looks interesting, will give it a try after work :) 

Very interestring brushwork ideas and looks nice and open too. Will play during lunch hour. 

last screen reminds last episode from HL2 :>

downloading... 

Looks like a distinct and impressive thematic improvement over your previous work, Madfox. 

 

played it, but had my problems finding my way after a while, but well done work :) 

158/159, 2/3, 47 min (I'm a granny for speed)

Positives:

Great style, sense of place - running through the rocky tunnels was good.

Good mix of monsters and well used, collecting cells from enforcers to use thunderbolt on shamblers.

Good exploration, felt like I was learning what was where.

Great 1st weapon chaos.

Impressive architecture, probably the high point of the map was the soaring cliffs and huge computer panels complete with Ogre faces.


Negatives:

Clipping issues - I fell through a hole in the level on aerial train platform, the ladders and some scenery could have used some clip brushes. The rotating's wouldn't have hurt for some movewalls as well, or at least just a big circular clip.

Texturing was sometimes too detailed for the impressive brush style - the rock texture would have been better as something a bit more plain.

The 'spellmas' was a bit lame - I only aimed at the bottom of the model and it's attack wasn't too dangerous. Also didn't realise that the pad was a windtunnel pad, and not a teleport exit - wasted some time wandering around.

Ammo was too focused on shells - kept on coming across big boxes when I already had full.

Found the pentangle secret by accident.

All in all very nice, a few technical flaws but shows good use of ideas and backs it up with decent gameplay. Liked it. 

as i said before great map to play :) love the ride in the mines car hehe made lots of laps on it 

... exceptional navigation and sense of scenery, a bit bland on the light and texturing is not the best ever... Perfect ammo balance. The unkillable monster(or is it?) sucked... 41 mins, 1/3, 148/156 on first run.
Loved this map! 

... is HUGE. This is literally a gigantic map. Gameplay is tough at times but plenty of ammo and health is provided. Lighting was to dark in some places, I had to use r_fullbright 1 a few times just to see where I was going. But overall in my opinion, if you want a really big map thats big on gameplay, this will please you.

Took me 43 minutes to finish. found 1 secret and killed every monster.

That red caterpillar like monster is killable by the way. You have to shoot at its lower body, not its head or torso. It takes a lot to bring that beast down, but thankfully enough ammo is provided. 

.. I thought It was unkillable when I had unloaded all my weapons and it didn't seem to budge an inch(did not pick up the 2 ammo boxes just outside the blue key door, though), so I just jumped over it into the wind tunnel... I'll try it over tomorrow... Great map anyway... 

not that I didn�t like MadFox� previous maps :)

I was just wondering what the pent on the island was supposed for ?!
The mines were overall my favorite part, nice atmosphere and the trolley ride is just great. 

From the screenshots, remembers some of the hipnotic maps... Maybe a tribute ? 

There are more than a couple of homages to hipnotic maps in this one ;-)

Good stuff, Madfox. A considerable improvement, brushwork-wise, over your other maps. The layout was good, I didn't get as lost as I have in some of your maps. The textures were good, thanks mainly to Starbuck's 24-bit TGAs I still have on my hard-drive, but I still am baffled by some of the wood-tech or brick-tech combos you use (O_o) Overall a nice, challenging, large map with some serious atmosphere in parts. Good job!


P.S. Please re-skin that worm ;-) 

Time: 43:17

Secrets: 2/3

Kills: 158/159

Your maps seem to get better and better with time, Madfox. This map felt gigantic, like two levels combined, i think due in part to the layout, which had you running everywhere. You really seem to be fantastic at creating layouts, definetly not the "hallway-room-hallway" style.
The map was fun to play itself, with a nice mix of base and standard monsters.
Some of the texture combinations were strange, like the rock island with the pentagram that was textured with a base texture on its top.


I remember the Wyrm from the Virtus levels. I remember it being cool back in the day, before i had an internet connection and before i had gotten the mission packs. Deathmatch Maker sucked so much it almost turned me off mapping, as i couldn't align any of my brushes. If i can find the CD somewhere, i'll upload the Virtus mission pack, that while not having many good levels, is good for a laugh in parts. 

Well, I replayed the map for the... let's say 4th time including beta test sessions, and as I already told you, I had a lot of fun playing it. It is effectively a huge map, with a lot of area to explore. BTW I didn't find all the secrets...
Globally I can't add something different but others said.

Nevertheless, just questions: wasn't this map supposed to be part of the base pack initially ? So do you plan to participate to the Base pack, or do you "resign" ? 

looks not bad but there are many maps styled better. the biggest + is that the map is really big and the gameplay isn't so linear as someone said "room -> hallway -> room" :)

it's really big map, plays fun but i had problems with ammo and way out from some rooms :) 

...thanx for raising that point again, I think it got lost in the transfer of threads.

Madfox, this is again a vast improvement on your previous work. Right at the end I got very confused as to how to progress but overall I must agree with Ionous in that you have a great mind for layouts.

I loved the room with the cyclotron. I thought the collapsing ground in the mine was a bit cheap. I believe you could spend more time optimizing vore placement (I played normal, and fights with them were mostly quite boring). Despite the haphazard texturing on the actual vehicle, the whole gondola experience was very satisfying.

I remain a fan, in awe of your imagination. 

