Cool map, nice style. Enjoyed the gameplay until after the GK, then it got silly and far too Quothy, godmoded the rest and glad I did as I wouldn't have enjoyed the final arena. Very coherently done although I agree it's a bit too dark. Spent a lot of time not finding the MH nor plasma secrets, grrrr. 

@rj:
Thanks a lot for your feedback.
I know that Hell-ish / Doom3-ish theme is not the cup of tea of all the players here. I also understand that darkness made the map artificially harder than it is, but it was really intentional in order to put the emphasis onto the atmosphere. Regarding all the comments, I should have made the end battle longer, maybe with weaker monsters..

@Drew
A shame you can't show me your demo ;)
About the Drole, it is cool you are saying you've been scared in this area.. it was exactely the effect I was looking for, like: "cool this the end.. errr not really, damn.."

@Shambler:
Shambler, shame on you for godmoding :P !! Anyway, the most important is that you globally enjoyed the map...

So I am going to give some help for secrets:

1st secret: the trigger is in the first part just after the first bar moves: shoot the lightened demon face (right in between the eyes), and downstairs a door opens

2nd secret: in the ogre area, on the left, a stone can be pushed. It opens a door in the entry hall

3rd secret: in the ogre area, after jumping over the hole, just look at the Doom3-ish door, on the right top under the platform, there a small switch in a corner, shoot it: a second door will move near the 2nd secret location

4th secret: look at the bars where the MH is located, turn back (i.e 180 degrees rotation) and look at bar that maintain the rocks at the entry, there's a small skull right in the middle, shoot it

5th secret: in the vore area, under the big arch, there a wood lightened skull: shoot it, a wall will move that gives access to the platform.

Again, thanks a lot for all the provided feedback ;) 

Awesome map, JPL! For some reason I hadn't played your other medieval maps when they came out, so I just played 5rivers and CDA this summer and enjoyed them a lot as well.
The atmosphere was really great - the skybox, sounds, floating teleport platforms, etc. all worked really well. I thought the gameplay was maybe your best as well.. like rj, I had around 50 health most of the time so it was tense, but never unfair (only died because of a stupid mistake on my part with the RL.) 

like negke I was expecting something more epic given the development time and your past maps.

Still a solid map with nice atmosphere.

Gameplay wise, it was hardish till you got the RL, after which it was too easy. 

@erics:
I am glad you liked the map. Now you have to play others from me and post feedback ;)

@nitin:
I am aware that the map is not perfect, and that some improvements can be made in some areas here and there particularly after the RL as you mentioned... I think I was pissed of delaying and delaying the release month after month... and at some point I had to move forward. Looking back to the past year, I just realized that I started with plenty of time for my hobbies, and that it ended up (as it is today) without any free time for neither mapping nor playing (not even for windsurf that is the most terrible one)....
My job is eating me more and more each day...

Anyway, thanks a lot to all the good feedback you wrote, for all the support and the good advices I got from you guys. I hope to be able to sort out something this year... but not sure at all actually :/ ... oh, and this is not a farewell post ;) 

Hey JPL, I was wondering if you can release a version that links CDA, gateway to hell, and 5 rivers together? I found the beginnings of this map and 5 rivers a little hard, but I think it would be easier if I had the weapons from the previous maps, would like to try that. Thanks. 

I had this idea back when I played GTH. What a fantabulous episode are these 3 maps! Although, my order goes CDA > GTH > 5Rivers: The first two obviously link together... Then, in GTH, you might skip the final teleport back to the start arena (GTH has plenty of good backtracking value anyway) and jump straight at the beginning of 5Rivers!

Technically, i don't know if CDA as a non-Quoth map is easy to mix with the other ones. And there's also Yhe1's question about the weapons...

This might add a great replay value to your maps. You can also keep the standalone versions available ftr.

JPL's Q1SP "Helldrive" epidode? 

 

It sounds definitely a good idea, I have to admit it... and I guess it was inconsiently the goal of these 3 maps..
The basic problem I have is that I don't know how to do so without having to recompile everything... and CDA is the bigest one (i.e fullvis is about 1218 hours...) and also because I am unable to find where I saved the project... (shame on me...)
Other problem is that CDA is not Quoth-based unfortunately... and CDA does not work in Quoth mod... I would have to rework it

At the end remains a basic question: is there any good method to change trigger_change_level's target field modifying the bsp only ?

Any idea ? 

can easily be changed in the bsp with a simple hex editor. I did it many times in the past, as a simple way to link single maps I liked in an episode of some sort. I can pm you the process in detail if you wish! 

