[WIP] tc_meridian

Very nice work guys. Some things still feel not 100% to me and soon I'm gonna make a decent post to point out stuff that I don't really like yet (butI LOVE the map already so don't worry

love the sharks

can u add soem to an evil genius james bond style pool of death inside too?

with frigin laserbeams attached to their frigin heads!

Hahaha, the shark stuff is great :-D

needs at least 23 more sharks

I finnaly managed to play this tonight with 32 people. It definatly is A major improvement gameplay wise over B1. Everything seems to flow much smoother especially the ravine area and new village pathways. There were far less complaints than I experienced from B1 servers altough there are VERY few servers running this map with a steady player base. Has anyone else managed to have a run at it?

Also Snipergen, Im looking forwad to hearing your comments on the map, either visually or gameplay wise. What does everyone else think could use improvements? What do you guys like, what do you dislike. Feedback is appreciated.

Thanks.

Scott Petty
Environment Artist
www.Buddikaman.com

Hai Wheres Arena Meridian :O
Somebody Decompile It :O

Now, I promise that I will make a very decent post about the map around Monday!

tc_meridian_b2 entered testing on our Custom Map Server.

We are still unable to do full-scale tests on the main servers because of constant problems with our "human resources" (crucial tech team members are very occupied at the moment) but it's better than nothing.

I invite the devs to our feedback thread:

http://forum.specialattack.net/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3627

Ah - the map is running thrice per map cycle but only if there are 16+ players on the server.

Last but not least - the address of our server:

SpecialAttack #5 [TF2 - Standard+Custom Maps] www.specialattack.net 85.17.239.149:27025 (24 slots, Netherlands, EU, fast-dl enabled)

P.S. I remind any map developers interested in map tests about our developer cooperation program, even though the info is a bit outdated - I might update it (we have 7 servers now, Servers #4 and #7 being arena servers and #6 being identical to #1-3).

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=3098

I'm not 100% sure yet, but it seems there's a problem with your map when it's stalemate.
3 times today playing your map, we went to stalemate on a round, and my server crashed.
I first thought it was a conflict with sourcemod plugin SDMR (sudden death melee redux), but even with this plugin disabled, my server crash as soon as we go to sudden death on tc_meridian_b2.
I've not seen this problem on any other custom or official map my server runs.

Another thing: I know there's signs, but add more, it's still hard sometimes to know where to go. The path towards our intelligence is clear enough, but sometimes the exits to "the battleground" is hard to find.

Did someone other than me had this crash problem with your map?

Allright Shmitz, I've been following the map for long now and I love it. I still need to playtest it hard, it's a shame that it's so hard to find a server that is full, like you said, with the heavy update.
I got 10 pics, I went trough the entire map and it was pretty much perfect. It's simply magnificent. Going trough each part of the map made me realize how much work went in this. If valve doesn't make this official, well, IM NOT BUYING L4D!
Also Budikkaman, you're not much around here anymore but the models you did are great man.

Ok first pic:

Just a general comment on the custom textures for the vegetation, it's not good enough. The ground and rock customs are very good, but these plants it's texture isn't right yet, I hope you change it! The models are perfect though.



Maybe some pads, flowers,... It's stupid, I know, it looks already so good, just a suggestion.



Well, just wow, wow, wow. Simply brilliant and amazing. Gameplay effects this area too, but like I said, I need ALOT more playtime



A bit too dark for me, maybe some hard spotlights, cracks in the ceiling that let trough sunlight (env_dustmotes and sunbeams can make this look pretty damn cool if you ask me )



This really catched my eye because the outline was pretty blocky. Oeh and amazing bridge, did you fix the collisions on it yet? Its around the end of this bridge (far end) that you "shock" over it a bit.



This feels pretty rough too, under the intel sign you did it nice, try something in the same too?



Well, again, incredible. Maybe a small small island in the sea? Oh and make some grass patches on that displacement like in lumberyard.



