I was very pleased with this map. It's such an improvement over sick base in almost every way. Brushwork, lighting, texturing, and more importantly monster placement. I didn't find the map too hard, or to easy on skill 2. There were a lot of cool touches throughout the map that added to the experience.

I can't believe how much you have improved in such a short time, this map is excellent. I'll definitely be playing this again. Can't wait for your next map :) 

wow ricky, i'm honestly impressed.... you learn fast.. construction on that curved hallway is really weird tho 

are sexy: I'll play the map ASAP. Keep it up ! 

 

http://shub-hub.com/files/images/thehand10.jpg
http://shub-hub.com/files/images/thehand11.jpg
http://shub-hub.com/files/images/thehand12.jpg

l0l! - Did I originally type blah/thehand10.zip etc?

What a hoon!

Yeah - The cieling of the tunnel! Well, I had it working fine, but then on the final full compile, vis kept kicking my arse with stuff like:

elapsed 3hr 20mins 85%
ERROR - Leaf recursion at (co-ordinates of non concentric tunnel of d00m!!)

So I func_walled 'em!

Just doing this reduced TxQbsp warnings from 47 to 15!!

:-P 

the screens are 90% pitch black on my system. (half-ass software calibrated) 

Theyre just jpgs from tgas straight from Fitz! 

Nice, will play as soon as possible.

The screenshots are a bit dark but fine. 

Yeah, this was a good one. Architecture was top notch with a few good looking curved surfaces and I liked the exteriors of the base. I played it on normal and didn't die once but had to be careful all the time so it was pretty balanced.

Here's a demo of my first playthrough - took around 20 minutes:
http://www.mediafire.com/?7jnmed0xfwx 

... look very nice and I like the look of the stairs in that 2nd screenshot.

I'll have to try this one. 

excuse me, but how do i have to kill packs of vores and shamblers with no health and double barreled?

this map feels completely not balanced 

The map looks great, is large, the textures go together well and surprises with a few sections that weren't expected that also looked great.

I like large cavernous base maps and I think this map epitomizes what a modern Quake base map can be as far as size, appearance, use of lit files/skybox, textures, the various displays/pipes/"machines".

I played it on normal and the first 25 monsters were very challenging, but after that I never was "at risk" again.

It will be interesting to try this on hard some time, considering the large monster count increase from normal to hard. 

Vondur: Im listening; seems a little strange, I was wandering what engine you're using (I dunno, sometimes DarkPlaces jumbles stuff up, things fall out of the map etc) - maybe it's just my entity placement - seems weird though, the idea is that whatever skill you're on, you should have a SSG, NG and GL after about 20 kills, erm 100 shells (excluding grunt-packs) 125 nails (I think) and about 6-7 grenades (!?) - maybe with a demo I could see where you're running afray ;-) Might help my next map cater better for all sorts (?)

Orl: Thanks, Im glad you liked it, I'm glad you enjoyed skill 2, thats the skill I did most testing on - downgraded from there for other skills (although I think there's less ammo on skill 2/3)

Gibbie: Thanks man - I believe I have learned a lot, particularly from the aftermath of the Sickbase (l0l) - that hallway nearly got removed, but I decided to keep it cause A.It took ages to build and B.You dont see many hallways like it in Quake. Although I will say I probably will avoid such architecture in future projects! (czg was right - too complex, used Ijeds advice and func_walled the cieling)

Mikko: Thanks for the demo - really enjoyed watching it, also good to see someone complete it without finding most of the secrets!

Baker: Also v.glad you liked it, thanks for you kind words! Please do try it on skill 2/3 - weapon config is slightly different, a few ambushes 'n stuff too!

Thanks everyone for the feedback :-) 

you got there.
I really enjoyed the map, took me about 25minutes on normal skill.
The usage of textures is great and stunning: ie i love the tunnel/cave area!
Gameplay was fair, always enough ammo/health and a good resupply of armor.
Gonna go try this on nightmare now :D

keep on mapping that good stuff! 

Cool map. Very nice visuals. Great texture use and good architecture. The build quality is also top. I liked the layout and the combats. You should put some info about the need for quoth in the news text. Found it only at the very bottom of the txt file. My first try was without quoth and i quit frustrated after 5 minutes (guess the same happened to Vondur).
Anyway the map is very good. Keep up the good work. I'm amazed that you made it within two months. You didn't get that much sleep lately right? :)
I have recorded a demo on skill 1 but shubhub doesn't seem to work at the moment. 

Lots of detail and the theme changes were cool as well. Also lots of cool features - the bulletproof X's and the exploding X were fun.

I thought the Gugs were a bit underused, they could have been spread out a bit more (second appearance) and in higher numbers (first appearance) to be more challenging, on hard at least.

I did have alot of cells all the way through but I just left off using the PG too much and it was ok.

Anyhow, again an excellent map and I think you made a good decision there, switching from packs to a single concentrated map.

Also, Preach, I noticed this again here (probably you already know), but another bug in Quoth1 is the impulse 12/10 for weaponswitch. If you have both RL and PG but no ammo for one or the other (I forget) then only 10 or 12 works. 

I tried this without Quoth. I had to g+rj past one bit and noclip past the end. Doh.

Have a first run demo, one "death" from lava (a sort of "oops I'm in lava, quick put god mode and no clip on" death...).

I wouldn't say this map is the flagship standard bearer for smooth gameplay balance...

I did enjoy it though. I though the overall theme was rather good. 

...Doh!

Would perhaps one of the moderators do the deed!! 

I played skill 2. As I betatested it earlier I had some advantage to a new player but still it felt pretty unbalanced. Apart from that it is a nice map!

http://shub-hub.com/files/configs/thehand_fr_spirit.zip 

work better: http://shub-hub.com/files/demos_singleplayer/thehand_fr_spirit.zip 

What is the "proper" method to select the plasma gun?

I bound impulse 9 to a key and unwittingly it kept giving me full ammo as I played every time I selected it. 

you're actually not aware that impulse 9 is the give all cheat in 99% of all Q1 mods? Bind impulse 255 to another key (hint: Q) and see what happens ... 

I always use the "changeweapon" key to switch to plasma or any other weapon that uses a different impulse besides 1-8. Much easier I think. 

so is impulse 12 the PG? i.e.

"bind 9 impulse 12"

would work?

:-/ 

you're actually not aware that impulse 9 is the give all cheat in 99% of all Q1 mods?

Sure, but Quoth is a mod can define that itself.

Maybe in Quoth 2 some impulse will be dedicated to selecting the plasma gun, as it seems that it is only available using impulse 10/12. :(

For horde maps, I prefer being able to press, say, 5 for the SNG and so on to choose a particular weapon.