I've only just recently started on Pantheon, but so far it's pretty promising, even if the game did steal away my rightful meal from me, which was rude! But I'll get my revenge, eventually :'D
I have 5 episodes up atm, with another 4 coming during this week, and then more down the line.
Hopefully I'll be able to beat it, it's been pretty fun so far, even if I may not sound amused at all times :'D
I've only just recently started on Pantheon, but so far it's pretty promising, even if the game did steal away my rightful meal from me, which was rude! But I'll get my revenge, eventually :'D
I have 5 episodes up atm, with another 4 coming during this week, and then more down the line.
Hopefully I'll be able to beat it, it's been pretty fun so far, even if I may not sound amused at all times :'D
I will watch!
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Clicking on the pictures will send you to my profile page where are the links to all this awesome stuff.
Wait, Titan 's Revolt is almost done, and I didn't notice? Quick question, what is the intended difficulty of TR, at least compared to Pantern (which I'll get around to beating maybe never)?
Wait, Titan 's Revolt is almost done, and I didn't notice? Quick question, what is the intended difficulty of TR, at least compared to Pantern (which I'll get around to beating maybe never)?
Well it's not thaaaaaaaat close to being done, but I think the difficulty is gonna be a little less than that of Pantheon. It's at least going to be a bit better balanced... (hopefully...)
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Mapmaker and LPer of Complete The Monument (CTM) maps.
Creator/owner of the CTM Community Mapping Server - ask about it on the CTM Community thread!
Current projects:
Thanatos - a subterranean semi-open-world urban CTM
Titan's Revolt - a collaborative project run by ProjectCTM; sequel to Pantheon
Pinnacle - a "sketch" mini-CTM intended for newer players (nearing completion!)
Well it's not thaaaaaaaat close to being done, but I think the difficulty is gonna be a little less than that of Pantheon. It's at least going to be a bit better balanced... (hopefully...)
It's hard to imagine a map being less balanced than Pantheon... although I didn't exactly play it in the right version of Minecraft so my experience wasn't a great example of how it was supposed to play (dear gawd the silverfish) ;P
Looking forward to playing TR though... gahh the wait
I finally beat Pantheon 100% on Hard Difficulty after 6 months of frustration and death. It may have taken 351 deaths, but my perseverance finally paid off.
Here was my general experience with each area to the best of my memory:
Silent Start: At first, I made it through the initial flood of mobs with less than 5 deaths. Unfortunately, my very brief scouting mission to Virulent Grove went horribly wrong and I ended up respawning at the first bed, dying 20 more times before finally setting up a stable base at Intersection 1. I thought I would have to restart the map at one point, but I finally got a lucky run past the giant spiderweb and made it to safety. I didn't come back for the record until at least Intersection 4, but I was able to secure the immediate area before the button of glory so I could at least collect some of the useful blocks there. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Intersection 1: After learning that the water ceiling wouldn't hydrate my crops, I proceeded to accidentally flood the entrance trying to fix it. I turned the flood into a convenient waterfall which somehow became my potato farm. I made the world's smallest tree farm next to it and used the room leading back to Silent Start as my first base.
Virulent Grove: I realized from my failed scouting mission that it would be impossible to blindly rush in there. I spent hours tunneling near the entrance to find the zombie spawners stopping me from entering and harvested the soul sand in the hallway for a future netherwart farm. Once the entrance was secure, I went full Rambo for the rest of the area. Somehow I managed to find and secure the enchantment table without dying with it. The enchanted brick unfortunately was lost very quickly. The wool and record were relatively easy to get once I knew where I was going. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 3/5)
Corrupt Gatria: Upon entering the area, I immediately ran to the village and collected all of the loot. I cannibalized the houses for wood and ended up with a decent supply from them. Once I got to the huge tower, I tried climbing it the intended way. Then I tried again. Every attempt led to the tower exploding or melting, so I eventually started swimming up waterfalls to continue from where I left off. Cave spiders and creepers kept dropping on my head, but I made it to the top by some miracle. As soon as I got the wool, I realized how easy it would be to just skip the whole area with a couple stacks of blocks and felt both incredibly accomplished and incredibly stupid. Not sure why the ghast spawners at the top didn't do anything. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Citadel of Sapphire: I had a lot of fun with this area. I got a little bit too into the story and went on a rampage throughout the entire city looking for survivors of the silverfish apocalypse. I was lucky enough to avoid dying while climbing the main tower, but I freaked out and left as soon as I saw where the teleport button led to. Knowing that there were no survivors, I went back and fought through the maze of silverfish. I lost a good deal of my stuff in there, but I got the axe and delared it too awesome to use for the rest of the map. I eventually went back to the spooky void area and got the wool by building the world's most dangerous tunnel. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 5/5)
Intersection 2: I took my extra cobblestone from tunneling through the entrance of Virulent Grove and made the entrance to the intersection into a crappy fortress which became my second base. I established a carrot farm and a netherwart farm out of the sides of my fortress and converted the pathways of the intersection itself into a tree farm. Once I realized just how long I would be in this intersection, I had the crazy idea to use the chicken spawn egg from Corrupt Gatria and establish a chicken population. I carved a small chicken hole into the wall and yelled at the chicken to just lay an egg already. Eventually it laid an egg and I threw it in the hopes that it would spawn a baby chicken. No luck. Over 50 deaths later, I finally got another chicken. I went on a sidequest to breed as many chickens as possible and it got to the point where they would just suffocate each other at about 200 chickens. It was at that point that I remembered I was supposed to be playing a CTM map and I considered my chicken farm finished.
