Its very 'Quake' - I like Guncotton by Kona as a prime example :) 

Setting all monsters to SPAWNED on all skill levels, then pointing the skill selection triggers at the relevant monsters/entities to activate the ones wanted.

> if dying in e1m1 returned you to skill selection, I think it would break immersion.

Correct, but with checkpoint triggers that'll never happen. 

But just about every skill dependant activation check is done on map load.

A groundbreaking feature of HL1 (at least in thought, if not implementation) was the ability to change skills whilst playing.

Granted it just modified the damage / health tables, but it was the germ of modifying map content on the fly that led to ideas like L4D.

Which is of itself only a proof of concept. I can see such dynamic difficulty features becoming a standard. 

It would be much better to have it engine side, yeah. My example is kludgy, even if you combine that with waiting triggers etc. 

ignoring whether it is possible or not, it seems kind of ill-fitting to try to deny such a classic quake staple in this very old schoolesque map pack. I do think the no_intermission would work well there though, as in the original Quake. 

The loading screen sort of bothered me, that's all. I see your point. 

I completely forgot about the no_intermission option on the changelevel. Would've made the transition effect so much smoother. Ah well, if a patch is forthcoming it's the sort of thing that can be easily changed. 

Rock. This was a stylish one. 

I enjoyed the Arcanum demo immensely when it came out, and I don't exactly like how the rest of the pack deviates from it. The first map was id sized, had plenty of small arms play, and the 'zer meets nsoe' theme was badass.

However amazing looking Pulsar's (mistaken for Tronyn's in the demos, sorry about that) map was, it was another huge, 150+ monsters, Knave-and-only-Knave affair. I liked it a lot at first, but eventually I got tired, as towards the end the map kept shoving me into a climax after a climax, while my health was low (skill 1), and my patience even lower. So I ended up godmoding my way through map 2, and felt numb when I saw a Shambler and 200+ monsters right at the start at map 3.

My 10 years old self might have been thrilled by the "EVIL MEGA SHOWDOWN waiting every next corner!!!" approach, but I've seriously grown out of it.

Sorry.

Five skill1 demos: http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/otp_arcanum2.zip 

+ Nice brushwork
+ Size
+ some creative stuff

- too many buttons
- too much backtracking
- confusing layout
- eternally respawning monsters / sea of monsters
- randomly being knocked into void/off the magic bridge
- lots of areas looked the same (knave) except the end
- Easy too hard, as usual

Mixed feelings about this one. The brushwork was good, but the gameplay, although good fighting in some parts, got predictable and uncreative eventually (especially monster placement/annoying respawning/backtracking/getting lost). It felt like work. Hey, monster closets.

There were some traps and a platforming passage, but none of them overly creative. This stuff drowned in the sea of monsters as well.

It looked nice and the environment was competently done, no question. Gameplay not my cup of tea. 

Arcanum (18mb)

Arcanum Sources(8mb)

shots:
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum1.jpg
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum2.jpg
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum3.jpg
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum4.jpg
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum5.jpg
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum6.jpg
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/downloads/Tronyn/arcanum7.jpg 

Hi there, my first post on this board. Been lurking this board for a little while, after discovered Quaddicted a little while ago.
Anyway, enough about me lol.
Surprised to see so much hate on the first map.
if you had ever played the demo, you'd see the gameplay is much more balanced this time around in the full release.
I remember the ladder didn't even work properly on the demo, you literally had to jump up each step one at a time, which was frustrating when you wanted to get up to get away from monsters.
A lot easier to just easily climb up it this time around.
The map has some beautiful architecture too IMHO and personally I love the rain and thunderstorm going on.
Mind you, I did really enjoy the demo when it came out too, was just blown away by how it looked.

The rest of the pack was fantastic. I'd like to be able to complain about the whole not knowing where to go next problem I sometimes encountered, but honestly that happens with almost all new maps I play, and I'm sure it probably happened when I played the original Id1 levels all the way back in 1996 when I was 7-8 years old, so it's no big deal. If anything part of that challenge is figuring out that puzzle.

Honestly don't really understand a lot of the little technical details, as I've never been a mapper myself, so I'll just leave my post at this haha. 

Why is this a mod when dry sorrow and sludge are maps? 

