I think it's intended. It does the same for me in Qrack. I believe Sock made the map as an alternate for the original e1m1 not ad_e1m1. 

I'm pretty adamant about 100% completion in these maps since I'm having such a great time and I want to explore everything. I'm trying to find the final tome in ad_swampy. I know where it is. I cheated and noclipped through a door that I wasn't able to unlock in order to see if I could reverse engineer the secret, but I can't.

I'm trying to get inside here:
https://i.imgur.com/7a5TwMx.jpg

It seems like the only doors that lead into the room are locked from within. Can I get a hint as to what I need to do next? I was thinking that everything would come together once I got the eighth tome and that I'd be able to easily get the purple and blood keys after, but I can't figure it out after wandering for what seems like hours. 

You need a silver key to get behind these doors, the sk door is located at the final outdoor/church area.

If you dont mind some spoilers, there is a YT video where all tomes are found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJyNNMk4jx0

Anyway, thx for playing! 

It looks like the trick is in the blood key. In the video, it's visible at 25:55 when the player breaks the wall adjacent to the red armor. However, I don't have the blood key in my inventory and I was already inside that room. I restarted the map and noclipped to that room to see if the blood key would be there but it's not. At first I thought that maybe the key only spawns when triggered by some event just like the tomes but I figured that all the keys are probably already in position at map start.

In any case, why wouldn't the key be there for me if I played through the entire map normally? Is it possible for something to have bugged out on my end?

Also I think that the map is a masterpiece. I hope that I can make something even half as good some day. I had a ton of fun playing through it so far. 

The video i linked to is the ad1.42 version of swampy.
I changed some secrets in later versions, added features
due to mod updates/addons and general wtf.

The blood key is now located high above

https://i.imgur.com/c6Iequy.jpg

Sorry for the confusion..

I personally think the first version is best,
i shouldve only added the fishing ogre... :) 

Luckily sock was kind enough to show me how to find the key a little earlier on stream. Finally got the rune legitimately as well as the purple key secret (thanks to sock as well). I put more time into this map alone probably more than most games overall, but I enjoyed every second of it. This was a fantastic map and one of my favorites by far. The Arcane features made it all the more enjoyable. I'll be replaying this one a lot going forward.

Speaking of fishing ogres, I really wanted that 100% completion but I couldn't bring myself to attack the passive ones. I especially liked the one who was fishing for the ring of shadows. The level of detail in this map was amazing. 

You've inspired me to play this yet again. I've never completed it. 

It might not be for everyone but the level of detail and the interconnectedness were top notch. I'm not sure how far you got but there is also a good amount of variation within the map - swamp, church with white bricks, rooftops, library, and secrets galore. I think it's exemplary in terms of layout and it's a template for me to work towards in terms of design and detail, especially regarding how organic it felt environmentally. 

Probably one of the best base maps that I'll ever play.

https://i.imgur.com/wNGjZIc.png

So close to perfect completion. I had to replay this one because I completely forgot about the circuit boards and I didn't even know that there was a rune in this map until discussing it with Spud.

Usually nothing beats experiencing an amazing game or map for the first time but this managed to be even more fun playing through again. I've already replayed most of Swampy a few times in order to try and learn about design and flow, and also because it was so much fun, but the first experience was still something else. All of these maps are phenomenal so far though so I will be revisiting all of them plenty going forward.

Finished Necro Keep as well and in the process of secret hunting. I only wish that there was some indication as to whether or not there was a rune in certain maps. Now I'm never too sure whether I should invest a lot of time trying to get the secrets or just move on the for the time being in lieu of no runes being present within the map.

Necro Keep was really fun due to the difficulty level and it had a great atmosphere. The fog hovering above the ground looked great and it isn't something that I've seen before in a map. I liked the Blood style beginning, crawling out of my grave. I dig the maps that have you starting in an unorthodox fashion instead of the usual slipgate arrival. 

I finished the main hub and there's not much more praise that I can add. This is definitely one of the greatest single player campaigns that I've ever played and the most fun that I've had with a game in a while. The final map that I played was ad_mountain (aside from ad_end of course) and it was a hell of a finale. The phantom knight that guides you towards the rune was amazing. I never would've imagined that features like that would have made it into a game this old, and yet it doesn't clash with any of the original aesthetics or design.

The talent in this community is astronomical. These maps serve as a template for what I'd like to achieve some day. I've already been replaying some of these maps but I will be revisiting them quite often in the future not just for inspiration, but also for enjoyment. There are still some secrets that I need to find. For now, I'm glad that there's a whole new set of maps for me to play in the next hub.

I'll try to keep my enthusiasm to myself next time since I'm kind of late to the party and I'm mostly talking to myself. I think it's already safe to say that the next set of maps is going to blow me away, so props to everyone who contributed to those maps as well. 

I still haven't finished all of the original content and it's a good reminder to set aside some time and complete these!

Don't forget Xmas Jam and some of the stand alone maps too! 

Thanks for the tip - I know that Grendel's Blade is another quality Arcane map and I also know that Redfield has a standalone Egyptian themed one as well. Xmas Jam sounds good although I might save that one for Christmas this year. It'll make for a nice present. 

Really wonderful maps guys

Would you guys ever consider looking at the maps you have an arrange them in a hexen fashion, with the maps having multiple entrances and exits and puzzle items too like in hexen.

Perhaps a main hub map, split into Realms and group the maps by theme first

Future Dimensions
Medieval Dimensions
Arcane Dimensions

Once they have been arranged in an order you are happy with you could place multiple exit and entrance points for each map to link them with a final boss somewhere.

In each Dimension put puzzle items that correlate to another dimension so you have to back track.

