THE DOOR IS A JAR! 

Being stuck all the time. I only managed to finish half the maps, generic's, hrimfaxi's and my ow n map.

on drew's I've opened the scrag door secret but don't know how to get through to the green armor on the other side of the metal blocker.

on neg!ke's I couldn't even get out of the water, I saw some bubbles hit the area below that, and I've tried going through every possibly nonsolid wall and shot most areas I can think of.

on tron's map I am stuck after killing the 4 shamblers, searched for like 10 minutes without finding the next step.

@Hrimfaxi: Your map was very very cool, great job 

On Tron's map I 'cheated' by rocket jumping: perhaps that was the secret? 

I only have 35/12 left, I won't survive it :/ I have to replay from the start then I guess if that is the secret 

all maps are very good! and because of all the searching this pack likely has the longest overall playing time in speedmapping history...
all secrets and puzzles are solveable (though i had to resort to god mode for tron's shambler action :/), even if some may take quite a while to figure out.

voodoo: it's not all that difficult - maybe you have to increase your gamma settings ;) 

If you don't open the bars first, you can kill all the shamblers with what you have.

Interesting how we all approach things differently. I'm stuck on yours at the moment! 

Said this already, but good map. Neg!ke's imo is definitely the standout map, the puzzles were really challenging and only stumbled along some of the answers (especially the button once you first reach the gate of the dead, I was just trying to get a better view!) but his is REALLY tricky.

As I mentioned, didn't finish Drew's, but solved all the rest, beat voodoo's in like 40 seconds actually.

Hrim's was also pretty good and had me stumped after the silver key for a while.

Solid pack. 

chop: short and sweet. Textures were a bit bright and flat, but not awful.

drew: some very clever secrets. The gap in the crevasse - yup, I'd say that was a good word ;) - was neat, and the pent was perfect.

generic: again some clever secrets, the zombie corridor was cool, especially the way the use of the GL ensured the switch was activated even without being seen. The death knight in a confined space got me many times though; removing him out of the way would have been preferable.

hrim: highlight of the pack for me. Absolutely excellent gameplay progression. Each secret was just hard enough - I'd wander around for a bit thinking "it has to be here somewhere...ok, I'll check this and...oh there it is!"
Although I'll be a gug's breakfast if you made the map in under 100 minutes. Not complaining though ;)

neg!ke: hardest secrets. I had to use fullbright to spot the first one, and of course turn it off again for some of the others. I think you relied a bit too much on lighting for some of the secrets. The centerprint about the dead was more confusing than helpful because it didn't hint as to what the next thing I had to do was. Having said that though, I was compelled to persist in solving the whole map, it got me that hooked. This partly because of the 'ebon remix' theme, which was way cool. The 'direction dependent' trigger was perhaps the cleverest secret in the pack ;)

tron: um no. I think it's bad if a map(per) has to rely on centerprints to communicate to the player before they've even moved. There was nothing hinting how I could approach the shambler situation. And the texture set was meh. Sorry :(

Overall: aye, a solid pack. This was very entertaining. Thanks to all those who contributed, and extra froth on the beer for The Crustaceous One. 

Yeah, the rocket jump is the only way up...I figured that the red armor and box of rockets at the best jumping point hinted to that. ;)

Haven't played the other maps yet, goddamn download keeps dropping out halfway through. 

I figured that the red armor and box of rockets at the best jumping point hinted to that

Ah. I did try rocket jumping at the doorway, but I didn't put RA + RL together to = RJ. I guess I consider RJ to be a matter of speedrunning/trickjumping rather than a secret in and of itself. Personal pref I guess. 

sm104_chop - Once you find the first hidden entrance, it plain sailing. Okayish.
sm104_drew - F*ck-a-doodle-do! Great map, you should definately finish it one day.
sm104_generic - Can you even finish this one? You evil man!!! ;)
sm104_tron - Took a few goes. Best thing to do is open the gate AFTER you whip shambler butt. Spartan textures.
sm104_hrim - Great map! Was it a speedmap? Anyhoo, got 4/5 secrets. Some of them are pure evil, erm... I mean genius... no wait, evil.
sm104_neg!ke - Nice looking map. Reminded me of e1m4 "The Ebon Fortress". I can get to the "Some hints have appeared", and that's about it. Ho hum. Nice.

