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. 

@kona, yes the legendary vault button!!!! You need to explore the room below the statue room. One end has a portcullis leading to the vault with the amulet of shadows. Search that room for the vault button, complete the training and use the portals at the other end of the room. This is all fixed in the next release.

Once you load the bonus maps (s1m1 and s1m2) you can play them as normal, the stealth mode is completely optional. I know a lot of people struggle with stealth games that is why I spent a long time balancing the maps for vanilla game play as well. 

@spirit, yeah fog it not consistent among engines which is why I recommend Fitz 0.85 or mark V only. I think this version of stealth plays different and I think everyone has to put other games aside and learn this version as new. This is not a thief or deux or stealth quake clone, it is different.

I was hoping people would play the maps several times, I have included enough new things to find so it will still be fresh. I don't expect people to get what stealth is about on there first play, I am hoping people will find the depth in the mechanics and will want to play it more. The ultimate prize is trying to complete the maps with no kills, I did post a video about this earlier in this thread. 

@negke, the next version I am making will show the mobs that cannot be backstabbed much more clearly, they will have a different eye icon. There is also more mobs to add yet that cannot be backstabbed. There is the blue flail knight in the keep of Aramis and two more ogres from the Black Forge. I want the fiend to stay easier to kill because I enjoy placing them in maps.

@daz, you mentioned in your video part 2 that you thought the mobs have different distraction times, they do. All monsters are grouped into different distraction time and also different distraction radius. So a hell knight is harder to distract and also will not be distracted for long as a normal guard. 

Oh I see now, I didn't realise I was supposed to sneak up and insta-kill the ogre. All good. I actually found the vault button pretty easily.

Anyway I loved the 2 levels. Nice homage. Although in some ways it kind of takes away the surprise and exploration when you already know exactly how the levels are laid out. Are they all going to be e1 remakes? I'd rather see completely unique levels rather than remakes.

I played both levels as normal, rather than stealth. The second level I think it was halfway through the level or more before might health went under 100 (I was playing on normal) so they aren't particular difficult. The kind of difficulty where you can rush through, but I don't want to do that because then I miss out on all the details. I guess it's hard to prevent though because you can't fill the place up with monsters for players who are going stealth mode. It would be too hard then.

Design is fantastic, I've got no suggestions there, it's perfect. 

@kona, if normal skill was too easy why not try the hard/nightmare skill levels? These bonus maps were just for testing the AI path finding system, did you notice any changes with the AI? I also added a few new areas and routes, did you find anything new? Did you get any of the secrets? 

@daz, question from your video part 2, How do monsters notice if you backstab another monster infront of them?

1. Radius check around backstab location (512 map units)
2. Is the 'other' monster facing the right direction (315-45 degree angle) A narrow 90 degree FOV, I might change this based on skill level.
3. Can the 'other' monster actually see the backstab location, prevents checks through world geometry but not liquids or other monsters. 

Good to know!

I played the 2nd map through today, loved it. Harder than the first but in a good way, with more complex routes and mechanics for taking out enemies. I am a fan :)

Got the knock knock secret, badass+

Mastered the crossbow much better since your comments explaining things. It's super useful to be able to move guards around with it.

I think the main issue I have with not teaching the player everything about their items is that the basic mechanics are explained so rigorously it is perhaps assumed that you are told everything. I certainly did at least, it never occurred to me that they might do more than advertised :)

I'll get the last video up in the next few days. I'm looking forward to the full release! 

@DaZ, do you think I should hint at the end of the training that there is more tricks to learn but the player has to find themselves?

I always had plans for more features but I kept resisting giving more items because I felt a Swiss Army Knife approach might be more fun. I know they do this with TF2 weapons and I really like it because I feel the extra features are like advanced tricks for seasoned players. I always thought that seasoned stealth players would appreciate the advanced stuff because they would gain more control of tricky situations ready for the 'no kill' runs.

The knock knock secret was designed because I kept seeing negke and necros checking doors all the time and thought it might be funny. 

That could help, yes. Something that would be perfect for something like this would be loading screen tips or something similar. Obviously that's not really plausible in Quake.

Hmm ok brainfart. What if in some of the secret areas of the maps there are book stands with tips written in them? You could tie it into the lore somehow and it uses an existing mechanic and keeps it relevant past the introduction map. 

@daz, yeah books would be an awesome way of doing this. It will the player more of an incentive to read books if their are game tips available instead of just back story. 

Books would indeed be an awesome way to tell tips to the player, and it could also feel pretty rewarding if these books were in secret areas like DaZ said. 

I can certainly add more book locations and it would be cool to add more to the bonus maps as extended training. I should create a couple more book skins so the book types look different. I can think of at least 3 (general, main story and training) at the moment.

By the way, I have not heard from anyone (all forums I have posted) if the books are interesting or not? I know there are some typo's in a couple of books but nobody has said anything about the content? 

If no-one complained about them then they must be good :) 

I liked them very much and some of the flavor text made me chuckle, but I have noticed some typos (or it could just be that since English isn't my native language, they are in fact not typos). 

You could have secret scrolls that hint to the player where to find another secret. In each secret have a book of knowledge how to master the game.