Alpine Ridge

[Pc_Madness]

Alpine Ridge! (yes, it did take me ages to think up that name ) A 3 Stage Attack and Defend map with an Alpine / Spytech theme, designed for 24 to 32 players. My first map, so say nice things or I'll cry! Theres a lack of displacements, since I could spend an eternity trying to get them right (hency why Blu's 1st Spawn is roughly walled up for now). Anyway, to the map,

Back story:
Those evil Red's are at it again (when aren't they?)! Nested somewhere inside this innocent little Sawmill is the entrance to a secret Red base built into the Ridge*. Take control of the Missile Control Room before Red can fire zee missiles!


* Ridge is on order and will arrive in later version


If anyone has any advice or can point out obvious flaws before I submit it for a gameday test, that'd rock. I've already got a fairly large list of changes that I plan for A3, assuming it survives its first test with peeps,


Plans for A3:
- Redo the first 2 missile silos. They're leaking like crazy (and hard to work with), hence the poor lighting of the rockets.
- Shrink Stage 2 Cap 2 a little bit width wise.
- Redo the area around Stage 3 Cap 1 (as well as the bridge)... possibly halve the cap's size and add some corridors / rooms around it.


Alrightie, I thinks thats all for now. Cheers!

 

[tehn]

looks good

 

[Jethro]

Picture five looks VERY open.

 

[Pc_Madness]

Picture five looks VERY open.

Theres a little tunnel along the left side which is close to Blu spawn and gives you access to the back of both buildings, so I think it should be alright. Perhaps it needs another shed or something, don't want everyone going via the left exit.

 

[Frush]

Picture five looks VERY open.

Comments like this makes me rage.

I do not get why everyone seems to think that you cannot have ONE open space. I mean just look at Badwater for example. It has lots of open spaces and it may just be Valve's finest.

Also, picture 5 isn't even that open

 

[absurdistof]

Pic 4 is wayy dark, I feel like the cap in pic 1 could use some more cover. I like the theme you're establishing, the map looks great. Also, screen 3, 2 questions:

1) What is that white texture?
2) I hope there's an alternate route, that could become a HELL of a chokepoint.

 

[Pc_Madness]

Pic 4 is wayy dark, I feel like the cap in pic 1 could use some more cover. I like the theme you're establishing, the map looks great. Also, screen 3, 2 questions:

1) What is that white texture?
2) I hope there's an alternate route, that could become a HELL of a chokepoint.

Its not as bad in game, the area up the back top is just a storage area and is clipped off, and closer to camera theres a nice shadow appearing on the roof from one of the lights for some reason. I'm gunna change the roof in A3, atm it kinda reminds me of a church from the outside.


1. Computerwall002
2. Theres another path that comes out on the ground in the back right of pic 2. Hopefully the cover at the end of the bridge (pic 3, bottom left) should make things easier for Blu to push up

 

[Pc_Madness]

Alrightie, the first play test was certainly a learning experience

Heres my list of issues,

Stage 1:
- Last cap is to opened. Shall have to shrink it by a lot. Theres also alot of open space outside the cap that was abit large.
- Need to raise the level up abit so the ramps aren't quite so long. I think the tunnel on Blu's right summed it up pretty well. Very deep and long.
- The bridge at the back of cap 1 and the upstairs area probably needs to go. Spotted a Blu engie trying to build up there..abit weird building that close to the point and Red not even knowing about it. Might remove the bridge and use it instead as a catwalk that goes up the hill between cap 1 and cap 2.
- Theres also the problem that Blu could pretty much walk right past red and go straight to Red's spawn and spawn camp them, and they would never see it happening.
- Bring Blu's spawn forward a bit

