Yes! Might be the engine though, I'll try with Fitz later. 

Ok, with a bit of practise that trick is not too hard indeed. Anyways, in my opinion it is like grenadejumping (and thus can totally be ignored). Only crazy people will do such things when they play a new Quake map. 

spirit: I had something like that in the end area. The were some hints for players who ran out of regular ammo and might not realise there was an lg and a way to use it.

willem: There are a couple of bugs and I am a little bit annoyed by them. I really hate noticing bugs after releasing a map, but then I did rush the release out and skip the final beta test, so I guess it's my own fault.

Also, the trick jump is easy and I knew about that, but I didn't know the rl could be grabbed just by jumping. The rl used to sit actually on the crate and I discovered the problem myself then, so I moved it into the duct and thought it was fixed :/ Of course, I know there is a large shortcut possible by getting a boost from the defender up to the rl secret and then going up the ladder to flip the elevator switch :)

Anyway, Shambler did a much more annoying trick jump in his demo, which is a great deal harder than the rl secret one. At least partly because of the shortcut he took, he ended up getting a bit lost near the start.

Shambler: Whilst I don't mind people getting a little lost, sleepy got utterly hopelessly lost for 10 minutes or so and was trying desperately to find the way forward for quite some time. I've seen a couple of other demos where people got lost too. I actually wanted to encourage exploration, rather than make people lost :( My next map has a kind of confusing layout at the moment too :( 

Don't worry about that. I was probably hungover or something. I was getting a bit frustrated, but as you could tell, I didn't quit the map. I don't mind getting lost for a while, anyway. Well, not for as long as it took me to get back on track on this map, but now that I know where I should have gone, I'd say I was a bit stupid there. 

played on normal, 40 minutes, 5/8 secrets and killed everything.

i don't recall getting lost much. i was only slightly confused sometimes... like the first 'ladder door' message. i hadn't even seen the ladder when i opened the door for it, for example.
also, the vermis arena is really cool and detailed, but i was too afraid to move from my little corner so i just plinked away at it with nails and shotgun shells. :S
i think the vermis could use more work honestly. after seeing it in use for like a couple of years(?) now, i think it could have used some stuff to let the mapper interact with it. force it to hide for a time or something to invite players fighting in vermis arenas to move around and explore. (or have multiple spots where a vermis can appear from... like a whack-a-mole :P)

anyway, found this map really inspiring since i'm working on my own abandoned base type map. this actually gave me some energy to put some more work in. :)

demo: http://necros.quaddicted.com/temp/ne_apsp2.zip
(.zip for you mac dudes ^_^) 

Only crazy people will do such things when they play a new Quake map.

Well, to be fair, i think when people see a tempting item, they will try various techniques to get it. I mean, for all i knew at the time, crate jumping was the intended way to get that secret.

Still, your point is valid, and I would generally consider any speedrunning technique or trick jump to be outside the standard player skillset, and therefore such exploits can be allowed to stay in a map, and add more fun for the speedrunners. 

Still, your point is valid, and I would generally consider any speedrunning technique or trick jump to be outside the standard player skillset, and therefore such exploits can be allowed to stay in a map, and add more fun for the speedrunners.


Hurrah, good conclusion. 

shortcuts everywhere...

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/shortcut_apsp2.rar 

knew about that one, and Shambler used it whilst playing. Doesn't really save any time since you still need the gold key to move the big lift in the start area. 

this demo is for shambler to teach him jumping like a man... not in the back!!!

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/shambler.rar 

The irony being, it's piss easy doing it forwards, the whole point of doing it backwards (a bit trickier) was to show Spirit that it was so easy to do.

Next!

P.S. If anyone can jump off the top of the crate onto the double stack, I'll be impressed. 

Fucking brilliant!

A real sense of place and function, which is rare in a quake map.

The underwater / flooded motif was very well done, and never got annoying (running out of air, or stuck underwater etc).

Loved all the little details like the floating crates, wall panels and windows. Some of the monster reveals were really cool too.