Great pack - thanks all. 

Drew's worked well, balance was reasonable and progression/secrets were good except for the scrags-in-the-wall (it took me a while to locate the two missing monsters). The map leaked and there was an interesting diode-functionality in the NG passage, intentional?

Generic's was a bit cramped, but otherwise functional. Progression was good, but maybe the malfunctioning slipgate should've been just disabled as it forced unnecessary backtracking. The map leaked albeit it was pretty small ...

Hrim's was unfortunately a disappointment; progression was awful and after being forced to load the bsp in QuArK for the third time to understand how to proceed, I almost gave up. The whole sequence with the keys and messages was irrational. I even had problems exiting the map due to weird timing events. A good-looking map with good combat but it was ruined by the progression problems.

Neg!ke's was another good-looking map with good combat but spoilt by overly convoluted "secrets". The only good one was the directional teleport. Like Kell said, way too much reliance on lighting hints. Also, using engine wall-climbing is a bad idea.

Tron's worked reasonably well except for the required RJ. Some strategy was called for and in the end it felt pretty good. Lighting was a bit odd though and there were no official secrets.

A good secret is when you find out the trick, you say "Ah, obviously!". A bad secret is when you instead say "How was I supposed to find that?". All of the maps followed the theme well, but some of them clearly showed that connecting secrets to progression is an extremely bad idea ... 

know the options!!!

sm104_hrim is a speedmap??? roulf excelent map this is to good...could be in Oum map pack...

sm104_drew another great map very good

sm104_generic was o.k but in the end didn�t finish dont know if there is any end...

sm104_neg!ke was holly fuck!!! the map is impossible... had about one hour of fun then get to the part of teleport me to wrong way...look, look and look many time and quit... next time make a litle more easy please...was a nice one just get mad with my self for didn�t finish it!!!

sm104_tron was o.k the map just didn�t like much the 4 shambler�s...

sm104_chop great textures in start :) then was just to easy

nice work guys this theme was worderfull had real good time on it!!!

P.S.--> can anyone p.v.t me in irc to say how can i put the teleport o.k in neg!ke map???

;) i will look wend i get home from work :) 

Chop's and generic's were the sort of thing I expected.

Hrim's was cool, although a bit random.

Neg!ke's was clever and thought provoking, albeit excruciatingly hard (unless I found the wrong way to kill the zombies...).

Drew's was a nice map, probably ties with Hrimfaxi's for pick of the bunch for me overall.

Voodoo's... I haven't played yet! Oops... 

 

I need to practice speedmapping more, I go at it hardcore for 10 minutes making some fancy walls and a fancy plan, but then the rest is usually just shoddy and rushed and I get tired of having to map so fast so I do it simple instead so I can spend more time picking the next song to listen to or casually ircing. Hopefully my next will be better. 

thanks for your comments, those were exactly some of the reactions I was kind of hoping for, trying to start some discussion on good secret/puzzle ideas and their use. I knew this speedmap would produce a bunch of frustrating/nonsensical maps, and was hoping for a lot of neat innovation. I believe we got some of both, so I'm very happy how this SM turned out.

I myself kinda wanted to map, I had originally had the idea of building a 'normal' map, but the layout lead to a dead end, and all the secrets within the map would slowly open the bars over the door that would be located at the start. Winning the map, by reliezing there is no way to beat it and just saying 'fuck it, I'm going back to the previous map.' :) 

Hrims was tight.
Negike's looked cool, but frustrated me. Still fun though.
Generics I really enjoyed until the very end - i missed the platform. Not sure if it was going to come back, but whatever.
Voodoo and Tron were kind of what I expected, but fun anyways. I think you guys should keep at it, because it seems like all of us are getting a bit better with each new map.
I felt like my map was rather weak. I wanted to add more gameplay but gave up on that because of time issues. Not that I'm a 100 minutes or bust purist or anything. I just had to go, and wouldn't be back before today.
Good pack, and thanks for the input guys.
ps - scampie, I like your idea. 