Dormant Mines: Why did I go here first? Seriously, that was the worst idea I've ever had. I thought that the name implied iron, and the single blocks of iron ore gave me just enough hope to keep going. I somehow came up with a system to take out the supercharged creeper and silverfish spawners, but the cave would never end. It wouldn't stop randomly exploding in my face giving me heart attacks either. At one point I was even blown up by a silverfish according to the game. I eventually stumbled onto Dormant Lake and thought my troubles were over. Nope, TNT volcanoes everywhere. I was convinced this area had no end and I would be lost in it forever, but then I saw the wool. I didn't even care that there were endermen going crazy around it. I retrieved it and jumped right back in the lake, going back the way I came. I didn't find the record until I was much, much later in the map. The hint wasn't convincing enough to tell me that the record was more than just a figment of my imagination, so I resorted to looking up one of the many incomplete Let's Plays of this map and eventually deduced its location. I saw the witch spawners and thought, "What if I just tunnel to the record and kill the silverfish as they drop on my head?" Of course I forgot about the Silverfish Apocalypse Update and unleashed an infinite flood of lag demons. I got a few blocks away from the lagstorm before it consumed me, but I had to make it back to the button at the framerate of a Powerpoint presentation. About an hour later, I was back at the button and I realized that my FPS was too low to actually press it. Keep in mind that my PC has above average specs and I was allocating four times the default amount of RAM to Minecraft to begin with. I had to do the unspeakable to continue playing the map. I switched to Peaceful and restarted Minecraft to despawn the mobs and fix the lag. When I reloaded the map, I discovered that the button had worked after all. Once the game was functioning again, I immediately switched back to Hard and went back into Dormant Mines to finish what I started. There was a giant hole from the silverfish and I found my way to the record without creating any more lag. I never came back after getting the record. Not even once. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 1/5)
Yggdrasil: After my first traumatizing experience with Dormant Mines, this was a huge drop in difficulty. On my first run through the area, I went straight at the wool and ignored both the record and the side dungeons. Once I went back for the side dungeons, I realized that they were actually fun and they had some useful loot. I didn't realize how close I was to finding the record at first until I followed the hint. I had secured the entire bottom of the tree going for the wool and I thought the random hole was suspicious, but I never checked it out because I thought it was rigged with skeleton spawners or something. It turns out that the supercharged creeper spawners I took out were the real threat. Overall, this area was the perfect break between two traumatizing areas. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Misty Deep: Don't even get me started on this area. Over half of my deaths in this map came from Dormant mines and this evil place. As soon as I teleported in and tried to scout the immediate entrance, an overpowered skeleton with a flaming knockback bow from hell shot me into the lake. It was already a bad sign of things to come, but I didn't realize just how extensive my suffering would be until much later. I got into the first main section of this area with the fortress and saw three directions to go: down, straight, or right. I tried going straight at first, but got chased away by custom skeletons with overpowered swords. I figured that they weren't too unbalanced due to their slow speed, but I didn't want to risk getting hit more than once by them. I then decided to go right. I don't remember much about that path other than the fact that I made a big explosion happen. Perhaps it gave me brain damage. I saw that the right path ended up meeting with the down path and I slowly looted all of the chests there. Perhaps this area wasn't going to be too hard. I was led into a cave from the straight path and WHY IS THAT ZOMBIE HOLDING A GOLD PICKAXE? Dead again. By the time I got to the area with the huge drill and the 100+ block deep hole, I figured I was really close to the wool. I spent a few hours securing the top layer of the area and collecting the side loot as I racked up a solid 25 or so deaths. I melted the ice into some waterfalls for the pit of despair to create an easier way down. I reached the bottom, thinking that this area was already long enough to be its own CTM minimap. Then I saw the sign saying that the area gets even better. I took one step into the "even better" part and some invisible undead mobs on steroids came at me with overpowered swords and axes at warp speeds. One hit and I was on fire with one heart left. At this point, I gave up on armor since it made no real difference on my ability to survive. Even though I thought the area was impossible, I still managed to slowly make progress. I found a pool of water leading to an underwater cave, figuring that the wool had to be on the other side. Nope. Cave spiders started raining on my head and a random skeleton killed me as I tried to swim away. I saw a waterfall that I could swim up, thinking I had finally gotten to the wool. Nope, it was a blaze hyperspawner. Dead again. I spent several play sessions in this section, making no noticable progress and not seeing any sign of the wool. After a showdown with two blaze hyperspawners, I finally saw something that looked different. It was ACTUALLY THE WOOL THIS TIME. I freaked out so much that I accidentally jumped off a cliff and died. I tunneled the rest of the way to the wool and never came back. (Difficulty: 5/5) (Fun: 1/5)
Intersection 3: I made a similar base to my Intersection 2 base, but I mined out some rooms instead of building a fortress this time. I created the second (and ultimately final) version of my chicken farm, complete with a rapid-fire egg cannon. At one point I had around 700 chickens in a small room. They kept trying to flood out of their containment cell, so I placed burning netherrack along the hallway to catch any escapees. This ended up being my base for the rest of the map.
