Thanks for the clarification. So the AD stuff seems like it would work for switches and keys. Very limited usage overall. 

Thanks for the insights into the design process. I think that dumptruck mentioned doing some interviews with mappers and I've been looking forward to it. In the meantime, I've been getting some great tidbits from sock, ionous, and now you as to how these maps were approached. It will help me think about how I approach mapping going forward. It seems to be a common theme that the player spawn location changes as the map develops.

I've already started another play through of the map since last finishing it. The game play is fun but it's also nice to just go back and admire all of the details that went into the map. The time that it took to make paid off extremely well in the end because this has been a highlight for me in terms of single player shooters, not just as a Quake map. 

I was nose deep in ModDB's dark corners earlier when I stumbled upon this umpteenth E1M1 remix for Doom. Yeah, I know, but hold on, the funny part is coming...

Excerpt from the map description: Some areas are heavily inspired by ad_e1m1 from Arcane Dimensions mod for Quake. Special thanks to them for inspiration!!!

So in other words, here we have a Doom map that is a remix of a Quake map that already was a remix of a Doom map! Ouroboros much?

Haven't tried it yet so I can't judge its quality. I just thought it should be mentioned here. 

I guess I missed this when it came out, or didn't play it all for some reason. So far I've played through a few of the maps on normal, and there are some fucking corkers in there. Standouts so far have been the gorgeous floating arabianish winter palace with the huge boss encounter, and the firetop mountain level, which had some really fun combats in it (the Cthon setup was particularly memorable).

There's just too much to comment on, so I'll try and make more of an effort when I've played it all, but it's incredible so far, so thanks to Sock and all the others involved for making such a fun addon. 

And when you're done with all the AD maps (don't forget the test maps, some are very nice), there are some cool custom levels for AD as well. Have fun! 

Basically the inspiration for me learning Quake mapping. 

 

Was probably one of the greatest inspirations for me before AD came along. 

Is there like a list out there of AD addons?
there are some maps not present in quaddicted, like office assault, grendel's blade and paradise sickness. 

Tronyn did a ranking of AD maps recently but I doubt it's up to date.

https://www.quaddicted.com/tronyn-reviews/arcane_dimensions_by_various_authors

My one an only AD map is ranked pretty low. :( Ranking is fucking subjective anyway. :( 

Considering the other maps on that list that are also ranked low, seems more like it's indicative of the exceptional quality of the top ranked maps rather than the poor quality of the low ranked ones. ad_dm5 was awesome. No love for the Christmas jam maps but of course the quality wasn't going to be through the roof given the constraints.

Bottom line - ranks don't matter. I enjoyed your AD map anyway. 

Here is a slightly more complete listing (Tronyn missed mine, among others):
https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/?filtered=arcanedimensions

Here's another one that hasn't been added to Quaddicted:
http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=61605 

are yuo releasing a second episode of AD?

Some very nice pics can be found on the net:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRqnsjcX0AAPEnb.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DkWs8eSWwAQVsAK.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Do27gk4XsAAH3GA.jpg

with hope 

#1 is Bal's WIP Xmasjam2 map
#2 is mfx's long running WIP space map
#3 is sock's current WIP map he's streaming a lot of

Pretty sure none of the related to a second episode. 

 

I get them confused. 

looks cool!
Same with Sock, obvs 

https://dustri.org/b/arcane-dimension.html 

Does killing the 8 green spawns in Sepulcher do anything? 

Besides increasing your killcount, no. 

AD still has the double megahealth rot bug. 

 

https://quakewiki.org/wiki/Quake_bugs

https://www.quake-info-pool.net/q1/qcfix.htm#megahealthrot 

By the way, there's a more elegant way to fix that, without adding an extra entity. 

I'm finally finishing up the second hub with only Sepulcher left after just beating ad_azad. I don't know what else to say aside from that it was brilliant. I loved the theme and the level of detail was mind blowing. Even something as simple as accumulated snow on the some of the steps outdoors added so much to the map.

The breakables helped the world feel alive and I really enjoyed the way that they were employed this time. Instead of just having breakable walls and pieces of wood, some major set pieces were destructible. I was pleasantly surprised when the bridge in front of the silver key lock collapsed under me after being attacked by a death knight. Pillars breaking during the four stoneman ambush and during the final boss made the fights more intense with nothing to hide behind.

I also liked how the destructibles were part of the progression like the iron wood that needed to be smashed with the mine cart. The combat was really enjoyable although the tiny room with the four stone death knights that ambush you got me several times. I didn't exactly save scum but it still felt scummy saving the game beforehand and attempting that fight a few times when I already knew what to expect.

I finished with 6/10 secrets but just like every other AD map, I'm going to attempt the 100% clear. The bruskwork was incredible and it seems like an insane amount of time must have gone into the details. I loved some of the amorphous architecture as well like the wooden platforms haphazardly arranged and supported in the room with the mine carts. Stuff like this is inspiring and I'm always curious as to how much of this was implemented or how certain ideas were conceived. My only complaint was that the map wasn't longer since I enjoyed it so much but hopefully I will squeeze a lot more time out of it as I search for the rust key and the remaining secrets.