The map was complex, way too hard, huge.

Now ... I consider those pluses to people who like their single player hard.

It was a bit rough around the edges, I could occasionally see "seams" where 2 plane surfaces in the map, particularly the vertical areas didn't seem to be aligned to the same grid entirely or whatever.

That being said, I find maps like these the beauty of Quake custom maps.

The map in truth couldn't be a mainstream favorite because the map is very hard and at times frustrating, but there are a lot of easy maps out there already. 

Well, what I was on about was really the skill 0. You can have Easy easy and Hard hard, that's why there are skill settings in the game. 

Maybe if you hadn't bound movement to any keys, it might be...

The complexity and layout was the highlight. 

@shambler - you did.., the version I quote when I read your commands. (Which were decently, otherwise I wouldn't taken your advice). Glad you didn't read the included txt,and as the quality is ten years out of date, I will stick the textures in my ass.
Madfox discovered a new texture, now the world will never be the same, remember?

@gb - Sure, but I wore this one on my toes so I still had the feeling the play was too easy.
I think you could have survived more by finding the secrets.
New monsters, I gave the crossbow a clear whish on its arrow, but I think youre shooting has oversounded that.
Neg!lke pointed me to that fact of fake doors, so I changed the texture of the closed doors uniformly. I saw several demos where Bones comes out of that door, sorry you missed it.
Also the one that has the message "quo vadis" was simple by shooting,
I know.., me stupid greece.
I was already on the 32860 clipnodes when I started to add decoration. It might seem easy to see these things apart, but after the first map collapsing I knew what I wanted. Therefore talking about these things is rather quirry.
If you saw the map with that limit, you wouldn't want to play it.
Youre Venice complaint I can follow, but you missed a lot of secrets to say there weren't enough buttons etc. Realize the qc was a hard carrot, even without addons like moving water, I've been through that. It just wasn't possible with max_eddicts.
And I Did'nt Want WARNINGS!
And don't forget, I had Venice in mind, but venividivici does means something else.
Thanks for the demo, and youre thoroughly advice!

@Baker - I have wondered a long time about the fact that there were so many megahealths. I deleted them after trinc called me a witty. Maybe it could help to watch the secrets demo. I don't know, some call it much too easy others too hard. Playing a map hondreds of times can shade a man's vieuw. 

I definitly appreciate the creative effort in this level, being a Quake mapper also.

Points:
- Bones has improved alot since I saw it quite a while ago. Great looking sprite, and at times I hear a bit of horse in the death sound. Bones attack could use some unique weapon fire though (not laser, maybe something runic).

- Arrows sure beat a swinging sword from 20 yards away. Knights and Crossbow Knights make a good combo.

- Granito is well done, but the arena could have been bigger and more complex to show it off better.

- Fish head effects are not a bad thing. Think of it as a blowfish being deflated.

- Areas look good and interesting with an old town look. I'm not sure, but it looks like selected places have fog and other places don't? Is that possible to do?

The only thing I'd add is a bit of scare-factorb to this level (as in textures) to make it a more forbidding place to be. 

The player should never need to find secrets to finish the level. That's why they are secrets; they're optional goodies.

Hard vs. not hard: The map has 145 monsters in skill 0, 150 in skill 1, and 156 in skill 2. That is practically no difference between skill levels. For skill 0, it was too hard. That's why there *is* a skill 0.

Crossbow sounds: What I meant was that sounds only travel a certain distance in Quake, and if a monster is beyond that distance, you won't hear the firing sound, or if it is far enough away, the sound will be pretty faint.

The messages were Latin, so was some of the decoration, hence I got the impression of Rome or Italy. :-) 

I have wondered a long time about the fact that there were so many megahealths.

I desperately needed every one I found.

Some people might complain that this map was too hard.

I think Quake lacks some good "too hard" maps.

I played Masque of the Red Death almost effortlessly the whole way through scarcely ever getting hurt seriously.

Your map, I was frequently bloodied up by long distance culprits. I died several times. I really like that.

A list of "too hard" maps that I can remember:

1. The Middle Evil. OMG. Talk about too hard. It might be skill 2 that I'm thinking of. Several Shamblers, almost no ammo. Ambushes.