Pretty low res, and the red is a bit contrasting with the green moss, it's very very nice though, but, something about the mix of colours that's not right






I just want to say again, dear god, the effort and details in the map, the theme... it fits tf2 so good.
Very VERY nice work.

Thanks for the comments SniperGen, and the compliments. Alot of work went into the custom aspect of this map, let alone the mapping itself. I personally still think the visuals need more work to bring it up to stock quality. At this point its mostly fine tuning and refining, mostly just the little details(vegetation, texture tweaks ect). Your right about the textures of the vegetation being a pit painterly, ill consider going back and changing it to make it fit the style more. I have been trying to collaborate with Shmitz about what i feel the map visuals are lacking, hopefully we can get this area improved without it effecting our memory or FPS budget. Im sure Valve would especially consider this area important if they were to ever sponser the map in any way.

Things I feel are lacking.

-The ship is to BSP, needs props.
-The 3d skybox is to empty and bare.
-More vegetation variety(as you mentioned)
-skybox seams
-2 More sharks in water around boat.
-village huts little more wonky(crease in middle of roofs, to straight)
-slime on rocks is to saturated(aka predator blood)
-Birds flying overhead(3d skybox)
-Crashed ship in sea(3d skybox)

Anyone else please feel free to comment on how to improve the visuals or add to this list.

Also snipergen, you need to check out B2 man, we added a shark swimming in the harbor which came out great if not a bit hard to catch(only 1 atm).

Scott Petty
Environment Artist
www.Buddikaman.com

The shark's texture needs lightening a touch, as it's quite hard to see under the water at the moment.

Agree with the sharks' brightness levels. It's a pity to have such awesome models which are barely noticeable.

Skybox with more detail - yes, I agree as well. Currently the sea strikes me as "too repetitive". If there were some objects in the skybox that would draw your sight away from the water itself this would be fixed. Perhaps some distant and low-poly islands as well?
An yes, the ship DEFINITELY needs more props. Especially the intelli room looks NOTHING like a bridge... Perhaps some additional decals like rust or something on the outside, too?

Other than that I've been absolutely speechless about this map's quality since the very first moment I saw it. I mean - all of you are so talented and experienced that there's absolutely no difference between you and some Valve mappers making a map - perhaps you will go through even more gameplay tests than them. Of course you don't get paid but on the other hand you get lots of internet fame that could be useful later on. ^^

P.S. It's really, REALLY hard to comment on the gameplay as long as there's no flag overlay. I know it's not your fault and has been discussed to death but now that I actually played some full cycles on B2 I understand what some people were complaining about. If you don't IMMEDIATELY secure your intelligence with at least two sentries you will never recover it if the enemy gets it. This tends to turtling etc. and general fear of losing your intelligence instead of conquering the enemy's. Poke Valve with a stick some more. Maybe they'll respond even though they STILL haven't solved the pl_* multistage overlay bug (we laughed to no ends when pl_badwater was announced as a single-stage map since we theorized that this was connected to their inability to fix the bug. ^^)

If Valve doesn't fix the HUD, what about using in-map signs/indicators to show where the flags are located. This could be anything from flag-specific arrows/indicators on the walls to full section maps with areas highlighted to show the flag locations. Not sure if this is even possible, but wouldn't it be a matter of a trigger detecting the intel's presence and updating the overlays?

Hell, to make it fit the theme you could even have a small flag model that sticks in the ground and points in the approximate direction of the flag.

Just trying to help brainstorm in case Valve can't help.

Like Buddikaman said, theres so few servers having this map in circulation, so it's almost impossible to play it wothout organizing it with your clan or whatever. Which is sad, seeing how much work you've obviously put into this!

Notoorjus said:

Like Buddikaman said, theres so few servers having this map in circulation, so it's almost impossible to play it wothout organizing it with your clan or whatever. Which is sad, seeing how much work you've obviously put into this!

Click to expand...

Once it goes final it'll get more playtime. I personally avoid most beta versions of large maps on our server because people don't like downloading a new 30mb file every week. We'll generally try a map early in its development and then only grab major revisions, but it won't get serious playtime until it's final.