved all the new monsters, and the map itself blew me away. It was reminiscent of czg07 in ambition, and more than lived up to it by providing some of the most memorable quake gameplay ever.

I particularly enjoyed the bell tower section, although it did get a little crazy around there. Lots of edict related errors were occuring and I lost sound. I was playing with fitzquake, since I can make glquake look almost exactly like high resolution software quake using it :) The only problem was that when I reloaded the level after dying, all the lighting was fucked. I found that I could fix this by loading another map before reloading marcher.

Fucking fantastic work, Kinn! More please! :) 

that's the skybox bug that messes up the lighting and not related to the map. 

I assumed it was down to fitzquake.

man, I love fitzquake though. I am a fitzquake convert now. Winquake can suck my balls. Glquake isn't good enough to suck my balls, it can just fuck off and burn in hell. 

with 0.8, that bug will be fixed. ^_^ 

*THUD*hint*THUD* 

...only found 3 (Megahealth, Nails&HealthPack underwater, Pentagram) where the f is the last one? Should I look harder? Just went through it the nth time... 

when four of five somethings do something, look at the fifth :) 

...I like it!