thank you sock for new quake gem. generally, i'm not a big fan of base maps. the original set of quake monsters doesn't work well for base themed maps. quoth changed it all.

i played on hard without much problems. i died a couple of times usually by my fault. my search for secret areas led me several times off the edge. that's fine. important is that gameplay wasn't unfair, even on hard. it was always manageable including the final fight.

played on latest darkplaces and everything worked fine. in one older post you mentioned that your level would be really hardware demanding. my phenom X4 + hd6950 was enough for 1920*1200. it's a big difference in comparison with zendar. that map runs slooooowly on my rig no matter what resolution i use, but that's probably some strange darkplaces thingy.

yellow walkways are beautiful. luring enemies on them, turning them off and watching the poor grunts falling was satisfying. i wish they scream in horror :-)

skybox is truly piece of art. 

I wanted to see how you made those light bridges.
Download this FILE file. (sadly missing all texture information)

@jakub, thanks, I am glad you enjoyed it. :) 

What's particularly nice about this map is that despite its small size and cramped layout it offers a surprising amount of possibilities for exploration with all the ledges to jump over or drop down to, usually rewarded by being secrets. It comes at the price of them being predictable, but the benefit is that every bit of the level is made or left accessible.

Gameplay is more challenging than in the previous socks, but I found it to be quite managable if one keeps their cool and examines the environment carefully. I played it on hard with both Quoth 2.0 and 2.2, and the rebalancing of the latest patch, however subtle, was noticable in a couple of situations. So this map is the perfect opportunity to update one's Quoth installation if it hasn't already been done. 

Thanks for the source. Those light bridges are really complex set ups. Worth it though, one of the coolest effects I have seen for a while. 

You know what really would have made this map tense (since tarbabies are out of the question)? Polyps! 

Played thru it on hard just now. Good times!

One of the things I enjoyed was that sometimes I was really motivated to stay out of the open, and then the situation would flip and make me desperate to get out into the open.

P.S. Quake Injector will incorrectly try to start map metmon1d, instead of metmon. 

one of the best thing about metal monstrosity is that there are no polyps. these little bastards would make gameplay unfair. what would you fight polyps on narrow bridges?

it's good they are absent this time.. 

Johnny: fixed.
jakub: joked. 

i know :-)

but i couldn't help myself. hate those green little f**ers. 

This is a great map. Cheers man :)
7/10 secrets on normal skill. Fights were fun, and only died from ledge/adventure mishaps. Loved the whole setup, and portal sphere was an ace touch.

My granny nag is - having the bfg where it is, i didnt find it mainly cause i lost track of which i'd visited and couldnt be arsed. But probably made the finale fairer that way. 

quakespasm, quoth 2.2, skill2, no deaths, 5 secrets, most of the monsters.
I'm supposed to be doing something else so this was a break, and as such I didn't get too crazy with the secret hunting. I did play carefully and methodically doing lots of sniping etc, mainly due to everyones comments regarding difficulty. Actually I think my playing style is well suited to this map, and also I'm super familiar with the Quoth bestiary due to my own mapping predilections. As such I didn't find it overly difficult. It was pretty spot on.

That's an understatement of course. This map is so good, glad you finally got around to doing a quoth/ base-ish map/ coagula map. Makes me want to do a shitty rip off! Of course, I'm going to stick with a black skybox and more darkness all around if I do so... as is my way.

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/metmon_drew.zip 

Just reading thread now... maybe I played in normal? I never saw a Gug. That would explain why it was so 'easy'... 

@negke, I wanted to keep the monster theme consist and avoid any medieval creatures, Polyps falls into that category for me. I can see players getting really frustrated with that mob after being knocked off bridges and ledges!

@Fifth, the bridges can be costly on entities, remember to stagger the setup state of them at the beginning otherwise you might get packet over errors with the state of too many entities changing at once. The func_togglewalls have a relay delay so that the monster drops into the void and not slide with the func_door entity.

@JohnnyLaw, glad you enjoyed it, the bobs always make me run for the inside areas of the towers.

@stevenaaus, The Plasma Gun is difficult to find because it makes the map far too easy. Every time a tester found the gun I kept moving it to someone more difficult to find!

@Drew, indeed you played on normal skill level, the next skill up is crazy hard, even for Quoth veterans. 

I wouldn't call it crazy hard. There were no tarbabies!! 

Gugs are totally medieval.

Anyway, will try a hard run soon! 

Gugs are totally medieval
Yep, very true, there is nothing else to end a tech based map with? Gug, Drole, Shambler, Shalrath, Fiends (all mid to high level monsters, all medieval) Only option I could think of was a couple of Edie's, but that is not much fun to fight and I had those throughout the map already.

The tech theme/style has always been at odds with the Quake universe because it was always a starting theme. Quoth certainly adds some extra units (mostly re-skins) but a tech style boss monster is really needed. 

It seems my news post got put on the front page of the site! :) 

Gugs are perfectly fine in tech maps, they work wonders with the theme in warpb for example. 

 

"my immersion" 

Cool stuff there Sock. Great to see Quake still getting first page news, it's kind of weird to see you get first page for this map though since Zendar is clearly your magnum opus and ITS is also well worthy of first page news. 

A really beautiful map with a nice layout. Quite challenging due to the constant threat of falling down. Good use of flamethrower enforcers. I found the Gug a bit out of place, but apart from that the final fight was nice! I also find the limited weapon selection a plus.

Sorry, I don't have any constructive criticism... but I recorded a demo on skill 2. Two demos, actually, because I dropped to my death in the first one...

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/sleep_metmon.7z 

@OTP, I see you want to join the #evilgameplay club with Negke! :P

@Fifth, I am totally surprised by the news, it is indeed a shame that Zendar did not get noticed the same way, but Zendar does look traditional brown Quake, Metal Monstrosity is bright and purple!

@SleepwalkR, nice first run, funny to see the bob at the end fighting the Gug! Hard skill is a frugal ammo situation, you need to explore. 

really this is easily one of the best coagula/void maps ever made. The gameplay was an absolute blast IMHO, the layout and forcefield pathways allow so many variations in both route and attack choice.

Looks wise, I loved some of the cubic type detailing, very nice touch. The skybox is of course every fitting, especially with that fog.