Stage 2:
- Shrink the distance from the setup gates to where Red will be setup, abit opened.
- Long sightline between Cap 1 and Cap 2. Add a twisty corridor or perhaps something which solves the next problem,
- Maybe Blu was just abit confused (I forgot to add a sign which pops out pointing to the second cap) but we seemed to have trouble holding the area between cap 1 and cap 2, and only won by a scout cap. Plus it'd be fairly easy for Red to take one of the side corridors and come round behind them.
- The other issue which didn't pop up like I thought it would have, was the lack of attack routes for Red from Cap 2 and the upstairs window that comes from the missile silo. I kinda have a solution to that, see the screenie. http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4701/stage2cap2.jpg. Glass window and a two way door with a cat walk that Red can rocket jump up onto, or use the turbines on the right to climb up. Might be a bad idea..
- Did anyone actually use the silo room? (not to be confused with the missile room ) I doubt Blu used it at all, and its a long trek to get there. Perhaps a stair well in the middle is needed.
- Shrink Cap 2 alot

Stage 3:
- People found the spawn abit confusing. Spawning on both sides of the room wasn't a great idea.
- ditch Cap 1 and make it smaller.
- Shrink Cap 2 a little: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7883/stage3cap2.jpg

Well, I think thats the issues that I spotted anyway. Anyone agree / disagree / have more issues?

 

[Geal]

Pc_Madness covered many issues, I'll see what I can add.

Stage 1:
- I really liked the theme, a bunch of lodges and such on a mountainside. I was a bit disappointed when the other two stages moved away from that into almost a spy movie-style hotel. Not saying it's a bad theme, just saying it was personal preference.
- First cap point is in a bit of an odd building. The smaller shack is in the center, drawing attention to it. I expect the first cap to be in there, and was a bit surprised when it wasn't.
- First cap building seemed a bit overly complicated, but maybe that's just because I didn't get the time to learn the layout. Seemed like a couple engies could pretty easily lock it down.
- REALLY BIG. Not really a bad thing, but without a teleporter it's a long walk even for a scout. to get from blu spawn to cap 2.

Stage 2:
- Blu spawn was a bit confusing as to which door to go through. Could easily be fixed by rotating the spawns so you spawn facing the correct direction.
- I honestly don't remember much about this stage, we blew through it kinda fast. It was very big, I would suggest making it smaller. Red pushed blu back quite a bit, and I pretty much waltzed in there alone as a scout and capped the second point without any opposition. I dunno if RED was trying to get back to stop me and couldn't in time or what, but I figured I'd point it out.

Stage 3:
- Same issue with blu spawn - difficult to tell which way to exit at first.
- taking the alternate path out of blu spawn (not the lobby) led to an area where some of your areaportals are messing up. Majorly needs a fix.
- Again, really big. Without a teleporter it's a major pain to travel, especially considering...
- Way too easy to defend last cap point. With no real alternate paths to the cap room (that I could find, any way) made it REALLY easy to defend. I know some blu members were saying that they never even saw the cap room. It really sucks walking all the way to the action, only to get killed in the chokepoint and have to do it all over again. Maybe we just needed engies setting up teleporters and nests, but without them it was a major issue.

 

[Ida]

Overall map issues was that it felt a little large and it took a long while to get where I wanted, but I had fun. At least up until the impossible final point. It was really hard to even get in there, because RED controlled the path between CP1 and CP2. It was hard to tell why they did, but it seemed like they had a lot of higher ground, and the sightline directly behind CP1 was huge.

 

[Pc_Madness]

Overall map issues was that it felt a little large and it took a long while to get where I wanted, but I had fun. At least up until the impossible final point. It was really hard to even get in there, because RED controlled the path between CP1 and CP2. It was hard to tell why they did, but it seemed like they had a lot of higher ground, and the sightline directly behind CP1 was huge.

Yeah, the openness + borked respawn times didn't help much.

Pc_Madness covered many issues, I'll see what I can add.

Stage 1:
- I really liked the theme, a bunch of lodges and such on a mountainside. I was a bit disappointed when the other two stages moved away from that into almost a spy movie-style hotel. Not saying it's a bad theme, just saying it was personal preference.
- First cap point is in a bit of an odd building. The smaller shack is in the center, drawing attention to it. I expect the first cap to be in there, and was a bit surprised when it wasn't.
- First cap building seemed a bit overly complicated, but maybe that's just because I didn't get the time to learn the layout. Seemed like a couple engies could pretty easily lock it down.

