I'm also (finally!) playing Swampy currently. As I speak, I'm at 425/510 kills on skill 2, 19/25 secrets and 235 mins playing time and I'm fuckin' loving it! 

ad_obd
skill 3
59:47 ; 8/10 secrets ; 326/328 monsters ;; 5 deaths
another hard map. the final fight is a very hard.
i liked the possibility of using traps against the monsters
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B72Jjyg-RfNFV0J5aHJZckRMbHc

ad_swampy
skill 3
109:50 ; 20/25 secrets ; 507/514 monsters ;; 0 deaths
wow. huge and interconected. in lenght it almost feel like a full vanilla episode. it's much more fun too.
it's hard to find all the tomes, but i did it. i didn't find all the secrets even when i really tried. this will be fun.
i also found a rocket launcher when i killed almost all monsters. yikes
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B72Jjyg-RfNFLVBoOG9FV3JaUmc

btw, 1gb demos? those particles sure are heavy. at least they compress at around 9% of the original size 

https://www.twitch.tv/negke

For the next 2 hours, negke derps swampy. He's already ruined things by killing an ogre fisherman... 

Monstrosity was well polished. Couldn't find one last secret.

Azad was beautiful, very moody. Couldn't find one last secret.

Leptis Magna was just superfun. Couldn't find one last secret.

Playing through Zendar n....holy crap!! That scragmother is the mother of all coolness!!

So, I don't see any fishing ogres yet. Are the older maps updated or something? Which ones do we need to replay to see moar awesomeness? 

ad_metmon
skill 3
28:46 ; 7/10 secrets ; 94/101 monsters ;; 0 deaths
i like the style of structure floating in the void
i'm loving all those grunt variants, and the flier robot is annoying in a good way, like the one in q2
i changed the cl_sidespeed to 200; that could be considered a cheat? :D
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B72Jjyg-RfNFakI2R1FVWC1wOGc

ad_zendar
skill 3
56:10 ; 8/10 secrets ; 223/224 monsters ;; 2 deaths
nice town. another big fight at the end. and the scrag boss was challenging. the new monsters keep getting better.
i'm liking these interconected nonlinear maps. you get lost playing the first time, but i'm sure these maps have huge replay value
and besides replay value, you can just explore them, they are beautiful
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B72Jjyg-RfNFTWh6NDhVVzVrSmc


i will make an user and write a review in quaddicted after replaying all the maps
but this mod is more fun and better that all the other new games in the "old school" category
and is professionally polished, something that cannot be said of modern AAA games
also, in my opinion this mod is on par with the top mod/wads in the doom community (23rd aniversary!!!) in quality
at leat the ones that i played and checked.

congrats and enjoy the praise 

Which ones do we need to replay to see moar awesomeness?

The Foggy one has the ogre, I believe. 

Well... it's Zendar.

This is definitely a more memorable update than the one from March this year (I remember practically nothing about that one).

I thought I was spoiled on the Nour boss fight but I didn't anticipate it at _that_ particular moment. As Shambler said this is quite a lot harder than the original, with all the updates to the AI and whatnot. My usual tactics had gotten me well rekt.

However, while this is a good update, I can't shake the feeling that it's not a very necessary update. The original Zendar was already a 10/10 map when it was ID1. I'm always a sucker for breakables and other cool stuff from AD but in this case it felt like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa to try to make it more complete.

And most importantly, the gameplay has been simplified by the removing the multiple silver key metagame, which was one of my favorite parts of the original. :(

I enjoyed this version a lot, but unlike how the new metmon can definitely replace the Quoth version, I'll be replaying the original Zendar rather than the AD update.

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/otp_2endar.zip 

and some brushwork & entity changes. 

Playing this map really made me wish that grenades could break through glass windows instead of just bouncing off. This already exists as QC!

http://svn.icculus.org/*checkout*/remakequake/src/weapons.qc

Pretty please mr SOC? 

Haven't played much of this but wanted to say that, from the first 15 minutes of Terror Fuma, I love the texture combinations, lighting, and brushwork. So many unique shapes that are well-proportioned and fresh, like the 32-wide pillars with terminals on them, or the big diagonal stretches of pipe. And as for textures, not only do they gel well but it's full of little references to other things that i like, such as the pipe texture from the q2 waste levels, floor panels from stecki, radiation panels from doom2, and the tech panels taken from Android Arts.