Belly of the Beast: Only three words can describe my experience with this area. Nickelback ruins everything. I was having fun with the area and making good progress up until I got about halfway into the beast itself right after the beating heart. All of a sudden, my Pandora station decides to play a Nickelback song for no discernible reason and the area decides to glitch at that exact moment by setting off a distant pressure plate and putting me directly in the last part of the area. I had no idea where I was and I was quickly being surrounded by ghasts and blazes. A creeper pushed me back to a wall and exploded, killing me and setting off a conveniently placed lava source above me that burned up all my stuff. Meanwhile on Pandora: "IF TODAY WAS YOUR LAST DAY TROLOLOL!" I was able to later do it the intended way, but I still lost a lot of good items. The record was fun to get. At one point I was trapped in the asylum with a mission to secure the 32 magma creams from one of the loot chests. The mission was successful and I came back for the record a few minutes later. The insane zombies kept trying to shank me, but I didn't die more than a couple times. This was a fun area despite the fact that it glitched in the worst way possible. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Flickering Isle: Was this area supposed to be ridiculously easy? The trap didn't get me and I quickly realized that the walls of the tunnel were made of normal blocks instead of silverfish blocks. All I had to do was tunnel around all the threats and I had the wool with no deaths whatsoever. The record was slightly more difficult, but once I took out the cave spider spawners it was a piece of cake. I'm not sure what was in that side room with all the creepers, but I decided against going in there and forgot about it later. This area was almost easy enough to be in Intersection 1. (Difficulty: 1/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Rumblehiss Nest: The first half of this area before the ruins wasn't too bad. I thought the house was rigged with a trap, but I never set anything off if there was one. Once I got to the part with the crackhead creepers, I flooded the place with lava and made my way to what was ultimately the entrance to Intersection 4. I skipped the ruins for a while, but I came back and immediately got frustrated by the custom mobs and their ridiculously high health. I ultimately gave up on eliminating all the spawners, so I tunneled through the whole area. When I saw strange messages from a boss mob, I knew I was close to the wool. I never actually saw what the boss was, but I found the wool and got out of there. This would've been more fun if the custom mobs were more reasonable to kill. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Intersection 4: I considered making a base here, but ultimately decided against it. I looted the bottles of enchanting at the bottom of the intersection without too much of a problem. There probably could've been more to the intersection itself, but it wasn't badly designed.
Colossus Devorantem: This area was huge, but most of it was empty space with no real threat or significant loot. The giant death star at the end looked intimidating, but it turned out to be the second easiest area in the map once I got in there. I effortlessly got the wool and went back for the record, which was also easy with tunneling. I kept going back to this area thinking that Labyrinth of the Silent was hidden there, but it turns out the trips I made were pointless. This area should've been much harder. (Difficulty: 1/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Windborne Spires: I got through this area with minimal gear and bridging. The biggest threat was natural skeleton spawns knocking me into the void. The first set of towers was fun to climb and I got the loot at the top without too much trouble. Once I got to the outside area, I took a path that would bypass most of the ghast spawners and bridged my way to the giant ice cream cone at the end. I was expecting a bit more of a challenge than just ghast spawners, but they still knocked me into the void a couple of times. My first attempt at getting the record was a disaster and I accidentally fell into the hole full of spawners while staircasing down into it. Once I realized what I was up against, getting the record was easy. Not a bad area, but could've been harder near the end. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Monument to the Gods: I noticed the troll record right away, but the other point of interest was hiding in plain sight until I was almost entirely done with the map. I really liked the momument design, but the lighting system in the record room kept making it too dark for the flowers to not uproot themselves when I accidentally turned the lights off with the pressure plates. Nothing really happened when I completed the monument, but that might be just from playing an old version of the map that had been sitting in my saves folder for a long time. Still, this was one of my favorite monuments out of all the CTM maps I've played.
