I really like how the story begins straight away after the starting map and the guitar music during the text was awesome. It really set the mood of the map pack perfectly and it was something I looked forward to at the end of every map. Well what a journey this map pack is, spanning 6 maps and probably more monsters than all of original id maps combined!

As usually I started the map at skill 0 and found the first map fun to play. I thought it was a really nice touch the books lying around for extra information and it was cool stopping and reading them. I was surprised with the ghost creature following me, at first I thought it was an enemy because it just appeared out of nowhere and was in my face. It would have been better if the ghost appeared from the wall opposite the book which talked about it. I think the situation needed a greater dramatic build up and not suddenly appear out of nowhere.

The first map felt lacking in general detail but it had a really nice up and over layout which I did not find confusing. I always felt like I was progressing forward but it never felt like a place, just a series tunnels and corridors winding their way upwards.

The second map the city of angels felt very sparce and barren. I did not realise the first AI were team mates and killed them! So much for friendly fire mode. :P The city layout did not feel city like and it lacked any kind of detail to suggestion what it was suppose to be. I loved the various books lying around again with diary entries and letters explaining what was going on.

I finally got to the dragon battle and walked outside and instantly got killed by the dragon. I suppose it was bad luck on my part but I did not see anything, no warning just instant death. So I reloaded and got back to the dragon battle and spent ages just wandering around trying to find a way up to the roof. Eventually I just got bored and went into noclip/god mode and zoomed around the city to find out where I was suppose to go.

I am not sure why the stairs up to the roof were put on the opposite side of the city because it did not make any sense. There should of been several ways up to the roof and at least a special path that opened up to hint at the right direction. Eventually I got the dragon morph trinket and I thought it worked really well. I also saved the city and then ran off! :)

The third map was just plain nuts, it was just crazy the amount of AI that was wandering around that map. At this point I permanently switched on god mode and it was full steam ahead with the AI armageddon. I really liked how the map was initially setup with the open air cavern section leading across a bridge to a church/bell tower on the cliff edge. The actually setting and scale of the map was amazing but the amount of AI was just ridiculous. :)

It was interesting how the route around the map went from underwater sunken ruins to the top of a bell tower to a sunken pyramid in the sea! (The pyramid bit was weird) The sequence inside of the pyramid was just beyond words of how crazy it was with regards to the sheer amounr of AI on easy skill level. The end battle with the mega spawning bouncing spawns was nuts. I can't think of any other way to describe it.

The fourth map with the towers and black sky was again crazy and I can't understand how anyone can get through that without serious amount of rage at the quantity of AI. Eventually I found way to complete it and run like crazy to the next level. The architecture was bold and gigantic but none of it made any sense of what it was suppose to be. I thought it was suppose to be a staging area for bane's troops but the spiral towers and castle draw bridge felt like a mismatch of styles. I sort of expected a huge cavern or underwater tunnels with large rooms.

The next level was like something from doom with long church like rooms jammed packed full of crazy hard AI all hell bent of trying to kill me at least 100 times over. There was the familiar cage fight sequence with raining AI and then the final battle upstairs in the mini church landscape affair. I really liked the setting and the scope of the level, I was just dumb struck with how many AI were running around trying to kill me at once.

The final level (it is ironically called the epic battle) was mind blowing again with the amount of AI wandering around. The layout was fun and interesting but the AI layout was crazy. I just can't see myself wanting to die endlessly trying to complete it, which I think is a great shame.

Overal the story, map architecture and the locations were fantastic, I just can't see myself playing it without god mode permanently on. 

Like the end of ARWOP, I've never beat this one without god mode, haha! Haven't tried it on easy - just normal and hard. It's that last battle, in either case - can't do it.

Sock, the pyramid in map 3 is a tribute to "shadow over innsmouth", one of the best old school Quake maps of all time. Still haven't read that story, but I'm pretty sure the pyramid in that map is a tribute to the HP lovecraft story of the same name. 

Eventually I got the dragon morph trinket

you turn into a dragon? i just had god mode on and emptied all my guns into the dragons. 

All you guys just use god mode in tronyn maps? Is tronyn a far better quake player than all of us, or is this some sick joke?

(not hatin' just curious) 

was done by ijed, so he must of been able to complete all the skill levels? without excessive death? It does make me wonder, can Tronyn complete his own maps on all skill levels without getting frustrating or dying all the time? How exactly is the skill levels created for horde style maps? 

in Nsoe and Arwop, I can do his other maps on normal. Maybe one or two deaths every now and then but I do use quicksave after reasonable progress in all quake maps (and other games too). 

And I did complain about the difficulty. Tronyn and PM's stuff I find much closer to NM Doom.

The vores hitting from miles away (without a cue) and some other stuff put me into quickload spam mode a couple of times.

I was playing on skill 3 until PM said 'WTF are you thinking!?'

Normal is a reasonable difficulty for veteran players I reckon. 

But... Does that not seem ridiculous? If veteran players can only get through normal then why even have hard/nightmare. You're just excluding the non-hardcore for the sake of it. That doesn't seem like a sensible use of skill levels... 

