PL whitepeak

Apr 13, 2009
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My first attempt at a payload map. :O

The plan : 2 stages, 5 checkpoints. (Mostly because I think a third stage is largely redundant, and I like how breaking down in two stages gives RED one chance to re-setup and recover from a steamroll).
Theme : alpine, snowy, night time.

Background : RED have turned an abandonned mining village into one of their spy bases, BLU must push their bomb cart through the village and abandonned tunnels to blow RED's radio tower and control room from below.

General idea : nothing too wild, payload cart takes the low route, high ground flanking routes and defensive alcoves in the surrounding buildings with a handful of chokes around checkpoints, more emphasis on optimization -unlike watermill-, a few obligatory rollbacks for a mountain map.

Uses Tyker's snowcart model.
The goldsource-quality skybox is because the real one weighs several times more than the rest of the bsp so far...:rolleyes:


Detailed changelog :

a1:
-Blocked out stage 1, first draft

a2 :
-Recut railings to allow easy dropdowns/shooting where fitting
-Moved one exit on BLU spawn (the high one) to make it harder to lockdown and a little less interesting for BLU at the same time.
-Setup gates are no longer triggered by players, they will remain open forever after the end of setup (allowing a cloaked BLU spy to pass relatively unnoticed, for example).
-Choke-ified around A while making it less easy for red to lock BLU inside their spawn from high ground, hopefully giving an incentive to move the defense a little backwards and giving them a place to retreat when BLU punches through.
-Lenghtened the rollback slopes to make them more significant.

a3 :
-Blocked out stage 2
-Fixed setup gates not opening properly.
-Rollback zones are now marked with yellow stripes
-Added a 1-way flanking route for BLU around Stage 1 Cap B (opens up afer capping A)
-Increased respawn time advantage for BLU on Stage 1 Cap B to 2s vs 10s (was 3-9)
-Reduced available health/metal immediately around Stage 1 Cap B
-Minor layout and cosmetic changes I'm too lazy to detail.

a4 :
-Re-opened the right path in stage 1, cap 1 as the sentry spot here wasnt really used anyway
-Moved up protective fences on stage 1 setup, to offer better cover from generic spam from the stairs.
-Fixed time not being added when capping stage 1 cap 2
-Reduced the amount of time added on most checkpoints
-Capped the max amount of time to 9 minutes
-Replaced the first overpass over stage 1 cap 2 with an uncovered bridge, it was a poor sentry location anyway as red doesn't have time to setup here after losing cap 1.
-Removed a flanking route on stage 1 cap 2 to make up for the one opened in cap 1.
-Extended high catwalk to make it easier to bypass the alcove on stage 1 cap 1. The cart still needs to move in front of it, though.
-Fixed broken BLU spawns in stage 2 :facepalm:
-Moved the one way door in the flanking route on stage 2 cap 3, to prevent possible abusive use of a sentry behind 1way doors.
-Added some rock props wherever fit, as they do affect gameplay.
-Some clipping issues resolved.
-More minor layout and cosmetic changes I'm too lazy to detail.
 
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nik

L12: Fabulous Member
Aug 14, 2009
987
564
gotta love the lightbulbs on a wire!

no but seriously, this looks pretty good for your first payload!
 

Scotland Tom

L6: Sharp Member
Jan 19, 2008
332
64
Looks pretty good and well constructed from what I can see in the screenshots so far. I like the lightbulbs on wires, but use them sparingly. They're a nice accent, but one of those things that could easily be overused if you're not careful.
 
Apr 13, 2009
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Looks pretty good and well constructed from what I can see in the screenshots so far. I like the lightbulbs on wires, but use them sparingly. They're a nice accent, but one of those things that could easily be overused if you're not careful.

Well, the idea was to have them hanging along the whole main road, I just filled three wires to get an idea, I'll keep that in mind, way too soon to really try it anyway, for all I know I'll have to (re)move some of the buildings around, and the wires with them. :p
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
Not a fan of the hanging lights. It looked pants when SWATY did it and it looks pants here :( but your layout looks interesting and well scaled.

I'd also recommend removing the tiny fences, for the most part they just get in the way of player movement and provide little additional cover. An edge without a fence can provide plenty cover and doesn't make it difficult to shoot down onto players.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
What's bad about the hanging lights? I think it's really clever.