Once you defeat a boss in each dimension you could open up the final dimension, also you could hide one legendary version of each weapon in the maps to encourage people to search for the secrets, and use the runes to unlock the secret true end boss who is stupidly hard.

You have some great assets with these maps and this mod could become much more with some well thought out arrangement. 

This is possible in AD but the effort involved in making this with the current maps would not be worth it. Would be a lot of work and testing. Unless you are doing a story-based game, this mechanic doesn't really buy you anything as far as game play. 

I think the main reason that hexen2 is a dead game is that annoying hub thing. Nobody likes to go in and out a level several times searching for what to do next. It's too confusing, people had to look for walkthroughs on the internet to finish the game, most of people didn't even finish it. Please don't bring it to Quake.

It's sad because i love the medieval theme and the enemies are great... Hexen2 would be such a better game with regular maps (one entrance/one exit) like Quake. 

Nobody likes to go in and out a level several times searching for what to do next

Metroid Prime would like a word with you.

The concept of revisiting levels multiple times throughout a game is only as good or as bad as the designer(s) make it. 

I was going to leave that un-responded, but yeah:

Getting lost and not knowing where to go is a problem in big maps as much as hubs. And even in small maps if they are confusing enough. In all cases, good design can guide the player and make sure they know where to go. 

depends how deep you want to go as well

Do you want the dimensions to have cross dimension puzzles, or should the dimensions puzzles just be confined to the amount of maps that make that dimension?

It wouldn't hurt to try link up 3-4 military base type maps as a trial, also have the added bonus of placing higher level monsters in the later stages.

I find it fun remembering where a puzzle piece could potentially go over a few maps and seeing how they snake between each other and open up into new areas is fun, that moment when you finally get into that room you could see and the light bulb moment is always good.

You also have the added bonus of using harder monsters from the start in later stages and don't have to worry about making a "startup stage" where you build up weapons.

This can be further expanded by making some dimensions just hard to begin with, forcing you into other dimensions to get started.

and just having super legendary versions of the weapons would really give the player a drive to search the maps, especially if the runes unlocked the real boss, which naturally will be easier if you have the super weapons.

Come on it's worth a try, just put one dimension together and see how it goes. 

just put one dimension together and see how it goes.

i think youre underestimating the amount of time this sort of project would take.

what you want greatly differs from the design goals sock had for this and seems like the perfect time for you to learn how to map. that way you can do this all yourself and show us how great it could be. 

I just might.

i noticed it already had the hub map tools on the AD page, so no one will mind if i load up some maps and try string them together, purely for testing reasons, guage reactions to this gameplay type.

How do i get the textures to load though when opening the AD map files? i don't know where to get the wad files for it.

I was thinking using the map with the laser to access the boss for the future dimension, except you would need to search that map and 2 other base styled maps for the 3 parts you would need to operate the laser.

That seems like a simple enough plan. 

Well since somebody else bumped the thread this time, I guess I'll jump on the opportunity to post about my additional experiences. I'm playing through the second hub right now. I've played a few of these maps in advance after sock had suggested them to me a while back. I replayed them anyway and I had fun 100 percenting them.

Zendar was interesting because I played the standalone version first. I remember thinking that it was an amazing map that would've been made better by the addition of being able to traverse the rooftops in some areas. Lo and behold, the Arcane version added this in. There's one very tiny courtyard in particular where the roof is just begging to be explored, but that wasn't possible in the original map.

I think that I've played Arcane Adamantine 4 or 5 times now and it was still just as impressive and fun as the first time. It has a really interesting layout and it's really impressive in terms of all the circular brush work from the pipes that make up the playable area to the large spiral staircases.

Leptis Magna was my most recent adventure and what a map it was. In a way, it feels like the answer to or the sister map of Foggy Bogbottom. Pretty huge map with an awesome distinct atmosphere accentuated by the lore. This is another example of a map being essentially an adventure game in itself. Ionous and Pulsar did such a phenomenal one with this. I had to ask for help with finding many of the secrets but even with a guide for several of the final secrets, I couldn't believe that I clocked in over 2 hours in this map by the time I 100 percented it. There was one glitched scrag that I couldn't kill but otherwise here is the result of a play through that spanned several days:
https://i.imgur.com/DUanu4g.jpg

I have a few more maps to go but I'm taking my sweet time in order to savor the experience. Aside from the quality of the maps, I love the additions to the game play that the mod adds. I like the new shotgun mechanics as it makes the regular shotgun less like a sniper rifle. The new monsters are good additions too. The ambient sound effects in particular help to create more lifelike and believable worlds with monster groans and creaking wooden structures. I've been replaying some id1 user maps with Arcane loaded up and it's a ton of fun. 

One major headache you will come across - especially for someone not terribly experienced with all this quake modding bojangles - is that the quake engine's ability to transfer data between levels is pretty awful.

Beyond retaining a few things relating to player inventory (weapons, ammo, runes etc.), you'll have to write QC that packs and unpacks bits in the "parm" variables and a few others like "temp1".

For AD maps which all have hundreds of monsters, you'll need to accept that every time you revisit a map, the monsters will all have to be pretty much reset to their starting state. You could preserve the (dead / not dead) state of a few important boss monsters maybe, but good luck doing much beyond that.

And unless you somehow magically have hundreds of bits to spare on storing the state of all AD's secret areas, you'll have to accept they'll reset too.

I haven't touched on the topic of savegame abuse to do this - that's something I haven't really looked at. 

oh that pretty much puts a stop to that if its hopeless at retaining data between levels. 

the other option is just paste 3 maps together...


but that will probably hit the limits 

A far better project would be to create a single, original map with a layout designed to create the "hub" gameplay you are looking for.

Bolting multiple AD maps together into a single bsp seems a bit pointless.