and thanks for your nice comment on my Quake skills :-) 

Your first map was unplayable on Skill 1 for me. I tried multiple times and decided to stop. The geometry was really cool so there's a lot of atmosphere to like but I agree with others who said the map was unbalanced.

I'd really like to see someone complete the map with 100% on Skill 1 without repeatedly dying. Please link that demo. 

I'd really like to see someone complete the map with 100% on Skill 1 without repeatedly dying. Please link that demo.

http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/scrotum181_coce1.zip

Sorry didn't do that. Skill 3, with one noclip cheat at the end when I accidentally jumped off a ledge after killing all nearby monsters - I don't think that affects things too much tho.

The trick is to jump up via the entry slipgate and do the map in reverse, leaving all the ammo around the "two death knights above you main area entrance" for later on.

Scrags in the dark are kinda tricky. 

Played through this and they were some really tough maps.

Cocerello1 - A dark and scary twisted map that had a really hard ending. A map it through with very little health after running like crazy. I liked the darkness with torches kind of tucked away in the walls.

Cocerello2 - This was insane, I played it on easy. It feels kind of like a deathmatch layout, with all the rooms connecting back to one another, and many rooms look the same. Secrets were also like everywhere to be seen. An ok concept, I like the first map more.

Doomer - This was fun. Good use of base monsters and an interesting layout. Quake 2 textures look cool. Not quite as challenging, but that was ok for me.

Nait - Really nice architecture and layout here. I enjoyed hunting the switches down, this had some tough jumping areas. The map looked really nice, I think there was a skybox missing message, but no skybox came with the pack.

Newhouse - Awesome. This had some outstanding traps that I did not expect. Great use of lifts/crushing traps, secret walls. The layout was really good, and I think I only survived because I found the lightning gun.

SavageX - I liked the oldschool tactical combat in this one. The pacing was more forgiving on this map, but the ending battle was great. 

Correction: Cocerello1 ..."I made it through..." 

Thank you for all the feedback, it means a lot. I will try use them wisely in the future* 

There has been some of my maps before that got comments about them being way way harder than others i did, while i and some other had the opposite opinion, that the other were the harder ones.

For example, in this case, for me and others coce2 is harder than coce1, even more if comparing skill 2 in both maps, but all here, except maybe Redfield seem to be of the thought that it is the opposite.

I've been wondering for years what caused such opposed opinions and thanks to the demos provided for these maps i have figured which parts causes on all of those maps to make people give opposing opinions after watching the demos a few times. I am still pondering what can be the cause, but have some guesses. This will help me a lot so thanks again.

* Redfield: I am glad you enjoyed the maps and I give you my thanks for providing comments.
About what you comment: the second one has an open layout, so much that i ended up adding at the last hour DM game-play for it. If you are into it, please try. Tested it with Omicron bots and they play so-so, so there is lots of improvement to be done there.
I also noticed that skill 0 was somewhat strange on that one, because i died once or twice while testing which didn't happen on skill 1, but disregarded it as it being me dropping the guard with skill 0 as i did that with last Xlarve's map on skill 0, and also because I couldn't find anything that could cause it and much of what i could change without deleting encounters, even more considering that it has half the enemies and more and better power-ups and weapons than skill 1. I dropped some more guys down due to that, but I will look again, that picked my curiosity.
The secrets were a test on giving appropriate rewards to easier to find secrets. This way i think i can put all the secrets i want in maps without skewing the game-play or changing the difficulty much.


* Shambler: after seeing you finding how to make daemons dance i have to make sure to take advantage of that in a map. It was hilarious to watch.
Also, i still find surprising that you chose to fight the three shamblers (yes, 3, even though i don't know where the third one went to in your demo as it shows up when i play) because the exit is accessible 16 seconds (12 in skill 2) before the shamblers show up, so they are avoidable. They were there to give the more insane players an extreme last stand play which wouldn't hurt the rest, but it seems that i failed with it and it affects all. Good job dealing with them! 

Yeah that Fiend swoop was proper LOL :)

The final bit, I didn't know the exit opened before the shamblers appeared and there was no way in Shub's ass I was going to hang around a coverless, exposed arena to find out whether it would open before anything else appeared to analise me. 

I was expecting anyone to have godmoded it once to see what the hell is out there to make that last demo but forgot how much you refused to cheat on the jump to go to the upper/right route. 