The Nesting Grounds: I rushed through this area and went straight to the creeper tunnel. I couldn't figure out a reliable way to destroy it, so I did the most logical thing and ran in there with a Speed II potion and some TNT blocks. I killed myself in the process, but I blew up the tunnel. I think a shortcut to Intersection 5 would've been useful after that point. This area didn't have any objectives, so I'm not going to rate its difficulty.
Intersection 5/The Palamock's Throne: As soon as I entered the intersection, it was raining mobs and I had very little gear due to it being a scouting mission. I ran around in circles for about a minute and ultimately got overrun by about 100 zombies and wither skeletons. Climbing the bridges of spawners was annoying, but I mostly did it the intended way and destroyed every last spawner on the bridges all the way up to the wool room. The trap before the wool room caught me completely off guard and instantly killed me. After all the deaths I went through to get there, I tunneled my way to the wool itself. The blocks of iron throughout the area were extremely useful and I used them for the rest of the map. I tunneled up to reach the top after that point and got both the flower and the Not-a-Record without too much trouble. The first weaponized diamond turned out to be very useful before I died with it and I ended up needing the second diamond (Fire Aspect IV) to beat the map. More details on that later. I liked the idea of the intersection itself being dangerous, but I think the bridge of spawners right when you walk in might have been a bit extreme. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 3/5)
Miner's Only Rule: The first time I went into this area, a bunch of skeletons caught me off guard and shot me to death, shooting most of my stuff into lava. Not exactly a good start, but I went back in a second time for the diamonds. I got the hanging diamonds without too much trouble and made the stupid decision of crafting a diamond pickaxe and sword with them. I lost those tools relatively quickly and decided to go for the diamonds floating in the lava. I got the first diamond without too much trouble and saw where there was a trap. Despite being really careful, I heard TNT sizzling as I tried to collect the second diamond. I somehow survived the massive explosion, but the remaining diamond ore was completely destroyed. I only had 5 diamonds left over and I was worried that I couldn't beat the map. I still carried on and got the red wool, which wasn't nearly as hard for me as other people said it was. It wasn't until I was near the very top that one of the supercharged creeper spawners finally killed me. I blocked that section off and bridged my way to the wool. Good thing I carried a fire resistance potion with me, because the wool was rigged to flood the place with lava. I got down safely and left without attracting too much attention. The record would've been nearly impossible to find without the hint, but I was able to find it and secure it without too much trouble. This was overall a well designed area, but I think a few more diamonds wouldn't have been too unreasonable. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Pyre of the Damned: Most of this area seemed really easy and it created an unnecessarily long walk to the final area. The biggest threat was the angry zombie pigman spawners, but getting to the wool section wasn't hard after I eliminated them. Once I was in the place with the wool, I bridged along the ceiling until I got to the back wall. I was then able to build a staircase down and create a mostly safe path to the wool. The record was stupidly easy. I bridged over to the record area despite the lava shooting harmful potions at me and tunneled around all the threats to get it. I probably could've done it without tunneling, but it was too obvious of a tactic not to use it. I built a giant wall to block off the supercharged creeper spawner leading to the final area. I think this area could've been harder and a bit shorter. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Death Fortress: I really liked this area, but it was way too easy for a final area. I secured the second flower and the three extra diamonds without any trouble. The Zistykins made it really obvious that Vechs was to blame for any rage caused by this place, but they didn't kill me more than a couple of times. It wasn't until I reached the top that things actually got difficult. I couldn't get in there long enough to see what was going on with all the spawners, but I took out the supercharged creeper spawners on a scouting mission and set off a huge explosion that took out a great deal of the tower and killed me in the process. It was slightly annoying to climb back up there, but it was much easier without the supercharged creepers at the entrance. I ran at the obsidian box and got chased by spooky skeletons. I pillared up before they could surround me and got on top of the box. I started punching one of the obsidian blocks on top of the box and somehow dodged a bunch of ghast fireballs while spending an entire minute punching it out. I mined straight down into the fleecy box and took the wool, completely ignoring the final end-game loot. I still have no idea what was in there, but the wool was more important. I took the wool, my three diamonds, and the flower and got out of there with the theme song of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air playing in the background. With the power of my five remaining diamonds from Miner's Only Rule, the Fire Aspect IV diamond from The Palamock's Throne, and the three diamonds from Death Fortress, I was able to just barely craft the diamond block and complete the monument. I think the difficulty of this area should've been switched with the difficulty of Misty Deep if such a thing even makes sense, but this was one of the most fun areas in the entire map. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 5/5)
Labyrinth of the Silent: This shouldn't have been so hard for me to find. It wasn't until I was nearly at the end of Death Fortress that I found it in the most obvious place imaginable. Most of the dungeon wasn't too hard, but there were a few occasions where I got surrounded by zombies and sometimes cave spiders. I liked the loot, but it was too late for me to make use of it by the time I got it. A two-way shortcut before the void fog section would've been helpful as well. I got confused after getting the record, because the teleporters were unmarked after the first one and there was no indication that I was supposed to dig my way out (although I figured it out myself). This area was fun overall, but it could've either been shorter or had more variety in the middle sections. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 3/5)
Overall, I think this map had well-designed areas individually. The main issue with the map was the balancing between each area. There were so many difficulty jumps that I never knew whether the next area was going to be the hardest thing I've ever encountered or completely devoid of any threat. Intersection 2 was way too hard outside of Yggdrasil and the last two intersections were way too easy. Some areas were long enough to warrant adding checkpoints to cut down on travel time. If the balancing issues were fixed, this would be one of my favorite maps. Either way, I'm looking forward to the next map.
