@Daz, thank you for the video review! :D It was awesome to see you play through the start map and explain some of the stuff I did. There is a couple of things you did not mention, like the gradual introduction of new pickups items to get the player familiar with how they look and showing the player the different types of buttons, shoot or hit. (they have a consistent visual language, something I have tried to do across all the maps)

The skill level is checked every time anything is spawned, so the player can drop the console and change the skill level if they feel the map is too tough / easy or use the rune pillars.

The main reason for using the Fitz 0.85/markV engine is because of the book / story system. The particle system should work on any engine, it is just a sprite emitter with lots of different presets for specific items. Most items in the map have particles to give the world more of a magical / mystical vibe. 

Sock, since you can manually enable gl_texturemode 4, I think you should just the player the choice 

Perhaps a little shield icon next to the eye for stronger enemies? On hard skill they should be killable by poison only (no manual weakening).

I didn't notice the automatic setting of the texture filter, since I use the pixelated one myself, but I agree forcing it onto the player seems kind of harsh. Some players may actually prefer the blurry GL look.
Though the fast they don't know the command to set it back supports your thinking behind this measure in a way as it proves that many players likely don't know about the possibility to switch between modes in the first place and thus miss out on a potential visual improvement (or not, depending on who you ask). Shouldn't it be gl_texturemode 6, though? It's what Fitz defaults to, possibly more accurate than 4. 

gl_linear_mipmap_linear?

If so, what is 6? 

Are the numbers always the same? Don't they depend on the driver? I would use the full name always.

If you use numbers you probably want 3 or 6 if they always map like that.

http://www.quaddicted.com/engines/software_vs_glquake#texture_filtering

To me, this is a visual choice of the creator. I am biased though since I much prefer the crisp pixels to the blur. 

@Yhe1, I have shifted the texture filtering to an impulse command so you can turn it off (globally across all maps), it will be in the next release. (hopefully next week)

The default is staying on, I have designed all of the assets to use this mode (GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR). I know it is personal choice (hence the new impulse) but artistically I want the default to be on. 

Daz mentioned in his video review that he thought it was odd that there was no training showing how the poison bolt can cause monster infighting. My reason for this was I did not want to tell the player everything and I thought if they discover this for themselves it might make a bigger impact and be more fun!

What does everyone think about adding a training section showing poison infighting? Or should it be left to the player to discover by themselves? 

Infighting is one of the funnest things in Quake, so let the player do more of it. 

I think it would be good to know that to start with, since if the player knows that the poison darts can be used for causing infighting, they will attach more value to it and be more aware that they could use it in any situation, other than when they see a shambler. This might help slightly with making players worry more about their poison dart ammo, as they will likely miss the poison darts when they realise they don't have them in a situation where they could get a big fight started to cause a distraction 

It was weird finding out about the infight mechanic in the middle of the first map. I had a nice vore backstab planned and all my planning went out the window when I applied the poison and it went batshit mental and killed everything in the room :D

The infighting itself is cool, I just was confused about what had triggered it initially and that my carefully laid plans had been owned! 

The second map is a remake of E1M2, right? 

Totally impressed by this. How long did it take you Sock? 

I am too dumb for this. On s1m1 I do not manage to sneak up on anyone, have to axe them. Yes, I use 200 as speed for sneaking. 

Now I would like to retake the tutorial bit but I would have to replay the whole start map. 

The triggers that spawn the vault button are at the beginning of the staircase in that room.
In this sense, perhaps an impulse command (and corresponding "tutorial" alias) to warp directly to this section would be a good feature, rather than cloning the tutorial bit in an individual map as I suggested earler.

Watch the eye. If you stay in the red zone for too long (timer depends on skill setting), the enemy will spot you. Hit them right in the back, not from a large angle. And make sure no other enemy can see your kill - distract all nearby enemies with bolts, so they look away. If a bunch of them stands close together, you can try to multikill them if you're fast enough, or play it safe and lure them away one by one. To do this, you need to shoot one of them with a distraction bolt and hide behind cover before the hit. 

