Arena_Medieval

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
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710
Hey guys,

Been awhile since I busted out the editor. Always seem to start and never finish.

I plan to finish this one. Figured arena is a good way to go, small enough to see an end and I enjoy playing arena.

I know it's not TF2 style really, but everyone likes castles and we already have valve maps of all styles and I know more alpine ones are in the works.

Trying to do this with all stock resources. This pic is the cap point which I think is just about done terrain wise. I'm gonna clean up the tex some, maybe move the yellow to top of walls or get rid of it.

The spawns will be on either side in broken down parts of the castle. Somewhat outside in crumbling walls.
Sky will be visible from most of the map.

I'm planning on an alpine setting, parts of the castle perimeter will be accesable, I might do a moat or just big cliffs. I figure there's gotta be a little water somewhere.

CastleRunis_01.jpg
 
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grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
I'm wondering why so many people are doing castles for TF2. Like, am i missing something?

I like what you've done with the tiles..

I'd suggest looking at some castle pics. It doesn't look very castle-y. Looks like a medi-evil cathedral.

Also smooth out your curves a bit more.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Well, maybe I'll call it cathedral :)

I think most games end up getting some castle maps made. They just have a mystique, nice stylized archtecture. I don't know. Part of it may be simply that some of the textures will work for that setting without tons of custom content. Probably one of the few alternate settings that can be made without custom content. Another would be a 'space' setting.
But it's more likely in the TF2 setting that the blu and red teams would fight over an old castle than go into space.

I haven't seen that many castle maps for TF2 really. Of course there is Castle4 CP which alot of people including myself like.
At FPSBanana I did see sniper and arena castle maps. The arena map seemed more like a sniper map, wide open middle area between two castles. Similar to the sniper one.
There's another castle CTF map I have played but can't recal the name.

I guess I just want to do something more unique to give people more selection. We've already got trainyards, lumberyards, desert, granary. On gameday I played the custom lumberyard one (which is cool, but if I make one too then we have 3...).

I'm trying to make this layout alot more like Lumberyard.
I define that as 3 large areas, both spawns and cap point. With various smaller passages between areas. So it's gonna be quite a bit different than the arena castle one at FPSB.


I've already got a few spots for each class specifically. An area a scout can jump, ledges demos and soldiers (and probably scouts better at jumping than me) can get to. Tight hallways for pyros, demos. Gonna try and have a few good sentry placements.

I'm gonna keep the terrain as is, even if it's really not 'castley', I think it'll be cool once I'm done.
I thought about rounder arches but there are gonna be alot of them and I want performance to be as good as possible.
Who knows, if frame rates stay really high during testing I might make the arches smoother. For now I'm just gonna concentrate on gameplay areas and ramp up details later.
 
Feb 14, 2008
1,051
931
To be totally honest, it does look quite TF2ey
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Well thanks :) Glad you think so.

I did a bit more work after that. Took grazr's suggestion and rounded out the arches in a few doorways to test. Only 2 more segments per arch but they do look alot better so I'll be doing that to them all.

Did a small 1v1 playtest. The other mapper liked the layout so far, I just need to finish up a few more areas and get some testing done.
Then I'll work more on details.

I think I'm gonna have to make a new material for those tiles though. In editor they have a gloss to them but I haven't built cubemaps yet.
I don't want them to be shiny.

----------
What does everyone think of health packs in arena. I'm trying to follow valve's example on ammo health.

Most maps it seems have 4 large ammo packs (but ravine which I think has 2 and 1 small).

I think lumberyard is the only map that has one sml health pack.

Ravine has a little water which helps with pyros.

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I think I'm gonna have 2 small pools of water (opposite sides of map) so should i NOT have a small health pack?
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
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If you stick some spytech in there somewhere i'm sure you could pull off a more accurate TF2 appearence. You'll need to compensate for the lack of the original (industrial) theme, i imagine that'd be the best way.

It'll atleast make people think twice when deciding if it's actually TF2 related.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
I actually gave that a quick though when reading another thread (not sure which forum) where someone stated that the TF2 'theme' is :

"a battlezone desguising [sic] as secret bases" or something to that effect.

I actually think that's probably the best/most acurate description I've heard of T2 maps yet.

I guess the problem I have implementing that into this map is that red and blu are in the same castle. I was a little hesitant to even put in red details on one side and blu on another as I've done, but realized that that HAD to be done, just so players could tell which side of the map they were on.
I know I've seen a few other maps (at least wips) that have this same issue (same building) and I think it would be hard to pull off in that respect.

At least in 2 fort they were in opposing buildings. With the 'one building' thing I can't imagine they'd both have a secret base inside.

Originally I had planned to do 'stonehenge' in the middle cap and a castle on each side. In that case the secret base would work, but in this case I'm not so sure.

I've done a bit more work and think I'm almost done with the layout. I think it will play well and hope to get it up on next gameday for players/mappers thoughts.

I think it's pretty close to size of the official arena maps now so adding a red and blu base on the sides would make it just to big I think.

Anyway, so far it's been pretty fun and actually exciting to think that I could put together a playable map in a realatively short time span. Something I haven't managaed to do with the ctf or Cp maps I've started. And i seem to have a short attention span lately.

