The saving jerk might be minimize-able. 

umm, and about placement, basically make sure the player doesn't have to re-do difficult or time consuming tasks, like a puzzle, a trap gauntlet, a jumping / platforming thingy, or a larger fight.

The #1 reason for frustration is "Oh no, now I have to do all that crap again just to get back to where I was." So after the player did "all that crap", ie beat a challenge, give them a savepoint / checkpoint.

In complex, Half-Lifey maps the checkpoint density is going to be higher than in DOOMish maps, naturally. 

Did you guys see my autosave engine patch? It saves when you pick up health (with certain restrictions, like no more frequently than every 30 seconds).

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60172&start=320

I've been playing a lot of maps with it over the past few weeks and it works pretty well; the slight pause is only noticeable on really big maps. I couldn't go back to manual saving again! 

The #1 reason for frustration is "Oh no, now I have to do all that crap again just to get back to where I was." So after the player did "all that crap", ie beat a challenge, give them a savepoint / checkpoint.

The #1 reason for frustration is the crap itself. Make good maps, then there is no need for holding the player's hands. 

I love czg03, but if I died in the middle without having quicksaved I wouldn't be willing to replay it from the start all over again. 

MAX_MAP_NODES

Only came up with it during a compile with a leak, after fixing that it hasn't, but again, curious as to exactly what it's refering to :) 

Zealousness.

http://qbism.com/index.php?topic=12.0;wap2

Written by AguirRe (Bengt Yardrup who wrote TxQBSP and TreeQBSP, and the core of the lighting and vis tools which most of us use) the above linked document contains a lot of explanations for a lot of the errors and warnings. 

i agree with otp over spirit re: replay frustration. just because something is fun when you first play it through it doesn't mean that being forced to imminently repeat it all will be fun too. and even if it isn't a particularly *fun* section, getting through it the once will probably feel rewarding. erase that reward and then it just becomes frustrating..

so this is a positive development 

Thanks Ricky :)

Also, I'm finding some ideas where a single map probably isn't enough to fully demonstrate and tutor the player. You want to have a unique sequence, but it may just be impossible to fully equip the player before they go in. This is particularly true if you are making something trap infested.

Although it's bad practice to expect the player to need to repeat something, I think it is unavoidable in many places. It's also a very easy situation to reach if you want to challenge the player. Showing the player exactly what's going to happen and when, AND giving them a really tough challenge (which I want to do for skill 2) is very very difficult.

I think it's an issue for skill 0 and 1 which are the skills I'm most worried about getting wrong. If you don't have thick skin then skill 2 isn't for you period. 

Plus I happen to think that if you aren't dying at least a bit you aren't *really* being challenged. Thinking how much I died trying to get through the mega hard WADS of Doom 2. You do get a sick satisfaction out of it, even if you did quick save a lot. 

http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/koohoo_lightning.avi

No actual rain there, I don't really remember why. Anyways, i love the atmosphere of that. Used Quoth and samples from the freesound library iirc. 

nice! 

that is really really awesome looking (and sounding!) spirit.

i actually remember when you first posted that like... a couple of years ago, and it's still great. it's amazing what a few sounds and flickering lights can do. 

anyone got a dl link handy? I seem to have lost my installer :P

Also, I just upgraded to an i7 system at Christmas so if anyone has any vis-killing maps they want compiled feel free to throw them my way and I'll throw them at it :) 

I think it's there. 

 

I'm having a really strange and annoying problem with a particular section in my map. The player won't step up the third stair step in the image, even though it's the same height (16 units) as the other steps, but when hugging the wall it works, otherwise the player has to jump up the step. Weird thing is this staircase was copied from another area, and the other one works just fine. I even tried making it from scratch again, deleting the curved walls and trim surrounding it to see if that would fix the problem, but no luck. No thin faces/microbrushes/etc shows up in error searches either.

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9302/tmpquark000070.jpg

my brain 

The way the stairs is build certainely create a clip that prevent the player to move forward.
It happens generally at the junction of 2 polygons... It happens sometimes.

What you can do is to add a very tiny clip brush onto the faulty are in order cover the stair and prevent the issue....
You can also check the polygon corner coordinates to check whether it is still on-grid after copy-paste... and correct it if it is not the case... 

I have some armour resting on a 16 unit wide bar. When I load the map, it is not there and I do not see a 'bonus item fell out of level' message. Is there a minimum amount of 'support' that is required to hold armour in place - I tried a clip brush and that had no effect.

I have a horrible feeling that this is one of those things that everyone else knows about except me! 

Maybe try making the stairs a func_wall, or even making each stair a func_wall? Spiral staircases are pain :-/ 

I think the item needs a ground that's at least four units wider than the bbox - 40*40 in this case. No "fell out" warning suggests the armor only falls through the bar and ends up on the floor below. If you don't want to make the bar wider or make it two, you could use one of those self-removing func_walls to make the armor float on the bar. 

And the armour needs at least 32 head-height 

@JPL: I understood it was a clipping issue, but I didn't get why it was occuring. As I said, I removed the copied stairs and remade them from scratch (and yes, on grid), removed the brushes surrounding the stairs in case they for some reason caused the issue, but it still didn't work. And it only happened to that particular step, no others. Turning them into func_walls did nothing, so I ended up doing as you said and made a small clip brush in front of the offending brush, and that seemed to do the trick. Still have no idea why it occured in the first place though... 

Glad you found a solution ;) 

All items need a total height of 60 (4 higher than their bbox). So maybe the 16 bar wasn't the problem, just the low ceiling? This my editors that only display the models are counterproductive and the reason so many maps have missing items and stuck monsters.