Cool map, gave me some 45 minutes of good time. I liked the style and layout. The gameplay was also good. I liked the encounters, one or two bigger battles would be welcome though. On normal skill it wasn't hard to survive. Ammo and health distribution was ok for me. I didn't use most of the MH's.
I liked the rocky outdoor area with the lift a lot.
Here is a demo of the first run:
http://shub-hub.quaddicted.com/files/demos_singleplayer/phantom_ankh.dz 

I played the beta of this from the Base pack thread, had me thinking it was actually going to be part of that pack. Anyway, nice layout and sense of 'place'. I think the realistic style (as opposed to trying to fit abstract brushwork to a theme) made it reminiscent of SoA as well as the obviously inspiration from the mine level (hip1m4?). There was quite a lot of weird texture choices and crude brushwork that gave it a slightly unpolished look in some areas, but the imaginative and non-boxy environments somehow helped to suppress those occasional bits of ugly.
Gameplay was quite forgiving giving it a relaxed pace, but was interspersed with cinematic fights in areas like the reactor room. The lack of a good end fight was a bit of a let down though.
Keep on mapping.. 

Thanks for your answers, fine you enjoyed the map. I've been so involved in making it, I'm glad to find some first impressions of others.
Because I had some strange days behind me, I'll try to relate to some answers.

m. : last screen HL2, I don't have HL2 but it obviously could.

Shambler: there is really a positive neutrino in you.

eisenfresser: I tried to make the gameflow as logical as I could. Because I had no funcs left I couldn't place messages so I expected the player to explore. And as always, how bigger the map, how sharper the decission in setting marks.

ijed: I never managed to make a shorter runthrough than 40 minutes, so granny you aren't. The Gondola had some errors caused by the slopes of the caves. I couldn't change them without loosing the track of the monorail. Can you give me a screenshot of the part where you felt through, I would like to explore it.
First most of the textures were scaled up double because of the lightmap max. True clipping could have helped but I was out of brushes.

Trinca: You ain't have got nothing yet without the Quoth monsters.

Silent: It took quiet some time before I had the newboss working. It isn't the bouncing box. Searched a long time, but as the newboss kept shooting from the bottem it got stuck on the lavaborder. I sended you the level for testing, but youre email failed.

Orl: Sure it is dark, it is a mine shaft, it was much darker before untill I was told there are engines with other lux-settings. JoeQuake made a grey impression so I had a light level of 40.

Sielwolf: The pentagram was more a lead you through to the silver key door. But as I played it so much the keen impression on it somehow perished.

fragmachine: True, as I started the idea of the lost mine thing I reproduced the first start of the DOE map.

generic: it's good to see it with RPG new textures although the animated ones will look a little pale. And as I decided to use classic Quake textures they may look a little odd.
You may think the newboss is from DMmaker, but I started the model from scratch, reason it looks so queer. Making a base frame for a monster can be a hazeardous job, as I experienced. Not talking about qc.

ionous: One of my favourites was to make that newboss working. I never saw it in a map, while I think there are more people who have DeathMatch Maker. The only map I ever saw it in had it wrecked through three stages. But it worked, and I couldn't guess how.

m: I didn't have no func_messages left or I had to delete some essential logic.

jpl: I posted this level because I know it will be part of the base pak but without earthquakes and explosions. And as the Quoth monsters are much sharper it would have been an easy peace of cake if you play it first in Quoth. So yes, still participating in the Quoth pak, as the updated level in the supported link for Quoth mappers shows.

distrans:the collapsing ground may be cheap, but if I had made the eartquake a bit bigger (as I first planned) it would have been really to hard. I had this argue before in GruntGrenedin. And I have the feeling that how longer I work on a map, how harder it gets to remind the players first look.

ankh: thanks for your demo! I had made some but died everytime on the last part(grr), will try it again.

omus: there was a point I had this map ready but no gameplay. I never thought it would be so difficult to find a gameplay that touches all places without making it dull.

Glad to have made this one, I liked the proxsys mod and I would like to make a map for it. First I wanted to do something with the func_water_train in the big cave part. It didn't work out because of the large area so the water dissapeared.

Thanks for your reply!
Quake1 rules... 

SO sorry for the big time sucking of my mail host... Now I have changed my default email in my func account, and that will work for sure... SO sorry I didn't make it for testing... The map is very good/fantastic even though there might be some issues to be pointed at, I'll try to record a short demo of the many places where you fall through the scenery(many? Not so much, but at least 4 or 5,if I remember correctly). But, all in all a very welcome offering in Q1 mapping scene. Keep it up! (And drop me a mail next time you wanna test something, be it a new level or a tuna sandwich ; )) 

Interesting map, good fun to play through and well worth it, with a few spectacular scenes.

Good:

Scale, some impressive architecture, fun and fairly well balanced gameplay, never too desperate but plenty of interesting combats, mines were pretty cool, some effects used well, canyon and cable car were excellent, consistent theme, interesting progression and revisiting areas.

Bad:

Texturing was often fairly poor, some random texture choices and errors, could have been smoother visually, some more details and "themed" designs would have helped, some areas a bit weaker, lack of endgame was disappointing, some areas really needed an easy way back to other areas in case you fell off something.

In short: Keep the gameplay, keep the style and inspiration, work on the texturing and thematic polish - and keep mapping! 

I just saw your demo Ankh, and was really surprised by the way you played the game.
Did not held it for possible how you managed to jump over the crates to the windtunnel, nor the way you found the hom near the upper wheel.
You are not supposed to be there, but I thought you knew that.

I tried to make a demo myself, but the strange thing has overcome me I can't. Tried four times and won't succeed. It seems the mine has lost my thing. Still trying.

Shambler, I know I have a totally defeated look for textures, first all was scaled up for two. As I see my way of mapping, it is more a accident than a way of knowing. 

I was fooling around a bit. Didn't try grenade jumping to not break the supposed route.
Did you say you can't finish your own map without dying?! You must try harder :) Maybe someone from the speedrunning scene could record a fast demo on this map to show you what is possible.