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Q1 SP: Castle Of The Dark Ages By JPLambert
After, 10 month of mapping, and 1218 hours and 38 minutes of fullvis process (yes you read it correctly, it's equal to 50 days 18 h 38 mn), I'm glad to present my last map.

CDA has been started last year for the 1000-Brushes Winter contest, but due to the birth of my second daughter, I missed the delivery date, and I turn the map into a bigger project... It is based on the DKT3 texture set, but with much more brushes... :D

I also would like to rise here some little issues:
-> In order to play the map correctly without any problem, you can use aguirRe's engine.
-> FitzQuake 0.80 (or equivalent engine) may have packet overflow warnings if the progression through the map is too fast, and if you don't try to kill all the monsters... i.e speedrunners please use aguirRe's engine... sorry for this...
-> Standard Quake engine will not be able to load the map, so forget it..


You can download the stuff at my website http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/Quake/Quake.htm and don't forget to read the test file please.. ;P

Enjoy !!

Ooops, I was about to forget to thank aguirRe, Hrimfaxi, R.P.G and Scragbait for beta testing, technical support, interesting discussion, etc.. etc... and for all the support you gave me these last months...
You all rock men.. Thanks a lot again..

Screenshots:
http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/Screenshots/CDA1.JPG
http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/Screenshots/CDA2.JPG
http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/Screenshots/CDA3.JPG
http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/Screenshots/CDA4.JPG
http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/Screenshots/CDA5.JPG

Download:
http://lambert.jeanphilippe.free.fr/DownLoad/CDA.zip
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Hey, 
This looks really good, looking forward to playing it. I'll do the review for UWF's site (along with another, loooong delayed review, sorry about that) within the week (midterms are raping me right now). 
Megazoid 
Please read "latest", it was a mispelling due to my "poor" english... I'm already working on a new project ;P 
Nice! 
Wasn't expecting much in the framerate and didn't get it on this machine but it was playable, a lot of fun and great to look at. Agree with others that some of the combat was a bit "oh, a death knight, let me back up and fire rockets at him" but at ~12fps I was quite glad of that :)

Maybe you can make something slightly smaller next :) 
Maybe You Can Make Something Slightly Smaller Next :) 
mEH. i SAY GO BIGGER. lET'S HAVE SOME uNREAL STYLE SHIZZNIT. 
Great Stuff! 
This is a fantastic work, JPL :D

I recorded a first-run demo but I can't upload as spawnpoint has gone down. I'll email it to you when I get back home. It's not complete though, as after about 3/4 of the way through, I did a rather embarrasing backflip into the lava river o_O. After that I reloaded and continued :}

Architecture and layout was excellent - I really liked the way everything felt so vast and open-plan, I'd like to see more of these types of layouts (although I can appreciate that vis is a bit of a nightmare o_O).

If I had to criticise, I'd say some of the item and weapon distribution could have been tweaked. I felt the rocket launcher was given way too early, making the combat pretty easy for the latter half - I didn't find a SNG, maybe that would have been a better option at that stage. I found the finale combat very hard, but it was my fault for picking up the quad straight away, rather than saving it off for the smablers at the end :}

I can appreciate what people are saying with the shortcuts - to get to the SK area, I ended up doing a slope jump from the buttress from the opposite end of the bridge - I don't know if that was what you intended, but I couldn't find any other way up at the time.

Overall, a great map, and I look forward to what you produce next :) 
Kinn 
SNG seems to be a reawrd for exploring (but not a secret). 
SNG Clue 
SNG is located on the first huge wall you saw, when you enter the first cemeterry area. You can go there from the SK location; there are 3 doors in the central tower: one opens to the bridge, one opens to the stairs, and the last one opens to this huge wall.. look there... i.e coming from the bridge, enter the central tower, and go to the right door...

nitin point of view concerning a "reward" for exploring is IMHO good ;)

OTOH, I can understand Kinn's point of view concerning ammo/health location... But I was not aware most of the players of Func were so good.. ;P .. I note the point for next map... he he he .... It will be much more difficult .... >D 
Errata 
Please read It will be much more difficult .... in my next map... :P 
Kind Of A Speedrun. 
http://www.quaketerminus.com/temp/123.dz

Time 3.07
I probably didn't need the YA, and I went completely the wrong way in the castle (lol). I suppose a speedrunner would be getting nearer 2 minutes. Beat my pants time! :) 
Rawr 
Nice map, one of the best uses of the texture set. The openness was fun, though it did hurt the framerate slightly and made for a lot of wandering around wondering how it fitted together. But I usually get lost in maps, so that's no surprise.

