not that I didn�t like MadFox� previous maps :)

I was just wondering what the pent on the island was supposed for ?!
The mines were overall my favorite part, nice atmosphere and the trolley ride is just great. 

From the screenshots, remembers some of the hipnotic maps... Maybe a tribute ? 

There are more than a couple of homages to hipnotic maps in this one ;-)

Good stuff, Madfox. A considerable improvement, brushwork-wise, over your other maps. The layout was good, I didn't get as lost as I have in some of your maps. The textures were good, thanks mainly to Starbuck's 24-bit TGAs I still have on my hard-drive, but I still am baffled by some of the wood-tech or brick-tech combos you use (O_o) Overall a nice, challenging, large map with some serious atmosphere in parts. Good job!


P.S. Please re-skin that worm ;-) 

Time: 43:17

Secrets: 2/3

Kills: 158/159

Your maps seem to get better and better with time, Madfox. This map felt gigantic, like two levels combined, i think due in part to the layout, which had you running everywhere. You really seem to be fantastic at creating layouts, definetly not the "hallway-room-hallway" style.
The map was fun to play itself, with a nice mix of base and standard monsters.
Some of the texture combinations were strange, like the rock island with the pentagram that was textured with a base texture on its top.


I remember the Wyrm from the Virtus levels. I remember it being cool back in the day, before i had an internet connection and before i had gotten the mission packs. Deathmatch Maker sucked so much it almost turned me off mapping, as i couldn't align any of my brushes. If i can find the CD somewhere, i'll upload the Virtus mission pack, that while not having many good levels, is good for a laugh in parts. 

Well, I replayed the map for the... let's say 4th time including beta test sessions, and as I already told you, I had a lot of fun playing it. It is effectively a huge map, with a lot of area to explore. BTW I didn't find all the secrets...
Globally I can't add something different but others said.

Nevertheless, just questions: wasn't this map supposed to be part of the base pack initially ? So do you plan to participate to the Base pack, or do you "resign" ? 

looks not bad but there are many maps styled better. the biggest + is that the map is really big and the gameplay isn't so linear as someone said "room -> hallway -> room" :)

it's really big map, plays fun but i had problems with ammo and way out from some rooms :) 

...thanx for raising that point again, I think it got lost in the transfer of threads.

Madfox, this is again a vast improvement on your previous work. Right at the end I got very confused as to how to progress but overall I must agree with Ionous in that you have a great mind for layouts.

I loved the room with the cyclotron. I thought the collapsing ground in the mine was a bit cheap. I believe you could spend more time optimizing vore placement (I played normal, and fights with them were mostly quite boring). Despite the haphazard texturing on the actual vehicle, the whole gondola experience was very satisfying.

I remain a fan, in awe of your imagination. 

Cool map, gave me some 45 minutes of good time. I liked the style and layout. The gameplay was also good. I liked the encounters, one or two bigger battles would be welcome though. On normal skill it wasn't hard to survive. Ammo and health distribution was ok for me. I didn't use most of the MH's.
I liked the rocky outdoor area with the lift a lot.
Here is a demo of the first run:
http://shub-hub.quaddicted.com/files/demos_singleplayer/phantom_ankh.dz 

I played the beta of this from the Base pack thread, had me thinking it was actually going to be part of that pack. Anyway, nice layout and sense of 'place'. I think the realistic style (as opposed to trying to fit abstract brushwork to a theme) made it reminiscent of SoA as well as the obviously inspiration from the mine level (hip1m4?). There was quite a lot of weird texture choices and crude brushwork that gave it a slightly unpolished look in some areas, but the imaginative and non-boxy environments somehow helped to suppress those occasional bits of ugly.
Gameplay was quite forgiving giving it a relaxed pace, but was interspersed with cinematic fights in areas like the reactor room. The lack of a good end fight was a bit of a let down though.
Keep on mapping.. 

Thanks for your answers, fine you enjoyed the map. I've been so involved in making it, I'm glad to find some first impressions of others.
Because I had some strange days behind me, I'll try to relate to some answers.

m. : last screen HL2, I don't have HL2 but it obviously could.

Shambler: there is really a positive neutrino in you.

eisenfresser: I tried to make the gameflow as logical as I could. Because I had no funcs left I couldn't place messages so I expected the player to explore. And as always, how bigger the map, how sharper the decission in setting marks.

ijed: I never managed to make a shorter runthrough than 40 minutes, so granny you aren't. The Gondola had some errors caused by the slopes of the caves. I couldn't change them without loosing the track of the monorail. Can you give me a screenshot of the part where you felt through, I would like to explore it.
First most of the textures were scaled up double because of the lightmap max. True clipping could have helped but I was out of brushes.

Trinca: You ain't have got nothing yet without the Quoth monsters.

Silent: It took quiet some time before I had the newboss working. It isn't the bouncing box. Searched a long time, but as the newboss kept shooting from the bottem it got stuck on the lavaborder. I sended you the level for testing, but youre email failed.

Orl: Sure it is dark, it is a mine shaft, it was much darker before untill I was told there are engines with other lux-settings. JoeQuake made a grey impression so I had a light level of 40.

Sielwolf: The pentagram was more a lead you through to the silver key door. But as I played it so much the keen impression on it somehow perished.

fragmachine: True, as I started the idea of the lost mine thing I reproduced the first start of the DOE map.

generic: it's good to see it with RPG new textures although the animated ones will look a little pale. And as I decided to use classic Quake textures they may look a little odd.
You may think the newboss is from DMmaker, but I started the model from scratch, reason it looks so queer. Making a base frame for a monster can be a hazeardous job, as I experienced. Not talking about qc.

ionous: One of my favourites was to make that newboss working. I never saw it in a map, while I think there are more people who have DeathMatch Maker. The only map I ever saw it in had it wrecked through three stages. But it worked, and I couldn't guess how.

m: I didn't have no func_messages left or I had to delete some essential logic.

jpl: I posted this level because I know it will be part of the base pak but without earthquakes and explosions. And as the Quoth monsters are much sharper it would have been an easy peace of cake if you play it first in Quoth. So yes, still participating in the Quoth pak, as the updated level in the supported link for Quoth mappers shows.

distrans:the collapsing ground may be cheap, but if I had made the eartquake a bit bigger (as I first planned) it would have been really to hard. I had this argue before in GruntGrenedin. And I have the feeling that how longer I work on a map, how harder it gets to remind the players first look.

ankh: thanks for your demo! I had made some but died everytime on the last part(grr), will try it again.

omus: there was a point I had this map ready but no gameplay. I never thought it would be so difficult to find a gameplay that touches all places without making it dull.

Glad to have made this one, I liked the proxsys mod and I would like to make a map for it. First I wanted to do something with the func_water_train in the big cave part. It didn't work out because of the large area so the water dissapeared.

Thanks for your reply!
Quake1 rules... 

SO sorry for the big time sucking of my mail host... Now I have changed my default email in my func account, and that will work for sure... SO sorry I didn't make it for testing... The map is very good/fantastic even though there might be some issues to be pointed at, I'll try to record a short demo of the many places where you fall through the scenery(many? Not so much, but at least 4 or 5,if I remember correctly). But, all in all a very welcome offering in Q1 mapping scene. Keep it up! (And drop me a mail next time you wanna test something, be it a new level or a tuna sandwich ; )) 

Interesting map, good fun to play through and well worth it, with a few spectacular scenes.

Good:

Scale, some impressive architecture, fun and fairly well balanced gameplay, never too desperate but plenty of interesting combats, mines were pretty cool, some effects used well, canyon and cable car were excellent, consistent theme, interesting progression and revisiting areas.

Bad:

Texturing was often fairly poor, some random texture choices and errors, could have been smoother visually, some more details and "themed" designs would have helped, some areas a bit weaker, lack of endgame was disappointing, some areas really needed an easy way back to other areas in case you fell off something.

In short: Keep the gameplay, keep the style and inspiration, work on the texturing and thematic polish - and keep mapping! 

I just saw your demo Ankh, and was really surprised by the way you played the game.
Did not held it for possible how you managed to jump over the crates to the windtunnel, nor the way you found the hom near the upper wheel.
You are not supposed to be there, but I thought you knew that.

I tried to make a demo myself, but the strange thing has overcome me I can't. Tried four times and won't succeed. It seems the mine has lost my thing. Still trying.

Shambler, I know I have a totally defeated look for textures, first all was scaled up for two. As I see my way of mapping, it is more a accident than a way of knowing. 

I was fooling around a bit. Didn't try grenade jumping to not break the supposed route.
Did you say you can't finish your own map without dying?! You must try harder :) Maybe someone from the speedrunning scene could record a fast demo on this map to show you what is possible. 

I was already glad you ended my most nightmare...that it would be unplayable.
After I had the map finished I altered the secrets, so I had no idea if they would be usefull enough.

Now I'm trying to record a demo, without using them and that's more than an aprehension. I just can't play with +mlook, i'm more a keybordfreak.

Strange enough, the one hom you reached wasn't deletable or the whole map collapsed on too many lightmaps. 

a nice map, it's good to see you're making progress. this level looks pretty good has an interesting gameplay and it is large [i](very imho: large=good)[/i].

and one more thing: I found some good oldskool tricks/gameplay elements in both this map and e4m4 remake that we usually forget to use in modern maps. I won't reveal them and will use them in my new maps. 

E4M4 was mine . . .

But not too good, just a turtlemap. Maybe I'll finish it properly after Warp. 

I already saw Ankh shipgoating to places I didn't held possible.
Glad the level gave you inspiration.

...had to think pulsar sometimes while making the map...

I was playing the DMM newboss and have to admit he's even harder than in my level. And has the proper size to hit. 

I guess I played it in unusual way, will try to record a demo of my route... 

Great you like the level.

Sorry the Polyp has a damage seize of 64 while it is 256.
Restored the screenies. 

That's close to my first run, just for fun.

http://www.primefan.ru/stuff/quake/ph.dz (2Mb)
http://www.primefan.ru/stuff/quake/ph.zip (7Mb)

There's a bug encountered in the demo; a similar bug occurs on the higher ledge above the GL. 

I will take a look. 

Hey Madfox, I played this about 2 years ago, and took a look again. This level has no problems (caves look good) and it was made 2007. Abandon is 2007, but I just read it's all your early work redone into a pack. Both have lots of good ideas and game play, with Phantom being more elaborate. 

Formally the level is right, but some things like the polyp damage only low region could be better. At that time I was jamming with the extra-mod
and wanted something done with the func_water_lift.
It didn't work out so I took the Gondola part.
And something I learned on this board, how to avoid a cubick map without leaks.

Abandon is released in 2004. I made some random changes and created another pak.Most levels were made before 2000 when I had no internet.
As a matter of fact I was surprised to see there was still so much feedback on a '96-game. 

Droog_Andrey@- I watched the demo and must say I'm surprised in how many way people can play a level. When mapping I always tend to give the player's choise a two way options, making the gameflow as wide as possible.

Jumping over the minecache into the shaft was one of the things I couldn't seal off. By taking this track you ended in a gamepath just the opposite that was made. Still I was quiet surprised seeing you getting back through the level.

I must agree the platform nearby the gondola has a bug, there's a hollow brush in the wall.
I had a hard time staying under the max_planes limit while hussling with these failing polys.