Stage 2:
- Blu spawn was a bit confusing as to which door to go through. Could easily be fixed by rotating the spawns so you spawn facing the correct direction.

Stage 3:
- Way too easy to defend last cap point. With no real alternate paths to the cap room (that I could find, any way) made it REALLY easy to defend. I know some blu members were saying that they never even saw the cap room. It really sucks walking all the way to the action, only to get killed in the chokepoint and have to do it all over again. Maybe we just needed engies setting up teleporters and nests, but without them it was a major issue.

- Stage 1 = Abandoned Lumberyard, 2 = lower levels of the base, Industrial + missiles, 3 = Command area + offices where all the suites work, hence why its supposed to be fancy. I dunno, I like the progression, its not just 3 stages of trees and lets you try different things in each stage.
- I'll add some extra signage, that first building is to close to be the first cap. I'm gunna rotate it slightly so hopefully it won't look so important
- Yeah, I agree with this. I think if I ditch the top floor it might be alright, and perhaps make it possible to get around to the side entrance via the balcony on the ground floor. Although I spose with the top floor no longer accessible, I could shrink that building's height down to the same size as the other one..

- Mmmm, I think it just needs a sign dropped in the doorway to block it somehow. You can't really rotate the spawns since then they'd be facing a wall I dunno, I'll have more room in that area after all these changes, so perhaps I can redo the spawn.

- Yeah, I didn't want a third route into the room since its the last cap and its supposed to be tricky..I might add a vent or something that drops down on the right side. I think the problem though was respawn times + distance, we never had enough people together to attack the point.


Cheers for the feedback guys.

 

[Geal]

Went through the map again for ya, took some screenshots of stuff you might wanna look over.

All three gates near the blu spawn in map 1 have no collision once opened.

You might want to put some caution tape around the capture area.

Can you actually get out of here? If not, might as well make the floor a kill area.

Kinda hard to tell from this pic, but this is in the darker of the two trap silos.

Looks kinda tacky, a blocklight should work fine.

Here's the areaportal issue in map 3.

As for the final capture point, maybe put in an alternate entrance in this room or on the far wall?

 

[Pc_Madness]

Went through the map again for ya, took some screenshots of stuff you might wanna look over.

All three gates near the blu spawn in map 1 have no collision once opened.

You might want to put some caution tape around the capture area.

Can you actually get out of here? If not, might as well make the floor a kill area.

Kinda hard to tell from this pic, but this is in the darker of the two trap silos.

Looks kinda tacky, a blocklight should work fine.

Here's the areaportal issue in map 3.

As for the final capture point, maybe put in an alternate entrance in this room or on the far wall?

Cheers!

1. Firstly, wow, that Red dev texture is so red! Wonder why that is. About the gates... hmm, I forgot about that... the problem was people get stuck in the gates when it opens, so I set them to be non-solid. And I can't set it back to non-solid since they could be standing in that spot.. *ponders*
2. Yep yep
3. 4. Yeah, I meant to do this before the test (or maybe I just wanted to laugh at people trapped down there). I've already redone the silos, so theres no more leaks and they're lighting properly now.
5. Yeah, I think I tried a blocklight, but it looked worse.
6. The Phantom portal, strange that that one died and didn't cause any compile errors.
7. Yeah, will do.

 

[Pc_Madness]

*bump*

A3 released!

 

[Firest0rm]

it was pretty fun, but it had a few issues:
The spawn rooms were horrible. I didn't know which exits to take, and some were giant.
Way too long travel times. Someone was complaining about a 40 second walk to a point. Make sure that when you test your maps by yourself, you don't test it as scout because that doesn't help test travel times
A door trigger by the 2nd cap on stage 3 didn't work properly half the time

 

[Gerbil]

This map is pretty cool. But as people said the spawn rooms could use some work. Maybe try to reduce travel times by making a forward spawn similar to the one in gorge. I also noticed that one of your top grate doors went down instead of up

 

[Pc_Madness]

Yeah, I think I might just focus on one stage at a time until I can get this right. Stage 3 was still way to opened, espiceally the final cap. Seemed like most of the action at the final point was taking place in the corridors outside.

