Widow's Peak

PL-7764

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 4, 2009
376
84
WIDOW'S PEAK

Neither humans nor animals of any kind can be found living within a hundred miles of Widow's Peak, one of the most remote and inhospitable mountaintops in the world. What better place, then, to build a top-secret base and proceed to take over the planet uninterrupted?

Agents from both RED and BLU had this thought, and both scrambled to the peak to begin staking out land for construction a few thousand feet below the unlivable summit. In a move surprising absolutely nobody at this point, both teams have constructed their bases right next to each other. Also unsurprisingly, neither is happy about it.


This is a very ambitions mapping project (I think so anyway) which I truly hope to carry to completion, featuring CP, CTF, Arena, and KotH versions of a single map. I've been designing it with all 4 gamemodes in mind, although it will of course feature numerous significant changes and many more subtle ones between versions. I've also tried my hardest to capture the unique architectural styles of RED and BLU with this, basing a lot of my architectural rules off of those found in 2fort.

This time on Widow's Peak:

CONTROL POINTS

Both groups have decided that the best way to settle who gets to operate in the frigid mountain locale would be to send mercenaries to duke it out for control of 5 Control Points spanning both facilities, which are coincidentally near-perfect copies of each other layout-wise. Whoever claims all 5 points will be declared victorious, and the losers will be forced off the inhospitable mountain!


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Check out the download and tell me what you think! :)

Yes, I know what a "widow's peak" is, and that it has nothing to do with mountains. :p The fact that it's an existing phrase put into a different context was a large part of why I chose it (just look at some of the achievements for TF2 - they do the same thing when naming those).
 
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Omnomnick

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 16, 2009
335
111
It does look nice but some areas do lack detail which would make this map so much better to look at. But for now I think it's fine, work on gameplay first! :)
 

PL-7764

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 4, 2009
376
84
Thanks for the responses! :) Yeah, it is a little bit plain right now (if you think the center area looks bland, wait 'til you see the forward CPs, where there are NO props anywhere yet ... :p) but that will be fixed as time goes on. Much of what you see in the current pictures is in the 3D skybox (everything behind the forwardmost buildings), and finding small things like windows to go on those structures is a little hard since my options are limited and not many skybox props fit the alpine snow theme. I've added a bit more now though to both the skybox buildings and those in the gameplay area, and once I get the forward spawns and health/ammo put in I think I'll be ready to put up the first alpha.
 

| Cyclone |

L1: Registered
Aug 23, 2009
9
0
sounds nice, i wouldnt be suprised if it turned into an official map.
 

PL-7764

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 4, 2009
376
84
After lots of bug fixing and off-and-on additions of basic gameplay elements, I've finally got this to a fully playable state! :) Try it out and tell me what you think!

There's still a lot of detailing left to do, but I think I got the gameplay to a point I like. It's a long distance between points and from respawns to their associated CPs, so engineers' teleporters will be vital to success for slower classes. There are a couple of long sightlines that snipers will be able to take advantage of, but none of those areas are without alternate routes that would allow people to get around the snipers, so I'm not too terribly worried about it. They're also in wide enough tunnels that I feel people can dodge around enough to minimize their personal risk.

Feedback is always appreciated! :)

EDIT: I just did a quick 1v1 playtest of this with my brother, and it looks like it'll house 2 large teams quite well based on that. :) However, we seem to have found a potential bug that causes the RED team to not spawn in their first forward spawnroom (behind their yard with their forward CP, facing their first CP) if they own the center point. I haven't experienced this before, and looking at the spawn points in that room everything looks right - team set to RED, associated CP set to the center one, etc. If anyone experiences this problem, please tell me so I can continue looking into it.
 
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PL-7764

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 4, 2009
376
84
Out of the depths of the maps forum rises ...!

I haven't forgotten about this - I've just been spending lots of time making tiny adjustments and being nitpicky. :p I decided I'd better release an a2 of this before it's too late, and just make further changes after releasing something.

The biggest issue found when I played this 1v1 (only have one other person to consistently test with :() was that it ended up being too utterly huge. To try to help this without actually having to re-scale the entire thing, I've added much more health and ammo in addition to playing around with the spawn configuration. Now, taking a nod from the also lengthy cp_warpath2, the forward CPs in each base start out neutral, and each team MUST capture their forward point before going to the center. This enables them to spawn in a forward spawnroom instead of clear back at their final CP. There are also forward spawns in the large rooms just off the center area, associated with ownership of the central CP, and exit-only rooms under each teams' big facade building, used when either team owns all the points except the enemy's final point. It's only 6 to 7 seconds away from the previous spawn, but it's still forward enough that I think it makes a difference. It's also exit-only, so players can't dart in and out of it while trying to cap the center.

