demo https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33279452/daz_ivory.rar

25 minutes, 7/10 secrets Hard skill.

I got sooooooo lost :P Spent about 10 minutes just wandering around looking for what lift/door I didn't go through in order to progress. I could see where I SHOULD have been through grates in some secret areas but couldn't for the life of me work out how to get there :)

Aside from that I had fun with this. Fun combat and fun puzzles as always from Sock. Hard difficulty was never really too hard however, I never really felt much pressure from enemies. Even in the final arena it was fairly easy to survive. 

@Daz, thanks for the demo. Everything was going the right direction up till the point where you had to drop down to the final gold key area and I think I know why.

It is interesting from watching 10+ demo how players do the same things. Even different types of players all do common things and there are several breaking points in the flow. I suspect it is a physiological reason and probably linked to what I said earlier.

In the altar area with the RL there is an archway to the left that goes round a corner to a drop down. Pretty much every demo reaches this point and every players looks at the drop down and I can hear the cogs whirling in their head "oh that is a one way drop down, I wonder if I have missed something, I will come back ..." and that is where everyone just gets lost. Everyone leaves, goes off exploring and then cannot find their way back.

This happens a second time with the gold key area, players see the Quad locked behind bars, want it, forget about the gold key and door and then try to get the Quad. Often falling down or realizing the releasing mechanic is out of reach and then go off exploring trying to find it.

I can see where I went wrong, lesson learned.
* Players hate one way routes
* Players will feel the need to complete areas
* Critical route locations need to be visually obvious how to get back too
* Players will gladly ignore current objectives for worthwhile items

Often these problems are fixed with key/arrow symbols all over the place but I know these can be fixed with subtle level design. 

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/ivory1b-ivory-spirit-hard-firstrun.zip
Hard skill, first playthrough, Quakespasm. 

i'just finished this jewel with smc and i'm impressed. somebody wrote: "it wasn't a chalange on hard". make no mistake, with smc it's definitely a real chalange. i took me almost 50 minutes to complete this level with 7/10 secretes.
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i changed texturemode back to linear_mipmap_linear. don't like pixelated textures... that was by design? why? 

Seriously though, blurry textures is heresy. Even though I played a lot of 3dfx quake back in the day I like the sharpness of the unblurred textures. 

that's matter of personal taste... i use hires textures from qrp and in ivory tower about 80% is replaced with the hi-res ones. the rest is pixelated it looks awfull. at least from my point of view. 

Grrr, apparently, the DMSP mod doesn't work on another mod.

Another game play style I use very often on a second/third/wathever map run is to use noclip to pass through all the walls, just to "awake" all the monsters on the map. I then return to the start point, turn OFF noclip, and run through the map in the default way. Monsters are then often at unpredictable and surprising locations, and several infights may be already occuring at some locations. Hilarious, especially when you notice that some corpses are lying on the ground, and a Shambler walks away in another part of the corridor ! 

a fantastic map from sock!

I really liked the open layout.
The ammount of details are mindblowing.

It's a good thing you have come to quake to map, please continue, let us have more maps in the future.

Everything in this map rocks! I had a lot of fun trying to find secrets and staying alive.

Played at hard and finished with 101/101, 7/10 secrets!

Thank you very much for a fun evening!

Demo: http://www.hrimfaxi.dk/hrim_ivory.rar 

why don't you simply remove the .bsp file from the .pak and run DMSP mod through it that way?

I'm fairly sure that Sock uses .pak for his custom models and settings purely for neatness of the releases. I don't think this mod will be anything different from his other releases in this way. 

Warning: random speculation follows.

I think perhaps some of the disorientation that this map inspires comes from not having a 'global' sense of the map, i.e. it's not clear what the overall progression is. Compared to, say, wicked, which was certainly a map I got lost in but it was pretty clear that getting higher up was the goal most of the time. 

I'll pay more attention next time I play it, but it seemed to me that there were multiple "shortcuts" that served the same purpose, just in different places. I didn't see much reason for that. Also, there were what looked like lifts/elevators, but I could never get them to move.

I have a quicksave on nightmare from right before the gold key door, maybe I'll just load that and go look around. 

you can remove the bsp and lit and rund dmsp. The pak files are only there for the custom models and an edited quake.rc that forces the particular GL texture settings sock prefers. 

On a Mac, how can I extract the .bsp file ?

A long time ago, there was an app (depacker, I think) to extract ressources from the .pak files, but it's no longer working under OS X (Classic isn't supported anymore).

Sock, if possible, I suggest that you also release the BSP version, to give users a choice. 