maybe(tm)
hahaha, It's perfect!
it's not though
*grumble*
totes patern 320
xerneas confirmed
much capture teh monment, such patern, so prejact-see-tee-mmmh
You can post it in a spoiler if you don't want to give it away
I like minecraft.
Let's Play: Pantheon (EP63) All the Things Mostly Relocated
I will watch!
Well it's not thaaaaaaaat close to being done, but I think the difficulty is gonna be a little less than that of Pantheon. It's at least going to be a bit better balanced... (hopefully...)
It's hard to imagine a map being less balanced than Pantheon... although I didn't exactly play it in the right version of Minecraft so my experience wasn't a great example of how it was supposed to play (dear gawd the silverfish) ;P
Looking forward to playing TR though... gahh the wait
Here was my general experience with each area to the best of my memory:
Silent Start: At first, I made it through the initial flood of mobs with less than 5 deaths. Unfortunately, my very brief scouting mission to Virulent Grove went horribly wrong and I ended up respawning at the first bed, dying 20 more times before finally setting up a stable base at Intersection 1. I thought I would have to restart the map at one point, but I finally got a lucky run past the giant spiderweb and made it to safety. I didn't come back for the record until at least Intersection 4, but I was able to secure the immediate area before the button of glory so I could at least collect some of the useful blocks there. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Intersection 1: After learning that the water ceiling wouldn't hydrate my crops, I proceeded to accidentally flood the entrance trying to fix it. I turned the flood into a convenient waterfall which somehow became my potato farm. I made the world's smallest tree farm next to it and used the room leading back to Silent Start as my first base.
Virulent Grove: I realized from my failed scouting mission that it would be impossible to blindly rush in there. I spent hours tunneling near the entrance to find the zombie spawners stopping me from entering and harvested the soul sand in the hallway for a future netherwart farm. Once the entrance was secure, I went full Rambo for the rest of the area. Somehow I managed to find and secure the enchantment table without dying with it. The enchanted brick unfortunately was lost very quickly. The wool and record were relatively easy to get once I knew where I was going. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 3/5)
Corrupt Gatria: Upon entering the area, I immediately ran to the village and collected all of the loot. I cannibalized the houses for wood and ended up with a decent supply from them. Once I got to the huge tower, I tried climbing it the intended way. Then I tried again. Every attempt led to the tower exploding or melting, so I eventually started swimming up waterfalls to continue from where I left off. Cave spiders and creepers kept dropping on my head, but I made it to the top by some miracle. As soon as I got the wool, I realized how easy it would be to just skip the whole area with a couple stacks of blocks and felt both incredibly accomplished and incredibly stupid. Not sure why the ghast spawners at the top didn't do anything. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Citadel of Sapphire: I had a lot of fun with this area. I got a little bit too into the story and went on a rampage throughout the entire city looking for survivors of the silverfish apocalypse. I was lucky enough to avoid dying while climbing the main tower, but I freaked out and left as soon as I saw where the teleport button led to. Knowing that there were no survivors, I went back and fought through the maze of silverfish. I lost a good deal of my stuff in there, but I got the axe and delared it too awesome to use for the rest of the map. I eventually went back to the spooky void area and got the wool by building the world's most dangerous tunnel. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 5/5)
Intersection 2: I took my extra cobblestone from tunneling through the entrance of Virulent Grove and made the entrance to the intersection into a crappy fortress which became my second base. I established a carrot farm and a netherwart farm out of the sides of my fortress and converted the pathways of the intersection itself into a tree farm. Once I realized just how long I would be in this intersection, I had the crazy idea to use the chicken spawn egg from Corrupt Gatria and establish a chicken population. I carved a small chicken hole into the wall and yelled at the chicken to just lay an egg already. Eventually it laid an egg and I threw it in the hopes that it would spawn a baby chicken. No luck. Over 50 deaths later, I finally got another chicken. I went on a sidequest to breed as many chickens as possible and it got to the point where they would just suffocate each other at about 200 chickens. It was at that point that I remembered I was supposed to be playing a CTM map and I considered my chicken farm finished.