Aguire - The Ng passage happened to be a fluke. Didn't notice it until after I'd loaded the map up to Scampie. It must bug you that basically all of my maps leak, huh? 

At last I managed to beat Drew's map after several tries. It looks like I overlooked that the button after the pent opened another door than the one I expected 8-/ well my bad.

I think all the maps was nice given the time limit. And NO! I didn't stay to the limit had to much fun mapping to stop when the 100 mins was up. Then after a few hours I got boooored of the whole thing placed the silvercard and and just rushed the last outdoor area tossed some monsters into it and called it a map.

It's funny to read the comments. Looks like one man's logic is another man's frustration!

AguirRe what was that about timing events at the end? Something I did wrong?

I played my map again sunday and to my surprise
it had 5 secrets noted at the intermission. I found that strange since there only are 4 secrets in the map so I loaded the mapfile today and found that there are two trigger_secrets to the silvercard button!
And more there are two buttons as well.

What has happend is that I had placed a button in the map to the silverdoor but only as a placeholder until I found the right place to hide it. I swear I remember to have deleted the placeholder when the "real" button was placed, but alas it is still present so there are two ways to open the silvercarddoor, and one of them is before you find the way into the goldcard and know where the silvercard gate is 8-(.
Oh well it's only a speedmap!!

That's all for now! 

strange but good pack.
The first place goes to voodoochopstiks for a) making a monsterfree map, b) for makink labyrinth there.
The rest was good, couldn't find what to do in the begining of neg!ke's map 

The problem I had with your map was this. After some initial good combat, I started looking for a way out and there was a platform, a locked-in GK and a button that required the GK. OK, first I couldn't find anything (except the GL) for a looong time, then finally managed to hit a secret panel. It said "You can now get the SK!" twice, with some minor variation (this was probably your dual-in-one secret).

What's wrong with this? 1) I wasn't looking for a SK, I was looking for a way to get to the GK. 2) I didn't even know there was a SK anywhere and 3) nor did I know what to do with it, as there was no SK door anywhere in that area. Logically, you should find the door first, then go looking for the key and only then you find a way to get to the key which opens the door (which btw should lead to something desired, like the exit or rune etc).

Then, after these weird messages, I had to use QuArK to find the very hidden button for the GK. OK, now I actually saw the SK (still no door in sight), had some more good combat and then dead stop again. Then I recalled, I haven't even used the GK yet, why could I proceed to the SK without using it? OK down again, used the GK and some more good combat. The stair button was now revealed (although its purpose was unclear) and the platform (which I had tried numerous times before, hoping it would work) was now finally functional.

Some close enforcer encounters and then halt again. After another long search I had to use QuArK again to find the route. I'd noticed the thin yellow striped brush before, but since nothing was beneath it, I just thought it would extend into something after finding the trigger. OK, dropped down and pushed another button. At this time I was really confused so I forgot even what this was supposed to open (the wind tunnel) and couldn't see anything from in there. It's always good if you can see the effect of your actions immediately or via a clear message.

Using QuArK again, finding the now open wind tunnel and up to the waiting ogres and great combat for a few seconds. Then there's a teleporter ... taking me back where I started. What was this for? OK nevermind, through the SK door and outside for some wickedly intense and fun fights that almost wiped me out before the last ones were grounded (or so I thought). Exit stairs appeared and I stumbled to the top.

For a moment I halted a the top, saw the still closed exit and ran down to find what I had missed. Suddenly a vore teleported in behind me and and had to be dealt with. Again, a strange pause while the exit was still closed, the final shamblers came in and then the exit opened. I can see now that you just wanted surprise effects, but at the time it felt like misfiring triggers.

The overall impression was that 99% of the time was spent in the map hopelessly looking for ways to progress (and failing repeatedly to do so), while the good combat was reduced to almost nothing. This in a map that was otherwise very good-looking and with mostly well-designed fights. I just thought that the map deserved a better balance. 

Re: aguirRe's above post.

Actually, yes, I can completely understand aguirRe's experience and frustration.

