See 

I guess I thought they were too "busy" and tended to clash with the designs a bit. Also a bit too "bold" in their style with strong contrasts and stuff which makes them look more cartoony than some Egyptian / temple textures. And the complexity of the textures put me off hunting for secrets, as everything looked like it could be a secret trigger.

Actually, come to think of it, the "cartoony" look is probably the biggest problem with them...

But it's good aside from that. 

I noticed also that several of the d/l links at PuLSaR's site have a problem. You get redirected to some other site where the file doesn't exist.

I use GetRight and the trick seems to be to make the downloader build the referer reply from the d/l URL instead of the currently open page. Then it works fine. Look in the downloader's config for this.

This behaviour is different on different sites, I think often used to prevent remote linking.

As for the "bland" lighting, you can blame me. PuLSaR wanted a darker, more classic high-contrast lighting but I talked him out of it. You can check the original balance in the start map.

I'm well aware of that lighting seems impossible to get to everyone's liking. On my GeForce3 setup this looks very good and promotes the architecture instead of hiding it.

GlassMan, Phait: What engine and graphic card do you use? 

Can someone please send me a zipped savegame file where you get the SZ_GetSpace ... error upon loading?

When you get the error, does it prevent you from continuing or do you retry until it works?

If you get stuck, please try my engine GLQuake 1.20 and see if it helps. I've specifically tried to fix this error. Savegame files should be compatible. 

I've found the problem now. It probably only happens in Hard skill due to more entities. Several engines (GLQuake 0.97, FitzQuake, WinQuake) seems to have a problem with this but my GLQuake 1.20 seems OK.

If it happens, you can either restart and hope it disappears (it often does) or switch to my engine.

I believe the only way to fix it is to either modify the engines (developers), reduce # entities in Hard (PuLSaR) or switch to Normal skill (players).

Possibly it helps to use a progs.dat that removes corpses while playing (like in 100brush). 

I cant for the life of me get this to download.

A mirror would be really appreciated. 

I'm using fitzquake v75 and the card is a Geforce4.

Like you say it's a matter of taste but, especially in medieval or egyptian styled maps, I prefer the light to look like it's coming almost wholly from the sky, flames or light fixtures or whatever the source is. (As a generalisation, I put bright lights with high 'wait' values on each of the main light fittings & then low value fill in lights only to ensure all the main floor areas are lit. Areas away from lights recede to darkness.)

The light here is too even - it's not used to guide the player's eye or to throw the architecture into dramatic relief. Walls next to light fittings look the same brightness as walls well away from them. I'm speaking generally of course - some areas are better than others but showing off architecture is not a matter of ensuring its all evenly lit.

Having said that I should repeat that I really enjoyed playing the map. Well done Pulsar :) 

and it was great fun, very good looks, textures, atmosphere and gameplay overall. 3 secrets found including the secret ending but I haven't found a way to get 100% kills (it doesn't seem possible).

I was afraid that the jumping puzzles and traps would be detrimental but they weren't at all, just like in gmsp3.

And I still have the opinion that the lighting looks great on my setup. Any darker overall and it would've been unplayable in many areas. I hope that not all find it too bland.

Maybe I should clarify about the lighting. PuLSaR did all the hard work with positioning and tweaking all individual light entities and I just suggested this balance from the light tool.

If you want to see how the original light balance looked, just run

light -extra4 -sunlight2 50 -dist 1.1 menk

On my rig this takes about half an hour.

Great map PuLSaR! 

i want to play this map again [on hard again] so i will probably try your Glquake 1.20 aguire. 

GLQ 0.97 before, just make sure you set the desired gamma from the command line (e.g. I use -gamma 1.1) otherwise it'll probably be too dark. Please also check the readme.

Btw, while playing through this map and reloading saved games, I noticed it's pretty slow to load even on a modern machine. I wonder if this is related to the SZ_GetSpace problem? 

Just as an example of how different systems have very different brightness, I use the above mentioned gamma 1.1 on my old Voodoo2 system but gamma 0.6 on my main GeForce3. This still yields pretty similar brightness using my GLQuake 1.20 in both cases. 

