Oh I always play normal. I don't think I've ever played Nightmare.

Yes I did notice some AI changes - particularly the Hell Knights are firing quicker, they were really too easy in standard Quake.

I think I found 7/8 secrets in the first level, 5 in the second (didn't really need them so didn't look too hard).

The secrets weren't too hard to find though, or at least the ones I did find. Usually i'm useless at exploration and find no secrets in most maps, unless by chance lol. 

If someone had given you the brief "Remake Quake With A Medieval Theme" then this is pretty much the perfect execution of that. It felt just like the fun of playing Quake E1 for the first time but with an exceptional modern quality.

I particularly liked:
Lighting (subtle colours especially)
Particle effects
Atmospheric sounds
Amount of secrets
Monster AI
Beefed up combat
General flawless build quality

I didn't like the new monster models so much, they were good but didn't improve on Quake as much as the rest of the map. I'd have liked to seen a few custom monsters in there (proper Quoth ones like Polyps and Vorelings, also the shield knight would have fitted in perfect).

Also I didn't like the goddamn motherfucking grate secret at the start of S1M2!!

I haven't tried stealth mode. 

@Shambler, I was wondering when you were going to have some free time to play this MOD. IMHO I think quake is a medieval game full of mystical locations and strange magical forces. The original quake tech theme always felt odd to me, it should of been doom blood/gore/organic tech, not sterile boring base crap full of endless crates.

I do believe coloured lighting can be done really nice with Quake if the colour strength is subtle. Sadly most level designers miss the finer points of lighting and see colour lighting as a new shiny toy to drench a room in. Sort of like a texture artist discovering normal maps for the first time and making everything look plastic and shiny.

What was your secret count? Was there any particle effects you did not like? Did you notice the AI doing anything weird? getting stuck? running around in circles? What skill level did you play?

What grate secret at the front of S1m2? the one at the very start? or the one inside the original secret area?

I know you are stealth game player and I really hope you record some demo's because I would especially like to see what you do on the S1m1 and S1m2 maps. If you don't record stealth run demo's, imagine my hands reaching across the internet and strangling you!?! ;) 

13/13
12/14

I liked all the particle effects. As with the coloured lighting they were subtle and spot on.

Nope the AI seemed to work fine.

Skill 2

The grate at the very start of S1M2 

Played this in the good old Quake way. I'm not that keen on stealth games.

This mod is just so 100% pro.

The brushwork is fantastic, the same goes for the lighting and the models (love the books).

I'm really looking forward to the final realese. 

Sock, i take it back dont change the vault button. just make it open for default play.
I mean why should a new player have to FIND a button for a tut? well, unless u wanted the amulet to be a secret but its a given there after. i dunno. it looks like quake but plays like theif, somewat. Either way, its gonna rock ur socks! :P 

finding the button first time around was a pain in the ass but once I found it, I was highly attuned to similar secrets in the next two maps. 

...a very good point Fern. I reckon having to work to trigger the stealth tute and then open the m1/m2 portals meant I found a lot more secrets than I normally would in those latter maps. However, I also understand why the current setup has to change.

Congratulations Sock; releasing this when you did, in the way you did, elicited a tonne of very useful feedback. 

@Hrimfaxi, thanks. What skill level did you play? did you find many secrets? Did you see the AI doing anything weird? Did you like the new layouts? Any demo's?

'That damn button!', well I have changed it for now, I might change it back for the final release but the demo is focused on the vault so it has to be easier to find.

Daz finally posted the last part of his marathon stealth derp run through the shadows. If you don't play stealth and are curious then these video's will be fun to watch over a lunch break or two!

Daz on the interweb - Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 

I do love the play through video's you have done for my MOD and the commentary is certainly the best bit for me. The video's give me a good insight into how other people play my maps and try to understand the mechanics.

E1M2 has always been my favourite map in Quake, it is probably the one map I have played the most because I love the layout. The map feels complicated but essentially it is one big loop with multiple floors. I spent such a long time creating s1m2 and it probably shows with the large amount of routes I have added.

The main feature of the map is the introduction of traps (spikes and lightning) but I think the presentation could be better. I liked how Kell had off switches for his traps and I implemented the same mechanic. I have been playing s1m2 a lot recently for the no kill run and I have changed the traps to have a toggle state via the switch so you can turn the traps on if the monster is in the way. It is really satisfying to kill enemies with traps, especially ones under player control.

I originally had the electric beam traps as one shot kill to enemies but I was told it made it too easy, so I toned the damage down. Based on how much time you spent on them I think it is better to bump the damage up (from 3 to 18), but I don't want an instant kill.

Probably what is confusing for players is that on normal skill level the electric traps are present but there is no wizard to kill with them. On hard skill level this is not the case but it seems most people play on normal (from what demo's I have seen) skill level.

I like your idea about the books, the next version of the MOD will have stealth books with hints and I will do the same system as the story books. (automatically pick the next tip regardless of how they are found) I have also added 8 different skins so the books are coloured coded for function. (green/brown - general, blue - story, red - stealth) Plus any books that have been read will stay open making it easier for players to see what they have looked at or not.

I also like the idea of the quad room having a stealth reward so I have added another fully stocked stealth cupboard (at the back of the demon room) as a reward for stealth at the end of the sequence.