The only nitpick I can think of is that the map was quite maze like, and I did wander around a bit at times, but the feeling of exploration meant that it wasn't dull. The wall markings helped too :)

Final area was very well done, and again an excellent attention to detail here too.

Some of the secrets made me laugh :) 

Thanks for the comments :)

I'll try and make my next map a little less mazelike somehow... I was thinking of trying to make it nonlinear, but that might not work out judging by the size and complexity as it stands :/ 

Don't think it was bad in terms of layout - complex is good, as long as you've got the trail of breadcrumbs for the player to follow.

The typical one is follow the enemy road - make sure there's always enemies along the route that the player must take, probably through respawning.

The other is to litter it with cheap power ups. By cheap I mean things that don't really affect gameplay too much, like coins in Mario or Stimpacks in Q2. So when the player sees a trail of them leading down a corridor they know they haven't been that way before.

The normal Quake method is to stick an arrow texture on the wall, which is fair enough although can be improved by making it a func and removing or swapping it when it doesn't apply.

There's the classic contrived disaster as well - bad tunnels collapse or burst into flames, although this moves from the realm of hint to simple blocking off, or else challenging a daredevil player to leap the opened up chasm, walk through the fire or try dodging the impossible laser beam trap.

I know I'm not saying anything you don't know here, but I'm interested in the methods the rest of you use. 

in antediluvian i put a box of ammo/health in each wind tunnel in the main hub room, so if you see that item sitting in one of the open tunnels, you know you haven't taken that tunnel yet. 

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/angry-video-screwattack/52921?type=flv 

The underwater / flooded motif was very well done, and never got annoying (running out of air, or stuck underwater etc).

Can't really agree with this. Having to search for the way in flooded areas with lots of crap in the water is a bit like running around on Mars while your oxygen runs out.

I do find such a mechanic a minor annoyance. It can be done if the route is really obvious, which it isn't here.

I got confused and frustrated by this.

Don't think it was bad in terms of layout - complex is good, as long as you've got the trail of breadcrumbs for the player to follow.

The typical one is follow the enemy road - make sure there's always enemies along the route that the player must take, probably through respawning.

It was often hard to tell where a monster came from, or several monsters attacked. At least it felt like that. I don't think using monsters as signposts works in a complex map. It's not always clear how to interpret a monster attack. It may be a signpost, or it may just be an attack.

It doesn't work reliably unless the layout is really simple (it worked a few times in Quake 4, where the route was hard to miss in the first place). Like if you have a T-junction, an attack from one side might indeed work like you say. But when you have a complex 3D layout, a monster attack (especially if you didn't see where the monster originated from) is an unclear signal.

Plus some players have the tendency to naturally do the opposite of what they feel they're supposed to do. Some games (like Doom3) actually reward you for this (not following the bot). This only works if the main route is really well marked, which it isn't in this map.

But the main problem was the threat of drowning (in effect punishing the player (by death) for losing orientation, which isn't the player's fault in the first place).

The normal Quake method is to stick an arrow texture on the wall, which is fair enough although can be improved by making it a func and removing or swapping it when it doesn't apply.

I saw the arrows in this map, but it wasn't always clear how to interpret them. I feel if a map has to use arrows on the walls, then it is overly complex.

There's the classic contrived disaster as well - bad tunnels collapse or burst into flames, although this moves from the realm of hint to simple blocking off, or else challenging a daredevil player to leap the opened up chasm, walk through the fire or try dodging the impossible laser beam trap.

I tend to favor this, because it makes it relatively simple on the player. As a player, I want to concentrate on blasting monsters, not desperately looking for the way while my oxygen runs out AND getting attacked while doing so. Collapsed tunnels, malfunctioning doors and broken lifts are a little nicer than just closed doors, which I have no problem with, either.

"The player is a dunce". Especially on the first play through, which may decide if the player likes / will replay the map or not. If I'm punished for losing orientation (the mapper's fault, not mine) during the first couple play throughs, it might influence my motivation and my desire to come back to this map. 

I try and remind myself to always use it as a change in environment type rather than a hazard - lava and slime do that job.

