Thanks a lot ORL! I'll get to your demo (and Jaromir83's, which I missed earlier) tomorrow.

The zip file in the drive has been replaced with an updated version. Only two changes affect gameplay, one being the infamous rocket box, the other being a pair of health packs in the final arena (skill 0/1 only) that fell out of the map. The others are purely cosmetic, including the odd sliding button negke pointed out, and the lighting in the initial cave area that gave a lovely view of the rocks connecting with the void.

The archive should be good to go for Quaddicted. 

Great to see a new debut, even more so because it is for one of my favourite mods. And thank you for your trouble with the update.

http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/lpqsp1_paru.zip

First playtrhough in five parts (skill 2).
Twice stuck, twice dead in the final arena.

There is a screenshot in the zip. Loading the map in 'developer 1' it shows 4 items falling out on skill 2. (QS-0.90.0 32-bit). There are 4 'walkmonster in wall' reports too. There is a drole with teleport flag but no targetname.

Update: the latest version has the drole and the pair of health fixed. 'Item_spikes' and 'item_armor1' still fall out though. And the walkmonster reports persisted. 

Ill check it out later. Probably will delete those items as it plays how I want it to. Hold it for qyaddicted, negke... 

Ok, last update. The console actually still reports that error for two of the monsters, but they don't actually appear to be stuck, and behave as I would expect normally. Actually that was the case to begin with, so whatever I guess.

Get that shit to Quaddicted. ;) 

I can't get the demos to work. I put them in the \quoth folder and tried both with DP (20140430 build) and QS 0.92 but to no avail. QS console only returns an "error: couldn't open [filename]" message and DP displays a wall of hexadecimal code apparently pertaining to sounds (a bunch of .wav files is listed in the rightmost column).

Ideas, anyone? 

They probably don't work with the updated version of the map. 

I can reupload the original if you want 

Nah, don't bother. It was only to see how the others were faring, because I find skill 2 tougher than usual. 

Gotcha. I designed skill 2 to be pretty tough for me--not that I'm the best Quake player in the world, but I'm pretty decent and I enjoy a bit of horde-style combat--and given the amount of saves I used while making sure I left enough ammo and health around, I think I succeeded. There's more ammo supplies than I initially envisioned, but health it pretty sparing, I think. The final battle is chaotic.

Skill 1 should also be a decent challenge, I think. My friend (who is a Quake noob) played it as soon as I uploaded it and found it tough. 

Has this map been submitted to Quaddicted? Infernal Ascent's already been there since a couple days. 

 

Couldn't load sound/water6.wav

Anyway, played it. Liked the end battle especially. 

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/quoth2pt2full.html 

It gives that error in the console for me but the sounds play anyway--not sure why.

Thanks for playing! 

I have the latest Quoth version installed but I get this error too. 

The reason is that one of the ambient_generalpurpose entity links to water6.wav instead of necros/water6.wav like the others. 

Lane, maybe a little fix before submitting to Quaddicted? 

I reopened the map file and checked the ambient_generalpurpose entities and they're linked correctly. Every sound plays where it should in the map. I definitely linked them incorrectly when I was first placing them but quickly realized my mistake on rereading the Quoth documentation, so it's possible there's a stray entity floating around somewhere that I forgot to delete. Not too worried about it. 

As long as the map plays fine, it's no biggie I guess. 

There's a new Quoth patch? I have 2.1. No wonder all these new maps keep giving me wierd errors. @Kell Seriously update your site please. 

I feel like a better site for quoth things is Preach's wordpress (D:) site here 

though very hard on skill 2. It was tricky to survive the final fight with 2 hp left while lots of monsters still keep spawning. But I've managed to do that after all.

I'd like to see more maps from you. 

I already provided some input on quaddicted but demos are more intimate ;0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/df6h14v3e19zxpz/mjb_lane.zip?dl=0 

So I'm pretty late to the party with this one, but I thought I would give my 2 cents anyway.

I really think you should take some time and flesh out the "feel" of the rooms a bit more. This gave me a vibe of the stuff that was coming out in about 97 / 98. It's by no means awful, it is just "simpler" than what we're accustomed to.

Off the bat there are two things that I think would help this map greatly. One is rock terrain, have a look at socks articles (http://www.simonoc.com/pages/articles.htm) on rock walls, I have found them invaluable.

The other thing to think about it lighting and maybe even fog. I know that fog requires a modern engine, but it allows for atmosphere in "void" areas.

Alternatively hard straight edges on void areas also seem strange. Here is some "done" well. http://spyhunter007.com/Images/american_mcgees_alice_bottomless_void.jpg

Here is your area, http://imgur.com/L09LUh2

Note there is no transition into solid geometry... The solid geometry just starts abruptly.

You blended the void in quite well in the areas with the blue bricks and switch, you didn't follow it through to the rest of the map, I felt this was a shame.

Regarding lighting, you could probably drop the brightness quite a bit, particularly in the earlier areas, this would add to the atmosphere somewhat.

In terms of gameplay, I thought you did quite well. The encounters were well balanced, I was playing on normal and didn't die to any enemies. The open areas in the "end" encounter allow the player to run away and snipe things from a distance. I sort of cheesed the area. I'm not sure whether this was by design or a coincidence of your choice of geometry. If you were to shrink this last area I'm sure it would be a little tougher for players.

All that aside, congrats on your first release. Well done :) 

Thanks for the feedback, Shamblernaut. I will take a look at those sock articles. As for your comments on the void bits, I agree--I do seem to have gotten lazy in some places. Creating an impression of blending into the void is doable with bricks, though I also like the idea of solid metal structures floating in space--maybe the two can work together with metal trim on the edges of the brickwork (something I started to do on a map I'm working on now). It's a balance I guess.

In general I was going for an "old school" vibe, and still am in my current project, but I want to strike a balance between that vibe and certain "improved" level of detail. I love modern obsessively-detailed maps as much as anyone but I want to capture something maybe a bit "retro-plus"! We'll see how it turns out though....

Lighting is something I definitely need to work on.

Again, thanks to anyone for the feedback--it's been really helpful and encouraging.