"I wish you would respect my vision for this map, I designed it to look a certain way. There is nothing forced about my settings, you can delete the pak1.pak file if you want. "

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I was just mentioning to barnak that he could delete the pak1.pak file if he wanted to play this with a mod (DMSP). The 'forces' reference was in relation to the quake.rc doing it (because thats what it does although I should have probably said overrides maybe), not you :) 

Not sure what I did when I came to this point-of-no-return drop down. I think I just dropped haha.

Here's a demo: www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/demos/ivroy.dem

Half the time I was drinking my cappuccino, hence long pauses, haha, then the last part is me noclipping around seeing what I missed because there were still 10 enemies left. I only found one simple secret. Kind of feel like I need to replay it because I must have missed quite a bit - that's the problem with having so many secret areas in what is actually a pretty short level anyway. I would have only had a couple secrets, the rest can be part of the playable level, but then I've never been much of a secret hunter.

Like your last one, it was a bit disorientating at times, maybe because the layout goes back on itself so much, almost too much because you stuck to get confused. I did anyway.

On the other hand, the style here is fantastic. I love the darkness, and the texture usage, it's a really unique level actually and definitely goes in the pile of levels to replay every now and again. I like a short blast. The atmosphere reminds me of The Crawling Chaos. And it has a sense of belonging, with the mine, rather than just being random Quake level with no purpose.

The end battle... I'm not a huge fan of the crushing machines, it makes it too easy. Shambler and Vore broke it up, but hell I would put them in at the same time, cause some real chaos. 

10/10 secrets found. I'm starting to understand your clues Sock :) 

That is a lot of negative, but I very much liked it sock.
@scar3crow, no what you said is perfect, the map is actually broken. The primary route to the gold key (overall map objective) is not clearly designed and encourages players to wander around lost, not really a good design.
@Kona, yeah the last battle was a bit of an after thought, I ran out of time and ideas. :/
@distrans, I was hoping this map would break from the usual pattern I use for secrets. I tried to use less demon doors and more variety. I assume it was better this time around as no one has commented.

Thanks everyone for the demo's, I don't plan to watch anymore as most people just seem to be wandering around lost and frustrated. A disappointing release on my part, especially after all the effort I put into creating the broken/organic brushwork. (Any mapper will know how time consuming it is to create that stuff) Some hard lessons learnt with this release that I plan to apply to my next release! 

This was a great map. I have played it a bunch of times now and I love the none-linear gameplay. Plus, as a mapper, I hella appreciate the amount of work gone into the design. Even the subtle ground/rock blended textures you used to fake alpha terrain mapping were noticed :)

Nothing wrong with breaking out the comfort zone and making something different! 

this is not 'broken' in any sense of the word! 

You are being awfully hard on yourself, I found this map to be excellent. Architecture, gameplay, lighting, it was all two thumbs up. And truth be told, I don't mind a bit of exploration, I find it adds plenty of replayability to a map, rather than it being just a straight linear path all throughout.

You'll see in my demo, not once did I get lost, or appear to be frustrated. If I'm looking around, it just means I'm appreciating the scenery and brushwork you have accomplished. Ivory Tower gets an A+ from me.

First run demo, hard skill. http://qrf.servequake.com/~orl/misc/orl_ivory.zip

Should play back in any engine. 

The players are just dumb. 

a very negke-ish comment :-)

I hope to review this next week and I am super looking forward to it.

Seeing new design ideas in theory, practice and debate is also fascinating. Sock has definitely brought fresh air to the musty vaults of Q1SP. 

Yeah I definitely wouldn't call this a disappointing release sock. While I kinda felt like I was on the verge of being lost, I don't think I ever actually got lost (did I?) and always seemed to be on the correct path. GK and gk door all popped up when they were supposed to.

It's the kind of non-linear map that would be even better on a second playthrough.

Maybe slightly more variety in texturing and a tiny bit more linearity would help in future? But I still loved the architecture and texturing! 

Basically, this map rocks.

Anyone who gets completely lost is a dome.

Getting a little bit lost is good fun and adds to the atmosphere.

Pixels in Quake suck dick and deleting pak1 should be default. 

