Very cool. Running with the Manke-on-steroids vibe and making most of the 'retro FPSs' look lame as fuck 

I've been looking forward to that map ever since you posted the preview clip so I'm pretty stoked over what I saw in the video. The point at which the player comes upon the hill overlooking the town is still awesome. The map is a lot more ominous than I thought it would be. The bunker area combined with the music kind of gives it horror vibes. I kind of didn't want to watch the full video since I wanted to experience it blind after you release it but I ended up watching it anyway. Really looking forward to the release. 

 

lol

...wanders away grumbling like an old man... 

@KenChannar: looks dope as expected from what I watched, but I'm waiting to play the whole thing myself.

@Tronyn: go map lol ;) 

Don't want to to spoil it Ken. Hurry up and release it already! 

'Finished' another room in the castle:

https://i.imgur.com/DKOWkPr.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/5xwST6Y.jpg

Its unfortunate that Snow White and the Huntsman was a very poor film, but you gotta love Charlez in any case. The Raven throne was inspired from this. 

This map is screaming for some Hexen2 enemies =D 

It has many Hexen2/medieval-style enemies. And then some. 

For this:

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/shamsp1_1.jpg

Skill 0 and skill 1 especially. Gimme ur email and I will send the map over.

Looking for feedback from a player's perspective about gameplay balance etc. Not from a mapper's perspective as I know it's technically shoddy and chaotic mapping behind the scenes!

I know there's issues with 2D-ness, simple layout, lack of detail inside etc etc. 

Looks old skool Shambler. Raises hand. I dig the simpleness.


And Redfield looks good too. About Drake enemies, why compromise. Use Keep mod and you can have (almost) any enemy. 

I like the drake mod, and had a really good time blasting through Unforgiven. Except for those like air strafing dragonoid type beings that seem to have the same code as an F-22 Raptor electronic warfare suite.

I am currently using the AD progs as the base for my mod, cause it has all the nifty tricks, and the potential for some Hexen 2 monsters is in there. The map is mainly supposed to feature my new monsters, although I'm not sure how things are going to pan out yet. 

Intrigued even more than I already am just from seeing the screenshots. 

I am in. Feel free to shoot me an email. 

Don't know if many of you are busy playing maps from 2017 for the Quake awards, but if someone happens to find the time to beta test my newest map, that would be great!

The working title of the map is Amphitheater of Abaddon. It is to be the second map in my miniepisode (see here for more details). The way how the Quad damage works in this map is a little different from the first map, though. In the first map the Quad was permanent but in this one there are multiple normal Quad damages littered over the map (and I was thinking of modifying the first map to work like that, too... maybe).

So, I'd like you to play the map and provide me any feedback that comes on your mind for how to improve the map. It would be preferable if you tested all three of the different playstyles (and, optionally, in multiple difficulty levels).

You can download the map (source included) here. Just place the map in your id1/maps folder and fire away like a normal custom map. No mods this time around, unlike the first map in the episode. I haven't linked the two maps together yet, so you can't test the two maps in succession.

Note, that there are two versions of the map included in the package: an older version that hasn't been gamma corrected and a gamma corrected version (worldspawn has a "_gamma" key with a value of "1.3"). I think the gamma corrected version is more similar in brightness to the original Quake start map, so it may be the better version of the two. I've just gotten so used to the older version, that I'm not sure which I like better, so if you like, you guys could also give your opinion on which version is better.

Screenshots:
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/amphitoa01.jpg
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/amphitoa02.jpg
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/amphitoa03.jpg
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/amphitoa04.jpg
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/amphitoa05.jpg
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/amphitoa06.jpg
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/amphitoa07.jpg

To-do list for the map:
- Make the necessary modifications for dm.
- Fix compilation errors caused by the gamma correction (too many lightstyles on a face).
- Add some decorative corpses/gibs.
- Implement possible suggestions from beta testers. 

The map started out incredibly strong. The amphitheater is a really cool concept and it looked great. I was impressed with how you maintained the smooth curvature and symmetry of it all. The area under the stage helped to sell the concept as well. I assume that those were dressing rooms that were locked at first.

The first area that you climb up as ogre grenades rain down upon you was such a neat mechanic. I'll never get tired of people using the high ground ogre in unique fashions such as this. Finally unlocking the main amphitheater area was a groundbreaking moment as you are presented with the scale of it as well as the grenade barrage. It was tricky at first but I learned to avoid too much trouble by constantly pushing forward.

I started to become a little disenchanted as I began scaling the audience balconies. Taking the elevator up sometimes put me face to face with an ogre - first a grenade to the face, then chainsawed to death as I had no way of getting past the ogre and no way to go back down. At this point, health and ammo were extremely scarce. I started save scumming in order to make it to the end and even then, it felt too rough. I started to flat out ignore the teleporting scrags and the final vore. On one hand, the final elevator up was interesting with more ogre grenades but if one made it inside the elevator, it was almost impossible to avoid the explosion. The shootable switch that closes the door only helps a tiny bit.

I did feel that the first half of the map was pretty perfect though. The ogre placement was spot on. They were exactly the proper distance to cause just enough trouble without feeling unfair. In the amphitheater, I would give the player a way to jump back down when taking the elevators up. Either that or make it so that the ogres are clear from the space immediately in front of the elevator.