Ah, that is quite against what I thought I was used to from Thief or Deus Ex. Just finished s1m1. Great! 

In Daz's second video, a vore dies from poison (poisoned twice and a bit of infighting inbetween). I don't know what to think of this. It makes sense in a way and may make life a little easier for less skilled players on the one hand, but it also seems like a sort of over-simplification on the other hand.

Consistency - the tutorial teaches the player that "big" enemies need to be poisoned first. The shambler is obvious one of them, despite his appearence in the tutorial. So is the vore. But as a matter of fact, I also consider the fiend to be a big one, too. Not in terms of the actual amount of health, but rather regarding the general 'feel'. So it's a bit disappointing when the player finds out the fiend can be killed with a simple backstab. Would changing it to a tougher enemy class unbalance the maps or go against the current design? 

buff the fiend to 351 health or nerf the axe to 299. not sure if either would improve the experience. 

@spirit, if you want to replay the tutorial, load the start map, bring down the console, type developer 1 and then type impulse 221. This will teleport you straight to the shadow vault, I will add this properly in the next release. 

@daz, just watched part 2 and it was awesome, thank you. A couple of answers to your questions. If you shoot any monster in the face with a bolt they will see you and stealth will break. The solution is to turn the monster first and then apply the poison. If you shoot any monster in the back with a distraction bolt they will turn and investigate, which means you can safely move monsters around while you get past them. If a monster is close to a door, you can open unlocked doors with the distraction bolt. The distraction bolt does a lot of different tasks, items in this mod have depth and multiple functions.

There is a lot of things about stealth that I don't explain because I want players to learn and discover stuff for themselves. (just like the old days) I do plan to add a tutorial for infighting but the rest of the stuff should be discovered by the player otherwise it will be too much hand holding. 

@spirit, if the stealth mode is too hard or confusing, try exploring the maps in vanilla mode first to discover the layout. Also try different skill levels because the stealth system is heavily linked to skill level.

The golden rules for stealth is, check your distance at all times, red eye is danger and never ever fire at monsters unless their back is turned. 

made a level with Oblige. Set dev 1 and impulse 220. interesting... 

Looks good, but...

First, does one HAVE to play in stealth mode? I think I got up to something like 50+ kills in the start map, and it was pretty easy so far, then I picked up the damn amulet and it seems I'm forced to play stealth mode instead. Can I get rid of it and play normally? I dislike stealth games, they hurt my head.

Secondly, maybe I'm being thick and missing something, but how the hell do I leave the start map???? I've been wandering around for ages - I feel like I've explored every part of this map (including the vault and zombie dungeon) but all I find is locked doors. To be honest, I'm finding this start map to be rather confusing and maze-like, especially with so many doors locked. At one point I got stuck upstairs (the stairs where the invisibility ring is behind bars) and couldn't find a way back down. I had to noclip to get back down.

Confusion aside, the start map looks fantastic. 

Sock: I made too much of an effort to try to intuitively get into and failed. After negke's tip I realised how it works and had great fun playing through it. Incredible work. You and czg should kiss now.

I first played through s1m1 with quakespasm. Then I used another engine to play s2m1. The ladder one had some minor fog-related bugs (there are like 4-5 different fog implementations in Quake engines, really annoying for content creators). I'll clean up my demo mess (including in-game commenting) some other day.

The game definitely is something to play iteratively. It is not hand holding you as much as a Valve game which I somehow expected. The sneaking up was too different from my previous experiences with Deus Ex so I tried again and again and got frustrated. In Deus Ex you have to make no sound and not be in their FOV. You can sneak as near as you want though, even press your face against their butt. In ITS I started swinging my axe wildly and running or jumping into their backs now with varying success. :D

I feel like I use my bunny jumping skills a bit too much. But I had tremendous fun doing that and that is what counts.

The maps are absolutely incredible. The style is flawless and the atmosphere is so thick. 

by "play iteratively" I mean "fail, reload, use previous knowledge to your advantage". It is not a interactive rail simulation -life 2.