These are my blind playthroughs of Satan's Farty Underpants (sm181_savagex.bsp)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWLTTi7zZZ0

and Quopermines (sm181_doomer.bsp)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NoIYW6eVlY

the others are still coming... i didnt know that youtube upload were so slow ¬¬ 

In about two hours.

https://www.twitch.tv/ionous 

an account to answer you guys to what you were saying on Twitch :)

Answering to the most important/fun ones.
- The architecture is repetitive and simple on purpose. I build speedmaps with modules and want to see how far i can go with that. In speedmaps i care more about mapping speed than detail.
- I will always give the weapons you'll see on those maps and in that way from now on. Seeing in my maps a SSG or RL will be very uncommon and GL and SNG from time to time. I just don't fancy them.
- Coce2 is red coloured :D and as some pointed out, it was made first for another event. I just finished it and adapted it a bit for this one.
- The button in the shalraths' room is for cover against the voreballs.
- Yeah, the dogs are bugged.

Thanks Ionous for the run. I greatly appreciate it. 

Thanks for your playthroughs, this is very helpful to see what worked and what didn't :-)

For instance, I guess I need to make the secrets a bit more obvious... you both were *so* close to discovering more secrets, but the map just doesn't offer enough clues.

@Tribal: I'm surprised the map somewhat works okay with FTE's realtime lighting - I guess FTE does not support _sunlight2, upon which the lighting of the outdoor areas depends a lot, but apparently good'ol sunlight (which I'm also using) somewhat ensures that things are not pitch black. I'm glad that you could fetch the gold key although it not lowering properly with the platform. Not sure I did something wrong there or if FTE just glitched out there a bit.

@ionous: No idea why the Ogre in the elevator area just kept sitting there in the alcove... never happened during my testing. Guess Quake is the game where obscure glitches are not quite uncommon :-) 

Actually the youtube video is darker than the original video that i recorded. i don't know why youtube keeps making my uploads darker, but your map runs brighter with FTE ;)

Also, FTE let's you change gamma, brightness and contrast if you think the map is too dark =D

Thank you for the map, and sorry for not be able to find all the secrets :/ 

These is my blind playthrough of Smiths of The Unknown Kovannon (sm181_newhouse.bsp)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbthgTNpwAs

Not my proudest moment XD i got lost and died a lot in this one. Huge and awesome map. \o/

And this one is my blind playthrough of *no-name* (sm181_nait2.bsp)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9oiYiieAHE

Very beautiful and very detailed piece of art, but the first room (with all those ogres throwing grenades) was a pain to deal with XD 

My playthrough of Cova dos Mouros (sm181_coce1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxTJ1cbYyLI

Not my first try. I played this map sometimes before, but i couldn't kill all the enemies without the grenade launcher (i didn't know where it was). So, i saw Ionous playing on Twitch and he found the grenade launcher, and i finally could record my playthrough =D

I couldn't find the last enemy, though...

This was a very challenging map, but what kills me the most was falling into the pit as i backtrack from the monsters XD

On a side note, this is the first time i see a ogre's backpack giving nails and shells. I didn't know you could do that =D 

_sunlight2 is not an engine feature, it's used by light utility to generate lightmaps. Once you processed the lights, it doesn't matter the engine (except for colors). 

Thanks for feedback :)

In the last days looking at the published demos and after playing other maps from this pack, I understand that I did not good map by gameplay.

Maybe through 2-3 months I will make new map based on my sm181 map by adding a number of locations and enemies. 

yeah, I'm aware of that - which is why maps using _sunlight2 don't look right when using realtime lighting. 

Finally, my blind playthrough of Sour taste (sm181_coce2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11q-fAkFVHM

There are two problems with this map, and they are the shotgun and the nailgun. The shotgun and the nailgun are good to kill dogs, grunts, enforcers, ogres, knights and fishes... but it takes an eternity to kill vores, hellknights and shamblers with them.
Without a doubleshotgun, a supernailgun, or a rocket launcher the gameplay becomes very slow and even boring... there is no fun in "shoot-hide-behind-the-corner-repeat-until-the-enemy-is-down"

But it was a solid interesting map, I almost killed everyone (119/121) couldn't find the last 2 enemies, and i've got lost too many times to look for them =D 

for the demos but they were a bit painful to watch as i can't see anyone being capable of enjoying playing with those settings. You need to make two changes in your Quake as soon as possible to enjoy yourself in any map:
- First delete the mod or change the settings that make that effect on Hell_knight and scrags projectiles. It's making way harder to evade their projectiles, meaning you'll get hit a lot more because its also harder to realize where the real projectile is and where its going, meaning you had to end up resorting to cover-shoot-cover a lot more. On the second map i could see more or less the projectiles as all came in the same direction, but for the first one i couldn't guess most of them.
- Get rid of the cross-hair. It is pointing a bit higher than where the weapon is really aiming at, which made you miss lots of shots you made to enemies upwards and also most of the shotgun shots missed with the lower part of the spread of shotgun.

couldn't find the last 2 enemies Perfectly normal: one is in a secret so it is easy to miss, and the other is in a room close to the armour you took first, in a side route you didn't use.

ogre's backpack giving nails and shells. I didn't know you could do that =D Yeah, it is hard to see because there is no way to justify why an ogre would be carrying any other ammo besides grenades. 