2. That distrans Quoth map with Doom textures JPL ripped.

3. The Ijed Spacehulk map where fiends are always somehow magically behind you without notice. Not really a too hard map after you make the assumption you are never, ever safe.

4. Some sort of Hell in a Can type map that wasn't Hell in a Can. Can't remember the name.

You map was too hard in a cool way. Some of the "too hard" maps in the past were just unfair ... like maps with situations involving no cover and vores, etc.

Your map is an attrition type of "too hard". A bit of damage here, a bit there ... nothing inherently unfair. 

Try Sickbase, if you didnt already. Its very hard. I made it, and I cant finish it on skill 3, and its really hard on skill 2 and would take me like a week to do it.

Not that that's anything to be proud of. But I remember Sielwolf loved it cause it was so hard. TBF he just pissed all over it. 

it's unfortunate that 'nightmare' isn't a full skill level, because that would be the place to add the extra 9000 monsters and such for the 'too hard' mode. :P

check out the how hard is too hard thread here for the discussion on skill levels... may be helpful. 

@roblot - I have a version of Bones throwing a bone, but then it don't has the wide area.
Fishheads, sorry you're the second that point me out, I start believing I still play Quake1.01.
Fog is really low 0.03 Reason you see it only in large places.
I was planning to make the level darker, but by complaints of not finding things I didn't.

@gb - I didn't say the player needs secrets to leave the level, it would be more easy.
I know this fact of skillpath is tracking me down. What to do with one player saying there's many health, and another that can't reach halfway. I know the largest part of the map went to the architecture, then the new monsters, and finally monsterplacement and supply. When I had the level on a reasonable skill (to me) I changed some monsters at stratigy points to lower and higher.
Of course this is a little easy-way-out, but there were so much more things I wanted to do like better lightplacements, more other monsters etc, that I suddenly got the blackout, this map is dead to my imagination.
I know this sounds rough, mostly the result of mapping too long without hardly any progress.
Crossbow knights.., you'll hear a gun, do you hear an arrow?

@baker - I truely concern your comment, I really was on the right way untill someone claimed my lack of attitude about the megahealths.
I read the early Qents, and it is right to make the level not too hard, otherwise people get distrackted. On the other hand it takes a real long way mapping to get things done so it is only fair to remind the player about these wits.
I think I'll change the easy settings, so for a experiencing walkthrough it would help.
Chance people will only play on easy level.
I hate it when I die! Not from the point of restarting or quicksaving, no if a level is interesting I won�t mind. But now I�m playing Hellboy and I have too defeat an end boss which is almost impossible. And I can�t get further if I don�t. I hate it, really I do!

"RickyT23 - Play me a demo, shoot me an arrow! 

That's a good fog setting. Little to no fog banding, and it looks like it's only seen outdoors and in dark caves. 

I know this fact of skillpath is tracking me down. What to do with one player saying there's many health, and another that can't reach halfway.

Make the hard skill really hard, the easy skill really easy, and the normal skill somewhere in the middle. How hard can that be?

Quake veterans have forgotten that skill levels exist. I only play Quake since 2006 or so, and almost never play vanilla Quake. So I'm one of the people that would please like an Easy skill that deserves the name.

I'm puzzled that some people don't get this. Lack of proper skill settings is a bigger flaw than lack of proper lighting. 

And to compare it to multiplayer for baker & co., lack of skill settings is like no NAT fix. Some people won't be able to enjoy the game. 

t's unfortunate that 'nightmare' isn't a full skill level, because that would be the place to add the extra 9000 monsters and such for the 'too hard' mode. :P

Or modify a range of functions like health, attack speed, pain likelihood and shot speed all on a sliding scale with skill taken as a factor.

As a downside it'll make easy easier, but I can't think of anyone who plays on that skill. And if they did they probably wouldn't complain.

Hard becomes slightly harder and nightmare becomes twitch. 

There are an incredible number of brush errors, probably because it was made with Quark, but it played okay in Fitzquake085.

The texturing was really bad in places, it surely could have used a lot more tweaking.

I played on the default skill level and had no problems. Some areas were a bit strange but I found my way through.

I really liked Bones.

Nice job, I enjoyed it!
Your effort is appreciated :) 

@gb - You started playing Quake in 2006.
I started mapping the level in 2006. Can you imagine?
But you're skill skirmish is noted.
I played levels harder on my teeth!
btw Thanks for the SinTools.