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

But like others I also found the ligthning to bland.
I just played through it again after running ligth with aguirRes suggested settings for the original light. It was very good I much prefer this light setting over the one in the zip.

Other than that I really enjoyed the map overall - really good work PuLSaR! 

hated the lighting so I did what aguire said and compiled the light again. Looked a lot better, maybe the defautl settings just dont work with idgamma.

Anyway, fantastic level! The design is great and it's quite a challenge, I found it pretty hard on medium.

As for the textures, the originals are great but the conversion to the quake palette is not too kind. But they look better when you recomplie the light, the cartoony look is less pronounced than with the default lighting.

good work pulsr, it would have taken ages to build this beast. 

Wow, this is enormous! Gameplay was great - monsters kept popping out all over the place - I would have prefered a bit more health/ammo overall though.

Architecture looked very impressive, huge and complex, a feature no doubt enhanced by the rather busy looking textures, which I thought looked great btw. I'm afraid I have to echo the familiar comment about the lighting - it needed a lot more contrast and it seemed fairly sourceless, like a sort of washed out radiosity effect.

There was so much to look at in this map - I was particulary impressed by the striking visuals in the Crystal-Maze-like jumping/mover puzzles. Little touches like the dead marine at the bottom of the pit showed great attention to detail.

Excellent work :) 

yes, it rocks.
large, with funneh gameplay. with GOOD textures.
/me stares at Shambler.

hey u LOTW bitches, go write LOTW for it! 

That's one large map! Beautiful textures, architecture that's fun to jump on... I was surprised a couple of times by some enemies that dropped out of nowhere and nearly killed me...

It's one of those maps where someone from sda makes a speed nightmare 100% demo that you can watch while you enjoy a bowl of popcorn =)

I recorded my first run on the map... I thought I was close to the end when I died but that was wrong... The map never ends! Great! I died short after the "hyper cube" elevator. http://www.mandelmassa.net/other/menk.dz is a 9 minute demo recorded with JoeQuake, which btw had no problems with this map whatsoever! 

hope the dm map will be also great like this one! :) can wait to see that! 

Just played through the map and had a lot of fun. Ammo when I needed it and enough health to survive the last battle... even for me.

Nice map, definatly one I'm going to play again. 

Incredibly enjoyable map. Instant classic. Gameplay was superb and the vistas were very impressive. So naturally I had to go and make a half-assed speedrun of it =)

Here's the easy run of Menk in 4:14. It aint a nightmare100%, but perhaps it's worthy of a bag of popcorn =)

http://myth.as/files/menk414.dz 

mwh was kind enuff to point out a secret quad and a whoppin shortcut, so I made new run. Time 3:39.

http://myth.as/files/menk339.dz

But I'll stop bothering you guys now =) 

I've got all the kills, but only 5/7 secrets. Good job hiding them! (though I guess having a level this big is a good start). 

Kay & Mandel: thanx for demos :) I enjoyed watching them a lot

mwh: well, some secrets there are really hard to find. To be honest they were even harder to find, so thank my betatesters for showing me that fact. If you (or anyone else) want to find more secrets, mail me and I'll give you some keys. 

If you haven't played the map yet you maybe don't want to read this...

I also only found 5/7 secrets and that includes taking a peek in the .bsp :-)

I found 100H in lava, ring in the wall, quad in the roof, YA in the water, secret exit and a red armour in a wall which I cannot work out how to get to. The last secret I have no idea what or where it is.

General comments: Lovely level, and that includes the lighting. The look and feel were consistant and good and even though I despise jumping puzzles I didn't find these too hateful.

I agree with something Shambler said which was that there were so many decorations that looked like they should have been secret openers that I soon got fed up even trying to find secrets. :-)

Great fun. 

heh, the last secret is 100H in the corridor leading to the large hall. It's in the one of traps where walls drop to reveal ogre and 2 hellknights. Look up often there, you'll see the secret and the button somewhere near (also close to the ceiling)

And the RA secret opens by the button (brick with a different texture) that you may find near the water (look back when you get out of water)

And thanks for other comments:)
Anyone for nightmare run?