Half Life 2 - Capture the Flag

[LeSwordfish]

You are kind of wilfully shitting on Hl2's plot with rocket-jumping combine.

 

[grazr]

I think you're missing the point. No one is complaining as much as giving their honest opinion. This should all be taken as feedback. There can be improvements. There can always be improvements. It's just finding the balance of man hours vs practicality. Our opinion is that hasn't been met yet.

The maps look basic.
The gameplay isn't in sync with the art theme.

You can have excellent aesthetic and still execute excellent gameplay, It's not a case of one or the other. You come to a mapping community which includes some old school mappers who've had work purchased by Valve, have community rewards by Valve and been highlighted in their blog several times, to publicise an amatuer mod, you can't expect us not to give our honest, "professional" opinion about it.

 

[Sacrifist]

They were just examples that you can make maps look good in source.
The thing here is tough, it is just not lack of props that make maps look plain, there is a lot of plain hallways with plain walls that have pretty generic lighting that can be seen trough the videos (Tough some of the maps, like the nova prospect one had some really cool lighting) just using more varying methods of lighting the room would improve all the maps by ton.

You can also have small physics props lying around as detail and made non solid, like bottles and cones flying around from explosions like in tf2 to improve immersion or loose (and of course, non solid) bricks and metal rods around broken down buildings.

Finally, some actual criticism worth reading. There is a lot of white light in the maps displayed in the video. No disagreeing with you there.

You are kind of wilfully shitting on Hl2's plot with rocket-jumping combine.

Yes, the devs are old GridIron/Rocket Arena players. Although, who says the Combine couldnt come up with ways to explosion jump

 

[lana]

Does it have custom models and materials? Ofcourse it does. There has to be custom models and materials in order to make all the extra game modes work.

That wasn't the point. The point was that the custom content clashes with itself.

nice knock on the community....classy

The gameplay isn't in sync with the art theme.

The art style isn't in sync with itself.

The maps have been thought out and tailored to the gameplay of the mod. Neither of those maps in your pics would ever get played in HL2CTF.

The argument wasn't "your maps should be these." It was that you're defending ugly maps by saying you can't make good looking maps in the source engine. QED.

 

[Wilson]

Going to add on my map feedback that Epicenter also had too much same textures, i know team colors is important in team based shooters, but too much is just too much, one side has greenish texture and red texture. You should try vary the textures more and find some other less overwhelming ways to tell players what side of the map they are on.
Also, some buildings could be different looking, they all seem to be usual blocky apartment building being in ruins, with such theme for map you have room for some really cool detail geometry.

 

[Sacrifist]

Going to add on my map feedback that Epicenter also had too much same textures, i know team colors is important in team based shooters, but too much is just too much, one side has greenish texture and red texture. You should try vary the textures more and find some other less overwhelming ways to tell players what side of the map they are on.
Also, some buildings could be different looking, they all seem to be usual blocky apartment building being in ruins, with such theme for map you have room for some really cool detail geometry.

Appreciate the feedback, but the video wasnt placed on this site for map feedback. It was placed here for informative purposes. We are not really interested in map feedback. Some of the maps are custom maps that are community favorites that have been added to the release. The best thing I could say for you guys complaining about the looks of the maps is to download the mod when its released and show us how its done . With so many professionals around here It should be awesome seeing all the great maps that can be made. Looking forward to it.

 

[Wilson]

Appreciate the feedback, but the video wasnt placed on this site for map feedback.

To be fair, that is expected when you put video on site called TF2Maps.

 

[waxpax]

Looks interesting and I didn't know about it before your post. I'll have to remember to check back later on the release. Thanks.

 

[LeSwordfish]

We are not really interested in map feedback.

You will go much less far with that attitude than without.

 

[grazr]

Some of the maps are custom maps that are community favorites that have been added to the release.

That probably explains much of it.

The best thing I could say for you guys complaining about the looks of the maps is to download the mod when its released and show us how its done . With so many professionals around here It should be awesome seeing all the great maps that can be made. Looking forward to it.