Dormant Mines: Why did I go here first? Seriously, that was the worst idea I've ever had. I thought that the name implied iron, and the single blocks of iron ore gave me just enough hope to keep going. I somehow came up with a system to take out the supercharged creeper and silverfish spawners, but the cave would never end. It wouldn't stop randomly exploding in my face giving me heart attacks either. At one point I was even blown up by a silverfish according to the game. I eventually stumbled onto Dormant Lake and thought my troubles were over. Nope, TNT volcanoes everywhere. I was convinced this area had no end and I would be lost in it forever, but then I saw the wool. I didn't even care that there were endermen going crazy around it. I retrieved it and jumped right back in the lake, going back the way I came. I didn't find the record until I was much, much later in the map. The hint wasn't convincing enough to tell me that the record was more than just a figment of my imagination, so I resorted to looking up one of the many incomplete Let's Plays of this map and eventually deduced its location. I saw the witch spawners and thought, "What if I just tunnel to the record and kill the silverfish as they drop on my head?" Of course I forgot about the Silverfish Apocalypse Update and unleashed an infinite flood of lag demons. I got a few blocks away from the lagstorm before it consumed me, but I had to make it back to the button at the framerate of a Powerpoint presentation. About an hour later, I was back at the button and I realized that my FPS was too low to actually press it. Keep in mind that my PC has above average specs and I was allocating four times the default amount of RAM to Minecraft to begin with. I had to do the unspeakable to continue playing the map. I switched to Peaceful and restarted Minecraft to despawn the mobs and fix the lag. When I reloaded the map, I discovered that the button had worked after all. Once the game was functioning again, I immediately switched back to Hard and went back into Dormant Mines to finish what I started. There was a giant hole from the silverfish and I found my way to the record without creating any more lag. I never came back after getting the record. Not even once. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 1/5)
Yggdrasil: After my first traumatizing experience with Dormant Mines, this was a huge drop in difficulty. On my first run through the area, I went straight at the wool and ignored both the record and the side dungeons. Once I went back for the side dungeons, I realized that they were actually fun and they had some useful loot. I didn't realize how close I was to finding the record at first until I followed the hint. I had secured the entire bottom of the tree going for the wool and I thought the random hole was suspicious, but I never checked it out because I thought it was rigged with skeleton spawners or something. It turns out that the supercharged creeper spawners I took out were the real threat. Overall, this area was the perfect break between two traumatizing areas. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Misty Deep: Don't even get me started on this area. Over half of my deaths in this map came from Dormant mines and this evil place. As soon as I teleported in and tried to scout the immediate entrance, an overpowered skeleton with a flaming knockback bow from hell shot me into the lake. It was already a bad sign of things to come, but I didn't realize just how extensive my suffering would be until much later. I got into the first main section of this area with the fortress and saw three directions to go: down, straight, or right. I tried going straight at first, but got chased away by custom skeletons with overpowered swords. I figured that they weren't too unbalanced due to their slow speed, but I didn't want to risk getting hit more than once by them. I then decided to go right. I don't remember much about that path other than the fact that I made a big explosion happen. Perhaps it gave me brain damage. I saw that the right path ended up meeting with the down path and I slowly looted all of the chests there. Perhaps this area wasn't going to be too hard. I was led into a cave from the straight path and WHY IS THAT ZOMBIE HOLDING A GOLD PICKAXE? Dead again. By the time I got to the area with the huge drill and the 100+ block deep hole, I figured I was really close to the wool. I spent a few hours securing the top layer of the area and collecting the side loot as I racked up a solid 25 or so deaths. I melted the ice into some waterfalls for the pit of despair to create an easier way down. I reached the bottom, thinking that this area was already long enough to be its own CTM minimap. Then I saw the sign saying that the area gets even better. I took one step into the "even better" part and some invisible undead mobs on steroids came at me with overpowered swords and axes at warp speeds. One hit and I was on fire with one heart left. At this point, I gave up on armor since it made no real difference on my ability to survive. Even though I thought the area was impossible, I still managed to slowly make progress. I found a pool of water leading to an underwater cave, figuring that the wool had to be on the other side. Nope. Cave spiders started raining on my head and a random skeleton killed me as I tried to swim away. I saw a waterfall that I could swim up, thinking I had finally gotten to the wool. Nope, it was a blaze hyperspawner. Dead again. I spent several play sessions in this section, making no noticable progress and not seeing any sign of the wool. After a showdown with two blaze hyperspawners, I finally saw something that looked different. It was ACTUALLY THE WOOL THIS TIME. I freaked out so much that I accidentally jumped off a cliff and died. I tunneled the rest of the way to the wool and never came back. (Difficulty: 5/5) (Fun: 1/5)
Intersection 3: I made a similar base to my Intersection 2 base, but I mined out some rooms instead of building a fortress this time. I created the second (and ultimately final) version of my chicken farm, complete with a rapid-fire egg cannon. At one point I had around 700 chickens in a small room. They kept trying to flood out of their containment cell, so I placed burning netherrack along the hallway to catch any escapees. This ended up being my base for the rest of the map.