Lighting was rather dim for the most part, but around certain features - especially the stained glass - it was good. Colored lighting wasn't overused either :)

Combat was pretty easy. And that's fine by me, though there was way too many rockets towards the end.

The brushwork was at least functional in places, and elegant in others and as mentioned above, the cross shaped holes in the floor were nifty.

Overall, a fine map with a style of its own. Beer for you, JPL! 
Some Demos 
http://mandelmassa.net/temp/cda.dz

It's my first run (which sadly ends by the gold key) and a rough 1:00 run. 
A Demo. 
http://www.chimpans.se/cda_037.dz

A rough 0:37 run (w/out bunnies). Was fun. If I'd know there were shortcuts this easy I'd have done it sooner ;)

(Thanks to voodoo for hosting, I need to get my webspace back really) 
Hehe 
Good one shambler. ;) 
Framerate 
urgh, it's about 30-50 fps for me, practically unplayable. Any tricks to make it better? I use fitz, win2k, geforce4 mx440, p3 450. (The twilight client with supposedly faster rendering crashes for me.) I use fastsky. 
Great Map! 
good work man, my internet is canceled and i�m waiting for another isp what better than this map to play wend i�m away :))) great work love it so much that i recorded a demo for u guys see :) is a newbie demo but i think is a litle fun is my second run and i�m a litle lost sometimes...ehehe

http://trinca.no.sapo.pt/temp/trinca_cda.dz

P.S. --> merci beaucoup mon ami 
Trinca 
Thanks a lot, and also nice french sentence at the end: you are definitely ready for holidays in France ;P ... though... 
Bambuz 
urgh, it's about 30-50 fps for me, practically unplayable

*Cough* 30 fps is bloody fine. This is single player. Last time I checked, knights and ogres don't bunnyhop around you whilst popping off 180-degree mid-air rockets. I think you'll cope. 
But 
it's hard to hit enemies when *I'm bunnying around them* since the mouse moves unpredictably because the frames are not of the same length. It over- or undershoots.

Maybe it's lower than 30-50 fps, dunno, fitz doesn't have show_fps 1, so let's say 15-30.

Really, any help is appreciated! 
Bambuz 
In console command type scr_showfps 1... But what is your PC configuration (i.e CPU spedd, RMA, GFX)? 
Umm 
p3 450, 256 ram, geforce4 mx440.

argh, ok, so the command was different from qw. Will test when home. 
Heh 
*Cough* 30 fps is bloody fine. This is single player. Last time I checked, knights and ogres don't bunnyhop around you whilst popping off 180-degree mid-air rockets. I think you'll cope.

well, i dunno about you, but watching a slide show tends to bug me. ;) 
JPL 
Nice work. 
Well 
very good style, JPL. I liked the visuals and the atmosphere of the map. Got a very good sense of place there. Tho the gameplay was mostly rather easy, but it made a pretty nice (and unusual) atmosphere of walking thru half-abandoned castle.
Found 3/4 secrets. They were easy.

And I even managed to make one trickjump in your map (shortcut) but then I returned back to the main route.

I didn't find SNG btw, but who needs it when I have RL. I'm not the one who likes to place RL in SP maps, they work good only in the end of maps with a great horde battle (Kinn's marcher or Tronyn's latest maps are good examples of maps with good use of RL) 
Exceptional 
JPL, this is one masterpiece. An exceptional combination of impressive architecture, texturing and lighting combined with sweet gameplay...all on one massive scale. I've not finished it yet, but have had no problems using the Tremor engine and frames in the 30-60range for an "ancient" 1.4 gig celeron rig. Quite impressive. 
I Played The Final Version 
I tested this map during development and the layout and design were great. After several revisions, the lighting improved dramatically and the result is a very atmospheric and good-looking map. It's worth exploring all the areas as that paves the way to riches such as the SNG.

I finished on Hard and had lots of leftovers. I have played this map many times during development so it does get easy with familiarity. The end battle was fun and if you spread out the powerups, it's not difficult. Just don't grab those goodies too soon.

I found all 4 secrets - the 4th was an extra for me.

Congrats to JPL for crushing my record 512Hr vis on one of my unreleased maps. Um, I don't think I'll try and dethrone you on this one.

Thanks to aguiRe for his help on this map and the resumable vis - the SPQ1 scene is getting maps that blow way past old limits because of his advice and tools.

Congrats JPL and great work. Let me help test your next project. Perhaps you can have someone write you a Vis JPL's Map screensaver and your next map will be compiled in only days. 
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