Also the little cinematic moments like the ship landing and the bugs attacking the humans. 

A great new theme. Loved it. So many neat moments such as the infighting, ship, pipe climbing, poison pyros! and more! 

That was the one ;) 

Skill 2 run knowing all the secrets and tricks. Got through it easily apart from a worrying moment in the final arena when I got trapped in a stone blitz and only just made it to the RA secret. Had a lot of fun this time, the secrets make a lot of difference.

WRT to the balance issues....the armour situation at the start might be problematic.

First GA is 0 monsters
Next GA is 87 monsters (87 later)
This is after 2 traps, 1 combat where if you retreat you have to go through a trap again, 10 zombies you have to axe, the introduction of new ranged attack vorelings, numerous ambushes, with the DBS in a secret.
Next GA is 142 monsters (55 later)
Next YA is 176 monsters (34 later)
Next YA is 199 monsters (23 later)
Next YA is 249 monsters (50 later)
After that I went questing into super-secrets and got lost. 

After watching ArrrCee's playthrough of necromancer's keep, I realised how badass it would have been for those player models to come to life as "posessed players" or something, (maybe using bot code for AI) without respawning.

It would make the single player experience way harder, but it would make it feel like you were actually fighting another slipgate warrior that had risen from the grave. 

bot-like ai in single player quake usually plays terrible. I remember how bad combat against Nehahra's strafing base enemies felt. 

if they were risen from the dead you'd probably gimp their movement speed or something.

either that or treat them like a boss-enemy. 

I don't really want this for Necrokeep...


...but you could just make them essentially a grunt. You'd need a whole set of new standup anims though, Quakeguy only falls down and there are no animations for getting back up from his various on the ground poses.

But I don't really like the idea of fighting other quakeguys anyway, or there being living quakeguys. I like being the sole survivor and lone warrior (coop discounted) 

risen from the dead
gimp their movement speed

Which sounds a bit like the existing grunt with its AD weapon variations. 

I was thinking that rising from the dead suited the theme of the map. I mean, you start in a grave, and the boss at the end asks you what you're doing out of it. So to me it kinda stands to reason that other "players" should be able to rise too.

That aside, I really like the changes from 1.4 to 1.5 :) 

I'd say risen players are basically grunts. Definitely not needed imo. 

Impressive in every way. So much new stuff, and amazing maps on top. Top notch quality. You can be proud of yourselves! Some of the new gameplay mechanics take some getting used to, both in a good and a bad way.

Tbh, it discourages me even more from continuing mapping, and new people from starting at all, so in this sense it's actually a pretty terrible mod You should be ashamed of yourselves!

More comments later, maybe. Some first run demos below. Beware: there's a lot of derping, dying and getting lost, probably annoying to watch and barely worth sharing, but didn't want to have wasted 10gb for nothing. Most of it played on stream, so distractions and pressure from the unforgiving Roman audience along the way. Scampie tricked me into playing on Hard, which probably wasn't be wisest move to follow...

http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_azad_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_crucial_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_dm1_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_dm5_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_e2m2_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_firetop_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_magna_negke_a.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_magna_negke_b.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_metmon_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_necroblood_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_obd_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_swampy_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_tfuma_negke.7z
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ad15_zendar_negke.7z

No demos for: ad_e1m1, because Scampie sucks; ad_e2m7, because I forgot to record; ad_lavatomb, because I ran out of ammo and cba to grind; ad_end, because mfx sucks; ad_tests, because. 

What changes are there in 1.5 on Necromancer's? I havent had time to play it again yet, but I flew through on noclip for a sec the other day, all I saw were more colored lights and someone removed the "bones of children". Oh and the graves were breakable. 

Tbh, it discourages me even more from continuing mapping, and new people from starting at all
...or it can inspire them. I firmly believe that great art encourages inspiration and emulation rather than the opposite. 

DICK.

Simple, good, fun maps are still good. Look at the retrojam5 pack. 

With making smaller, quicker projects tbh. Episode 4 retro jam was my favourite