No to be honest, in testing this one that problem never occured.
Than shipped his APSP3 with the same "sky void" settings, as i can assure you, having looked at the .map file.
I had no problems with it, nor having them now.
Evil powers are at work maybe?!? 

was testing environment,
dont have a clue for now, going to take a rest.
Dreaming of nightmare maybe solves it... 

 

in that one without putting the right alpha settings all the glass was grayed out. Maybe something similar?

I will give it a run later tongith to see what I get. 

but I kind of like it just as a grey sky... nothing really wrong with it, I'd say.

Anyways, I recorded a demo, I'll upload soon. played it on fitz mark v since I know you have issues with RMQ. Overall basically what everyone else said, as you'll see in demo. Skill 2, 1 secret, 100% kills... struggled with ammo to start, even trying to be fairly careful because A- read a few comments and B- couldn't get health bar to display in fitz V?

Anyways, good job maintaining pace!
Although I do think you should slow down the pace, just enough to get some more testing. eg the ammo, the sky issues - these things aren't the end of the world, but it's that final polish that takes the map from 'nice' to 'excellent,' you know?

Finally, as I said in the demo - I fully endorse your than/CZG boner! 

but surely it matters whether it was intended or not? 

I imagine mfx probably did intend to have a black void rather than a grey sky, but what does it matter to me if I think results looks good? 

Doesn't the shot http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/screen_shots/mfxsp102.jpg have the grey sky everyone is mentioning? 

Grey sky is not a problem obviously.

+40 SSG or +50 NG ammo and +50 health near the start would have been fine.

Ending could have been a bit tougher. Spawning monsters near Vermis could have been cool.

Hard to start / easy to finish is a VERY common flaw in otherwise good maps - but it is very easy to fix. This is still a good map....there is only a tiny bit you need to tweak for your next one. I am really impressed by your mapping BTW....both releases. 

You'll make me blush ... 

Now being serious, most of the times i had to try again your map was because of i couldn't land on the first shell's box, because of the drole and the few typical visits to the botomless pits. So, if i were to save after that i would have done it in 2 or 3 attempts, instead of 20 or so. So, yes, i do consider it as having easy/decent difficulty in nightmare.

Like Shambler said, the map gets easier as time goes. 

I think I come off as being more critical than I actually am about this map in the demo.

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/mfxsp10_drew.zip 

It's caused by the fog. Even though, it seems, the visible surface of the sky brushes have the black texture, it's still treated as a transparent sky volume and thus affected by the sky vs. fog behavior in Fitz.

I does look odd, because the map is clearly designed to be caverns deep underground, and in most areas the ceilings are just dark and solid, suggesting rock structure. In the visible sky areas, e.g. in front of the GK door/library, a solid ceiling, however simple, would've been a far better solution even if the ceiling isn't as sophisticated (rock-shaped) as in the other rooms. An 'infinite' ceiling seems somewhat strange and inconsistent here. If it is intentional, the grey effect could've been avoided by placing a black func_illusionary (again, upscaled texture!) over the sky surface. 

It was an interesting demo, it's a shame you haven't found more secrets, i was hoping to see them. At least you got one. I got none. Actually, i thought that step you used was an error in the bottom floor so i passed on suiciding for be sure, as i was recording a demo.

I do see why you choose hard difficulty, dancing like you do would be way harder and you seem very proficient at it.

You got me figuring for long how you'd beat the drole when you were wasting so much ammo, even more when you lost the monster infighting possibility of the hell_knight. It was fun.

You had the same idea as me and i suppose the same too for a lot of other people of shooting the flickering lights for secrets.

Why did you used the noclip? It was a fun moment. As fun as thrilling it was when you began dancing with the vores when you had cover enough. The old tactic was boring for you, i suppose.. haha 

The map is very nice, congrats. But the difficulty skill is ... I really can't find the word for this. Dude, I played on easy, I wanted just to take a quick look on the map. I found 3 secrets, that helped me a lot.

But the end... 2 vores, only shells left, ok, no problem, stayed behind the pilar and killed them. 2 more vores... same strategy. Only a few shells left, going forward, knight, shells are gone, axing the knight like crazy, killed him, just a few points on health...

And then another vore????????

Come on, are you serious?????? Did you test this map on EASY? I don't really want to imagine this on nightmare, in fact I don't want to do it.

I said this for other maps: you guys, I know that there are people who love challenges. But I'm not one of them. And there are 4 skills, one of them is named EASY. Guess why?

You made a great map and you TOTALLY ruined it by making it impossible to finish for me (on easy) without cheating on the end. Maybe I'm a very bad player, but I expect that playing on easy I should be able to finish any map without cheats. 

I die.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oiyyv1fw1sv9ghk/ijedmfxsp10.zip

Now to finish playing... 

RMQ engine again. 

If you got to the vores, you can't complain, that's one of the easiest parts of the map, so it should be easy for you, because you completed the harder parts.

Get some demos and look what you did bad. 

Final verdict - first half felt like I was being drip fed resources and din't die by my own fault.

Second half was a lot more fun, the fights seemed more creative, especially the void leap = horde instances.

The end battle lacked punch, definitely.

Layout was good, as were visuals.

No ambient sounds? I missed hearing the classic ambient_suck near the void pits.

To 'fix' the Drole battle I would have stuck some resources just behind it rather than adding more overall - but that's just me.

The shambler fights after that felt a bit meh as well. I suspect the first would have worked better as a fiend or three.

Overall, pretty nice :) 

Its funny because most of us compalining about this map complain about the ammo situation. Again, I'm wondering about intention and the line between community values and the mappers interests.
It seems a few people were out of ammo (but just) by the encounter with the drole, and that like me they had to dive into that knight infested hallway, get a few minor scrapes, and then draw the knights out into a communal infight with the drole. Despite whining about it, it was actually a pretty nice moment of gameplay.
Was it intentional? Like a lot of func dudes I'm not a big fan of forcing the player to use the axe (discounting orbs recent speedmap, that one by negke etc - where that's the whole point)...

I don't know. I have shit to do but that thought occurred to me, so I thought I should excrete it... 

I liked that bit as well. I think it was just the continued lack of resources afterwards that bugged me.

Even so I nearly survived, just got stuck on the edge of a doorway and zapped.

When I mentioned having resources visible behind the Drole it was to make it more obvious that the do or die approach was required.

There's players who wouldn't bat an eyelid at axing a Drole or five to death, which is probably where the misconception comes from. 

I was out of ammo for the drole as well, retreated to find some nails, then tried to axe the hell knight with 7 health and died. Upon reloading, I ran straight for the ammo boxes at the end of the hall and took care of the remaining enemies with no problem.

Players usually choose a defensive approach rather than rushing in (and past the enemies in their way) to get the items. This has to be taken into consideration when designing combat, and it's easily forgotten since the author may too readily expect the players to play the map like he intended them to or would himself. I'd say it's a fine line between daring the player to approach into unknown territory for the sake of resupplying and 'locking him out' of areas with a seemingly excessive risk. A lack of health/medkits like in this map further supports a defensive play style. 

considering all of your complaints for my next release.
A single box of shells more? No!
Go for it, or go home.
Nevermind thanks for your feedback,
and .dems are helpfull, even now!! 

Locking the way back until the drole is dead would work as well.

Reminds me of a game I made where score recharged your health, and performing combos got you more score. The Idea was to make the player be aggressive and play excitingly. 

In sm169_jackfapoff, there is a good example of the defensive tendency being used strategically by the author. There is the one gold key tower with a bunch of shamblers - rushing in and getting the key would be easiest, but the natural response is to backtrack, and then they converge on it, forcing you to kind of confront it...