@Shambler, yeah awesome skill 3 demo with cool route variety. The more demo's I see the more things I want to change about the map!

I think the rooftop encounter could have been triggered better and there certainly should have been a jump route back up to the ogre's balcony. Also the locked towers should have been unlocked, this is an old design which was setup because of the old silver/gold locked door system. 

As posted in #tf:

<@Honkbler> got thru zendar on hard with 84 kills....that is going only to the minimum of areas, but killing all monsters in an area
<@Honkbler> i.e. not leaving any visible / encountered monsters alive
<@Honkbler> i did kill one deathknight on a walkway because he was visible, and 4 zombies visible thru a grate

Get SK in top left of main area, go thru SK door on right, around to lower GK area and up to GK, retrace steps, do GK door bit and endgame, exit. 

unless i get bored and no new releases :)

Improved the Er by grabbing the SNG and a bit less mistakes.
Did the NH with the route i had in mind yesterday,still lot of mistakes but that comes with lenghty demos;)
and i tought i was going crazy. am i getting that old that im actualy forgetting secrets after finding them? Not yet, my friends(demo-proof included) my best geuss is that its a packetoverflow kinda thing, but im not the tech guy here.It happened that often that amade a slight tweak to the route, but herecomes the weakness of my geuss even then it sometimes happened and by then there isnt to much action yet. I tried getting it from when on the roof aswell, same bug so i get it asap to not have to restart cuz of it while 10mins playing already

http://members.upc.nl/verorber/demos/zendar.rar 

Am I the only one that found progression a bit confusing? I spent most of the map walking around wondering where I was. Early on I guess a secret opened up a whole new area, at some point I got a gk and forgot to return to the gk lift for ages, mainly because I'd progressed so much further that the gk door was a distant memory by then, and the level was still pushing me further in the wrong direction. Then the hole opening at the end had me a bit lost - totally forgot there was a hole even there. The blocked door opening at the end was the problem, that should have remained blocked. I thought with that opening something must have changed beyond that door so went searching through the level again.

So yeah I did find it a bit TOO non-linear.

Having sk's open doors between two areas you've already been to doesn't help. I guess there were 3 different sk doors all of which actually lead nowhere and don't progress your game, which is not what a sk door is supposed to do.

On a second playthrough it would be fantastic, since I'd know where I went wrong first time through. The design is just awesome sock. Definitely a breath of fresh air as your ability to create architecture and detail is some of the best ever seen in Quake. 

to find the similarities to the Thief game, especially the roofwalking 

Zendar and some of sock's other maps have really pushed the envelope in the swiss-cheese-topology, wandering-and-backtracking zone of the Quake design space. I'm selfishly glad about that though; it happens to match nicely with some of my personal FPS gameplay hot-buttons.

I was thinking a bit about how playing this reminded me of "filling out the map" in Doom, and (not for the first time) I thought that It's too bad that Quake didn't get even a rudimentary automap function. Obviously 3D automap is harder than 2D, but some sort of automappery could make strongly nonlinear Quake maps even more widely accessible & enjoyable. 

@Kona, this map is certainly not for the traditionalist because the keys are setup different. I am not really a fan of the "one key one door" idea and thought giving players a choice could be fun.

There are 4 Silver keys and 4 doors, three of them can be accessed from both sides to confuse the matter more. The gold is your primary objective, Silver is secondary and in most cases, optional.

The map is designed to always take you back to the Hub, you cannot be lost for too long because it always leads back to one central location.

The GK side has brown arrows all over the place and the hub had large key symbols. The map exit, well its in the center of the map! I tried for ages to make the flow go towards the gold lift/exit so it would minimize the feeling of being totally lost. 

On a second playthrough it would be fantastic, since I'd know where I went wrong first time through.

This is indeed what the map is designed for, yes it may seem weird that the first play through is not the best, but this is a map that grows and gets better the more times you play it. Something to make xmas last a little bit longer! :P 

Please remember everyone to VOTE for the map over at Quaddicted. 

/me bans sock for vote-begging! 

@spy, I am a huge fan of the Thief franchise, so it is indeed possible that there is a lot of "Thief" influences in the design. One of my favourite Quake maps is E1M4 and there is also similarities there, with the huge city below the water and the GK and route across the top like the platform in the giant lake of the Grisly Grotto! 

And this is a good thing, as myself i'm a huge fan of the Thief series too, and seeing something that has connecting on and off is a great

I'd like to see more maps in the same vain (ie the City maps), its kind of unique for the quake scene

I wish me a Merry Christmas you never stop mapping 

 

I have a huge collection of epic demos and I know some people like to watch them. Each demo collection file is about 40Mb and here is the list of people in each zip file.