Sarcasm aside, i'd like to point out that it's highly unlikely for some of the guys here who are already considering leaving the TF2 mapping scene to move onto current generation engines/games after having been here for several years, to switch to an even older, smaller, community ctf mod.

The guys here are creating serious portfolio's and looking for the attention from major companies, so following the games industry pulls them towards new title releases. In a purely practical sense it would be unlikely for them to work on a map for this mod unless maybe they were bored. I realise this sounds incredibly elitist but that's the state of affairs that surround "the amatuer professionals".

New games pick up custom content quickly because at release they require more content than what developers could afford to make during development themselves, it would be impractical to take a step back to something like this when they're already earning money and rewards off companies like Valve.

It's not impossible that someone from here may make a map for this mod, not everyone hear takes it as seriously as those who have been successful in the previously mentioned regards. But because of those factors, the guys who could provide that level of quality are more likely to not work on an old, small, community mod as a donator. Especially as a select few are already on mod teams.

 

[ScorpioUprising]

Jesus, remind me never to come to this community with a free mod. Rude rude rude.

 

[grazr]

Jesus, remind me never to come to this community with a free mod. Rude rude rude.

Yes, no one can voice their opinion because someones feelings might get hurt. Let's shut everyone up, that'll be way more productive.

 

[LeSwordfish]

I forgot that if somethings free, that excuses it from quality control.

 

[Sacrifist]

Yes, no one can voice their opinion because someones feelings might get hurt. Let's shut everyone up, that'll be way more productive.

Nobody's feelings (at least the mod teams) are hurt in any way shape or form. We arent little children. We dont care how some of you feel about the maps lol. The whole point of this thread was to show that the mod was going to be released soon and thats it. It's in the offtopic section for a reason. Nowhere in the OP did I state that we were looking for any criticism on the maps, because we are done with them already. If the mod isnt for you then great, move along, no big deal. I understand this is a map site, but its also filled with people that play a capture the flag style of game. So it makes sense to post the mod here.

 

[Wilson]

As i said earlier, you can't really complain about us suddenly giving you feedback, you made thread about mod on mapping centered site and you got feedback on your maps, nothing new.

 

[Ravidge]

I cringed while reading this thread.
People are nitpicking at the smallest things, hl2 story is broken due to explosion jumps? But the battle over flags is completely fine and canon? The maps are unpolished = mod is garbage mentality scares me to death over here. And then it turns into a argument over how professionals would never want to map for this, what does it have to do with anything?!
That is just rude and pompous, and it doesn't help anyone. And to even speak of tf2m as a home of professionals makes me wonder if people actually think that's true?

I'm not saying free mods are exempt from criticism, but I think people have forgotten what a mod actually is, and why it's okay to add new gameplay features and reusing existing materials. Just to give some examples CS and TFC used minimal custom textures (initially at least), but I didn't hear much about clashing artstyle just because people could rocketjump/concjump/shoot 4 rockets in a row in a HL1 environment.
So while you're allowed to criticize, the bar set in this thread is WAY to high, expectations are through the roof for no reason. What reason does anyone have to bash the maps when I'm sure the authors aren't intentionally making something below their skill-level, this demand of top quality maps from a group of people with a shared interest is really unfair.

 

[MeNtHoL]

I am one of the co-founders of the HL2:CTF project and I have really enjoyed this thread. Criticism does help a lot and over the years we have received our fair share for sure but not so much over this final development stage so I personally welcome it.

I am truly an ultra-old-school gamer and just noted that "I am currently celebrating" 17 years of developing, building and releasing maps. It may be longer as I know I built something for Wolfenstein3D, I had to look it up and luckily found this old Doom map website which I obviously should be somewhat embarrassed to have been doing this so long only to not necessarily be blowing anyone away with some serious mapping skills.

But it is true, we are just happy to get HL2:CTF working again under the Source SDK and we are just trying to get the word out since we've always been a really small team--no more than 5 developers at any one time throughout the history of HL2:CTF's development.

We have also been very obsessed with achieving the highest frame rates we can for multi-player as well as a proper layout for CTF game play. There probably is no excuse for having a blank wall anywhere in the maps that could use at least a ripped up poster or something, but it is also important that the player see their target and we chose to use the Combine Police versus what looks like a bunch of Gordon clones (the head models and textures are actually just Rebels) so maybe that makes a bit more sense.

