is satans work.

yeah I died. 

Lots of character in these maps!
Only died in Coce's - at the very end.
WIll upload demos eventually.

Scampie's would have been PERFECT if only he'd added a bit more detail in that one area. But I know you're a purist Scampie. It's really simple but nicely executed and just a good quakey feel to it.

Digs is a digs map which is good all around. The only thing I didn't like about this, at all, was the inclusion of the rubicon2 textures, which sort of spoiled the otherwise amazing and uniquely DIGS theme. gameplay was not as clever as some past Digs maps, but was generally awesome all around, and the Bricks theme was really utilized well here.

Cocerello - this was really good! A weird vibe, with lots of character. I would complain about ammo and whatever, but really it was fine. Kept me on my toes. play very carefully and save every bullet and you'll be just fine. A great 1st effort and hopefully one to be followed by many more.

thanks 

Scampie - great for a speed map, gameplay was as good as any small map, just like a miniature sketch for a proper map.

Digs - good fun, nice concepts at the end.

Cocerello - unbearably awful, no offense or anything! 

I liked both of them, pretty fun, very speedmap like, specially digs one.

*Digs: I liked the brushwork and the use of textures, that trick with the blue brick brushes is as simple as effective. The Rubicon ones seem different from the rest but i do think they blend enough.
- The piles of what i think are girders were a good addition, as ways to open to path and as eye-candy.
The combat is intense but it is a bit repetitive and simple, even though for this length is OK.
- The ammo in the last room, i don't think i would use them ever, as i get to see the monsters before i reach the ammo.
- I'm still thinking of what the traffic signal is doing there. :)

*Scampie: more conventional and old-school like, but effective. At first i thought you would put a shambler or a demon behind those doors, after seeing the knight i speeded up quite a bit.
- It was surprising the use of a secret to progress into the map, as i have seen that only in the Abandon map pack by Madfox.
- I don't know if it is intended, but the second tarbaby was put in a way that added to the gameplay, because it is hiding half the time while jumping and creates a different combat situation than we are used to.
- In the final room, depending on how you play, you never get to see the ammo, resulting in situations like my first try, where i almost needed to axe the first shambler.

Here you have the first run demos:

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/sm171_digs_scampie_by_coce.7z

*Drew Could you be more precise about what you like, you dislike or you hate about the map? That would help me to understand how my maps are seen. Don't keep to yourself the negative comments, i want them all.
- The amount of ammo is intended, i am bored with maps that give you so much ammo that you are almost full at the end of the map (like most of ID ones), so i wanted to make clear to the player that he has to save the ammo as it isn't the usual way on Quake maps, by giving very scarce ammo at first while the enemies are easy to kill. I tested it so you won't need to axe a single monster and you'll have at least 5-10 shells. As the map goes on, i raised the amount as it is more possible to miss, and for the final fight i din't think that low ammo would be the most suitable for it, so i raised the amount even more. It has been tested so you don't need the secrets or monster infighting to finish it, as this is a speedmap and i didn't want to make it harder.
- I tried to do the same with the health so you aren't never at full health but never too low, but that's harder to pull. could be done if i added support for difficulties.

*Shambler, i am just surprised about the bluntness of your words.
I don't mind negative comments, the map isn't vey speedmap-like, has things to improve to make it a good map and i have used many things that aren't popular with everyone like the planned ammo, but to consider yours as valid comments you should tell me precisely what made you say that; that would help me a lot too.


*And finally, to all of you, if you have the time, please upload some first play demos, i want to see and understand how the people react to the situations i create, so i can make future maps better. Thanks in advance. 

traffic signal: this sign in Russia popularly called the "brick" ))

Thank's for comments and demo 

I don't know. I mean, I don't have a tonne of feedback for you, besides what you can see in the demo.
I do think its best to give more ammo than you think will be necessary - making a map where ammo is intentionally tight can lead to a good experience, like mine, where I was always on the edge of running out. Or it can create frustration. Especially in Speedmaps, where you don't get it tested etc.

I liked that it was weird, with strange angles all over the place. I liked the aesthetics, but I have odd tastes sometimes, so who knows.

One thing I think I mentioned is the lights - should have made them func_illusionaries, cuz players get stuck and its kind of a pain in the ass.

Also, don't be surprised by Shambler's bluntness, and don't be too worried if he doesn't like this particular speedmap. Speedmaps should really be more for *you* I think. Real maps can be too, but they are more directed towards the community, the 'audience' than SM's, which tend to be good to keep in shape, to experiment, whatever. Just keep mapping. 

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/single_player/speed_maps/sm171_negke.zip 

http://members.upc.nl/verorber/SM171.rar

I thought it was a pretty good theme i had several plans for it, but i worked 6 pretty long days last week and on sunday i was completly knackered, and the ideas i had were quite some work (atleast for me). Amsterdam is quite famous for its brickwork architecture and i wanted to try and make a copy of a real building.

Nice maps. Coce if i would have to give any commentary:i hate maps were you (can) get stuck almost all the time, especialy the white thingies on the floor in the narrow corridors bugged me a bit. Besides that fun little speedmap though i didnt play it as intended, put on godmode when i saw the narrow corridors explored the map then did the run:). I was thinking to add a situation like this on my plasma trickmap like this but i was like meh to hard for most people, especialy since with quoth you cant get the timer:) 

The floor lights and the vorelings. 

About the lights, yes, i know they are a pain, not only the player gets stuck but the monsters too. The tarbabies were before demons, but they got stuck on those lights so i had to change them. Even vorelings get stuck sometimes.
I kept those lights in that way to keep a bit of realism in the map, as them being func-illusionaries would look weird, but with more time i would have changed them in some way.
Putting them on the ceiling wasn't a good option either because of the way the ceiling is and because i wanted to keep the attention on the floor more than on the ceiling. Even with that, i had to no other option than to change the ones at the ''puzzle'' part, because they wouldn't work on the floor and because at the ceiling the player got stuck in there, more that it does now.