Demo file 1
5th, aas, bal, cardO, daz, dbaudio, drew, generic, ijed and mandel

Demo file 2
mhw, orbs, otp, scampie, shambler, skacky, spy and vondur 

yes sock please never stop mapping!!! quake has lost some great mappers over the years. 

I will record as many demos as you require 

there's just not much I can add to what everyone else said. I had a lot of fun and marveled at the build quality and the lighting as usual.

Here are two demos (died after a couple of minutes on my first playthrough):

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

Very non-linear map, but not too confusing.
Init only 7/10 146/160 but after reading about the shambler on the roof, went back and even got 10/10 (with a little cheat)

Best parts are the hedge courtyard, roof, and of course the quality. 

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/zendar-preach.zip

Two demos here, one up to the final combat where I died, and a second go at that fight from another attempt plus some secret finding afterwards (use fast-forward!).

Another gorgeous and detailed map, there's not a dull patch around. The way that all the balconies and rooftops can be explored is fantastic, and all the ledges make it great fun to try and reach new areas. The lighting was top notch, the use of subtle blue moonlight to match the skybox sealed the deal.

Played through on normal (without sounds) and combat was generally fair, there was a good progression from initially easy skirmishes to increasingly tricky set pieces, despite the presence of all the more powerful weapons.

After much exploration post-combat I got 7/10 secrets, which is good by my standards. I got the stuff with the silver keys alright, but it was a bit hard to see on a first play-through that you don't gain anything from opening the sliver key door at the perforator if you've already found your way there. I think that's mostly because it's hard to judge whether you're seeing two sides of the same door or a pair of doors on opposite sides of a new room. I gambled it was the latter and regretted it. 

@Preach, the SK by the SNG is designed to be opened by players using the upper route through the GK area. Each Silver key door is designed for multiple routes and sometimes for certain routes.

SK 1 is in the hub area next to the NG. This is designed to make sure the player has a good weapon (NG/GL) before getting access to the GK section.
SK 2 is in the secret garden. This is designed to make sure the player knows how to enter/exit the gardens. It highlights the importance of the door so it different from others close by.
SK 3 is next to the SNG balcony. This is designed to be a shortcut for players using the upper route from the Church. The nearest key is outside on the city facade so even if the player opens this by accident there is another key close by to replace the inventory.
SK 4 is in the far white roof tower. This is designed for the shambler altar close by.

All of the SK keys give the player a choice of what to do, but they also try to help players in certain route directions. This will not be apparent until the player tries the map several times. I know this is going to sound odd but this map really is designed for several play throughs and does reward players who want to try different routes. 

BTW is the roof area reachable without rocket jumping?

I'm assuming so, but I never did figure that out. (Maybe I should watch some demos...) 

@JL, there are 4 ways to access the roof area and some are easier than others. The ideal route is the Ogre balcony because that is the trigger to spawn the extra monsters.

1. Shoot the button on the upper balcony with the MH and ogres. Tricky to see unless on the balcony and the doors only open when GK is used.

2. Use the lift over by the GL/Zombie courtyard. There is a balcony with ogres on it that can be jumped too and there is a shortcut to the roof.

3. Climb the slopped roof on the left side of the hub. There is a demon door secret close by and the roof is very low at this point.

4. Rocket Jump from multiple locations. 

Amazing map. Looks great.
Progression was ok. I didn't know if I was going in the right direction though.

Here is my first play demo on skill 1:
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/zendar_ankh.zip
I wasn't really pressured on skill 1. Maybe I should try skill 2.
Haven't played quake for some months, very rusty and I have a weird config which isn't alike to any other game I play. Always have to relearn the controls now. 

@SleepwalkR, yeah the ammo can be tight if you take certain routes. I was expecting you to investigate the church because there is a ton of ammo in there. I think this goes back to a comment by negke that it is not obvious which doors open or are locked.

The second demo is epic and once again another player ends the final horde fight with limited health/armour and with SSG on the last shambler. It does feel satisfying to watch as it is a lovely way to end the final fight. Cool to see you got all the secrets as well, a perfect demo, all monsters + secrets on skill 2. 

@Preach, that is the strangest thing I have seen in a long time, you are playing Quake without any sound. I can hear all the monsters around you, but you can't. It is like every encounter is a surprise, the perfect ambush everytime. I was constantly shouting at the screen, its behind you, its over there! :)