Then I'll be sure to put a message in the readme after where I explain the map requires rocket jumping saying "don't do this on any other map, you filthy cheater," etc. 

Otp, though in that map it wasn't either required, wind pad just wasn't as obvious to the player as it should have been. 

Doesn't matter.

"The way forward is unclear, maybe I need to rocket jump" is not a behavior that should be encouraged. 

I think you can have a puzzle that requires a specific maneuver if you tell the player. It may not work for everyone but a shootable hint along the lines of "The Well of Wishes Awaits in the Crypt of Decay" would be fine by me. And a good example of giving the player positive feedback for figuring a little secret or out. Use the stretched faces behind a blocked off area just as in the id1 Start level

Here are some suggestions:

"A fire at your feet will show you the way."

"A quick blast will lift your spirits."

"Hey dipshit rocket jump up there." 

Just put down some scorch-marks. Sure, quake doesn't have them normally, but when people see a burned texture on the floor, it might give them a hint that "hey, i'm supposed to try something here!"

Worrying about whether or not this sort of thing is a bad thing to teach players is a losing battle. Most people already know about rocket jumping, and although some choose not to use it, there really isn't anything you can do to stop people who want to. People will break your map when they play it if they can, and there really isn't anything you can do about it, except for building it better so that they don't feel the need to. 

Seriously, insisting that incorporating one of the coolest, most iconic unintentional mechanics in a game is off-limits to people making maps for this game *as a hobby* because it *encourages bad behavior* in the playerbase is pretty silly. Like Pritchard said above, its pretty widely known about, and I would add not even hard to learn, pretending it doesn't exist is silly especially given the rich opportunities to make cool shut that exist.

This is way off topic though. 

I tried looking at some source files from maps, but i cant figure it out. Someone please walk me thru the process.

I want to set a skill select area in my map without changing the map. 

As far as I know you have to change or restart the level after the difficulty has been set, because what difficulty it is on (0,1,2,3*) can change which monsters are spawned or not.

*3 is nightmare and normally doesn't change anything from hard but I think there are some hacks to make it behave differently to hard as well... 

Have you considered mapping for something like Q3 or Warsow ****as a hobby****? 

http://i.imgur.com/pEt9VvO.png 

I can't find an exact link for a tutorial for this but I know it involves using runes and an info_player_start2

Take a look at the source for sock's Fallen From Grace:

http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/sp/fallen.htm

I have not tried this but it's probably fairly simple. 

The issue has been resolved. thanks. 

I justed wanted to fart in here and say that Discord is *amazing* for working on maps with a small team. You can drag and drop pics, demos, map files, wads etc into the chat window and it'll upload them for everyone else with no fuss etc. You can pin useful messages and files for everyone to see. It even has full voice chat if you want to use that. And all from a web interface! (Or an app)

I've been digging it. 

i think we should migrate from irc to discord at some point ;) 

I made a start on it https://discord.gg/NJ8sKQf

I don't expect it to take over irc, but we can give it a shot perhaps 

I've been trying to figure out how to set a new line of text in a message lately but can't seem to get it to work. It appears that in id's maps they use a backslash followed by the letter n to do just this, but whenever I try it it doesn't work, and it just shows the command being written in the message in game. What gives? 

you're using TrenchBroom 2 RC3 right?

It's a bug in TrenchBroom. Not much you can do at the moment because they get converted to \\n whenever you save, though I guess you can open the .map in a text editor and find/replace \\n with \n before compiling. 

Yup, TB2 RC3. I didn't know it was a bug, thanks for shedding some light on this issue though. I'll try what you suggested. 

Anyone know of a good 'pile-of-skulls/bones' texture? 

skulls2 from februus 

Maybe also floorskull1 as used in ad_necrokeep (don't know where it's from originally). 

Here's something that wakes up a grunt, e1m3-style.

Quaketastic download: http://www.quaketastic.com/files/misc/hcmnstrtest.zip 

However, you can't play the level until info_player_start is in it.