In regard to the Hell mode save bug- I switched to Fitzquake (I was using aguirRe's), and it works fine in loading the mode from a save file.

About the difficulty... I'm wondering how many is too many deaths to be fun. I'm having a "hell" of a time even getting to the gold key on the first level, but it'll only be sweeter by the time I finish it. I'm used to running levels without saving partway, so dying is even worse than normal. But it makes you learn how to deal with enemies. 

i think we mostly agree actually. diversity is good.

also, thanks for taking the time to play q1sp maps, i enjoy your perspectives. 

I'm also interested in Sock's direction now - never look at Q1 again or want to make maps for.

Not sure I can explain how I feel about Quake. It's like all day I'm drinking coffee, and then I get home and I can drink a stomach settler. 

 

My contract says level designer on it. 

Fuck off ijed and get a real hobby. 

ijed, drinking kills. 

yes, it does. 

kills the bugs inside of you! 

awesome posts ijed I totally see what you're saying. 

Ow my head. 

 

Tronyn wrote about the making of this: http://www.quaddicted.com/other-quake-news/a-history-of-a-roman-wilderness-of-pain-1999-2009-by-tronyn/ 

Just played this again. What a blast - great fun. I totally see where the Doom references come from. Many weapons, plenty of items, hordes, lots of gibs. Didn't bother with the boss fight (not least because I didn't set a higher heapsize so the game slowed down to a crawl once the summoner and his gang showed up). I regret not having played on Hard this time AND record a demo. I think it totally would have shown how much I enjoyed bouncing through the maps producing gore. Playing a fast DnB mix in the background added to this.

Thanks again for this excellent release, Tronyn and PM. I consider it one of the milestones of Q1SP - in combination with NSOE, which I'm going to play next. 

did tronyn ever say how long it took to vis? the last map in particular must have been brutal. 

Checked out the roman scraps. It's very nice to see how this developed from all the individual map bits to the final ones, how areas changed appearance and were pierced together. Amazing construction even back then. Some of the unused or unmodified scraps are still salvagable.
Bigrome is impressive, almost marcheresque. Kind of makes me want to mikewoodham it.

Also, at the risk of repeating myself, I love the ARWOP style, the texture theme and general vibe. Quake in all its (bloody) purity. 

So I'v played the other maps. Wasn't extremely hard except for the god damn tarbabies and the ENDING.
The amount of hp\armors is pretty much excessive so the difficulty is fine for hard skill, didn't die much even though I was playing badly meleeing 50 scrags and doing other silly things.
The tarbaby is just a bad monster design blowing up 100 damage in your face, and it was pure sadism to paint them red making harder to see and put in the red water where its harder to avoid them. Or on a ledge above\behind a player. Or 5 in small locked room. Yeah!
The rest I didn't find unfair. Maybe the start is too harsh. Map2 was easier.
Now the ending was unbeatable cause I arrived with no cells ... GG (I tried with cheats and it took max cells and max spikes and then some more to take the cyberdemon down).
Or is there a gimmick or an unmarked secret quad\penta?

The construction I'm not a fan of this style and some parts were really hard to move around (you'll see in demo) due to stairs\ramps\floor details\narrow paths.
But cool planning and layout.

All demos http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/rome3.7z
Hard /1st playthrough. First demo pauses closer to the end and wont play after that, but you can timedemo watch it if you want to see it all.

Playback works only in DP http://offload2.icculus.org:9090/twilight/darkplaces/files/darkplacesengine20100528beta1.zip or earlier (later versions have bugged lightmaps making the maps look fugly) 

Btw, funny it runs more than twice as fast in DP over Fitz in really stressing spots. 

But kind of flaked out because RMQ was starting.

In terms of maps done and staying power, I can't think of any mapper who beats Tronyn.

As to vis times - I think it was a case of vis once, then just modify entities. For most of his maps :) 

Playing this.
Tronyn I love you. 

you might hate me when you get to the end boss fight though! 

Still playing this pack, Still lovin it. 

I am definitely glad to hear that. in many ways this is the most extreme episode I ever did. heh. 

Tronyn, can you remake Masque with Drake Monsters and Weapons? 

Tronyn is so brilliant that even his subconscious thoughts to himself manifest in the form of thread posts.

His subconscious mind is so powerful, it even has its own distinctly different ip address. I'm impressed!