Belly of the Beast: Only three words can describe my experience with this area. Nickelback ruins everything. I was having fun with the area and making good progress up until I got about halfway into the beast itself right after the beating heart. All of a sudden, my Pandora station decides to play a Nickelback song for no discernible reason and the area decides to glitch at that exact moment by setting off a distant pressure plate and putting me directly in the last part of the area. I had no idea where I was and I was quickly being surrounded by ghasts and blazes. A creeper pushed me back to a wall and exploded, killing me and setting off a conveniently placed lava source above me that burned up all my stuff. Meanwhile on Pandora: "IF TODAY WAS YOUR LAST DAY TROLOLOL!" I was able to later do it the intended way, but I still lost a lot of good items. The record was fun to get. At one point I was trapped in the asylum with a mission to secure the 32 magma creams from one of the loot chests. The mission was successful and I came back for the record a few minutes later. The insane zombies kept trying to shank me, but I didn't die more than a couple times. This was a fun area despite the fact that it glitched in the worst way possible. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Flickering Isle: Was this area supposed to be ridiculously easy? The trap didn't get me and I quickly realized that the walls of the tunnel were made of normal blocks instead of silverfish blocks. All I had to do was tunnel around all the threats and I had the wool with no deaths whatsoever. The record was slightly more difficult, but once I took out the cave spider spawners it was a piece of cake. I'm not sure what was in that side room with all the creepers, but I decided against going in there and forgot about it later. This area was almost easy enough to be in Intersection 1. (Difficulty: 1/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Rumblehiss Nest: The first half of this area before the ruins wasn't too bad. I thought the house was rigged with a trap, but I never set anything off if there was one. Once I got to the part with the crackhead creepers, I flooded the place with lava and made my way to what was ultimately the entrance to Intersection 4. I skipped the ruins for a while, but I came back and immediately got frustrated by the custom mobs and their ridiculously high health. I ultimately gave up on eliminating all the spawners, so I tunneled through the whole area. When I saw strange messages from a boss mob, I knew I was close to the wool. I never actually saw what the boss was, but I found the wool and got out of there. This would've been more fun if the custom mobs were more reasonable to kill. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Intersection 4: I considered making a base here, but ultimately decided against it. I looted the bottles of enchanting at the bottom of the intersection without too much of a problem. There probably could've been more to the intersection itself, but it wasn't badly designed.
Colossus Devorantem: This area was huge, but most of it was empty space with no real threat or significant loot. The giant death star at the end looked intimidating, but it turned out to be the second easiest area in the map once I got in there. I effortlessly got the wool and went back for the record, which was also easy with tunneling. I kept going back to this area thinking that Labyrinth of the Silent was hidden there, but it turns out the trips I made were pointless. This area should've been much harder. (Difficulty: 1/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Windborne Spires: I got through this area with minimal gear and bridging. The biggest threat was natural skeleton spawns knocking me into the void. The first set of towers was fun to climb and I got the loot at the top without too much trouble. Once I got to the outside area, I took a path that would bypass most of the ghast spawners and bridged my way to the giant ice cream cone at the end. I was expecting a bit more of a challenge than just ghast spawners, but they still knocked me into the void a couple of times. My first attempt at getting the record was a disaster and I accidentally fell into the hole full of spawners while staircasing down into it. Once I realized what I was up against, getting the record was easy. Not a bad area, but could've been harder near the end. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Monument to the Gods: I noticed the troll record right away, but the other point of interest was hiding in plain sight until I was almost entirely done with the map. I really liked the momument design, but the lighting system in the record room kept making it too dark for the flowers to not uproot themselves when I accidentally turned the lights off with the pressure plates. Nothing really happened when I completed the monument, but that might be just from playing an old version of the map that had been sitting in my saves folder for a long time. Still, this was one of my favorite monuments out of all the CTM maps I've played.
The Nesting Grounds: I rushed through this area and went straight to the creeper tunnel. I couldn't figure out a reliable way to destroy it, so I did the most logical thing and ran in there with a Speed II potion and some TNT blocks. I killed myself in the process, but I blew up the tunnel. I think a shortcut to Intersection 5 would've been useful after that point. This area didn't have any objectives, so I'm not going to rate its difficulty.