Having the start map as a little chunk of the main map was a great touch. 

I think watching first-run demos can mislead and lead to valvefication if you try to cater. I did get lost or at least felt that way but if I had known that the map intended to be very open I guess would have reacted differently. Having a challenge in spatial navigation is not a bad thing. I definitely prefer it to the way HL2 (iirc) or Portal 2 removed any kind of choice.

In your maps everything is so detailed that it can get overwhelming. :D 

Sock, if you go and make a fully linear map after this, I'll find you and skin you alive! 

Avoid valvefication in Q1SP. 

 

When a mapper goes out of their comfort zone to do something different it's not too much for players to do so as well.

These personal projects in q1 are bathed in personalized touches, if they weren't they'd never get made. Larger, commercialized efforts have all the personal touches removed and blanded away. 

sock, you wrote earlier that you interpret people "wagging" their mouse as them venting their frustration. I'm not sure if that's true. I think you are reading too much into this, I don't think that this map is overly frustrating. And a bit of frustration is not necessarily a bad thing, because it will give the player a feeling of accomplishment when they finish a map that was hard for them to master. It's certainly more interesting than an easy map where the player moves through a shooting gallery as if on rails. 

"Getting a little bit lost is good fun and adds to the atmosphere."

is what is missing from a lot of modern games and might be why players react the way they do in first run demos. They are just not used to it (anymore). 

I don't remember what the last Call of Duty game I bought was called, it was several years ago. I got so pissed off at the stupid brain-dead game play (go here, you are leaving the... etc) that I swore to never buy another game in that series, and I haven't. 

 

Exploring is a lost art with Q1SP maps and this was a breath of fresh air! Loved it.

If you need handholding get outside your box and take a chillpill, then go explore!

What I would really love, is if a mapper would make a really close quarters claustrophopic catacombe map..with zombies..yeah lots of zombies! 

I tried to not get lost, and got more lost than last time. I think I accidentally got on top of the first lift. Of course it still all made perfect sense with a bit of exploring. Really enjoyed it on second replay. Got 10/10 secrets and then died on the very last Shambler by running under a descending crusher. I ROCK. 

Some of my wandering was just sniffing for secrets, hopping up bits of stones. I liked the freeform aspect of the level, but by the time I found the gold door, (not just looking up at it from far below) I was on a quad-SNG rampage. If I had encountered the gold door earlier, the wandering would've been in pursuit of the gold key, rather than "Now where do I go?"

Also, sad times that you didn't check the demo, it was hand-hex-edited by LordHavoc to make it playback correctly. 

deleting pak1 should be default.
Bah, you will miss out on my super dooper models, did anyone check out the new backpack! :)

@FifthElephant, I was wondering if anyone would notice the special texture blends I created. I really miss being able to to do proper texture blending with Quake. I don't think I am too hard on myself, I always want to produce the best map I can and if something is wrong I need to know/accept what is wrong and correct it in the next release.

@Orl, awesome thanks I will check out your demo this weekend.

@negke, if players are stuck then it is a design problem, but I do believe players nowadays are not too struck on exploration.

@Kona, the map is certainly designed for several playthrough's, I don't think you can appreciate every route choice in one session.

@Shambler, I was wondering if anyone noticed the skill selection is the main map but in the past. There are a lot of subtle hints, floor/step changes, building design. I liked the idea because it nicely links to the story, what was the ivory tower before gold!
What did you think of the secrets this time around? You said the last map was not much fun finding secrets, how does this one compare?

@Spirit, I got the impression you did not like the map because of your rating on Quad. This map is certainly not for everyone.

@onetruepurple, my next map is going to be hub style like backstein but with the ability to play sections of it in reverse (via switches)

@ijed, this map is certainly an experiment, but I got some good feedback on what is wrong.

@SleepwalkR, very good point, I never thought of the frustration as way to increase accomplishment. Certainly is why Dark Souls is so good, the challenge.

@nitin, yeah modern games rarely do non-linear layouts because they can be so hit or miss with players. They are really a niche thing.

@ARRgh, glad you liked it! :)

@scar3crow, Don't worry I will check out your demo this weekend, I have downloaded it. :)