The tunnels behind either team's facade buildings (accessed via the bridges at the center or the stairs just inside either base) are now much narrower, with a curve in the middle, making for much more interesting and varied gameplay, and also lending a much-needed small space to an otherwise enormous map.

There are custom soundscapes now too! Be sure to put the included .txt file in your team fortress 2/tf/scripts folder (if you don't have one, make it) or the sounds will not work!
Soundscapes are not completely implemented yet so you will still hear wind inside the base. Eventually I will add the rest of the sounds, but for now I just wanted to get something posted so people could see this is still here and hopefully give some feedback.

Still looking for honest feedback regarding layout. :) My biggest concerns right now are what to do about the long, empty hallways leading into either base (how to add cover? Should they have a bend like the hallways in the facade structures?) and whether the forward spawns seem to work well the way they are now.
Other feedback is welcome too - I just want to know what people think! :)

I'll submit a version of this to one of the US Gamedays if I ever manage to slip it in before they fill up... :p
 

RavenStryker

Former Alias: †Blade†/Xi.Cynx
aa
Nov 25, 2008
782
844
From what I can see everything is looking good, one major thing(at least with me) is the small texture scale of the snow, try making it .50 to 1 so it doesn't look like it repeats as often and it'll make it look a ton better. =)

Now.. I'm only going off screenshots here:

The First and Second screenshots look good. I like the height variance goin on and the lighter brick for the blu side fits the theme well.

But in screenshot 3 it looks structurally unstable/impossible I would try to work around the long ramp design with maybe a flat are in the middle with some supports, or maybe have the whole middle section and area you can't get to and blocked off with glass and stuff. Then possibly extend the wide walls with raised platforms or some other way to get to the CP. Add variety! =D

Same with the 4th screenshot, add some higher ledges the team can defend from, or places inside of the building with stairways and stuff from the ground so they can hide in to ambush.
 

PL-7764

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 4, 2009
376
84
Thanks for the feedback! :)

I experimented briefly with elevated areas around the forward CPs (screenshot 4 shows RED's), but never found a practical place to put them. Now that I've gotten more of the layout done and have found myself with many plain and undecorated walls there however, I might be able to figure out a better place for elevated paths. Looking at my .vmf I've got some locations in mind to try out now.

The last CP (what you see in the third screenshot) is actually one of my less-worked-on areas at this point. I have big plans for an out-of-bounds Dr. Strangelove-style war room visible through a window in one of the side walls, but not a lot else for that area. I'll play with the ramp and see if I can make it look more realistic. I've extended the upper deck (where the screenshot was taken from, so you can't see it in the picture) to partially travel along the outer walls, and I might connect these "limbs" to a flat area in the center of the ramp like you suggested in order to make them more useful to the defenders in addition to the attackers. Currently they look like they'll kinda just allow the attackers to rocket/grenade-spam the final point from above. :p

Again, thanks for the feedback! :)
 

PL-7764

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 4, 2009
376
84
Updated to a3. Changes:

-Added upper decks to forward CP areas, providing for more vertical gameplay (and partially solving the sniper sightline issue in the long hallways leading into either base, in addition to making said hallway less empty-looking :p)
-Reworked ramps over the final CPs to allow for more routes and to look more physically possible to have standing on their own
-Added more soundscapes - the inner bases now have sound! The spawnrooms, however, do not, so you will hear incorrect sounds in there.
-Added info_observer_points for both teams
 

PL-7764

L6: Sharp Member
Aug 4, 2009
376
84
Gameday bump

Stuff I heard in-game:

-Size is too big - The distance between the first and second points in particular was not liked, but the whole thing had large-ness issues
-Forward spawn was confusing - The fact that it faces backwards bugged a lot of people. The exit-only forward-er spawns also confused some people, but I think the bases being as drastically different in appearance as they are helps to show people where they need to go there.
-Not enough health near forward points - The team that captured the other's forward point would be unable to recoup lost health and would be pushed back repeatedly.

I'll work on all this for the next version, plus anything else anyone mentions here.
 

lustygoat

L2: Junior Member
Feb 14, 2009
66
23
it seemed too big at first, but as the server filled up and engies laid down some teleporters it became more fun. Still it might be worthwhile to look for dead spaces... places where people are just running from one place to another and not fighting much... and maybe tightening them up a bit.