Intersection 5/The Palamock's Throne: As soon as I entered the intersection, it was raining mobs and I had very little gear due to it being a scouting mission. I ran around in circles for about a minute and ultimately got overrun by about 100 zombies and wither skeletons. Climbing the bridges of spawners was annoying, but I mostly did it the intended way and destroyed every last spawner on the bridges all the way up to the wool room. The trap before the wool room caught me completely off guard and instantly killed me. After all the deaths I went through to get there, I tunneled my way to the wool itself. The blocks of iron throughout the area were extremely useful and I used them for the rest of the map. I tunneled up to reach the top after that point and got both the flower and the Not-a-Record without too much trouble. The first weaponized diamond turned out to be very useful before I died with it and I ended up needing the second diamond (Fire Aspect IV) to beat the map. More details on that later. I liked the idea of the intersection itself being dangerous, but I think the bridge of spawners right when you walk in might have been a bit extreme. (Difficulty: 4/5) (Fun: 3/5)
Miner's Only Rule: The first time I went into this area, a bunch of skeletons caught me off guard and shot me to death, shooting most of my stuff into lava. Not exactly a good start, but I went back in a second time for the diamonds. I got the hanging diamonds without too much trouble and made the stupid decision of crafting a diamond pickaxe and sword with them. I lost those tools relatively quickly and decided to go for the diamonds floating in the lava. I got the first diamond without too much trouble and saw where there was a trap. Despite being really careful, I heard TNT sizzling as I tried to collect the second diamond. I somehow survived the massive explosion, but the remaining diamond ore was completely destroyed. I only had 5 diamonds left over and I was worried that I couldn't beat the map. I still carried on and got the red wool, which wasn't nearly as hard for me as other people said it was. It wasn't until I was near the very top that one of the supercharged creeper spawners finally killed me. I blocked that section off and bridged my way to the wool. Good thing I carried a fire resistance potion with me, because the wool was rigged to flood the place with lava. I got down safely and left without attracting too much attention. The record would've been nearly impossible to find without the hint, but I was able to find it and secure it without too much trouble. This was overall a well designed area, but I think a few more diamonds wouldn't have been too unreasonable. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 4/5)
Pyre of the Damned: Most of this area seemed really easy and it created an unnecessarily long walk to the final area. The biggest threat was the angry zombie pigman spawners, but getting to the wool section wasn't hard after I eliminated them. Once I was in the place with the wool, I bridged along the ceiling until I got to the back wall. I was then able to build a staircase down and create a mostly safe path to the wool. The record was stupidly easy. I bridged over to the record area despite the lava shooting harmful potions at me and tunneled around all the threats to get it. I probably could've done it without tunneling, but it was too obvious of a tactic not to use it. I built a giant wall to block off the supercharged creeper spawner leading to the final area. I think this area could've been harder and a bit shorter. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 2/5)
Death Fortress: I really liked this area, but it was way too easy for a final area. I secured the second flower and the three extra diamonds without any trouble. The Zistykins made it really obvious that Vechs was to blame for any rage caused by this place, but they didn't kill me more than a couple of times. It wasn't until I reached the top that things actually got difficult. I couldn't get in there long enough to see what was going on with all the spawners, but I took out the supercharged creeper spawners on a scouting mission and set off a huge explosion that took out a great deal of the tower and killed me in the process. It was slightly annoying to climb back up there, but it was much easier without the supercharged creepers at the entrance. I ran at the obsidian box and got chased by spooky skeletons. I pillared up before they could surround me and got on top of the box. I started punching one of the obsidian blocks on top of the box and somehow dodged a bunch of ghast fireballs while spending an entire minute punching it out. I mined straight down into the fleecy box and took the wool, completely ignoring the final end-game loot. I still have no idea what was in there, but the wool was more important. I took the wool, my three diamonds, and the flower and got out of there with the theme song of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air playing in the background. With the power of my five remaining diamonds from Miner's Only Rule, the Fire Aspect IV diamond from The Palamock's Throne, and the three diamonds from Death Fortress, I was able to just barely craft the diamond block and complete the monument. I think the difficulty of this area should've been switched with the difficulty of Misty Deep if such a thing even makes sense, but this was one of the most fun areas in the entire map. (Difficulty: 2/5) (Fun: 5/5)
Labyrinth of the Silent: This shouldn't have been so hard for me to find. It wasn't until I was nearly at the end of Death Fortress that I found it in the most obvious place imaginable. Most of the dungeon wasn't too hard, but there were a few occasions where I got surrounded by zombies and sometimes cave spiders. I liked the loot, but it was too late for me to make use of it by the time I got it. A two-way shortcut before the void fog section would've been helpful as well. I got confused after getting the record, because the teleporters were unmarked after the first one and there was no indication that I was supposed to dig my way out (although I figured it out myself). This area was fun overall, but it could've either been shorter or had more variety in the middle sections. (Difficulty: 3/5) (Fun: 3/5)
Overall, I think this map had well-designed areas individually. The main issue with the map was the balancing between each area. There were so many difficulty jumps that I never knew whether the next area was going to be the hardest thing I've ever encountered or completely devoid of any threat. Intersection 2 was way too hard outside of Yggdrasil and the last two intersections were way too easy. Some areas were long enough to warrant adding checkpoints to cut down on travel time. If the balancing issues were fixed, this would be one of my favorite maps. Either way, I'm looking forward to the next map.
Overall Rating: 3/5