I think the two reasons I didn't feel the same way about the map, despite some similar ( though not identical ) events to aguirRe's run are:

1) I liked the design of the map. I enjoyed being in it; the use of the textures, lighting, funcs and so on. So I didn't feel it was a drag spending so much time in it.
2) The layout for most of it was simple without actually being a fullbright box. It didn't take me long to learn where stuff was, and I could see most of the room from most of the room. So there was a clear limitation on where an objective or consequences of an objective were. And as I say, wandering around to find them didn't take long enough to bore me.

aguirRe's points about the logic of the events is true: a key really ought not to be encountered before the corresponding door, otherwise - as metlslime observed in the old 'golden rules of SP mapping' thread - the door has never actually blocked the player's progress and thus required a diversion to acquire the key.


These things I put down to both the theme and it being a speedmap in general.
It's also worth noting that some of the secrets - throughout the pack - may be easier to 'decode' if the player is also a mapper. It occured to me after Trinca's post that neg!ke's direction dependent teleporter is a major example of this. Player's are unlikely to know, nor should they be expected to know, the technical functionality of map entities.

I still stand by my previous comments, of course: I did enjoy the maps.

2/- 

try to find something to shoot at the beginning... 

Just as I thought.

then finally managed to hit a secret panel. It said "You can now get the SK!" twice, with some minor variation (this was probably your dual-in-one secret).

Yes and you found the wrong SK button that wasn't deletet due to WC crash after I had removed it once!

Logically, you should find the door first, then go looking for the key and only then you find a way to get to the key which opens the door (which btw should lead to something desired, like the exit or rune etc).

I totally agree! And that would have been the case if the damn button wasn't there.

Then I recalled, I haven't even used the GK yet, why could I proceed to the SK without using it?

You shouldn't and couldn't if not for the wrong button.

I forgot even what this was supposed to open (the wind tunnel) and couldn't see anything from in there. It's always good if you can see the effect of your actions immediately or via a clear message.

Sure and I am to blame for not putting the text in the messagebox aI intented and thought about but forgot, sorry!!

used the GK and some more good combat. The stair button was now revealed (although its purpose was unclear)

Well at least this button clearly says "The lift is working" or something like that.

Then there's a teleporter ... taking me back where I started. What was this for?

To bring you back to get the SK to the SK door up there! 8-)

For a moment I halted a the top, saw the still closed exit and ran down to find what I had missed. Suddenly a vore teleported in behind me and and had to be dealt with. Again, a strange pause while the exit was still closed,

This one I can't explain? When I walk up the stairs the vore teleports in just as I reach the last step theres no timing/delay involved, it's an instant teleport. The same goes for the shamblers they appear right as I walk up to the last step after killing the vore. Something is amis here I don't know what!

What all this leads to is that your misfortunate gameplay was ruind by the fact that there was a wrong SK button in the map and you happend to find it as the first thing!
and I forgot to put a message in the button to the windtunnel!

If the Wrong SK button wasn't there then all you would have been able to find on the first tier of the room was the GL (as you did) and the button to the GK.

Then you would have to use the GK in order to proceed to the second tier.

Here you would have to make the drop to open the windtunnel!

Then you would ride the tunnel to the SK door
find you missed the SK and return to get it - or you would have found it when you opend the wind tunnel.

Kell: aguirRe's points about the logic of the events is true: a key really ought not to be encountered before the corresponding door,

I agree and tried to make it so but as explained above the wrong button at the wrong place!

Kell: These things I put down to both the theme and it being a speedmap in general.

Right so! Even though I went over the 100 mins I still had to work wery fast in order to finish the map as fast as possible.

Kell: It's also worth noting that some of the secrets - throughout the pack - may be easier to 'decode' if the player is also a mapper. It occured to me after Trinca's post that neg!ke's direction dependent teleporter is a major example of this. Player's are unlikely to know, nor should they be expected to know, the technical functionality of map entities.

8-) I thought the same thing when I went throug the gate and was back at the start. As a mapper I knew what was going on but I wasn't sure all players would figure it out.

Now this has been some long posts about a stupid speedmap but not in vain I think.The events show how important it is to have some playtesters on the bigger maps!

AguirRe! If I make a fixed version just for you, will you promise not to ban me from using your tools? 8-)
I couldn't live without them!

Point taken but I can't promise that it won't happen again!