Arena maps, show yourselves!

[awk]

Hey guys, awk here. I finally did that "registering an account" thing; this community seems too awesome to not.

Arena: Respawn looks to be gathering attention (including a mention in the TF2 blog) and I think this could be a revival of Arena mode in general. We're also working with eXtine and PBL to get it a presence in the competitive TF2 community. (Here's a scrim played on arena_suijin_rc2 if you're interested to see how it plays.)

One of my biggest goals is to give arena maps that have been passed by or modded into oblivion another shot in the limelight, and sevin's been a huge help in that regard. Thanks in part to his efforts, over 50% of our official rotation is now made of custom maps. We're still looking for late beta/finished maps to add to the rotation. (The one exception to this criteria has been arena_recluse purely because it plays so well and doesn't have many visible devtextures.) I'll even take repurposed koth maps provided they're not too big, as a long walk to the action slows the pace a little.

Anyway, I'm excited for the future of A:R and everyone from TF2maps.net who's come on the servers to play has been pretty awesome. Don't stop tossing Arena maps our way - I want this rotation to be a veritable cornucopia of community-made custom content.

P.S. Byre's still on my to-do list, but adjusting the mod for multiple points and working out the win conditions is taking some time.

 

[24_seven]

Hey guys, awk here. I finally did that "registering an account" thing; this community seems too awesome to not.

Same man, me too same.

 

[seth]

Thanks for posting awk! One thing I really want everyone to take away from this is that awk will try out any new arena maps. Once you get detailing and reach a final-look stage, you can bet I'll suggest it and awk will play it. So please, use this as motivation to start working on a new map. You can even add awk and work with him to develop a more plugin-specific map experience if you want. Since awk announced the plugin and servers 2 weeks ago, the steam group has breached 1,000 members and continues to climb quickly thanks to the TF2 team's shoutout, the lively (heh) new take on arena, and the fresh new maps. Don't hesitate!

I've updated the OP to include the new maps awk has added.

 

[awk]

Happy to report that arena_byre is in the rotation at last. Two-point Arena: Respawn works like this:

- Capturing a single point will respawn your teammates (like single-point A:R).
- Capturing both points will win the game for the capturing team.
- To prevent a boring game where points can only be used for respawn once each, capturing one point resets the other point after a short delay.

The biggest difficulty I'm having with Byre gameplay-wise is its lack of ammo packs, which makes things complete hell for Spies. There's also a few places where props are arranged in a way that suggests you can crouch-jump up to roofs, but it's juuust too short to manage that.

I'm also curious what the purpose of all those logic entities is - I'm assuming either to avoid or extend overtime? I can usually work these sorts of things out but there's a lot of them and it's quite late. If it's for something cool I can definitely restructure the mod around how the map was intended to be played.

Either way, IT'S ALIVE!

 

[Idolon]

Wow, thank you so much! I'll be putting out a new version of the map soon-ish, I'll see about adding some ammo packs, as well as fixing those crouch jump areas - they were originally meant for just scouts to climb up on the roof, but I'll consider letting everyone up there.

Also, the messy entity work is overtime. Arena doesn't normally handle overtime (since it was built for just one point), and so I had to program all of the CP logic myself. If you want an explanation on how they all work, I can write one out.

 

[awk]

To my understanding, CP win logic in Arena works the same as CP win logic in any 'normal' CP map. I'm guessing (but not certain) that Byre is designed to not trigger a win as long as there is cap time on one of the points, regardless of who owns them?

 

[Idolon]

Bingo.

 

[awk]

So this is going to be kind of a long update. There's been a lot going on in the world of TF2 Arena.

First and foremost, I'm pleased to announce that Arena: Respawn now supports KOTH maps. The mod replaces the tf_logic_koth with a tf_logic_arena entity, downgrades the health packs, and overrides the spawn door opening logic to prevent players from jumping/congaing out of spawn before round start.

It's not an exact conversion, and it certainly doesn't compare to a mapper releasing a map specifically for Arena, but it works well enough to get the KOTH maps in play. (If anyone's interested in the nitty-gritty details of how the conversion works, particularly the spawn door overrides, I wrote up a post about that.) Since there's a bunch of high-quality KOTH maps out there, it doubled the size of our maplist almost immediately, as sevin's OP shows.

Second, eXtv/PBL have been running Arena: Respawn PUGs regularly every Monday and Thursday. (Here's a recent PUG of koth_arctic, to give you an idea. Note that this was before the spawn door fix was implemented!) The results have been promising, and I personally feel that, gamerule-wise, A:R is nearing completion. I hope to see some competitive arena in the near future

Third, the A:R community keeps on growing. The Steam group is approaching 2k members, and our Mumble server lights up pretty consistently every night. ("Night" in this case referring to EST/PST.) Some community members, like Spitfire, have started uploading videos of the gamemode, both pub and PUG play, which you can see on his channel.

Sevin continues to be amazing at finding new maps to add to the rotation - just today, he brought koth_peaks to my attention, which I've already pushed up to the servers and look forward to seeing played tonight!

From both pubs and PUGs, and in no particular order, these maps have proven to be favorites (so far):

• arena_draft. The point is just the right combination of open and defendable to make for some crazy sneak captures. Every class does well here, but especially Soldier and Sniper.
• arena_discovery. A huge space to fight in, a point that's dangerous to fall off of, and funny voice lines as mercs fall to their death. What's not to like?
• arena_recluse. Always a blast in pub play, recluse feels like it's just the right size for its type of map. It's also the only alpha map I allow in the rotation because it's just that good. I really, really, really wish it'd get detailed!
• koth_brazil. Plenty of flanking routes to keep rollouts interesting, and a point that's fun to climb but vulnerable to the middle path. As I recall, sevin called this as being a good choice for the gamemode early on.
• koth_arctic. Just an all-around fantastic map.

Unfortunately, while the map list continues to expand overall, I've had to remove a few maps for being duds. Backlot's spawns are too close to the point to work in A:R; Hardhat has proven to be too small to properly fight in; I've spent a while trying to get Byre working, playing with cap times and different rules, but ultimately I think the map is too crowded, and the points too close to each other, to work with this gamemode. (Sorry Idolon!)

Strangely enough I've also had to remove Blackwood Valley, although I don't have one specific reason for doing so. I wish I could say something more useful, but it's just been uninteresting to play on with this mode. It's fantastic from an aesthetic point of view, but fairly average in terms of layout. I'm sure it works well in Arena, but it never quite had the spark in Arena: Respawn.

That said, most of these maps have withstood the test of time and varying play conditions (5v5 PUGs, full pubs, sparse pubs), and I'm more than happy to take on more suggestions. I think we're approaching a point where TF2 Arena maps will see some serious competitive play. For those who haven't seen it yet, I'll leave you with the first of three videos of invite-level TF2 players fighting for their lives - and their respawns - on Arena maps.

 

[seth]

• arena_recluse. Always a blast in pub play, recluse feels like it's just the right size for its type of map. It's also the only alpha map i allow in the rotation because it's just that good. I really, really, really wish it'd get detailed!

you can do it aly!!

 

[Crash]

Trainsawlaser respawn. Try it out!

 

[awk]

Trainsawlaser respawn. Try it out!

You have no idea how many times I've heard this request since the servers started... maybe someday I'll cave. Someday.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

April fools event. Do it.

 

[awk]

April fools' rotation:

- arena_2fort
- arena_gridwalls
- koth_trainsawlaser
- All health packs replaced with pumpkin bombs