About the effect on hellknight and scrags projectiles... it's not a mod, it's FTE "classic" particles settings, and it's just like the old effect from original glquake (ok, it's not "just like", but it is "almost like"... in glquake the angle from the particle-effect is more acute than obtuse) =D 

I tried all of FTE's particle settings in every combination i could think of, Id's GLQuake, and even Winquake and Dosquake and couldn't see what you have: those annoying trails that stretch a lot to each side on 45º, camouflaging the real projectile. Maybe its like the stuttering sound you had before and you have to change some setting that its giving you problems, who knows.

Not that it matter much if it was on Id's Quake or not, apart from being tiring and boring that trail robs you of most of your ability to avoid those projectiles, so there is no skill involved, just relying on cover. You are better without them. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq82JOfkN_I

Sorry it took a month, but I now have a playthrough of the SM181 up now. Just some quick notes for everyone here but obviously, check out your playthrough in the video for more info and thoughts.

Cocerello 1 - I really like the beginning feel of this map, the void and pathway up to the castle was very cool! However, I know I'm not the first to say this, but I didn't really understand how the fight at the end was supposed to unfold. I got lucky finding a pent and running to the exit but I didn't understand how I would've been able to kill all of those enemies and make it to the exit. I must've missed something?

Cocerello 2 - This map suffers a lot from the fact that many rooms feel like the same room used over and over which makes it easy to get lost. There are a couple landmark areas to help with navigation, but not many. Then considering the same few textures are used over and over and over again... I feel like this one could've been paired down a little from its current sized to be a bit more of a focused experience.

DOOMer - I thought that this was a fun little map! It tells a good visual story with the broken elevator and I enjoy the green lights! Some may claim it's too easy but that's okay, this is a speed map and feels like a speed map! But even so, this map is a lot better than many of the maps that came out in the 96-97 era of Quake. It's biggest flaw is it's predictability, but personally I like a good old fashioned Quake map so I liked it!

Nait - I was VERY impressed by this map because the castle looks amazing! The rooms have a great feel to them, there are areas I didn't fully explore that look great (like the lava falls area inside)... there's just a lot of visual stuff to like here! This map could've easily have been a one off release for you. Are you sure that this one was built within the time limit? ;) Enemy density I think can be adjusted a bit. There are a TON of enemy's crammed into this place, so if that was paired down a bit and then maybe require the player to hit all the pillars to exit, this could be a great single release for you!

newHouse - This is another one that I was very impressed with! I love all of the moving and shakin' this map does to reveal new pathways that reuse old pathways. It feels fresh and somewhat new and different but also very Quake. Pacing is great, monster combat feels right on and the over all look and feel of this map is something I really liked too. Some sort of Cosmos meets Egyptian meets circuitry thing? Very cool! You really got me at the end with all fiends too! Nice job NewHouse!

SavageX - Congrats on the silliest name in the pack, this made me crack up a bit, and of course the ending was priceless to match the name! Now, first off I will say that this map isn't much to look at, it's pretty boxy and a little bland but that is to be expected during a speed map jam. However, the strong point of this is the design! I loved what you did with the elevator at the beginning, how you hit the button expecting the elevator to come down and take you up to the next area but instead it pauses and then the floor starts moving down. Then you have to follow through with hitting those buttons to get the elevator to actually work. Then you top t all off with a challenging horde fight at the end. I really enjoyed this one as well, nice work!

Thanks everyone for your hard work, a pleasure as always to play with your maps! 

for making the video, I enjoyed watching those runs and got much information out of them.

I didn't understand how I would've been able to kill all of those enemies and make it to the exit.

You simply don't. The fight is supposed to be a dynamic last man stand around the exit where the player choose how difficult or long he wants it to be by giving the freedom to end it or to change which, when and how many guys come depending on the way is played or the routes that were used to reach it. Because of this the exit is open enough to get through around 10 seconds (less in skill 2) before the shamblers and the Finish Him! voice appears and there is not enough ammo to kill them all on purpose. There was some things done to help with making it easier but never worked for a single one that played it here, unfortunately, so i need to rethink them.

This map suffers a lot from the fact that many rooms feel like the same room used over and over which makes it easy to get lost.

Don't feel like, they are the same, to help with mapping fast: each of those 8 landmark/checkpoint rooms are done by combining 4 modules chosen from up to 7-8 different ones, slightly modified to make them stand out between them.
And yeah, the dogs are bugged.