Also please, please, please give ammo. I really don't even mind scarce health but if I don't have the ammo to kill monsters, then that's a huge problem. I never found a grenade launcher either so those basement zombies were just roaming around freely.

I have a demo but I don't think that it recorded much given that I had to reload saves a ton towards the end. I played on skill 2.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dbwx9ek4gnmcn1k/amphichop.zip?dl=0

The non-gamma corrected version of the map won't load for me in Quakespasm. The version that I played looked fine. I think that the lighting was well done. 

pretty rough on me, let me know where to email with demo/discussions 

Will hopefully get a chance to play the map later, I made some quick notes on your screenshots https://imgur.com/a/652whG4 

Drew, I sent you an e-mail a moment ago, so you can send your demo to me in the reply message. Thanks in advance for testing! :)

And thank you, Poorchop, for your valuable feedback! Reading it motivates me and makes mapping even more worthwhile. :) Watching your demo was quite thrilling, with all the ammo and health shortages and close calls.

Hmm, I thought I HAD tested the map on the middle path with no secrets found, but I guess I hadn't, because I ran out of ammo, too, now that I tested it myself. @~@

Thanks to your feedback and additional testing, I added 40 shells to the map. Now I was able to end the map with around 40 shells and 20-30 nails (if I recall correctly); no secrets, skill 2, no zombies killed. I was also intentionally somewhat wasteful with my shells to allow some misses.

Of course, if one finds the grenade launcher, ammo becomes a LOT more plentiful after that. And don't forget that this is the second map of the episode, so the player could very well be stocked up with shells, nails and even a grenade launcher from the get-go.

Based on your feedback and some additional testing I've done, I've uploaded beta version 2 of the map:

Download here

Changes from beta 1:
- Added 40 shells and 15 health.
- Made a torch illusionary, so the player won't hit their head in it when using an elevator.
- Added a killtarget trigger for some some monsterjump triggers to ease movement of a fiend.
- Prevented ogres from getting right in front of an elevator in the amphitheater. 

Sorry, I forgot to reply to your message in my previous post. Thanks for the notes! I had actually thought about the roof indentation, but wasn't sure if it was worth the trouble.

Maybe try out the beta version and then give me an update on the previous notes, whether you think they're still relevant after seeing the map live. 

But man those screenshots look great. I'll be keeping tabs on this one! 

Here's my second demo of the middle path. Sloppy playing (I actually died a few times before this due to being careless) but I was trying to run through fairly quickly. The ammo situation was good, as was the health. The center path is at a point now where it's challenging but completely fair. My only complaint was the fiend that sneaks out from behind the wall at the top of the first area you climb. I died there on an earlier attempt because I didn't have enough time to react to the wall opening behind me, and fiends hit hard.

It's hard to gauge the difficulty at this point since I mostly remembered what to expect but even then, it was still pretty tough. That's fine though - players who want an easier time can lower the difficulty. I tried a bit of the quad path but I didn't get too far with it yet. I also managed to find the grenade launcher this time and it made the map way easier.

I'll try to check out the right path as well. It's a cool concept to give the players three major variations of playing the same map.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mp43o7ykrglj6st/amphichop2.zip?dl=0 

Thanks for testing again, Poorchop! :) Some highlights from your replay:

- Knights ganging up against a vore.
- Finding the GL. Yaay, good job! :)
- Killing with a single grenade three bumbling knights flailing their swords in vain against a shambler.
- Trying to reach the silver key with a trick jump. Believe me, I did my best to make it as difficult as possible! >:D I've been able to get to the dangling beams on the other side but not quite able to find a way to climb to the key itself (if I recall correctly).
- The two final fiends accidentally charging at each other, inadvertently killing the other one in a hilarious slapstick comedy fashion! xD

Too bad you didn't quite figure out the fountain room secret. I was so rooting for you to find it! :'( There's also a secret the location of which will probably become more clear to the player who tries to clear the map following the Quad path.

About the difficulty: Yeah, after watching your first demo and feedback, the idea of suggesting playing the map in normal difficulty did cross my mind. After all, skill 2 is supposed to be HARD difficulty, and the map sure is pretty tough in that difficulty.

Sure, it may be tougher than most id maps at that difficulty, but this map is tough even with modern control schemes. So maybe I should add a disclaimer to the readme that hard really means hard for this map.

I'm wondering about the fiend. Should I have the fiend first make its presence known to the player by aggroing it with a trigger and only after a second long delay, or so, the monster closet would open. Does the ambush feel unfair otherwise? o:

I guess otherwise the middle path starts to look pretty finished. Thanks for your help! :) 

Screenshots look good, I'll get you a demo tonight! 

Overall I thought it was great, my favorite part was the gold key room with the vores at the bottom. I thought the invisibility ring path was interesting, ring respawn points were chosen well. The final elevator with the ogres raining on you was clever too! Some critique:

The area where the walls lower to reveal death knights was a bit much, I think a lesser enemy or enemy combo would be more interesting. I feel that the death knight is tedious to fight because of their high HP, putting one after another made that area a chore for me.

Entering the Shambler room was instadeath in every way I managed to approach it.

Quad path was boring for me since I didn't find any weapons.

Anyway, here are some demos: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Ir5ipxHUNNTvkPGsOI1cyZM8gxOsaT9w