I was expecting more negative comments in general but in particular more about the last fight and the ''pushes'' part, or about how the brushwork is way simpler as you get past the SSG, as it's the things i like the least in this map. I suppose its more like that lights are a worse problem so this isn't mentioned as lights goes first, and that this is just an speedmap and doesn't deserve more comments.

Next time, even if this maps are experiments, what i have to learn is to be less ambitious, make things simpler so i have more time and can polish them more. Making big and/or long maps isn't always good, and this can be a good lesson too for normal single player maps. The map i made for sm170 is WAY MORE ambitious than this one, so yes, i have a lot to improve.

*Drew. The feedback i was expecting the most is the one about the combats and monster positioning and variety, as with brushwork and layout you can improve a lot only by yourself, but in using triggers and monsters you hit the wall way earlier and need advice a lot more, as you don't know how the map works, as you as the mapper knows everything about the map and you'll never play like others would do, even if they tried the map ten times.
That's the main reason i am expecting some more demos.

*Orbs. Fist, thinks for your demo and your comments. Yes, the map is bad for speed runs and for the way you play too, i don't make speedruns, so i hadn't planned it to be that way. Seeing you play my map is like seeing you chained, compared to the other demos.
Seeing your demo reminded me that i forgot to seal the way so you can't get back to the GL. It wasn't intended to be used that way.

*Shambler, about the vorelings ..., are you talking about how i used them or just about that i put them in the map and you don't like them? I read a lot of people complaining about those since the Quoth mod was released, so i can't figure which one is the most probable.

*Negke, it was a fun one, the dog fight was amusing, even though i do think it would be perfect with 4-5 less dogs. I liked a lot the idea with the walls, keys and the brushwork in them.
- The shalrath part, i don't know why, but i didn't noticed the text till the third try, after i killed all the zombies by pure luck. The first and second tries i were all the time shooting all my ammo at it. At first i thought that you somehow made a mod inside the .bsp, as sometimes i hit the monster and it showed pain. :D
- That way of making a secret was a nice addition.

Demo http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/sm171_negke_bycoce.7z 

took me a couple goes to do negkes map, some nice ideas and fights. I think he incorporated next weeks challenge (explosions!) 

Excellent! Demo with the others soonish. Great secret. 

Bricks are the quakiest. Good ol' bricks. 

I don't know if i am late for this. I messed up a lot. In the paragraph i wrote for you, when you read it, substitute all the ''your'' and ''you'' for ''my'' and ''I''. If not it doesn't make sense. 

I don't have much serious feedback for this, it's only a speedmap so I don't treat them seriously as a player. If you want to learn from making speedmaps, that is cool. But I would give better feedback for a proper normal map - speedmaps are just gimmicks so all sorts of weird shit happens.

In your map, the floor lights were infuriating getting stuck on them lots. The vorelings were often frustrating especially in close areas. The final arena was fun tho, as was the MH secret. 

pls? 

You mean the big post you did above in this thread, right? Your paragraph to me made sense. Yeah I mean, I think you just have to listen to the basic advice and take what you can from it (make lights illusionary) and see how people handle your gameplay in demoes to figure out your gameplan. 

Here are my demos btw:

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/sm171_drew.zip 

Jaromir - take some and upload them, I'm sure a mod will add the link for you! 

Don't take them too seriously either. They are good for testing ideas but I wouldn't expect indepth feedback... 

I'll only be expecting some demos when speedmaping. 

Vorelings are already overpowered as it is, turning them from little buggers (as they were intended) to annoying pests if in groups. Even in rooms with space to move it's often hard to dodge their attacks; and in tight corridors it's almost impossible. Your only option is to back off which is complicated by obstacles and clipping. In consequence, it likely means you inevitably take damage in every encounter with little possibility of avoiding it - and this becomes annoying quickly. 

you are an extremely coherent person. 

Thanks for your demos. I have watched them, and I recommend you to finish my map, as you'll find a surprise and the reason as why the layout, theme, and textures are as they are, apart that you missed a whole area and most secrets.

As I expected the combat with the second tarbaby and the one at the SSG din't work for you as i planned. The combat at the SSG was supposed to be: you kill the demon, use the corner to kill the tarbaby, and when you go forward, the second demon ambushes, same with the tarbabies later when you are getting the ammo.

This combat and the last one are planned for you to kill the monsters fast with the new wepaons and keep an intense pace. That is the reason why you found yourself with so many monsters at once at the last fight. But don't worry, you've seen all of them. 

So, �valid options to use them would be to put some non ambushes or obvious ambushes between the real ambushes, or use them less frequently?

About them being overpowered, yes, they are harder to kill than their other small monsters counterparts, but that just means that mappers have to take that into account when putting them,by changing their placemente, number or using them mostly in hard and/or nightmare, for example.

For me they are the unavoidable only beast type small monster, and i like them a lot for that and for the posibilities they offer when mapping. That's the reason i used them, as they are the only beast-type ones that i have easy access to aside for tarbabies, that can go through small spaces.

My objective with them is make them have a similar role as the one Howlers in Clive Barker's Undying have, even though Howlers had way more health and dmg.
Demons should be the obvius replacement for Howlers, but they jump too much so can't be used so well for that type of gameplay in small places or rooms with places where they can fall. I'll try a bit more to use them and then maybe i should resign myself and make maps that doesn't require only beasts monsters and use knights, or go learn QC and modelling/texturing and make a new monster by myself.