Drew: Haha, that was dumb indeed. You should've realized right away when seeing nails instead of the Shamblers from the screenshot. Also, did you really think I would have lightning-shooting shotguns and flying grenade launchers attack you? You might expect some 'uncooperative' ammo boxes in the future, though. ;) Telefragging and Ogre infighting issues are related too.
Check your shortcuts. Don't play a map with a mod, especially Quoth2, unless it's required. I hate Quoth2's 'optimizations', it fucks up my all hacks. You don't want to know the trouble I had to go through in order to ensure backwards compatibility in my 768 map (or forwards compatibility actually)..

JPL: There is enough ammo overall, but the problem is that it's not clear one has to replenish it after each tower (don't forget the GA area). Not doing so will lead to shortages if multiple towers are activated in quick succession. Killing the tower monsters by shooting adds to this. I didn't consider all of this carefully enough. 

I haven't had chance to play properly yet since my old rig choked badly in FPS, will try giving it a run today on another machine.

But I did find the black spoiled the map some, for two reasons - a skybox with a sun or other prominent feature is useful in this sort of complex Coagula map because it gives reference to direction.

I mean it gives the player a fixed point of reference 'north'.

The other way it would have helped was in the floors, which had those thin gaps and also occasional black patches - I was subconsciously nervy about walking on some of them since they look the same as the void. 

What hacks are you using generally? We're putting in wrappers when stuff pops up, but there's nobody dedicated to it. 

There is enough ammo overall, but the problem is that it's not clear one has to replenish it after each tower (don't forget the GA area).

Well, it is always easier for the mapper to play his map, than others has they have to discover the map, and sometimes die to progress (quicksave is your friend there)... :D
BTW, were there any beta testers for this map: it is not clear in the txt file.. I think yes, so maybe it is me and my very low SP player skill :P

Anyway, thanks a lot for this pure jewel ;) 

ijed: So many even I lost track of all. Customized monsters (both armorhack & built from scratch), point triggers that borrow the bbox from other entities, Shambler models, fake items for the tower monsters, backpacks, invisible medkits beneath the Quads, sound hacks, a door that takes away your weapons, countless messy interlinked entities, activatable triggers and teleporters,...

JPL: Of course there were beta testers and, yes, they also found it confusing, but some also said they slowly got the hang of it after a while. Ammo didn't seem to be a problem for them, though this might be because they learned (or instinctively did right) to pick up enough before entering another tower. IIRC, anyway. 

We've got entities that do most of what you mention, but true backwards compatability is probably impossible for such a spaghetti junction of hacks.

Played properly and can't say I'm a fan of the gameplay. It's a decent experiment but doesn't have any signposting, or so it seemed. Felt alot like DMSP - which I think was already mentioned.

I kept running in circles. Maybe I'm just spoilt by how accessible modern games tend to be. Although I do regularly play SoaSE . . . 

Probably sounds overly critical, it's obvious that the map is a learning map and not a straight forward blast from start to finish.

I've been criticized for being too conservative, so thinking in that vein diversity with new gameplay styles are what's needed to keep the game alive. 

OK, if beta testers thought the map was fair enough.. it's that it is just me... nevermind :P 

The rocket launcher really makes the run easier. Here it is - http://nahkahiir.thps3.net/quake/coag3_negke_019.zip

I'm working on the Easy 100%, my aim is about 9 minutes. 

..go hard.

N - I still haven't played the thing properly and don't know if the shambler pillars have any other meaning, but perhaps you could have used different pillars on each tower (though I now know there's colour difference). 

Wow at the 19sec run. 9 minutes for Easy? A coop run should be more rewarding.

Btw. in case anyone cares, I've released the map source under GPL. If you want to check out the hacks and stuff... 

Btw. in case anyone cares, I've released the map source under GPL. If you want to check out the hacks and stuff... 

Nightmare.Speedrun is unbelievable, dont you agree, everyone?
NahkahiiR, you are the destroyer of worlds, if anybody didnt notice....
Just had to post it for the gms:)
Grossartig! 

This map is just awesome! Loving Q1 since day1,
but heeww! 

m.one, nice to meet you here... You �rschloch,hehehe. 

had no real issue with ammo or health but it was very confusing orientation wise. Even then had no real issue till I kept running in circles during the zombie run.

Nice hacks btw, very unexpected. And whats the trick with the shambler at the 3rd pylon, I just shot him since I couldnt work it out. 

Telefrag. 

more specifically, you have to lure it onto one of the rising platforms and get him to shoot lightning (so he doesn't move) and shoot the button behind him, which raises it up into the air and opens the teleporter floor opposite which you jump into. 

Yeah, I had to read the Readme to beat the Shambler, and even then it took me a while. Begeezus i got a suprise when the dogs spat lightning and the scrag a voreball. 

I did all that except jump into the teleporter and telefrag him. oh well. 

I tried this map with skill 0 to get an idea of what to do first. I ran around for a while collecting ammo/guns and killing the odd mob or two.

I went into one of the towers and hit the button (which I later found out was gold key locked) Killed some mobs and then jumped into a teleporter in the floor. Had two ogres fight each other and eventually I killed the last one standing. Some pulsating thing came down from the ceiling and the floor opened. To be honest I am not sure if that was right or wrong.

I think I completed the other two towers and then had to run around killing zombies with an axe + quad. (Had no ammo at this point from all the tower fights) For some reason I did not do it right and was told the zombies had won and I had no ammo! Went to the top and then told to fight a shambler with my axe! Not sure if this is some masochist map but seemed like a strange way to kill a shambler.

The architecture and building style is amazing, the use of the stock id textures is gorgeous. It is shame the sky is just black, it would have looked even better with a proper skybox background. I loved the attention to detail with broken walls and floor borders being angled.

I found the central layout totally confused and it had me running around in circles for ages. (Which was frustrating because of mobs constantly re-spawning) I imagine it would make an amazing MP layout but felt awkward in SP because it was circular and had many routes.

After completing one tower I had this scrag that was shooting vore seeking missiles which was crazy unfair considering there were no clues to it being different. Overall an amazing concept level but got no clue if I did anything right or wrong in it. 

Looks like you're choosing all the wrong starting points.

IMHO(See above) this is an amazing map, but it's definitely not your average Quake map. This is something soo different.

But, don't give up on this... It's an highly rewarding experience. 

play gmsp3 and czg07. 

Sounds like you did it about right and had the same problems as anyone else here. It's an experimental map after all... and fails at several levels. I should have communicated to the player what he's supposed to do and what's happening more often/in a clearer way (which, I guess, would have been possible despite the fact I hit several engine limits).
The map is indeed very open and has a DM-like layout on purpose (including DM settings + native DMSP mode), because, in my view, it feels like nonlinear gameplay should be kept from dying out these days. I shouldn't have made the SK/barriers secret so hard to find - this would have made the zombie battle easier (it's unfortunate you ran out of ammo there even on skill 0 - on skill 1, the player is forced to axe them right away).

Now, if your recent experiences haven't put you off Q1SP for good, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion (seeing a demo even) about the puzzle section in Skinny Norris - basically turning the table after MOTEOF, even though in comparison, it might not have as much thought and testing put into it. 

do you want a list of custom maps to try from, from a quake sp newbie point of view?

My upstairs main computer is dead for the moment, but hopefully should be up and running over the weekend ((when I can hopefully also finally play your q3 map). Once I get that fixed, I can go through my custom map directory for you.