I noticed a couple of AI doing some weird stuff but that is probably just me because most people accept the odd mistake or two. I like to make secrets 'show and tell' where I hint at something being around but you need to find out how close by. I think this allows more players to find secrets and enjoy the exploration angle of playing quake more. There is certainly some hard secrets to find in s1m2 but I don't like how some maps just make every secret crazy hard to find.

The idea of the MOD was to tell the story of Lord Aramis and that is done with the main maps "The Keep of Aramis" and "The Black Forge". The bonus maps s1m1/s1m2 were designed for testing of the AI, I don't have any plans to carry on creating the rest of episode one. 

I was wondering about the lightning emitters! At first I thought it was some kind of long-term elaborate secret where you had to turn them on in sequence. Then finally I encountered a scrag and realized it was to kill fliers. :P 

It usually took at least 3 goes with the lightning to kill a scrag for me, since they path_ed while I was trying to kill them.

Don't see the problem with instant kill to be honest - instant reward. As in, if the player gets it right then reward them.

Of course, if they miss then the scrag should be alerted to the danger, treating the lightning trap as a player attack that missed - might ruin the no-kill runs though. 

I found some more video gameplay of In the Shadows. Skacky has uploaded a complete playthrough of all maps (stealth mode) on his youtube channel, the last video is a lot of fun played on hard skill. :)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 

I don't have any plans to carry on creating the rest of episode one.

Okay I will be the one sitting in the corner crying...;( Would have been great to see what you could do with E1M5 and E1M6 styles. 

Let's hope that "The Black Forge" will be Sock doing Runic... 

is the update likely to be released this weekend? Just asking since I will probably have some free time to play and dont want to start this version if another is coming. 

@Shambler, E1M5 is another one of my favourites, I loved what Kell did with that map, I still wander around his version for inspiration. It would be cool if it got expanded and had the stealth treatment because it has so many layout loops. I quickly ran through E1M6 to remind me what it was about and it is a trapfest! Sadly the AI on this map is just plain dumb, they get stuck on floors, corners, ledges and often spawned into areas they cannot escape from or reach the player.

@onetruepurple, the black forge is going to be a lava infested cave network drenched in runic metal! :)

@nitin, I have not been very well the last couple of days and not had much of a chance to do anything with the MOD. I would love it if you could wait till next week when I plan another version. Probably between xmas and new year. 

will wait. 

@ijed, I finally got around to seeing your castle demo's and I thought they were good fun to watch. I was shouting at the screen, run, run from that shambler! It was cool the amount of times you got away from mobs and tried something different. Thanks for the demo's, they also highlighted a couple of AI bugs I had missed. 

I actually thought about offering a map... but I've got enough on my plate :) 

I had two comments (different forum/sources) roughly talking about the same thing and wonder what anyone thinks about it.

Comment 1
Gameplay is good, if not a little bit simplistic.
Comment 2
Is the stealth based on light/darkness at all or is it just proximity and the monster's field of view? Looks rather rudimentary.

I get the impression from the comments that the initial gameplay is simple but not in a good way. Is this because these people did not understand there is more to the weapons? Does gameplay depth need to be fully shown? One of the things TF2 did was show extra weapon depth with funny video's about each class, certainly very little in-game.

I saw an article on Dishonored (stealth game) and they said:
something about Dishonored got to me -- the simple but intuitive stealth mechanics, the incredibly atmospheric machinist-mariner universe. The heart, a haunting narrator.

Now they refer to the game mechanics as simply but in a good way, is this a presentation thing? or do people just look at quake as something too old school and simple (in a bad way). It is amazing what baggage a game title can have, even if it is MOD. 

Not sure how they can call it simple. More likely they just weren't paying attention. There are a lot of startegies and variation of gameplay during any given stealth run.

The unpredictability of the ai patrols and decisions are a large part of it but also how you choose to tackle situations provides many options.

You can kill when necessary, you can kill all or none, you can even charge past and hope to hide afetward.

All of these things is what I would expect from a stealth game. What else is there? 

Found a possible reason some people miss the amulet on their first play through of s1m1.
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/amulet.zip

command line: fitzquake085.exe -heapsize 60000 -window -game shadows

Reproduction steps: originally occurred when trying to "speedrun" levels with the amulet - I got killed by a dog and when I respawned, the amulet chamber did not open. This demo was just recorded by using the command "map s1m1". It seems to happen inconsistently after doing any of the following things:
a) Dying and restarting
b) Loading with the "map" command
c) Loading with the "changelevel" command
d) Reloading with the "restart" command

Once it starts happening you seem to get a long run of games where the bug occurs - could it be a tracking cvar getting stuck in a strange state? 

What I should have done is included a savegame in with the demo, because that gives you much more information for debugging - you can enter the game interactively and query entity values. I've saved a game when the bug occured and put it on pastebin:

http://pastebin.ca/raw/2297083

Save the above as amulet.sav and you can take a look. 

I noticed that, too. Without knowing the technical details/background, I thought it was simply a matter of delayed spawning of the trigger. For it seemed that the alcove opened properly if one waits on the start spot for a second or two, instead of dashing forward as soon as the maps is loaded.

"Simplistic gameplay" - but this is refering to the normal SP mode, I presume? I'm totally with necros here.