Only just got around to playing this. I would have done it sooner but I was saving it for right after my "Unreal on Unreal" playthrough. Stupid decision cause I've been missing out for 2 years
You packed it full of pleasant surprises. For the most part, the intermissions weren't missed. The choice of music was great.
I had some technical issues and some quality issues though. While I absolutely loved the crypt maps despite them dragging on into each other hardcore, I found that a lot of the translator messages you added felt a little corny and poorly written (Although the grammar was good, I'm not talking about that). Some of the messages also just didn't seem to fit in their contexts. I can't remember any specific quotes right now, but I do remember that there were a lot of things written on the walls in the crypts that felt more like they should have been written in an abandoned journal or on a nali/krall/skaarj corpse. When reading them I got a very personal vibe as if a particular nali was actually talking to me from a diary.
J'Raths history was nicely fleshed out, in that level, although even there some of the messages ruined my suspension of disbelief.
The stuff on the walls in the crypt maps should have been ALL fire and brimstone, death and decay, doom and damnation. But iirc instead I was getting hopeful "the saviour will come" messages. IMO it just didn't work.
Also I was pumped for solitude but subplot wise it fell flat. Messages like "Ride this lift to learn the true meaning of seclusion" had me cringing and kind of ruined any attempt at story for me in this level. I was hoping for a story about some epic skaarj or nali who used to live alone in the temple, and was pretty pissed off when a whole bunch of other dudes decided to barge in and make themselves at home. I was expecting random psuedo-philosophical stuff written on the walls like in Chizra, and stories about the vengeful, pissed off skaarj/nali who's home had been desecrated attached to books and corpses.
Long story short, good try with adding some messages to the crypt maps, but I don't think you brought out their maximum story potential (which could have even been no subplot at all and simple quake-esque running and gunning.)
A technical issue I had was with the pirates. A lot of them failed to pick up their guns and just marched up to me and got all in my face without a weapon. Such pests. I blew them away with the flak easily.
The fire krall were great. Cryox was pretty sweet although I was hoping you'd utilize the water maze more than you did in the end. Merc shipping lanes was alright, but I feel that perhaps a little more detail could have been added. If you weren't prepared to touch up the architecture, then at least a couple more messages about how the place is a total barren wasteland/saltlake/shithole/desert. Lampshade the damn thing. And I love what you did to the final map! I think it would have been cool in the final map to have some marines fighting the krall as set pieces as you walk around the outside part. Leave the inside part how you did it because that was perfect; what with the red warlord and the fire krall and all that. Also the two little blue warlords were great. But I think scattering 3 or 4 marines around the castle on the outside part before you get to the blue warlords would have been key.
Also, something that's always pissed me off about rtnp and I should have been more vocal about before you released this: Galas peak needs those ice skaarj on all difficulties. I think making it so that the ice skaarj are fighting the mercenaries would have been great. Like, in the wings of the keep you could have half skaarj, half mercenaries, in the main room could have it as all skaarj, and down near the teleporter it could have been a mercenary. (BTW loved that you added predators and spinners in more places and changed their skins.) It's like the ice skaarj control the keep and the mercs are trying to stage a takeover. And then prisoner 849 comes in and ruins both of them.
Having played galas peak on easy, I reckon it's much better with the ice skaarj instead of mercs. It's just that i don't want to have to play it on easy to get that :p
Very enjoyable romp. However, with the way the story is written now I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is going to replace standard RTNP when I next want to play through it. I can handle minor bugs and technical issues, but I just can't stand the poor Utranslator presence in the crypt maps. Are you open to a story patch? I wouldn't mind going through the crypt maps and shuffling the messages around a bit myself. I wouldn't delete anything you've written because none of it is actually bad, it's just out of place. I would tastefully scatter some books, nali and skaarj corpses around and attach your translator messages to those, while thinking up new ones for the stuff written on the walls.
I feel like I'm being a total pedant, but it honestly got in the way of my enjoyment of the levels :p Story cohesion and implementation are important!
(To reiterate the key thing though: I had fun playing this and think you've done an excellent job touching up these levels. Thanks so much!)
Edit: Another little issue I had, is that some of the level transitions were far too abrupt/nonsensical. This only happened two or three times so it wasn't a biggie, but it was still annoying and ruined suspension of disbelief. I think one such moment is in the transition between nexusend and nagomi/spire valley (can't recall which). The transition architecture goes from crypt to a brief section of temple to outside, instead of just crypt to outside. It's annoying and could probably be fixed with a simple change of texture set on the temple part, to make it an extension of the crypt.