@Ijed - It should be possible to play it on nightmare,
at least I'm still...ouch.

@Ricky - yes there we go again. Put the blame on Quark.
I spent evenings on counting out to get the blast without warnings.
Now I amon the point of 17800 brushes and a 32659 clipnodes.
That is 8 clipnodes under the maxcount.
I considder it a victory to catch a map this size without warnings.
The texture is disorder. And stop lightning.

Bones really hates you! 

you can reduce clipnodes by covering bumpy areas that the player can never reach with clip brushes.

for example, if you had a bunch of windows on a second story but that the player couldn't reach, just fill in the hole with a clip brush so that the overall shape of the front of the building would be 'flat' if you included the clip brush. 

won't the included brushes count?
At this moment I met excactly the max_clipnodes.
32659 > 32767max.

This means (I think), I have 8 clipnodes over. A cubic brush has 6 sides, which will be divided into 12 triangles.
Twelve triangles have 36 clipnodes, am I right? If the inner two triangles don't count.

Then there is one triangle left to add? 

clipnodes aren't brushes, perse. they are how the engine does collision, so the less pokey bits to do collision around, the less clipnodes.

it doesn't reduce clipnodes on a 1 to 1 basis, as clip brushes only affect hulls 1 and 2, not the visual hull, so it's like a 2/3 reduction or something.

same thing, for example, with fancy railings.
just plop a clip brush over the entire railing and it will greatly reduce clip nodes. 

@necros - That's the reason I used dxf for the railings.
I just compared the round railing which is the one left with brushes.
If I compile them apart I get an outcome of ~ 352 clipnodes.
If I use the same constuktion in dxf it goes ~ 132 clipnodes.
That's not the same as a covering brush, I know.
But mapping on the edge of max_clipnodes does strange things with a map. I just spent an evening without seeing I moved one brush.

@gb - You were right. I updated the map and now there are
easy - 124, normal - 153, and hard - 157.
The skillpath for easy and normal were twitched. I think the reason was when compiling without real vis the playing only goes smooth on normal skill. Hard and easy start cluttering.
So you might want to make a new try? 

I also added the qc. 

I've been meaning to comment on this for awhile now, but kept putting it off.

A very fun map with some interesting enemies, along with tough gameplay and good architecture. I did get lost a few times and some areas did look bland, but it wasn't bad enough to make me want to stop playing.

But overall an enjoyable experience with good replayability :)

First run demo on hard difficulty, protocol 15: http://qrf.mine.nu/~orl/misc/orl_veni05.zip 

I liked this map a lot. Each of the bigger areas was designed well for visuals and fights. Also the way in which the areas were interconnected was great. I liked how the water parts worked for interconnection.
The new monsters were good. They were enjoyable enemies.
I played on easy and there was always enough ammo and health. Couldn't find any of the secrets. The GK area was somewhat tricky on how to get to the key.
There was a lot of vertical fighting which was good. The map enforced a bit different fighting with help of vertical design, far away archers and lack of explosive weapons. This was good and refreshing.
The architecture looked interesting and I thought it was designed very well.

My demos (joequake gl):
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/veni_ankhdemos.zip 

for the demo! I am still watching them.
It is a remarkable effect to see how different people play the game.
Also to experience, that some of the assumable ways to go aren't that understandable at all.

One of the open facts I had was, that when catching the GK and go up again to the area with the three entities one could jump into the water without getting up. The halldoor spawned monsters in the castlepart, so by taking this track there was an easy endfight.
I sealed this part off again in the update.

@mandel - You are a strategic player! Do you use a joystick? In the caveslope I tried as hard to make the distance far enough, but you jumped over it. Of course the height is important, negl!ke also got over it.
You traced the hom I wrote about in the txt.
It was almost impossible to avoid it, every brush in this part made the effect only worser.
I saw it was a bit hard to get the GL so I changed it too. The easy skill wasn't that easy at all, but it had lots more of megahealth. Your demo showed me the oppertunity of how to loose the halldoor's trigger.
Fun to watch! 

let me assure you thet mandel doesn't need any joystics to do this jump :)
It is a speedrunning technique.