i got stuck and gave up around 48 monster kills. still waiting for a demo to be put out where i can watch how to beat it. ankh's demo died half way through

really friggin awesome map though, very inspiring! :) 

there is than's demo in this thread 

Every second of it, but not quite as much near the very end. Enforcers were awesome and nicely placed. Less intense gameplay than in Dis_sp6, and no random "BEHIND YOU!" moments. I like horde combat but I can appreciate the time and planning involved with this much more.
Ending reminded me of the tentacles from Half Life. 

In my view, gameplay and monster count/usage was perfect as it did create the desolate feel for me that scar3crow missed. In fact, the map reminded me very much of my early Quake experiences. Being trapped in a strange, threatening, somewhat scary, claustrophobic place with tight damp corridors and dark water everywhere. Playing with the soundtrack really reinforced this, as Spirit also pointed out. Getting lost adds to this feeling, even though I agree it can become somewhat annoying after a while if one is not into this mood. I got lost a couple of times myself - the partially submerged room with the crates seems to be a critical spot in this respect (heh). The one with the GL. After all, it's not so bad really, as long as one follows the arrows and the trail of bodies (than did a good job here - you'll see if you replay the map).
Ultimately (for me), this map is not about action and carnarge but about atmosphere, and making it more difficult would have distracted from this.

How would one go about increasing the difficulty anyway? A larger number of monsters would have felt inappropriate and out of place (when I played an alpha version of this map, it had even fewer monsters which emphasized the focus on exploration and being lost in an unfamilar environment). So the only real alternative would be to turn more of the regular monsters into Quoth enemies which would certainly increase the challenge, but also make gameplay just annoying and destroy the atmosphere or the special appeal of this map.

This has probably been discussed many times. The general skill level of Quake players has increased greatly over the years, so naturally there is a demand for an corresponding increase in challenge. Even many of the reviews at UWF, for example, use a lower monster count or too easy gameplay as a negative criterion. At first I appreciated tougher maps myself (and still do occasionally), but after having played so (too) many maps for Quaddicted, I came to realize that overly hard gameplay is somewhat contrary to what I originally liked about Quake. More often than not it makes playing the map feel like work and either becomes boring or frustrating.

A possible solution could be to make the three skill levels more clearly refined (and make players aware of it). Skill 0 as very easy, one could maybe say realistic in terms of monstercount; skill 1 as mildly challenging (a matter of definition of course, let's say not harder than id skill 2); skill 2 as suited for the hardcore players, though not as insane as NSOE, except maybe if there are enough extra items like quads and pents for the oldschool touch. 

So I'm inline with your opinion regarding the skill setting for may latest map

BTW: I said I loved the map, it is true as I played it on all the skills.. and it is definitely a killer map ! 

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/apsp2_sham.zip

Don't want than to feel underloved in the demo stakes.

I died in this, not sure why, some silly mistake. Completed it straight after. 

you are the little explorer, aren't you? Trying to jump off every possible surface and take all the trick jumps you can is going to lead to a quick death :)

You died because you moved forward a bit too fast in a part of the level where slow advancement is easy. You went and triggered a bunch of enemies then ignored them and continued to proceed, leaving them to come up behind you.

By the way, there is a way to get the rl at the start, but you need to be quick and not kill the guy that is going to give you a hand. Anyway, as you saw later, good things come (easily) to those who wait. 

I died because your bloody lift squashed me and took off 45 health. If it hadn't then I'd have gone into that area with 100% and survived :P. 

Forgot to comment on this earlier.
While DM settings are of course useless in most SP maps, I still think it's nice to have them - however basic - for the sake of completeness and, again, oldschoolness.
Back in the days, pretty much all SP maps had DM settings. I doubt many people ever played most custom maps in this mode, though, except for the authors maybe. However, as has been mentioned, at least the id maps were played in DM sometimes for casual players didn't have the skills they have today (and the notion of how a proper DM map has to be like in terms of layout, flow etc hadn't been developed this clearly). It's also about the number of players, of course - 1on1 doesn't work in most maps (will be boring - by today's standards).
Still, I you want to feel whole, take a day off and place some additional items/teleporters/spawnflags, it isn't that much more work really. Plus you can play the map with the DMSP mod. 

the exploration was almost always good, i only got truly confused once, which was where to go right before getting the silver key (the ladder went up to two floors, and i went all the way up, which merely led back to an earlier part of the level; i didn't realize at first that halfway up was where i should be going.)

I got the rocket launcher right at the start using trick jumps on the crates.

The message about "all these cells, must be a lightning gun" was exactly what i WAS thinking a second earlier :)

This was as well put together and vertical as apsp1, and makes me wonder sometimes how you keep the player's route figured out when staring at it in the editor :)

Details were excellent, many rooms were screenshot-worthy. 

Good effort on getting the RL, did you do it w/out an Enforcer blast? If so, how? 180' slope jump off the angled crate to the stack? Seemed quite hard with the bridge just above you. 

From the floor, I use the slope of the leaning crate to bump me up at the peak of a jump. Here's a demo:

http://celephais.net/shite/apsp2_rl.zip 

Okay, me and everyone else were thinking one had to get onto the NEXT crate up to get the RL, I had no idea it was possible to grab it from a single crate height.

Than you need to watch that LOL. 

...
I'm going to release a fixxored version of this map now. Too many little annoying things and people getting insanely lost despite the abundance of arrows pointing the way around (see sleepy's demo. OMFG! ARGH! AGRH! I was screaming at him as I watched him traipse around for ages looking for the door he just opened.) 

if you do, be sure to fix the nail box inside the health box in one of the little stairway bits. (on skill 1, at least) 

We ALL got lost, didn't we? :) The path is always clear to the author. Heh. 

...was the point. Deal with it, people. This ain't E1M1. 

would be to give the player a bunch of extra hints on Easy mode only.

And how about that coop mode while you're at it? :) 

That jump is so very hard I don't think it is a "bug".

I thought about hints for players who don't find the way. One could use metl's logic gates TM and have it trigger maybe all 3 minutes after an event happened and until the player passes through the way that event enabled.

Random example:
Player picks up Gold Key -> Gate is open.
A. Player finds Gold Door and passes through -> Gate is closed
B. Player wanders around sad and lonely with no idea where to go, x minutes pass, Shooter shoots and message is sent: "You remember a Gold Door somewhere near the blah at the blubb". Player finds Gold Door and passes through -> Gate is closed

This would be a pretty cheap hack if testing shows problems, it won't affect the "good" player at all but help the "bad" one. 

and move on. 

"...was the point. Deal with it, people. This ain't E1M1."

Than's comment gave me the impression that you're wrong on this.

He said: "Too many little annoying things and people getting insanely lost despite the abundance of arrows pointing the way around"

So he feels the way is clearly marked. 

Oh, and I agree with nitin. There's no point in releasing a new version - it's awesome as it is. Move on to the next map instead of agonizing over perfecting this one. :) 

The one onto the single slanting crate??

Are you sure http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/apsp2_rl2.zip ?? 

...the point I'm making is that intense and complex exploration is part of this map. It's a different style of Quake and is sold as such, well that's the impression I got anyway... 

So overall: exploration is rewarded in this map. I think it is good as it definitely breaks the linearity some Quake maps are suffering, and than's map deserve to be rewarded for this !
A beer for the mapper ;)