Sewage

Jack Riguel

L10: Glamorous Member
Jul 19, 2009
721
254
Right, ages ago I began using alpine textures to attempt to make another arena map that shared it's style with that of sawmill. With the release of Swamp pack I changed course and began supplementing that great crew's handiwork into the map you see here before you.

Sewage is a KOTH map that features a small mound in the middle of a dirty lake as the control point. The focus is on heated gameplay in the battlefield, providing little cover for the holding team as they are forced to either work together or be wiped out by the attacking team.

This map is early alpha (regardless of the random bit of detailing I did on the wooden house). I expect this map will go through a great deal of changes, especially in the sense of open control point.

Known Issues as of now:
The rock wall displacements are funky... because of the way I did spawns they were cut at odd angles. I'll be completely redoing it in a future update, but it's a cosmetic thing more the gameplay oriented so it's low on the "to do" list. Also, I had an issue getting the custom content into the files. I think I solved it (thanks to the help of matt and tom) but I'm not sure if it worked perfectly yet. If anyone who has not downloaded the swamp pack sees any strange textures, please let me know immediately.

Enjoy, and thanks to the makers of the swamp pack!
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
aa
Jul 31, 2009
1,590
410
Just going from screenshots, since I'm at work...

  • Should engineers be able to build underwater? Especially with murky water, it's frustrating to die from a sentry you literally can't see.
  • The round doorways should be for separate buildings or distinct rooms than the square ones, they look weird together.
  • It looks like it'll be a bit of a sniper-fest. Good thing that ammo box is there for spies, since going through the water may make them visible via water droplets.
  • Looks like a good area for fireflies and dust-in-light-type detailing.
  • What's planned for the other side of the fence? It'd have to be a big lake for a lighthouse, but if you can get people to not question it a sweeping beam could be interesting... even if it doesn't actually light anything up and is only a moving point_spotlight cone of brightness coupled with some HDR bloom...
 
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Waif

L7: Fancy Member
Mar 22, 2009
412
125
Shouldn't it be sewerage?

Anyhow atm it looks good but too open and as Terr said, sniper friendly.

Also you should consider adding more of those lamps around the map to brighten it up.
I'm not sure if you have just used point_spotlight or have also added a light_spot but I would definitly reccommend you do the later.
 

PenPen

L5: Dapper Member
Apr 24, 2008
207
136
It does seem too open (says the mapmaker who has his map being called sniper-friendly). I quite like the fog effect you made!

The only thing I have qualms about is that the sniper windows on the building are entirely passable, and that closed off door with a bunch of wooden boards is also passable:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1806760/koth_sewage_a20000.jpg

I hope the map will get additional details since it seems like this is currently just for the basic layout.
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
aa
Jul 31, 2009
1,590
410
Played around with it on my box just now, and I'd like to repeat what I said about snipers and underwater sentries. Both will be annoying.

  • I think each team should have at least one covered-from-snipers path to get to their waterside building.
  • Perhaps as part of that, snipers should need to move more than a few steps from their spawn before they get any good sightlines.
  • I'd consider adding a small building or two around where the ammo crate is.
  • Aside from the rooftops themselves, there doesn't seem to be much vertical play. This doesn't need to mean rocket jumping, and isn't necessarily bad, but the map feels very flat.
  • Pyros will feel the pain, since enemies are will be either near water, near the spawn, or in a big open field, or multiple.
  • Heavies will feel less pain, but still some.
  • The fog is pretty, but I think it helps the snipers the most since they won't have to squint as much.

Detail stuff.
  • As PenPen noted, the non-solid boards on the doorway.
  • Needs player-clips in general. (Not necessarily right now, but...)
  • Do you want people to be able to get onto the rooftops? They can.
  • The gap between the wood piers and the lakeside fence should be closed up.
  • Some of the wood in the nice diagonal stairs doesn't match the pier where they join.
  • The three pipes end in a flat wall.
  • RED's spawn ramp has some invisible or dark space under it.
  • One of the doors from the spawn seems to take you on a rather long walk before you leave the spawn. Maybe a second closet at the other end, and centralize the spawn area?
 
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