www.thect.com/maps/Maps/jnydm1.zip

But from watching people play and discovering the tricks at a LAN party and many games in the office, I must say that this is a fun map, and slowly grows on you as you discover all of its intricacies. The fun bits are discovering the routes along the ledges, the places to lay in wait, wreaking havoc with a Rail or BFG. Your skilz are put to the test by slamming on your air brakes to get the grenade launcher, navigating the street-level ledge, or by grabbing the insanely placed BFG.

The true meaning of this post is that I would have discarded this map were it not for subsequent playings. Though a little rough architecturally, when you know its ins and outs, it’s a blast to play.

Goto this url and extract the .zip file into your baseq3/maps directory, it will enable bot support for this map.

Phantasmagoria looks and feels like something out of an old film set -- think Hammer Horror, c. 1960. Gothic and menacing, it leaves you either balancing on its tightrope lanes or taking a harrowing ride over the rooftops (and through the narrowest cross of a window). A cool map in every respect, and rare in its ability to evoke emotion.

But there's more. Something about Johnny's work says "the future of mapping" -- a direction toward more realistic architecture and a more crowded, layered aesthetic. Really, where most levels are mere slices of a structure or place, Phantasmagoria is like a few city blocks crammed together. The way it flouts the rules of the conventional mapping scene is irritating to some of the old guard who can be a bit precious with their statements about "quality" (see comments below), but very welcome to the rest of us who want something new and fresh. Anyone who likes originality should download this map.

Keep up the good work, Johnny. And for chrissakes, please do a bot file for this one so its admirers can play it!

The other thing was, this is the first map to really crawl for me in Q3 - I've got a P2-450 with GeForce, and it actually got down to 2fps in some areas. I seriously could not play the map at all because of this.

Regards, Grom

"Damn... cool LVL"

Firstly, I didn't say the lighting was bad or 'bland'. I said it was unimpressive. It was unimpressive because it failed to impress me. The reasons are largely irrelevant, and in fact I don't know them myself. Some things just are.

"How can people dis on standard sky lighting?"

• people can dis on anything (:

"When the entire map is an open arena this is way lighting is done."

• who said the entire map has to be an open arena? I didn't.

Furthermore, why is that "how it is done"? Are these things set in stone? The whole point of being able to edit the game is that you have the option of changing stuff. If you're content to simply repeat everything 'the id way' then I am not really looking forward to your future maps. :(

"I've never seen anyone comment on any of the id maps that are outdoors being too blandly lit"

• no, I haven't seen that either. However, had you have asked me, I would have probably said the lighting in those areas was 'unimpressive'.

"Does the Parthenon look like a laser light show?"

• is this map q3ParthenonDM1? In any case, I never said anything about laser light shows.

"I really cannot see any validity in that argument Frib"

• fair enough. No doubt that won't change after you read this.

Finally, though it shouldn't need to be stated, these are just my opinions. It is widely known that I do not in fact have any idea what I'm on about, and in addition to that I am incredibly fickle. With that in mind, if I said something you don't agree with, just disregard it. It's probably just uninformed, irrational rubbish.

It seems kinda all over the place, some brushes thrown here and there, a bit purposeless and not cohesive. Lighting was unimpressive.

As we know though, gameplay is king, which is why I can't stand this map. I keep falling into the fog-o-death crap every 2 seconds. Why does it have to be everywhere?? Even on the INSIDES of all of those walkways. No matter where you step, you fall and die. I'm a reasonable player too, it must be hell for newbies.

Part of the problem is that Q3 simply lacks any real movement control, but that's something you're going to have to compensate for, rather than making maps which require precise movements.