"If you want to play the map with *your* original quake settings delete the pak1.pak file. It contains the extra models (items) and the quake.rc file with my recommended engine settings."

You can also extract the BSP from pak0.pak using PakExplorer ( http://www.quaketerminus.com/tools/pakexplr.zip ), I'm looking at it right now, along with its .lit file. 

make a new mod dir, put ivory pak0.pak inside and add the dmsp pak as pak1.pak 

thanks Sock

1st run shitty demo, skill 3 (fitz085)
http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/spy3_ivory.rar


Architecture is a top notch, a very sock's style.

i'm just wondering your productivity, it's like your fourth or so map this year 

@Spirit

your trick works, but the result is pretty weird. I don't think the DMSP mod works as it should in this case. O well... 

i changed texturemode back to linear_mipmap_linear. don't like pixelated textures... that was by design? why?
@jakub, I have no problems with anyone changing my default or even deleting the pak1.pak file. If someone wants to change it to their liking that is perfectly fine with me.

The new textures in this map were designed to match (pixel density) the existing assets. I designed the visuals in this map to be viewed at original filtering because it maintains a consistent visual theme. I have nothing against HD assets and I certainly don't think Quake should be viewed in low resolution for eternity, but until I see good HD assets I will continue viewing Quake in Pixelvision.

Seriously though, blurry textures is heresy.
No it is not, my preference for pixalated textures is nothing to do with heresy or thinking that Quake should be like the original it is to do with visual harmony and consistency. I believe that when you design a game the pixel resolution is important, if you are going to design something to be HD then everything needs to be HD. Having a mixture of original and poor HD assets is very bad IMHO.

I also think blurry texture filtering is terrible, I love playing Quake at higher resolutions, but I do not like looking at the game with blurry vision! Embrace the crispness of the original art, it is gorgeous!

The pak files are only there for the custom models and an edited quake.rc that forces the particular GL texture settings sock prefers.
I wish you would respect my vision for this map, I designed it to look a certain way. There is nothing forced about my settings, you can delete the pak1.pak file if you want. 

...that I like sock a lot more now. Not that I disliked him before, but those Pixel Rants were glorious, summed up my thoughts. 

@jakub, SMC is an awesome mod for DP, it is good to know that it works with this map.
@Hrimfax, glad you liked it. The map is certainly designed for people to enjoy the details.

it seemed to me that there were multiple "shortcuts" that served the same purpose, just in different places.
@Rick, it is about choices, there are 3 main shortcuts in the map. Demon door at the beginning to get the NG early and surprise a monster. SK bypass via the lift so you can ignore the lower mines. Attic attack to get to the Altar room quickly and pickup RA+SNG.

stop mapping Sock.
@spy, it seems people here want me to map less, probably a good idea! 

I love your stuff. 

and then agree...

Blurry textures in quake have always annoyed me, even in the 3dfx days. I wished that we could have had the sharpness of the unfiltered textures with the speed of 3d acceleration.
I'm only of this opinion with every game up until Quake 2, I don't mind Q2 and beyond having filtered textures as they were designed with this look in mind. But Quake, Doom, Hexen etc I prefer the sharpness of the original art. 

I _think_ I played on Hard, that was what the centerprint suggested, but I was never sure. I might have accidentally triggered the Normal difficulty as I later on got that centerprint (after falling, trying to reach the green armor). I kind of hope I was playing on Normal because I found it a tad easy.

Anyways, DirectQ mucked up the demo, but LordHavoc was so gracious to extract the main gameplay via a hex editor for me, so you can see the actual session here: http://scar3crow.com/quake/demos/sp/scar3_ivory1.zip

100/101 (missed a Knight, was in a rush so I didn't go looking for him, though I could hear him). 5/10 secrets I believe. Got lost some, and by got lost, I didn't have an objective for a while. I knew I needed the gold key, because I could see the gold door, but it took me a long while to find it and have it be blocking my path. That was my only real issue with the map, I didn't have an objective. I found the silver key before I really noticed the silver door, which was long before I could reach the gold door.

That is a lot of negative, but I very much liked it sock. The brushwork was excellent, particularly the damaged steps and bits of stonework cropping out. I also enjoyed the presence of monster_jumps keeping the areas from being flat. The enemies just out of sight that you will catch the attention of during a retreat is also excellent.

I really hope to see more from you, and as for pixel density, I greatly appreciate it. Thank you for that effort. 

is that the rest of us lazy gits look bad by comparison! 

Personally I love the pixelated textures. I have nothing against the blurry filter but I do love pixels.