Demo here: (first run)
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/mfxsp17_ericw.zip

I had a few nitpicks; the lava in the start room would look better at 1:1 scale. There was a lift button that looked pushable but was disabled until later (IIRC?), and unfortunate about the HOMs.

Enjoyed the red key trick, I was wondering if there was going to be an actual red key :)

Played on skill 1, died once around midway through after losing a lot of health on an unnecessary grenadejump... other than that, I made it to the end where I was careless with the trinity and the shamblers got me a few times. Skill 1 felt good to me, though. Maybe I wasn't paying attention but I didn't notice dogs spawning in; I thought they were just hiding behind crates - so after seeing that for the first time, I was cautious about ambushes in areas with lots of crates.

Overall, thanks for the awesome map. Superb interpretation of the quoth idbase look & feel :-) 

finally got to play it, nice gameplay balance, good secrets.
though i lost all armor and alot of health after being stuck under the lift (had to cheat out of there to save my life), hence i died at the last ambush.
but overall proper base level, good job mfx!

demo: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b3r76tfk55dbflg/v17.zip 

I came across the same sorts of issues as others, also dying on the end battle. I feel that could have been improved if I'd known what to expect more.

Maybe a short button hunt to activate things beforehand.

Demo, where I complain about people bugging me while trying to play;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfxizyyqdqqznkk/ijedmfx17.zip

Some encounters felt a bit forced. Sentinels are a great enemy and were well used, but the Pyro and Plasma troopers feel oddly balanced and it seems you didn't place them as well as other enemies because of this.

The Chicken Centaur (Edie) was fun as always. I thought the end battle could have been better with them than the shamblers actually, since the compact areas would have left the player herded up against them and their buzzsaws, while not having cover to avoid attacks wouldn't have mattered as much without the hitscan shambler lightning.

Oh, and I got lost after finding the lightning gun secret. The shortcut turned out to be the long way round :) 

 

coming soon.. 

i'm tempted to change the gameplay a bit, what do you think? 

But it's not the army. If you think the changes will make it a better map then go for it. 

Nah, gameplay was good overall. Fix the main bug and move on to the next map. 

Would be maybe staggering the final ambush? 

I think ijed made good suggestions re dogs. 

I like those dogs. Traps are awesome. Dying is ok. You can quicksave all the time. Have you guys ever played games in the 90s? 

its not so much their surprise factor but the taking out of immersiveness factor because as someone else above pointed out, they can actually spawn out of nowhere while you can see it happening.

Ijed's ideas retained the surprise element but also retained the immersive factor. 

ah, didn't see that. yeah, I had an enforcer spawn in my fov too. 

That if the player is constantly worried about being cheap shotted and as a result is hammering the quicksave key at every possible moment then that is a sign of bad level design, it hurts the level in the long run. 

It's better to just take the opinions and criticism you got and apply them to further work than endlessly try to improve previous work.

One of the ways you improve as a designer is to release your work and say "This is my work!" and stand behind it as something you are proud of, and then look to improve in your next project. I think it helps you decide what values you want to define your work, rather than constantly fixing things and trying to make everyone happy.

For instance, if you decide you really like spawning dogs behind people as a gameplay mechanic, but all the comments here are negative, then try and think of how you would improve that for next time. Maybe spawn them further back would be enough? Perhaps some sort of warning would make it more acceptable? An example of an improvement of the gameplay idea would be to have the dogs in cages you walk past and can't shoot them, and then just after you pass, you hear them slide open! That would give a narrative and reason and forewarning, which would strengthen the encounter, and still give the "Enemies behind you you must quickly turn and deal with".

I don't think it's as easy to stick something like that into an already released map, you end up having to shoehorn which doesn't always work as well as you'd hope. Better to leave until next. 

Improve your next map with what you learned from your last one. 

I'd fix the 3 or 4 most obvious issues, then move on. 

On the Paul Steed objectivity scale, visual glitches are much closer to the objective issue end, while gameplay sits on the subjective criticism side of things. So if you really want to release another version, I'd suggest only fixing visual quality stuff, and listen to Scampie for the rest. 

 

..i think i got it.
Won�t change the anything in it, Scampie gets it to the point, and honestly i�m a bit tired of this map.

Actually i can�t see it anymore, it�s a pity all this work...

But for the fixing, i can tell you i�m working on it, as long as i am not working on something else , i can deliver soon..

And btw, my assumption of a potal error by func_detail in void was wrong, it�s mainly broken or misaligned polys that suck(which makes it even worse). 

Well that wandered off and fell in a well.

Mfx, to answer your question, it's worth fixing the greyflash and probably moving the spawning creatures out of sight. Personally I'd change the end shamblers for Edie's, but it's not my map :) 

As long as a player playing on a skill level they 'normally' play on can reasonably expect to survive.

Make your maps for everyone and they'll suck. Make them for yourself and they'll suck until you figure out what your favorite type of play is. Which you by experimenting and making mistakes.

In the case of Mainframe Mayhem it'd be a shame for it to be marred by a couple of technical issues. But enemies appearing in sight subjectively described as a 'technical issue' and the end fight is purely gameplay... 

Didn't see the post, will shut up now.

Awesome screenshot. 

Looks sexy 

.............!