CTF 2street Alpha 5 rev. B

[Pocket]

Gasp! Pocket posted a map that's actually an original layout! The world has gone topsy-turvy!

So, yes. This is what happens when I finally get inspired to create something original and a big part of why I was excited about the game getting an urban theme. Originally inspired by the narrow, winding streets in a scene from the movie Rio, now I guess it's meant to be more like an old European city or something. I have no idea what I'm doing!

 

[Pocket]

OK, so here's what's up with A1: I was about halfway done with it when I realized that the streets were way too narrow to be realistic and the whole map was probably horribly underscaled. But then I was like, well, let's cap off what I've got, compile it, and see just how badly underscaled it is. And then it turned out the scaling wasn't too bad really, so now I'm not sure where to go from there.

Rather than try to mess with it right now, I decided to just post what I had, subject it to a test, and see just how flawed the basic layout is before I start adding other routes and more rooms to the bases and such. The original idea called for tram cars that would circle the map and let players get inside and snipe from them, kind of like that one alpine map in 007: Nightfire. We'll see how long it takes before I decide that was a terrible idea and refuse to add it.

 

[nightwatch]

That's actually really neat!

You need to fix your water though, it has especially painful clipping between areas.

 

[Prestige]

this map is going places

 

[Pocket]

Right. So. Note to self: Be sure to include such basic necessities as a resupply cabinet and functional spawn doors before releasing. A1A is out and has these things, as well as the alternate route from spawn that people requested. Nothing else has changed yet, since a much more radical revision is likely once we've gotten a proper test.

You need to fix your water though, it has especially painful clipping between areas.

The reflections, you mean? I might have to change it to 2fort_expensive just so I don't have to deal with that. I have a mod right now that makes all water expensive, so I don't know what other people are seeing.

 

[nightwatch]

I meant moving through it. Try walking up some of the ledges in the tunnels and you'll see what I mean.

 

[LeSwordfish]

I don't know if you ever played Balloonrace but sniping from moving vehicles is pretty much a bust.

 

[spaceyoshix]

I am always excited for more urban maps.

I know its been said before, but specifically the manhole room into the pipe and the water hall up the crate are problem areas. The crate is a nice touch, but I think stairs would be much more appreciated.

I like the layout of the streets. Once the map is a little more refined, I'll throw it on my server and see what my friends think.

EDIT: Also I forgot to mention, I love the custom glass doors, but they feel like they're too small. I think a bigger team might have trouble all going out at once.

 

[seth]

Are those textures included with the game or are they custom? They look very good, I just feel like they're brighter than the normal textures, and that stair texture I don't think I've seen before... maybe I'm just being dumb.

Looks great BTW!

 

[Prestige]

yeah dont make this a gimmick map, this was legit good

 

[Pocket]

I meant moving through it. Try walking up some of the ledges in the tunnels and you'll see what I mean.

Ah. Turns out the clipping on the red sewer's lips was the one thing I had forgotten to mirror. Fixed that, and made them a little smoother.

Also, item pickups. I was going to wait until after more testing, but what the heck, you really can't go wrong putting a couple close to the intel room. I'm going to keep tacking on letters until we make some actual progress with the layout.

 

[Pocket]

According to feedback, the primary issue with this map is that it's too fast. The route to the enemy base is so short that people were routinely grabbing the intelligence before the defenses could even arrive, let alone set up. Which, as far as CTF problems go, is kind of like being told your cholesterol is too low. Another issue was that players felt inclined to turn right out of spawn, which was the wrong way. I can solve both of these issues by simply relocating the bulk of the bases to the outer buildings rather than the ones in the middle. This also gives me a lot more freedom in designing and redesigning the bases' layouts, which I suspect I will appreciate a lot by the time this map gets finished.

And finally, there's the fact that the layout is way too confusing in general. How confusing? During the test, I managed to get mixed up and take the enemy intel back into their own base myself! The obvious culprits are the sewer and the loopback stairwell, which look like they lead to the completely opposite base than they actually do. Less obvious but arguably more problematic is that overlook above the tunnel, which provides easy access to the street that players have little reason to ever be on. Not sure what to do about that besides raising the barrier so players have to crouch-jump to get onto it and are discouraged from trying to get down there.

At any rate, the stairwell is gone, and in its place is an alleyway that will eventually lead into the enemy base. The sewer, I don't know what to do with yet. I'm kicking around the idea of adding subway tunnels somewhere, since we have subway trains to play with now (Red Line and Blue Line, anyone?), but with all the height variation in this map, I'm not sure they would fit anywhere. Between these major changes and the fact that I wanted to make the streets a more realistic width, I decided to just rebuild the whole thing from scratch. The basic shape of the map hasn't changed; I like those winding streets too much to mess with them. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

 

[Pocket]

And the overhaul is, for now, complete. Thanks to some last-minute inspiration, I think it's considerably better than I had about a day ago. Here are a few pictures:

Changelog: EVERYTHING. Most notably, wider streets (and sidewalks), longer distance between bases, bases now stretch away from the center, spawns are on the other side of the road, and there are alleyways leading to raised walkways. Oh, and the sewer is bloody massive now. I may live to regret that.

 

[Pocket]

Gameday followup:

First off, apologies for not figuring out why there was a clipping issue in the sewers. I had caught it earlier but didn't bother looking into it until after I had uploaded the map. I don't think it's a huge issue, so the fix will be in the next release.

The main issue is exactly what I figured it would be: Once people realized the sewer literally goes straight from one intel room to the other, nobody bothered taking the streets. Since I don't currently have any bright ideas for what to do with the pipe (because I am so constricted by the way the streets bend), I may just experiment with taking it out entirely and see how it plays out. Either way, I plan to expand the spawn building and connect it up to the intel room in some way, since that was another common complaint.

In the meantime, I welcome any suggestions and/or photography from users who have firsthand experience with old European cities like this one. Amusingly, my own search for "London tunnel" turned up a photo that looks almost exactly like the one in this map, so at least I know I'm not completely off base.

 

[Pocket]

We are now at Alpha 3! Changelog in a nutshell:

• The sewer is now two sewers that run parallel and never the twain shall meet. I connected them to the garages.
• Larger spawn rooms, which connect to the intel rooms via spiral staircases.
• Slightly larger bases as well; the first room is longer and now has a large block in the middle that will eventually be a bank of computers.
• Added a small health pack at the last minute that I suspect people will need.

I think that's all, actually.

EDIT: Oh and the tunnel now bends the other direction because I needed to make room for more base and I was sick of stretching it out more and more.

 

[Sergis]

how u make street turns

 

[Pocket]

They're displacements. I made like eight arches as guides, made a single displacement face, and then carefully nudged the nodes to line up with the corners of the arch pieces. More as proof of concept at this point than anything else, since I'm still in early alpha.

Which actually kind of sucks for lighting because the fact that they transition from displacements to normal brushes means the lightmaps can't seam together. But it'll be invaluable when the time comes to add the yellow lines; they'll bend right along with the road.

By the way, the demo from the last test appears to have gotten corrupted or maybe the update just broke compatibility, so we may have to test it again soon.

 

[Moonrat]

Holy crap, This looks like on hell of an interesting map to play on!

 

[Sergis]

damn i hoped for an automated method

o well back to computing vertex offsets

 

[Pocket]

The fact that I only have to move them on two axes makes it a lot easier; I can just see both "grids" in the top-down view and make sure they line up. (Not like those damn sewer pipes...)

Ironically, I had somebody ask "how did you do that" after seeing a screenshot of my first alpha, where I had just used two wedges with the texture at 45 degree angles to each other.