Whatever you edit (in this case, the map name between quotes), you have to keep the exact same number of digits. One single digit more or less ruins the bsp integrity. Adding spaces between the quoted elements works. You'll sometimes need to rename the target bsp file itself.

For instance:

{
"classname" "trigger_changelevel"
"map" "abcabcabc"
"model" "*92"
}

Can be edited like this:

{
"classname" "trigger_changelevel"
"map" [add 6 x 'space' here]"xyz"
"model" "*92"
} 

and I think Aguirre has a program that allows you to edit the entities, I used it to change the incomplete nail goblin into the nail enforcer in badpak. 

Let me try it on my bsp file, I'll keep you posted... In case it does not work, I'll contact aguirRe: I am pretty sure he will help me for this ;) ... though....

Another problem is the (CDA )non-Quoth-based map vs the Quoth-based maps.. Basically the main issue is about monster spawning method that is not the same in CDA and Quoth-based maps. I tried yesterday to run CDA with Quoth, and all the spawning monsters weer already present in the map... the spawning flag are not recognized there... Hence I am not confortable to perform this changes...
I still have to investigate to see how I can solve these issues, else making such trigger_change_level target field change will not make sense at all.

Anyway, stay tuned ;) 

I think Aguirre's program can edit to spawn flags too, he fixed the monster not spawning in terra4 

one way to edit bsps is to copy out the entity lump and save it as a .map, then edit the .map, then run qbsp -onlyents to update the entities.

(The entity lump is basically the part of the bsp that looks the same as a map file. The only difference is there are no brushes, instead the brush entities will have e.g. "model" "*13" to indicate which bsp model they are connected with.) 

wasn't there a program which you could run on any .bsp, which would generate a .ent file which you could then edit, and then recompile the map with -onlyents? I recall (something like) this being pretty useful. 

I opened a bsp file this morning (at work) with notepad++, and all the entities are clearly visible, and can be modified easily... even spawnflags. I have been able to locate trigger_change_level in all the map, as I guess changing spawnflag value is not a big deal either (I even guess replacing some monsters in CDA maybe a good idea as well... though....)

I know have to experiment in order to determine whether I'll corrupt the bsp or not with these changes... sounds good in anyway :) 

I can confirm bspinfo -copyents, renaming it to .map and running qbsp -onlyents works. I successfully fixed necros' episode 1 map like this. Note that you must also run light -onlyents if the map has switchable light styles.

Simply editing with the .bsp with a text editor does not work. It will corrupt the file. Simple changes can be made if they don't change any line/character count - usually done in a hex editor (Notepad++ plugin), like JohnXmas describes.

Of course it would be best if you could just find the original source. And if you're considering changing some of the monsters, be sure to also fix potential difficulty imbalances and other item placement error that might have been in the original map.
Needless to say, combinding those four (five) maps would also require making a proper start map. Heh, you could even make a traditional episode with a base map at the beginning. Like that bunker level or yours, reworked to have a slipgate inside (and please toned down in terms of monster count/difficulty). 

negke, please team up with necros to finalise that map and have it released! 

The map source is lost, so it'll remain an alpha/tech demo forever. 

I opened a bsp file this morning (at work) with notepad++, and all the entities are clearly visible, and can be modified easily... even spawnflags. I have been able to locate trigger_change_level in all the map, as I guess changing spawnflag value is not a big deal either (I even guess replacing some monsters in CDA maybe a good idea as well... though....)

You do have to be careful with direct editing of the entity lump, because if you change the size by inserting or deleting characters then you'll likely end up corrupting the bsp file. I spent a while hacking l4d2 maps with a hex editor though, and there are tricks to making this work. In quake at least you have a safer option of just extracting the entities (either copy-paste from your text editor, or use adquedit) then running an onlyents compilation.

Some engines even support external .ent files which makes testing your changes without committing them much easier. 

what did you fix then? I thought the doors, since those seem to be the only thing to fix for me. 

So the doors and buttons move correctly and the monsters look into the right direction.
What I didn't do, but necros could/should have, is a point sized trigger_changelevel (possibly with "model" "progs/player.mdl") in the E1M7 shaft to allow for a proper SP experience. 

Bah, cannot make the changes through text editor... map is jumping to small name map that when "5rivers_e1" is quite long... it sucks...

I can confirm bspinfo -copyents, renaming it to .map and running qbsp -onlyents works. I successfully fixed necros' episode 1 map like this. Note that you must also run light -onlyents if the map has switchable light styles.

Can you provide bspinfo tool please ? I am unable to locate it over the inernet :(

Thanks a lot in advance ;) 

... forget it.. I found it on aguirRe's website... ;)