In the end, *I* appreciate the criticism and we do hope that gamers enjoy the mod. It's now 100% free since the Source SDK is now free, no requirements (other than a Steam account) to play.

And though it's already been said, due to many of us coming from Quake and myself remembering the first time I played Zoid's CTF mod back in the day, we just wanted to translate that sort of game play in the mod and I personally believe we've achieved it within the Source engine.

It's a crazy virtual world and we like it.

 

[Terwonick]

looks good

 

[grazr]

nobody said professionals, Ravidge, i coined the phrase amatuer-professionals as reseident mappers like Psy, YM, Rexy, Icarus, 3dnj, Mangy have had (multiple) maps purchased by Valve; and that's excluding individuals who've had other content such as textures or models purchased by Valve such as Void, Nineaxis, Beatz, Booj and yourself. Shmitz is even working for (i believe) Nintendo. You can legitamtely say you have industry experience, even if it was outside of a studio; it's something in your CV/portfolio.

People are put off rocket jumping in the Half-Life universe because it is not a HL gameplay mechanic, and CTF is a game mode mechanic so it doesn't fall under the same conceptual rules. You're basically vicariously justifying all the people who ever argued that TF2 should have maps in space because 2 bases next to each other is random as fuck anyway. If a game wasn't going to have honest HL game mechanics then why even base it off the HL universe at all (besides the fact it has a bunch of free materials readily available so it's a final product short cut).

I understand that many people here resonate with the saying that "If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success."

I see nothing wrong in wanting a mod to be the best it can be and telling the mod that it can improve or has design flaws when that is an honest opinion; especially when it comes from another part of the modding community.

People here only get their knickers in a twist when the people they're trying to help lock their arms around their chest and zealously defend their WiP work because they're not used to such critical feedback and liked the idea of useless idle praise; and when that mod consists of pretty much mostly maps and a few additional weapons what else is there really to say about the mods overall aesthetic quality. If the majority of the mods content is maps and the maps aesthetics are kinda poor then the overall quality of the mods aesthetic is poor. No offence is intended when this is discussed in an honest environment.

 

[Sacrifist]

People are put off rocket jumping in the Half-Life universe because it is not a HL gameplay mechanic, and CTF is a game mode mechanic so it doesn't fall under the same conceptual rules. You're basically vicariously justifying all the people who ever argued that TF2 should have maps in space because 2 bases next to each other is random as fuck anyway. If a game wasn't going to have honest HL game mechanics then why even base it off the HL universe at all (besides the fact it has a bunch of free materials readily available so it's a final product short cut).

This is your biggest problem. You don't seem to understand what the definition of a mod is. You do realize that had Robin Walker went by how you think, TF2 would never exist? Im also pretty sure that if the HL2CTF devs were asked about TF2 having maps in space, we would say its "OK".

I understand that many people here resonate with the saying that "If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success."

I see nothing wrong in wanting a mod to be the best it can be and telling the mod that it can improve or has design flaws when that is an honest opinion; especially when it comes from another part of the modding community.

We have no issues with people expressing their opinions about the mod. Although, I personally have issues with some of the comments that have been made in this thread because I dont believe you are getting the whole picture based off a 3 minute video, yet some of you are acting like you have given the mod a fair shake when you really havent. I think some of you are forgetting the fact that we are a team of basically 3 that is doing all this for free. To expect perfection in all areas of the mod is setting your expectations to high.

People here only get their knickers in a twist when the people they're trying to help lock their arms around their chest and zealously defend their WiP work because they're not used to such critical feedback and liked the idea of useless idle praise; and when that mod consists of pretty much mostly maps and a few additional weapons what else is there really to say about the mods overall aesthetic quality. If the majority of the mods content is maps and the maps aesthetics are kinda poor then the overall quality of the mods aesthetic is poor. No offence is intended when this is discussed in an honest environment.

No offence is taken. Hopefully you dont take offense to the fact that someone that has never played the mod's opinion means very little to us though, especially when we are about to release.