How about we discuss the release itself, and not whatever Spirit decides to do about it?

Novel, I know. 

Those were added before the RemakeQuake conflict. I would add it because it does feel vanilla enough for me but I am afraid it would just inflict new flames by people who do not understand my criteria. I know that I did not manage to present it well but I do not know how to.

Please read http://www.quaddicted.com/quaddictedcom/total-conversion-partial-conversion-mod-map/ and never say "but X is there!" again.


And since I am posting:

I am very divided about it. parts were very hard and felt unfair to me (skill 1). knave map was a maze. later maps were constant "press a button, find out what it did". some amazing visuals. got the model mixture bug on 4th map, very unpleasant, could not fix it, god moded. rage quit final fight. fighting was really not my piece of cake. z aware ogres. suck as do wide open places. I don't like hordes. I don't like changed weapons. I am Mr negative feedback. 

Well I saw at least one person ask about the full version of arcanum on the quaddicted arcdemo page, so it might be confusing for someone who just visits quaddicted but not func 

1 - ...Do I seem to take damage when there's no monster around, and I keep on losing health until I pick up a medkit?

2 - ...There's no way out the blood pool secret?

3 - ...Is it empty?

4 - ...It is not possible to get 100% kills sometimes(With 100% secrets)? 

Stop being a gayer and fucking add it. There's enough goddamn Quake going on it to Qualify, and some badass combat too. 

In some levels there are flak ogres on distant ledges, could be them damaging you. That's part of what I meant when I mentioned Doom 2 chaingunners earlier.

The blood secret is awkward to get out of since the water surface lines up with a slope and not a straight wall. But it is possible. Dive down again and try to torpedo out. It's not empty. Unless you did not refer to the one in fourth map (or was it the fifth). 

In regards to the blood pool secret in map 3, I too couldn't find a way out of it and ended up noclipping out. But what I want to know is how do I select the crossbow??? I can figure out how to select the wand, but I want to use my awesome crossbow thingie!!

Also, arcanum3 is AWESOME. Great layout, very cool to see yourself overlooking areas you've been to already, just pure awesome. Got stuck a couple times, primarily because I didn't know where the silver key door was, but the monster bread crumbs did a good job of leading me back there. Going to tackle arcanum4 later tonight I expect. 

One of the stupid Hexen warlocks poisoned you, and the mod has no better way of communicating that other than printing "you feel sick" to the console (which will be missed by the player most of the time). 

Didn't know the warlocks do that. Makes sense in retrospect, I had quite a bit of trouble with them and always wondered why they killed me so easily. Thought they were just huge assholes with high-damage attacks.

Zwiffle: Isn't it on the same key as the LG? I only selected by mwheeling through the weapons.
Sucks that Drake doesn't have a readme. 

Yeah! I had the same experince. Suddenly on map1 I began to loose health every 30 sec or so.
Eventually I died for that reason!
The same thing happend on on of the later maps (map4 I think!)
Haven't read the readme so I don't know if there are some feature I'm not aware of that drains your health.

Other than that I have reached the final map (and battle I think), but have gotten the model mixup after a quick save, and I don't want to play the whole map again to avoid it. So that will be it!

After gotten though the first map the rest of the pack was greath.
All maps had fantastic brushwork and architecture, even the first map!.
My big fustration with the first map was the gameplay and what to do next when a button was pressed.
I got lost on one or two of the other maps as well but that was allright since I then had the joy to walk around an admire the details!

Thank you to the folks that participated in this experince. It was a fantastic journey and I'm looking forward to see what comes next from you all. 

Who writes Tronyn's reviews for Tronyn's maps?

Shall I try writing one? Or maybe rather negke? :) 

...I had kinda figured that out, but could not pin who did the deed... Shoulda been pointed out in the readme, like the Travail people did with spiders.

The pool, I'm not talking about the one you have to dive in to open a door, but the one that appears after you opened a secret, when you dive into it, you get a message about a secret artifact that is just not there. In the source maps it contains ammo, but somehow they must've fallen out the level. And, try as I may, I could not get outta there w/o noclipping. I'm really curious to know if it's a design glitch, or, simply, I'm missing something,and the trapping is deliberate...

Thanks for the answers, anyways!