Quake talks to you from time to time........ 

@lurker, thanks for the demos, it was awesome to watch. I especially liked the comments in demo 1 and have some answers for your questions.

Silver/Gold Keys

The first key is in the split room to the left with the ogres behind bars and jumping down from above. The reason this is a key not a button for the final door is because the player picks up a key and has to bring it to a certain location. Pressing a button is remote and prone to the player getting lost easily. Having a silver key with relevant wall symbols is perfect for directing the player.

The second silver key is on a ledge behind bars next to a set of bars splitting a room in half. I wanted the player to be facing the split room door, so that when they open the room they are facing a certain way. By having the player use a silver key they will be facing a certain direction (usually, most people don't open doors backwards) and see the bars raise up and the steps pop out from the side.

The keys can be used from a design point of view for many things, they are not simply a barrier mechanic but also a way of focusing the player in a certain direction. 

seriously delicious map.

In addition to the comments I made above, I will agree with the person that said a few ambient sounds here and there would have made the atmosphere even better. 

Finally uploaded my playthrough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0vSsRAfB0I 

@nitin, awesome :) Did you try different skill levels? Did you find all the secrets? Did you use the monster crushers?

@spirit, thanks for your youtube link, but I really want to watch a demo file on my pc full screen. Sorry, thanks for the effort. 

secrets, 5/7, I have never really been good with secrets though. Played it on medium first 2 times, hard the third time but I'm not an expert at hard and found it pretty challenging. I found it pretty challenging on medium too but that's because of the monster placement unless you changed the AI?

Monster crushers, second and third time yes. First time through, I usually just shot stuff :) 

because you didnt answer it before. 

 

@nitin, there are no changes to AI, I just tried to place the AI in advantageous positions so their attack is more effective. For example, tweaking height levels for ogres and Hknights and hiding knights around corners so they can get to the player quicker. I am glad you tried different skill levels, I spent a while tweaking them. :) 

but wanted to confirm. It is very clever placement. 

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

I made some func_walls act as counters in mstalk1d which results in their removal after the end battle. I should have thought of that... 

@negke, I would not worry, hardly anyone went back for secrets after the final battle (from all the demos I watched). I get the impression most people don't hunt for secrets, if they find some then it is a bonus, otherwise they march to the end. 

When I create a demo for public display I don't go for excessive secret hunting so I don't bore the viewer. No idea how/if others change their playing style when observed but I could imagine others doing the same and skewing the "first run" with that. 

@spirit, actually that is the stuff I like to watch in demo's, getting a proper understanding of what players are looking at and for how long. Plus the Mark V engine has FF/RW functions for watching demo's which I use to skip obvious stuff or watch an encounter again. One thing I do like about demo's is that it forces players not to rely on quick save/load functions, the bane of Quake IMHO. 

I try to find secrets, and often return from before the exit to do so. By which time they are all useless of course.

I like secrets :D 

re: secrets, that's definitely my take on them. if i see something during play, i'll make some effort to figure out how to get it, but usually don't spend very long on it.
secret locations are more of a draw to me than items. 

depending on my mood and how much time I have spent/have left to spend I tend to hunt around afterwards. I figure if the mapper wants to stop watching at any point they can do so. 

I die after getting careless and alerting a horde.

Some secret hunting, a few comments.

Missed all the crusher traps :P

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7ws8qsfb3jms4t/ijedmstalk.zip 

Final collection of demo files (21 total, 39.6Mb)

@ijed, that is a shame about the lava death, things were going really well up till that point. I was looking forward to the final battle.
@spy, at the beginning of your demo it felt like you had played it before (found LG/SS secrets very quickly). Nightmare mode looked crazy hard.

@necros, cool, I did not know that, I will make sure to add more secret areas next time :)

@shambler, I am glad someone loves the hunt for secrets, it is always great replay value for me. 

yeah, items in secrets are rarely useful to me anyway. kell was a master at this. he'd make windows looking out on areas that looked like they were just for decoration and then you'd find out that it was actually part of a secret.

those were really rewarding and you got a nice visual treat when you found your way into them too. 

yeah, i guess it was 2nd run, not sure what version i've been playing 1c or 1d

looking forward to your next release 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vhlgjkwvwylco2h/ijedmstalk2.zip

7/10 secrets, 22 minutes. 

@spy, your demo was 1c (the extra stuff). I know this because when I play 1d demo's with 1c all the entities (doors etc) are missing visually.

@ijed, thanks for the second demo. As you found out some secrets are designed for second+ runs, just like the crushers. I designed the map to be played several times and each time get new things to play with. It was cool to see the RL ambush working as planned. The zombies pushing the player to grab the RL and the HKnights forcing the player to switch weapons or be punished with rocket damage. 

I did that the first time as well.

It felt like it would have worked better with fiends instead of HK's and 4x as many zombies - all cramped into that tiny space. To try and provoke 'stunning' the zombies, so the player can deal with the fiends and then escape.