Thanks for your feedback: I'm glad you globally enjoyed the map ;) And also thanks a lot for the rating (i.e I'd give you about 7-8/10 stars).. And I have to agree with you when you said the texture are washed out and have totally "monster-hiding" colors... It was the first comments coming from beta-tests... And I had to fight a lot with lightning effects to compensate this issue... Thought the DKT textures were not designed for Quake, so it could explain this weird feeling...
In anyway, I would like to thank all the people who played the map, and gave comments here.
I also woul like to thank again aguirRe, RPG, Scragbait and Hrimfaxi for all the precious advices and supports given during this project. As I already said, I was not expecting so much good comments, and I guess without the help they provided me, the results would have been completlty different, and for sure not so good... you all rock guys ! 

impressive map, indeed!
again, i haven't read the other posts of this thread, but i'll just post my thoughts regardless if it has been said dozens of times already:

the scale was great (concerning open places/outside areas) - this created not only a certain feeling of exploration (at least in the first few minutes), it always also let one new or rather unnoticed monster suddenly appear from some direction, so one had to keep his eyes open all the time.
the fog and the overall dismal light fit very well, as they produced a special kind of atmosphere in combination with the textures (i liked them a lot, btw.), and also made it harder to spot the monsters and their attacks, which created some tricky situations for me a couple of times.
i found the church to look particulary good somehow and the mountains surrounding the castle were awesome, too!

the sound disappeared a few times in the beginning, but that wasn't a big deal, especially since you mentioned it in the text file. the lava texture, however, looked mandelbrotly ugly (fruit loops again), it didn't fit with the rest of the set - you should have used one like the q3a lava, for example.
the exit could have been done better, as well, just a black wall isn't a good solution. why didn't you just make one of the regular passages into darkness, with a negative light maybe?
the onscreen messages looked a litte strange with all words capitalized.

by and large, as i said, an excellent map with good gameplay (although there could have been more monsters, of course, as there was much more ammo than needed). 2/4 secrets, ~30 minutes.
so thanks for that one. 

I played this a while ago but never got around to commenting on it.

My first impression (which remains valid still) is WOW. I really liked the ambitious and outdoor layout. I know that Quake started as hallways and rooms, but I really love maps that try to get away from that. That's one of the reasons I thought that Scragbait's Estate was so cool - it consisted of actual buildings, not rooms giving the impression of buildings. Same thing here, I liked your use of real buildings and real outdoor areas. Being able to access the rooftops just made it even sweeter.

Second, in addition to the layout, I really enjoyed the theme. You chose an excellent texture set and applied it well with cool design ideas, as well as awesome touches like the banners in the key room or the gravestones. Little things like that make the map so much more immersive, and you did them well. The fog helped too.

The secret areas were good (I got two), and I enjoyed the gameplay throughout (played on hard). The way to go was almost always apparent, I got lost only once and for a short time only - basically never a dull moment.

Overall, what the map reminded me of, with its dark-medieval theme, sprawling, outdoor horizontal layout, and medieval details, is old Heretic or Hexen levels, but taken much further. I enjoyed it a lot, I'm glad you saw this through those incredible vis times. I say, make another just like it. But maybe bigger :) 

neg!ke: Thanks a lot for the comments, I'm glad you enjoyed the map. I noticed that you found the gameplay rather good, while in UWF review gameplay was rated as average (is it your review Tronyn ??), but I can easily understand some experimented players would have prefered to see much more monsters in a so "huge" map..
In anyway, my idea was much more to build something beautifull (in terms of architecture and layout), rather than having amount monsters to defeat, and then loose completely how the map looks... The limits about monsters number came obviously from engine, and also by the fact I'm not an expert in QC development... ;P .. Without aguirRe's spawn64 QC, the map would have been unplayable with standard engine, but only with aguirRe's engine.. A shame... And as you maybe noticed, I didn't sacrifice the gameplay at all !!!... otherwize the map woud have turned into DM !! :D

Tronyn: when you say .. make another just like it. But maybe bigger :) I guess I will try to take much more care about vis time for next project, and try to not fall down into stupid traps like "wide-open-area Quake map" ... Vis doesn't like it ! It was a real patience challenge to wait, with many doubts, saying to myself: "stop the process, or not stop the process..." that was the question (thanks William Shakespeare !!)... Well, in anyway, you will see me in the next months on func_ with an other project I started some weeks ago, based on DKT1/4 texture set...

Well, as I already said above, I thank everybody for all the comments I found here. I also would like to thank (again and again and again) aguirRe, Scragbait, RPG and Hrimfaxi for their support during the project: I guess the map would not have been soo good without their advices. You all rock !

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