- The huge layout and tons of monsters is very indicative of Doom2 level design and gameplay. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but when the map runs this poorly, you really need to reexamine your approach. There's a reason maps like this in Quake are usually a lot more enclosed - you have to imply the open space by capping more areas off with sky. Being able to walk over the top of every building isn't necessary, especially when it does to performance what it did to this map.

- Your brushwork seems to have improved. The parts of the map that weren't stuffed with far too much detail were constructed very well. The parts that were, like the ornate lamps and trellis windows and stair railings, while ... nice, are just wholly inappropriate to both the style and what the engine is meant to do. Quake doesn't just scale up in capability linearly if you put it on a faster computer. The fact that the map took you that long to compile should have been a major warning sign to you.

- I only finished this by taking the round-the-ramparts SNG shortcut and skipping the silver key door. Not because I didn't have the silver key, just to avoid having 9/10ths of my health shaved off by the giant explosion, and THEN having to face 2 droles. There are a number of combats in this map that are terribly unfair that way, such as the three vores that are teleported in right on you after hitting the two buttons by the SNG, which you can't escape without dying, reloading, and coming back with prior knowledge that it's going to happen. Or the rocket troopers on the ramparts way out of range of your weapons who can hit you with rockets with impunity. Or going up a lift into a tiny room and being faced with a bunch of enforcers, or going up a different lift into a different tiny room and being faced with two fiends and two flying sentries with your back to a wall. You are unfair to the player at nearly every turn.

- Basing the map on three towers was a good idea, and lent the map's progression some overall structure. They were too crowded, though, for what you jammed into them. After frantically trying to survive the fight in the tiny cubicle at the top of each one I had to look around to see what I had accidentally done while doing so - I did not immediately notice the buttons I'd hit or the keys I'd grabbed because I was too distracted.

- I actually liked how you put new monsters right after grabbing a new weapon - those combats weren't too tough, and they helped the reward of finding a bigger gun feel more immediately rewarding.

- Ending is ridiculously sudden. At least have the gug's death trigger a slipgate to rise out of the floor. 

is to populate the map to where you feel comfortably challenged beating it, and make that set of entities Hard skill. Reduce for medium and easy. 

populate the map to where you feel comfortably challenged beating it, and make that set of entities Hard skill. Reduce for medium and easy.

Listen to the Lunaran, and learn. 

*that* bad. Played on normal. Died quite often.

Gameplay: give slightly more cover at least. Also less trites in the beginning.

Architecture: make it much less open. Also make details that stand out of the walls, func_wall entities but keep the walls behind intact. Don't make it so that complex geometries can see each other or they split madly and also vis takes long. Doors don't block vis since they are entities.

It had some nice shapes here and there and some cool details too like some windows... you clearly need more experience, then it's all good. Ask about vis blocking and that stuff, if you don't know what it means... try your maps in fitzquake after a fullvis and use r_showtris 1 so you see what the engine actually has to draw. 

Hey, I liked it. It was pretty good on normal skill. There were no problems for me when using carefull approach. I had left plenty of health scattered all over the level. I thought there was too much armour also. Maybe I was just prepared for the hardcore gameplay after reading some comments. I wonder how skill 2 would look like. Let's just wait for a demo from someone. I liked many of the fights especially after getting the GL. There were no progression problems for me. The quoth monsters were ok in this map (those flying things still annoy me a lot though).
The explosion was cool. The looks from the upper parts were nice also. There were some problems already described by others but overall it was nice. Good work but I think your next map should stay within standard quake limits :)

Here is my demo (20MB):
http://shub-hub.com/files/demos_singleplayer/sick_ankh.dz 

Played in darkplaces since AguirRes engine wouldn't load the map on my system 8-(.
I played on hard skill and made it up to the gug and then health was down to 12 not enough to beat the it 8-).

The map had a lot of nice designs and ideas - looking forward to see more maps from you in the future, 

ok try it more tree time on hard...
and

die die die

quit...

please make next map easy... :\ 

Do you have any more info why my engine didn't work, version, error messages or crash details? 

Finally managed to beat this sucker on hard skill. I almost died a few times, but got lucky. This is a 20 minute demo.

http://orl.fvfonline.com/misc/orlsickbase.7z

Now I want to see someone else finish it on hard. 

I get the following message at the console:

call1 469(precache_model)precache_model()
world.qc : worldspawn
(no function)
pf_precache_model : overflow 

you're using a very old version (more than three years old!), try the latest one instead (1.33). You need an extended protocol to handle all the models in this map.

Please let me know if it works better. 

Got bored trying to make a NM demo. I don't think its too hard, there's just not enough resources to deal with this qauntity of monsters. An early GL and about 50% more health would have made it more fun.

As others have said I get the feeling you only tested the map yourself on normal skill, then added enemies for hard - never works because the person who should be able to play the map the best is you because you built it. When you add an extra level of difficulty over that (untested) you're not making hard you're making a Doom1 style nightmare, which pretty much obligates any casual player to use godmode.

Mind you, I was trying it on nightmare ;)

Cool setting, nice to see the grand scale, even if it did nack the engine in various ways with model and sound overflows, but I've used that as a mapping tactic so its not the end of the world, even though from noclipping around I can see that with some cleaning up and sky capping (as Lunaran says) you could have dropped the amount of slowdown and vistime considerably.

The func_walls popping in and out of visual existance are called flickering entities - AFAIK its when a func (of any type) it existing in too many vis leafs at once, so the player moving or looking at different ones means that the engine thinks the thing can no longer be seen by the player, because its origin is so far away, and stop drawing it.

When this happens just split the one large func into two, three or more smaller ones. Same thing, just split it up a bit - like the crenellations that could have been groups of two blocks each.