I'll look at cutting down travel times as well.

Strange about that spawn door, its always worked when I tested it.

Cheers.

 

[Azazoth!]

From today's playtest:

• The doors in the red stage-3 spawn break if more than one person tries to go through them - you have the triggers set up to close the door when anyone leaves, not when everyone doors. Caused significant consternation.
• There were a few places like this in the blue spawn-area. Where's the blue light coming from?
• Lots of really dark spots scattered about the map. Also, some that were lit bright-red - not a good idea, makes it hard to make out who's on which team.
• I tried to go through this door two or three times - and I saw other people doing the same. The problem is that (1) it's closer to where players spawn than the actual exit is, and (2) the door is recessed into the wall, so you can't see the NO ENTRY on it. Shifting it so that it's flush with the wall - and thus much more visible - should fix the problem.
• Most of the cap areas were quite large, and had little cover - they felt like big boxes. (Though that might be more because they're not detailed yet.)
• It still takes way too long to get from the spawn to the points, especially for red on the last point. (Which wasn't helped by the malfunctioning door.

But:

• I really liked the outdoor section, the first cap of stage two or three (not sure) - didn't end up spending much time there, but it felt like a much more interesting space than most of the rest.
• The little observation-room, to the side of the main route to the FINAL CAP, is both charming & classy. It has my endorsement!

 

[Pc_Madness]

From today's playtest:

• The doors in the red stage-3 spawn break if more than one person tries to go through them - you have the triggers set up to close the door when anyone leaves, not when everyone doors. Caused significant consternation.
• There were a few places like this in the blue spawn-area. Where's the blue light coming from?
• Lots of really dark spots scattered about the map. Also, some that were lit bright-red - not a good idea, makes it hard to make out who's on which team.
• I tried to go through this door two or three times - and I saw other people doing the same. The problem is that (1) it's closer to where players spawn than the actual exit is, and (2) the door is recessed into the wall, so you can't see the NO ENTRY on it. Shifting it so that it's flush with the wall - and thus much more visible - should fix the problem.
• Most of the cap areas were quite large, and had little cover - they felt like big boxes. (Though that might be more because they're not detailed yet.)
• It still takes way too long to get from the spawn to the points, especially for red on the last point. (Which wasn't helped by the malfunctioning door.

But:

• I really liked the outdoor section, the first cap of stage two or three (not sure) - didn't end up spending much time there, but it felt like a much more interesting space than most of the rest.
• The little observation-room, to the side of the main route to the FINAL CAP, is both charming & classy. It has my endorsement!

- The triggers don't go down the ramp, it goes straight across from the level the door is on, so you don't hit the trigger until your close to thedoor, I'm hoping thats all it is. The ramp is too steep anyway... gotta figure out a way to fix that spawn layout.
- The area above that room is part stage 1, so the model sticks into that. I guess the blue is coming from the sky brush which is near by. :S Not overly fussed about that kind of stuff atm. I'll probably flatten that whole spawn area out to cut down on the distance from spawn to the setup gates.
- Lighting is just temporary for now, I'm aiming to fix the lighting as I detail each area once I'm sure the layout won't change.
- Good point.
- Yup yup.
- Yeah, I noticed this as well, going to have to have a ponder about how to cut the distances down.


Yeah, I love that little room, it was a last minute addition that looks quite awesome. I started detailing it while I was waiting for the test, came up alright.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6104284/cp_alpine_ridge_a40000.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6104284/cp_alpine_ridge_a40001.jpg


Cheers!

 

[lana]

The door here actually clashes with the brush:

Copy pasted stairs need some vertex love: