i get the same 404 message 

go here first:
http://www.geocities.com/AlanR643/

then click on the link. geocities doesn't allow remote linking, that's all. 

That did it. 

cant say I really liked it, sorry headthump.

The brushwork was averagey and the lighting and texturing didnt do much too enhance it IMHO. Some really odd texturing choices in general.

Gameplay wise it's a mixed bag. It's tough but not frustrating. I just didnt enjoy the combat though, there was no fun about it.

Anyway, it shows promise and I hope to see your next map despite this negative criticism. 

skill 3
26:23
0/1
103/103

Demo on it's way. The time is pretty slow since the combat was intense from the start and that left very little health between the start room and the silver key.

Very narrow and cramped in places, a little confusing at times. Had a definite 1998-1999 map feel to it with it's narrow slopes in rooms and over water and fairly flat but "busy" architecture.

In general, quite fun if a little too involved. I enjoyed playing through. The whole thing was very intense and a bit hard to follow at times. A great effort for a first map and I hope you make more.

Oh, and WTF is that trigger_push in the water all about??

Oh, and the wall just disappearing in front of the GK door was horrible.

Oh, and I couldn't find the secret. Found the quad and the SNG which I thought could both have been secrets but not the real secret, whatever that was. :-) 

so any alterative DL?
Thanks! 

I only got half the zip, then the page had its "data transfer limit" exceeded. It'll probably work again later, but maybe a 2nd DL url would be a good idea? 

I must say that this map could have needed some (more?) beta testing. A lot of textures needed alligment. The goldkey door was to narrow to the texture. Some wather brushes stoped before they reached the sourrunding walls. Just before the GK-door you are to push two buttons, by accident I pushed the first two times and the sequence was complete (the buttons shouldn't reset!) etc.

Anyway it's a first map and as so not that bad.
It had it's moments!

I played on hard (as I always does) and the start was well "HARD". Meeting 3 knights, 1 ogre, 2 Hknights and 1 fiend with the SG at spawn point is more of a nightmare 8-).
Well I survived (after three restarts, so no demo) and are looking forward to your next map. 

please check your email for some info regarding the map. 

I do thank all of you for giving it a whirl however you may feel about the level overall.

AquiRe I haven't got the message but MSN has informed me that there is a delay in the service that will be cleared up shortly.

Levelworm, if it is okay to send directly to your address you should recieve the file soon.

'Just before the GK-door you are to push two buttons, by accident I pushed the first two times and the sequence was complete (the buttons shouldn't reset!) etc'

ouch, I just checked it out and you are right. How would you off set it? Pass it to a trigger relay before the counter?

'I played on hard (as I always does) and the start was well "HARD". Meeting 3 knights, 1 ogre, 2 Hknights and 1 fiend with the SG at spawn point is more of a nightmare 8-).'

If you shoot the Ogre on the stairs once and immediately veer left or right, monster infighting should greatly reduce this burden.

In the second encounter set, I normaly only have to deal with a greatly weakened Vore as the knights and hellknights eagerly chop up on each other in the tight underground passage.

'Oh, and the wall just disappearing in front of the GK door was horrible. '

I originaly used the hipnotic progs.dat for this and this area was set to be an exploding wall. When I nixed that idea in mid course, I was at a loss for an idea of what to do to replace that idea.

'Oh, and WTF is that trigger_push in the water all about??'

Part of the physical language of the level. Suppose to show that the capsized boat got caught in the undertow an underground river. Again, Hipnotic would have been more useful here.

And it is definitely retro. The idea was to make the supporting, functional brush design in the stark, original Id episode mode and then detail brush work it along more modern organic appearing lines for the purpose of creating contrast. If this one doesnt quite suceed I'm working hard so the next level will.

I worked on the level until I got sick of seeing it in the editor. Well, some time well past that point, but after I finish the current level I'll revisit this level to address the problems raised. 

'Just before the GK-door you are to push two buttons, by accident I pushed the first two times and the sequence was complete (the buttons shouldn't reset!) etc'

ouch, I just checked it out and you are right. How would you off set it? Pass it to a trigger relay before the counter?

On each button, set "wait" "-1".

Oh, and just as a general rule, try not to assume that the player will try to incite monster in-fighting. I made that mistake with RPGSP1, and consequently the level was too hard. (That wasn't the only reason it was too hard, but it certainly compounded the issue.) 

it's about many of the sky brushes not being "real" sky brushes and therefore the sunlight doesn't work as expected. You must apply the sky texture on all sides of each sky brush.

Also, there are two torches with delay 3 (no attenuation) which makes the lighting in that room extremely harsh. I'd suggest changing them to normal lights (delay 0). 

'On each button, set "wait" "-1". '

I was assuming I should make them still operable after usage but that is not needed art all.

AquiRe, that was a roundabout but extreme way of making the SilverKey platform noticeable as the goal. Using a small spotlight on the GoldKey area and reducing the room 'glare' makes much more sense! 

SilverKey area I mean. Had that dang 'Silver and Gold' song from Rudolf stuck in my head. 

"This page is not available" or something and no link shows up for the download. :( 

the Alanr643@yahoo e-mail account so the correspondannce isnt reliant on MSN and Metlslime's generous tolerence. I'll be back to check up after baseball practice this afternoon, so, Zwiffle, if you have any further problems getting a hold of it, I'll send the level directly. I checked it out and from the vantage point of my server it seeems to be running fine. 

http://scampie.spawnpoint.org/maps/other/ariadat.zip 

Oh thanks Scampie :D 

Easy skill

24:31
0/1
82/89

Got scared by some of the difficulty comments, so I did a first run on easy (I generally s4wk anyway).

Oh well, at least you can have a good laugh seeing me flailing around like a tard in front of the spawns ;)

Overall I thought the map was a bit of a mixed bag. There are some great designs here and there, but the level of detail in the brushwork is very inconsistant - varying from uber-detailed to very large flat walls.

I didn't think the terrain bit at the beginning was really necessary - espec. as the theme wasn't continued later in the map.

The buttons were rather odd I'm afraid to say - they seemed mostly to be one-shot triggers, but they didn't stay down which was confusing.

Some of the steps seemed a little too high as well - best to stick with either 16 or 8 high.

Gameplay was enjoyable on easy (perhaps more suited to normal?) - I can't comment on the higher skill levels, as I haven't played them yet. Some monsters got stuck now and then - the gold key door was too narrow, making the end battle too easy.

Layout was generally fairly good - the only bit that threw me was the puzzle-ish thing near the beginning where you had to shoot the demonic face (actually in hindsight it was fairly obvious, but I guess I just had one of those "doh" moments)

Skimming back over my comments it seems as if I'm focusing on the negative - but I found it a very enjoyable map overall. 

Some interesting combat situations throughout, though their quality varied immensely. I liked the spawn combat in the narrow areas, and also the death knights + ogre underwater (looked stupid but a good challenge). The beginning was too hard (played on hard) and the end was far too easy - hung back and pasted the vores with the RL. The shambler was also no challenge whatsoever.

Generally sub-iD build quality. Some nice ideas in the designs, but messy brushwork and too much clutter detracted from the architectural set-pieces - you need to plan the layout of your maps better in order to accentuate the bits of architecture you've spent the most time on. I found the small underwater passages unnecessarily difficult to traverse.

Texturing was flat and taken from too narrow a palette, and lighting was adequate at best and nonsensical or shockingly bad at its worst (like the fullbright room after the spiky door). The clipped-off corners of the floors really needed to be lined and textured differently from the rest of the floor and walls.

It was interesting to play, and good for a first effort, but as someone said above, this needed more work to make it into a gem of 2004. 

I'm not gonna say this map doesn't suck, but I'm won't go into what was so bad about it either. Instead, I complement you on the layout of the level. Winding back on itself and visiting areas again was what made this interesting to me. I thought the layout of the level and the path was very good, well mapped out. I don't know if the GL in the water was a secret or not, it seemed like it should have been. I only found the Quad Damage by accident, but it was very useful in the room that followed. Good effort, great layout, just work on architecture and texturing a little more. 

well, it wasn't too bad. i couldn't complete the map because it kepts crashing fq just as i approached a wooden door after getting the sk and opening a fancy looking gate.

anyway, what the fuck is with everyone and scaling down textures? it looks like ass, ffs!
the map's brushwork is fine and gameplay is good. it's the fucking textures, that's all!

i liked it alot, until it crashed, to be honest. the cramped areas reminded me a lot of doom, and that's good. :) it made fighting the monsters much more difficult, and there were some genuinly cool surprises. also, the fight with the busted boat/mh with the vore in the water and the 3 hknights + ogre on top was cool.

but please, never downscale textures again, *please*. 

but please, never downscale textures again, *please*.

Yeah, upscale your designs instead so it looks equally ass... 

about the map. It worked fairly well but had quite a bit of problems, the main being player movement difficulties. In all too many places the player couldn't move properly, stairs had to be jumped etc. Clip brushes could've helped here.

The next issue was lighting; the first big open area is almost fullbright and several others were either too dark or too bright, sometimes both in the same area. Part of this I assume is caused by the disabled sky brushes I mentioned before.

As others have noted, the texture combinations/alignments were odd and made an inconsistent impression. Several water brushes were chopped off and thus looked weird.

Gameflow was mostly OK, except from a confusing part in the zombie sewer with the opening hole at the bottom. Challenge and monster/weapon/ammo balance (on Normal) was also mainly OK although a bit uneven at times.

I'd suggest not to expose monsters that can't reach you yet (e.g. the fiend through the gate). Also, the end combat was overly easy since you could retreat and blast shambler & co from afar (the shambler couldn't get through the door).

I liked the first open yard and the boat area, the latter with a bit different textures and atmosphere.

Not bad for a first map. If the player movements could be improved, I think it would be much more enjoyable. Let me know if you need help with the lighting issues. 

i couldn't complete the map because it kepts crashing fq just as i approached a wooden door after getting the sk and opening a fancy looking gate.

Hey the same thing happend to me at the same spot.
I first loaded the map in tomazq 146 and got the same crash. Then I tried Fq 70 and 75, then Tyrq with same result. Winq wouldn't load on my system so in the end I played the map in MHq, with no problems. Weird!