I noticed you used it on alot of archways as well - this is a bad idea, since what archways do (at least, the type you have) is create more vis leafs. Might sound bad but what it's actually doing is dividing the map into more managable pieces so the engine doesn't break down and cry every few minutes.

It also means that you lower vistime because instead of processing one gigantic portal you're doing ten (?) little ones. That is, at least if you cap the sky; make it so that each of the buildings touches the skybrush at the top, use some tricks like that (where the player will never get to anyway unless they're noclipping) and you can drop your vistime. Put a few verticle sky brushes linking the buildings that are lower to the sky and you can further cut vistime, but its a question of how much you can get away with vrs. things not looking bad.

Same kind of thing as for the flickering entities - try and be a bit more efficient and then you won't end up staring at a compile window for a week, or have irritating bugs crop up.

Anyhow, a cool setting and some really good ideas, I'll be trying for a NM 100% demo, at least until Sielwolf beats me to it :)

Looking forward to you future maps. 

is the only reason this map exceeds max_models is the number of func_walls created to speed up vis?

If so, it would be interesting to see a version with the func_walls merged into the world, and merely fast-vised.

Though I suspect this map also would have packet-overflow errors as well.

(NOTE: the fact that parts of func_walls dissapear in some levels is due to a maximum number of leafs that a bsp model can occupy or something. I have partly tracked this problem down, and I think it is related to the number of efrags, so if that limit were bumped, it might solve the problem.) 

wow ... when the world needs defending, can I call you? 

Sure, if I have some free time. 

but your mouse sensitivity makes my head throb 

I sometimes get a headache from viewing demos because it seems like they are moving around really fast. But when its me being the player, it seems like its never fast enough. I guess because I know what to expect when I'm behind the mouse, and its just the opposite when I'm watching someone else. 

I consider this to be a warm reception for this map! A bit of controversy never did anyone any harm (or did it?)

I have tried and tried to do it on NM setting, and I get so close (to cracking the second tower), I'm convinced it's possible. If you know where the Quad is, and you conserve it, and enough ammo for the top of the second tower then that would signify a turning point in the map, cause you can get the GL, PG, Megahealth and Pentegram before any more combat.

Quad is on roof above SK door.

I do think I could have balanced it a bit better on hard setting (maybe, SNG and more nails earlier would have done it), I do think if I knew a little more about compiling or had a little more experience I could have avoided dissappearing walls a bit (ijed, thanks for tips). And I wont ever forgive myself for the two lights next to the lift in the caged Feind room!

Im actually quite glad people say its too hard, it makes up for Deja Vu (supposedly 'a bit of a joke on Nightmare')!

I havent had a chance to watch Orl's demo yet, but somebody atleast managed it on Hard - well done Orl, you're not a rotten egg ;)

Nightmare anyone? (I havent given up yet myself)


P.S. - Lunaran

Thanks for the very good technical advice (again) genuinely appreciate such usefull advice and tips, sorry you got blew up a bit by the bomb! 

I have now watched your demo. You are a god of Quake! Everyone else just complains it's too hard, whereas you just stfu and kick some! I got quite a rush from watching it, I bet you did when playing it!

So of Orl can do it on Hard with only two out of the SEVEN secrets, surely its is possible on NIGHTMARE!!!

Lunaran - Difficulty settings - I think that although I could have made this a little smother on hard, to always base a levels difficulty by looking at your own performance on the hard setting could be a good idea if you are a brilliant player. Im not. Thats kinda what I did with Deja Vu, and ended up with people saying hard and nightmare were to easy. This stuff hasn't been posted for 48 hours and people have had it cracked! 

When you get the harsh looking around thing try chase_active, it can make it a bit easier to watch, but can sometimes have a looking outside the map effect if it has alot of thin walls. 

Everyone else just complains it's too hard, whereas you just stfu and kick some!

it's human nature to hear twenty people say the map is too hard, and one who says it's fine, and to decide that means the map is fine.

There's nothing wrong with hard and there's nothing wrong with 270 monsters in and of itself, but you're just too rough on the player. You're not trying to beat him, you're trying to make him have fun. I'm hearing a lot of people saying they didn't have any. 

Personally I don't think it's too hard, but just has too few resources. But the idea is to guide the player from start to finish, almost holding thier hand, (but so that they don't know it) and making them feel like they've achieved something and managed to beat you.

If you want to kill the player you can make a fullbright box and spawn thirty shamblers on map load, then release.

Ideally you want the player to drop to 10 health two or three times in the level and hover between 30 - 70 for the rest of it - those three times being the highpoint ambushes of the map that the player only just survives.

In order to make the map as acessable to the maximum number of player skill levels ideally each difficulty level should be tweaked to guide a player of that caliber through the map with around 1 death on easy for a bad player 1-2 or normal for an average player and 3-5 for a good player on hard / NM.

Mind, that's just my opinion, and something I didn't follow too closely whilst making my pack. 

I think thats a good way of looking at it, a good sort of model to aim for, I like the anallagy of holding the players hand without them thinking it. It can be hard to judge tho.

I didn't want to kill the player (well, maybe just a little bit ;), more just to make them feel really challenged and never stop shooting/moving, which to an extent I feel I achieved. I liked the idea of having a massive wide open space to run around in, and then being chucked into a small space with lots of enemies allreally close up, chaustrophobic quick draw action. It's a real challenge. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the sense of achievement!

If people wanna have fun then PLAY IT ON NORMAL

Its like those rubix cubes. I hate them because they're too hard.

(wimps) 

so true^
games are all about fun. this map is not. its frustrating 

Lunaran "There's nothing wrong with hard and there's nothing wrong with 270 monsters in and of itself, but you're just too rough on the player. You're not trying to beat him, you're trying to make him have fun."