I'm not saying these things don't exist practically, but i've never seen them look nice in a TF2 map. I just think they look silly and are overly distracting, particularly for a part of your detail budget that can be better executed in more appropriate locations. As a detailing trend, details should be focused at areas of gameplay interest: Objectives, doorways, or the horizon (out of bounds). Players will rarely look directly up; if there's no places of gameplay interest like ledges to force them to look out for other players, or an objective prop worth looking up at, the detail isn't justified.

(an example of prioritised detail, the windows on the tower in badwater arn't set into the brush geomtry, because nobody looks up there's no point in cutting up the brush face into X extra polygons even though if they do they can see the empty back of the window props).

If they were hung from an awning or lining a route through some snowy, rocky displacement hills (like guide lights) i could maybe justify their presence besides it looking like some corny festival decoration. Pipeline gets away with it because sometimes refinaries/power stations use them to illuminate catwalks (it's cheap and effective for large scale industrial installations). Also, the image i linked is a local prominade and is only turned on for Christmas, which probably shows my biased opinion on them looking like corny decorations.
 
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tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
Pipeline does it at the cap point, right? That's probably justified.

Anyway, I agree with honeymustard that there are too many bulbs and the wires are too close together.

If Loc uses it at key areas, I think it'd be alright so long as he loses a couple bulbs. Like he said anyway, it was a test. Later implementations'll probably look better.
 
Apr 13, 2009
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In B4 christmas-themed payload.

Well, huh, yes. I can't deny that's part of the idea behind it, at least for the look-and-feel. I'm trying not to make a gimmick map, though. I mean the immediately available maps don't make you want to go out and say, "I'm making a christmas map !!11", because they're all more or less terrible.

I thought the hanging lights looked nice in pipeline stage 2, though a little out of place in this context, so I figured I'd give them a try. But nothing is set in stone at this early stage.

EDIT: yes, I guess I'll leave the wires, but probably only put hanging bulbs on like every other one at most.
 

Tyker

L5: Dapper Member
Jun 1, 2009
232
142
I'm trying not to make a gimmick map, though. I mean the immediately available maps don't make you want to go out and say, "I'm making a christmas map !!11", because they're all more or less terrible.
Most christmas maps are made just to be for christmas, there isn't any gameplay idea behind them. If you make it fun first and then make it christmas style, you'll be fine.
 
Apr 13, 2009
728
309
With only one round on each side, very imbalanced teams, and visibly tired players that wasn't an ideal playtest but I think I identified a few possible problems

a2 :
-recut railings to allow easy dropdowns/shooting where fitting
-moved one exit on BLU spawn (the high one) to make it harder to lockdown and a little less interesting for BLU at the same time.
-Setup gates are no longer triggered by players, they will remain open forever after the end of setup (allowing a cloaked BLU spy to pass relatively unnoticed, for example).
-Choke-ified around A while making it less easy for red to lock BLU inside their spawn from high ground, hopefully giving an incentive to move the defense a little backwards and giving them a place to retreat when BLU punches through.
-Lenghtened the rollback slopes to make them more significant.
 
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Wilson

Boomer by Sleep
aa
May 4, 2010
1,385
1,223
I approve this map, it was really fun, managed to pull of 30 kills 0 deaths demoman spree on first round.
Also, that room in blue spawn is amazing, it has top notch detailing!
 
Apr 13, 2009
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You're not helping, I can't tell which part *if any* of your post is serious...
If you have something to say then say it like it is.
 

Wilson

Boomer by Sleep
aa
May 4, 2010
1,385
1,223
You're not helping, I can't tell which part *if any* of your post is serious...
If you have something to say then say it like it is.

What happen to the times when you could tell you think map is fine without having to sound super serious? :(

Okay, i liked the map, it has good amount of height difference and flanking routes. My only problem is really small, it is that setup gates stay closed 3 seconds after rounds starts.
 
Apr 13, 2009
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309
What happen to the times when you could tell you think map is fine without having to sound super serious? :(

Fair enough.:mellow:
It's just that the comment on the 'detail room' and your amazing killing spree made it sound like your whole post might have been : "This map is a terrible demospam fest and looks like shit. You should give up and be ashamed, I'll just leave a snark remark here". :O

Yes I'm aware of the spawn gate issue, I just didn't have time to update before the gameday (and I also forgot cubemaps). I'm aware the small room in BLU spawn is empty and without lighting, I'm aware the skybox is only 256p, the real one is 1024p but it's three times the filesize of the rest of the map so far, so I wanted to minimize download size for testing.