So I tend to include lots of breathing spots, but also lots of submerge only routes. This can be 100% lineal no problem, with items and pickups hidden away in the water to encourage diving.

When using water as a hazard it's pretty important to make it almost impossible for the player to lose their way - they'll still get the same 'I made it' weather or not they had to choose between corridor A or B - and it eliminates giving them the nagging doubt that they left something behind.

For expanding route choices - opening routes inside previously visited ones - I'd suggest making the new routes a different colour. Change from red bricks to blue, or all the trim from gold to black.

These aren't comments about the map, I'm just writing stuff down as it occurs.

Does remind me to go back and play this one again though. 

.at all this is the best Map i�ve ever played so far.!
Always going back to the start, if failed.. Amazes me most, to try it again, that thrill!! Sorry RickyT, yours is equal,but... but the Crategasm got me:)
What comes near for me iss like the DM3RmxMap. Oh so Hard, hate that shamblers!!
"Than there will be blood" I Say. 

still have no clue were all the secrets are to be found..
Anyone?

Greets from Cologne, GerMany!! 

Heh - I thought this map was better too. Very addictive map - search for the secrets and you will find. If not then search this thread and you will find a demo or two I'm sure ;)

Thanks btw 

I remember when this originally came out and wanted to see for myself what everyone was going on about and wow, WOW, W-O-W this map is just pure genius, I LOVE IT!

I started playing on Skill 0 and worked my way through all the different skill levels and found all the secrets. This is not something I normally do but this is the first SP map I have found where there has been an actually effort to create different skill levels. AI upgrades, extra pickups and each play through a challenge with tricky and fun moments.

The atmosphere and visuals are just amazing, I really loved the whole scale of the base, even thou is typical Q1 'fat' scale with chunky window borders it still felt right. The AI suited their surroundings and it just made the whole place even more believable.

I did find one thing confusing about layout, the first drop down into the water I could not work out where to go. It was by accident that I backed into a doorway that had a door open behind me and AI kill me without me knowing why. There should of been more clues or the door should of been more obvious. Also the jump secret felt wrong to me, trick jump for secrets is not a good thing to do.

After reading the story in the readme file (I never realised that Q1 related porn was so popular) the opening scene of a moody, cargo bay was amazing. When I finally did move after taking note of my surroundings, the solo AI patrolling and walking through the doorway was just perfectly timed.

The texture work is a thing of beauty, I never thought base Q1 maps could look this good, everything just felt so right together. I could not find anything that felt out of place to me. Most of the edges has proper texture seams, rivets were in the right places and the whole place felt like it could actually exist and stand up structurally.

The end battle was very difficult but how the room was actually setup long before you get there with glipses of it through crate filled areas below was amazing. The final boss was confusing because of the LG messages and I thought there was only one special way to kill it, which is not the case. The room layout felt frustrating because ultimately there is only one good route to go due to the boss being lethal at close range.

Overall the map is just pure gold, it has balanced skill levels, dripping in amazing atmosphere, challenging encounters and it just makes me wonder if Q1SP can get any better than this. 

"Urrrggghhhhaaaarrrggh!"

i actually really wasn't a fan of the boss fight in this map. being underwater, for some reason, really bugs me because it feels like there's a lot of pressure to get air (or find a biosuit).
i hate being pressured like that without any reprieve besides jumping right out and leaving the boss combat behind. 

I think this map is a prime example of perfect looks, but certain gameplay problems like what necros just said, and the getting lost, and the whole Quoth thing (more HP, more dangerous, without similarly upgrading the player).

Visually stunning, of course. 

That IS immersion in my opinion. Ever go to a strange city on your own and get totally lost? I get lost in Vancouver once. None of the taxi drivers seemed to know where my hotel was, I had sunstroke from a whale-watching trip (where they give you a floatation suit and blast you off at about 40 knots on a jet-speedboat) and it took me about 2 hours of semi-panic (atleast after a while it was semi panic!) before I found the hotel. Massive adrenaline rush throughout...