In my opinion Tronyn maps are always played with caution... and even so I died more often that in other maps on hard :\ 

As long as monsters do not respawn, Quake can never be like Doom's Nightmare. At best, Quake Nightmare is just Doom Ultra-Violence with -fast monsters. Respawning monsters force the player to play the map like a speed run, at least if he wants to live.

As for Tronyn's maps, I can beat them on Hard. Of course, being the progs coder for Tronyn's later maps gives me an advantage in that I know exactly what the modified monsters are capable of. Even so, some of the maps are meat grinders on Hard, and the success rate can be low for me. nsoe5 on Hard is really nasty (but beatable) without savescumming. 

Think I agree about the comparison to UV-fast. 

So I actually did try this on Hard... and succeeded! With lots of dying and some cheating anyway. It really does what it says on the tin - it's fucking HARD; so I got what I've asked for...
Several fights are pretty much impossible without prior knowledge, but what makes those situations worse is that the architecture (as cool as it looks), the terrain in particular, is often not optimized for proper movement so it's easy to clip on various stuff in the wrong moments and thus catch missles. Balance is an issue, too. And there seems to be too little health in general. But since I knew what was I was in for, it kind of worked out... patience-wise. Except for the void map, however, which must be the most annoying map you've ever created. Seriously, placing vores and archers and all kinds of spam missle enemies thousands of units away AND enabling them to attack the player still was an asshole move par excellence. I know I've complained about this before.

The bane fight has too many regular monsters in my view (considering he has the ability to resurrect them - apart from this own strong attacks). He's beatable on Hard, but I didn't bother longer than three attempts. Some powerup would have been nice there, like the Tomb of Power, or at least a Trinity.

You shouldn't have made so that the weapon inventory gets reset in every map. Also, too many/strong dragons.
Still, a proper fantasy mod with lots of cool stuff. Cheers Tronyn and PM.

I've even recorded my awkward attempts in a bunch of demos if you care (protocol 666). Your maps start at #9. I stopped halfway through the new map. Please tell me when I can delete the file. 

quick drunken response
well giant appreciation to you for playing, first, and being interested enough to replay second, these projects. I think we do tend to take a rather brute-force approach to gameplay, basically Doom+vertical element+UV skill, and this has limitations, and is the opposite of the sophisticated smart gameplay style that your maps tend to work with. I will say though with NSOE4 (the void map), one secret allowed a telefrag of those monsters, and I will certainly admit that the weapons reset was a huge misstep, which was my idea alone. My problem is the RL, I should have maybe just asked for the RL to be some kind of temporary GL upgrade item, since the GL is so much more interesting to use.

Anyway, thanks, muchos gracias, and more responses coming in the next few days. 

The pent secret, yes. But even then, there are more than enough additional vores and archers to keep it painful.

In such ultrahard horde maps, the RL is vital. The player needs to be able to utilize every single weapon to its fullest. You did it right in ARWOP, giving the player plenty of everything so he won't have to worry about running low. And while blowing a horde of soldiers into gibs with a single rocket isn't challenging, it's fun and a rewarding experience to the player. This is what counts more.

Like I said in the original thread, the episode is worth playing, if only to see NSOE3. It's still my favorite map of the pack and it's one of the visually most impressive fantasy maps for Quake, colorful, varied in style, and arcane. 

One has to admire your tenacity, Negke! ;) 

guard 

 

i couldn't find the original soe thread, so i guess here's as good a place as any.

loads of mages. killed them all. can't get out.
the console msg says 'one more to go', but i can't find anymore mages, they're all dead.
i thought maybe all the enemies you have to clear out can be a mixture of scrags/mages, so i looked up into the ceiling to see if there was one last scrag waiting to be baited down..nothing.

i spotted a panel on the side of a bookcase. i shot it. i tried to follow the sound from where it came in the far corner of the room, but it doesn't appear to open anything permanently, maybe temporary(?). i can't see anything, though.

in the end i had to noclip through the door. has this happened before? 

I haven't heard of it before. Is this the library with the lava pentagram?

what skill level? 

and it is the lava pentagram room 

yeah I just tested it and I can confirm that, one too few wizards is there. sorry about that, surprised no one played it on nightmare and found that (or reported it anyway) all these (lol 10 - damn time flies) - years. Another thing to fix for the final Drake. 

something that consoles do NOT have.

some ammo/health boxes were stuck halfway in to some walls, and one ogre had missing skins (white torso with black legs/feet).
none of those above things prevented playback in any major way, of course, but i was thinking at the back of my mind "i hope that this isn't a sign that a major crash is on the way". 

The missing skins thing I think is a savegame bug. I've seen that before. Ammo boxes in walls I haven't seen. Could be the mod, map or engine ;)

What engine btw, Quakespasm? 

i still haven't managed to get quaddicted maps/mods to run in dp.
i get the impression the majority of user created mpas/mods are better appreciated in an engine like qs. i'm quite at home home with it now.