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. 

underworldfan's reviews are backed up here: http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/underworld/ 

Nah its fine, I just wanted to see what the latest stuff was and get a better understand of what everyone is doing. (The current mappers) I will work my way back through the last 6 months of news posts and just try out stuff. 

6 mths back will make you miss some classics though (Nehahra, czg07, lunsp1 and lunsp2, apsp03, gmsp03 to name a few).

Underworldfan's Hall of Fame sections are also worth looking at for the slightly older maps. 

when did that happen? 

or am I dreaming? 

I wanted to play this map again and enjoy it, as the secrets i found were interesting, and the architecture. But geezus, the washed out colours identifying the three towers, you'd need to be pressing F11 (zoom) all map just to sort them out. 

Sure I don't mind playing another Q1 map and recording a demo but I got no idea what or where is 'Skinny Norris' and how to record a demo in Q1. 

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60256&start=61

;) 

Yes, got it. I will try and play that today and record a demo. Looks awesome from the screenshot. :) 

http://lunaran.com/pics/lunsp2/ 

will check my quake dir when the computer is fixed.

btw, zombie knight looks awesome. 

Wow that is hard on skill 0, died after 6 minutes and the pacing felt all wrong to me. Before I had a chance to explore there were ogres, enforcers and rocket grunts trying to kill me and I had no room to move around! Coupled with a tiny elevator shaft that had AI spawning on my head, it was crazy. I will try again later and post in the right thread. 

I that one hasn't been released, yet.
But it's "actively in development".

http://lunaran.com/

Can't wait. 

Are you possibly thinking of lun's Teleporter Madness speedmap?

smqe08d_lun.bsp.