Scientific

h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
Hi,

I had this idea for an arena map in my head for a long time. It basically combines an idea I had of a building with a cp in the basement and combines it with a good amount of inspiration from one of the best arena maps yet (lumberyard).


Features:

-Spawns integrated into playable area.
As of now, arena maps usualy have their spawns seperated from the map itself. The only official map that does this a little bit is sawmill (and that only after an update to it). I did this too to a bigger extent in the recent versions of my other arena map (production). It increases the pacing of the map, but leaves staying at your spawn as a less frowned upon tactic.
To not have everyone get everywhere instantly, I blocked off the spawns with doors, that open after 15 seconds.

-Control point with health pack opens after 45 seconds
This is the main idea I got from lumberyard. But contrary to lumberyard, you cannot enter the cp room before the timer. The room itself connects all the rooms inside the building and also contains a small healthpack, to give additional value to the point.


Currently the map needs a 3d skybox and additional decorations/fixes to details in a lot of areas. Also further testing for eventual changes in layout and especially timing of the doors in spawn and for cp.




Credits to rexy for the new rocks pack.
 
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Firest0rm

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 27, 2009
171
33
i can see quite a few problems in the 1st screenshot
  • that wall texture. it repeats so often, it looks quite ugly
  • in general, the ground is too flat. have you ever seen a non-artificial surface that is 100% flat? I thought not
  • the roofs look very, very boring. they dont extend off the building at all, and they're flat too
  • the ground texture repeats too much. i can easily see where it repeats, due to the small-ish texture size
in screenshot 2:
  • those look like brush doors that you just slapped a texture on. model doors are much, much better
  • the healthkit is right on the cap. to me, that looks strange, and probably isn't that great for balance. i would advise putting it off to the side
in all screenshots:
  • there is light all over without any visible light props.that just looks strange
also, i don't like the name. it's an adjective which might be a problem.

sorry for only providing critisim, but im too lazy to look for good things. i'm just better at finding bad things ;)
 

h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
Thanks, but it's in an early alpha stage, so most of your comments are things I know myself. I just put some textures on, so it isn't completely dev textured :). The design of just about everything will change, so don't worry.

The healthpack on the cp is part of the concept. I could alternatively make 2 small ones to the side of the cp. Currently the whole cp room is capture area.


The name, hmm, I don't know. I actualy don't care much about name and design and such things as long as gameplay is fine. Is it really that bad?
 
Aug 10, 2009
1,240
399
i can see quite a few problems in the 1st screenshot
  • that wall texture. it repeats so often, it looks quite ugly
  • in general, the ground is too flat. have you ever seen a non-artificial surface that is 100% flat? I thought not
  • the roofs look very, very boring. they dont extend off the building at all, and they're flat too
  • the ground texture repeats too much. i can easily see where it repeats, due to the small-ish texture size
in screenshot 2:
  • those look like brush doors that you just slapped a texture on. model doors are much, much better
in all screenshots:
  • there is light all over without any visible light props.that just looks strange
also, i don't like the name. it's an adjective which might be a problem.

sorry for only providing critisim, but im too lazy to look for good things. i'm just better at finding bad things ;)

Dude.. It's alpha 1 :p Do you think there will be good texturing, displacements, or light models?

But you do have a point about those cliffs, I think it would look a LOT better if those were in dev, idk it just bothers me deep down :confused:

Also, the map looks pretty contained for an arena map, if you've ever played halo 1 it reminds me of Rat Race (or whatever the underground level was with the dirt tunnels that you could drop onto OS/AC with). I would suggest adding a lot more open space and options to the map because if the player only has 1 life to spare, they want OPTIONS. I think an arena map is good if you can blame the death on yourself or another, not the map.

As for the name, could be better, but it's a1 so screw that for now :)
 

h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
It looks a bit better when you are on the ground ingame. Still not good, but better then those huge dev walls imho. Doesn't really matter though :p.

The outside has 4 options (with the mirrored versions of them 8) to go inside. When the middle opens, you get more options, at least 3 entrances into every room.. I don't want to give much more than there are now, because that would make it too complicated, which is A-confusing, makes players get lost and B-provides less contact with the enemy.
 

strangemodule

L5: Dapper Member
Sep 10, 2009
223
59
Your use of space so far isn't too bad. I just want to see how well it plays after you decorate it.
 

Firest0rm

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 27, 2009
171
33
yeah, sorry about the detail criticizing in this early alpha. it just bugs me a lot when things look odd, even though a lot of maps do at early alpha stages
 

h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
a2:
-added a door on each side, to make the cp more open
-added a small water pool outside on each side to extinguish fire
-layout improvements, architecture on the roof and windows added
-some texturing

I'll try to get this onto gameday on friday.
 

h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
Updated to beta. It went through a few iterations of testing where I didn't update it here,
 

h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
You gotta show us some screenshots! :)


I updated the screenshots in the op, those are from the current version.


edit:
I just noticed, there is a wrong texture below red spawn that I missed, so don't mind that. Optimization also needs to be done
 
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h3r1n6

L4: Comfortable Member
Sep 7, 2009
158
95
Update to b2,
-made the two sides more diverse
-mainly decorating

It still needs a 3d skybox and those displacement cliffs also need some more love. Detailing is far from done and I haven't started optimizing yet either, but I think it should get tested a bit more first.