My sniper map has been on a few servers but I've never seen anyone on them :(
One sniper said they had played and he found it 'confusing'. So I guess at that time I felt a little burnt on map making. I always liked games that you had to be sneaky as a sniper, but I think most TF2 snipers like the wide open quick twitch sniping. I made that map to suit my preferences more I guess.
Maybe if this map is more well recieved I'll feel more inclined to work on another, in which case I'll probably go for a more TF2 style.

If not I'll probably just be playing more :)
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Worked on it alot today and a bit last night.

Played a couple 1v1 games throughout the process for some feedback as I went.

I think I am down to details, skybox, some tex alignment and final lighting (still need to tweak lights first).
Probably a few more days of work, then Beta test. Then who knows what.

I still haven't added water. Right now I think the map is as large as I want.

So I'll either make a few sink holes of put water in the moat and have a tunnel/ramp back inside. If I do that I have an area in back/bottom that will be closed off more and be a sewer exit. Most likely that's what I'll do.

So a few already outdated screens.

Spawn area. Yeah, it's gonna be an outdoor spawn. The other spawn is out of range so I think it'll be good, there really is no reason for a 'spawn room' in arena anyway, other than having all players spawn from a specific/defined location.
CastleRuins_03.jpg


Front of castle, did alot of tex alignment, added a moat and other side of bridge after this shot. The other side of bridge will be in skybox.
Rounded out alot more of the arches, almost done with that.
CastleRuins_02.jpg
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Thanks to the guys who stopped by last night for some playtesting.

I wanted the castle to seem 'large and majestic' but was feeling like it might've been a little too large. Mainly the perspective on the staircases.
Then after seeing other players being dwarfed by the size of the map (most notebly the wood platforms in the trench) I just felt like I had made the scale too large.
So before I crashed last night I scaled it down 25%, compiled and went in game. Thankfully everything is still on the grid so there were no issues, other than my light radius' being too large now.
It still feels large but I think it's now more suited to arena. There are alot of potential hiding spots so I think getting around quicker will help gameplay.

Before it took 15 seconds as scout to go from one spawn to the other, now its at about 12 seconds. The official maps range from 12-15 seconds, most are closer to 12.

The doorways might be a little hard for spies to slip through while another player is around, but there are alot of corners for them to hide behind too.

Scaling down also made it easier for all classes to climb the walls out front and it allows the scouts to double jump up through the broken wall by spawn.
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Other than that I have added porticulus' to the double archway in front of cap and the 2 doorways behind the cap. They open at the 60 second mark like the cap point.
I think this will also help with arena gameplay as it will limit paths a bit and make players confront each other sooner rather than have too many paths and run around looking for other players.
The cap area can still be reached at anytime by dropping in from above or using the staircases on either side.

I also added metal grates in the windows above the cap stairways, they can be shot through, but not jumped through now.

Also lowered the tops of walls around cap point so they can be jumped on/over easier. (Then a scaled down so I might raise them a bit again
 

Icarus

aa
Sep 10, 2008
2,245
1,210
Very nice map. Lots of areas for every class. Visuals are pretty cool, too

love the displacement flags and crumbling walls

I have a few recommendations, however

- The moat seems largely unnessecary
- I don't like that dead end (I hope you know what I mean)
- I still don't like that health. If you still want to be stubborn about it, you can direct more traffic to the moat instead of the throne room (which, btw floats) by moving the healthpack into the moat. As it is right now the throne is far too valuable as a great height advantage, direct access, and health regen.

I'm loving the map and I wish you good luck!

The size is pretty good, IMO, much better than what it was before

P.S. the player you played with wasn't me, it was dejavu.Icarus
I just made observations
 
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Ezekel

L11: Posh Member
Dec 16, 2008
818
245
in general the map pictures remind me of that old ctf on unreal called epicboy
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
New vers. B3-V1

arena_medieval_b3_v1

Red and Blu face off for control of a newly discovered run down castle high up in the mountains. The perfect location for a new secret base.

This is about final.

Mainly looking for comments on lighting, ammo amounts, if there's anywhere players get stuck. Also, framerates, etc...



http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=890
 

xxack

L1: Registered
Jul 10, 2008
13
0
Well the reason might be that, subconsciously, castles relate to fortress, as in Team Fortress. I'm not sure, but I always see fortresses as castles, and having one group defend it and another attack is simple, cliche, and bad ass.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
Just bumping this up.

If anyone has comments I'd appreciate them. The map is probably about final.

Sounds like I need to clip off the supports in the lower area front of castle.

Did the lighting seem alright? I haven't done final yet. I started that before I uploaded that vers, i went for probably 30-40 minutes and I wasn't sure if it was still working so I figured I'd wait.

I also noticed a seam showed up in the blue tunnel :(
 

Rexy

The Kwisatz Haderach
aa
Dec 22, 2008
1,798
2,533
Wish I could have played it more, I only had one round under my belt. I'll upload it to our TF2 server and see what our regs think. I have a soft spot for arena maps.
 

TotalMark

L6: Sharp Member
Feb 13, 2008
331
78
I honestly had more fun on your map than any other Arena map I've ever played.