Melee Fort

[The Asylum]

The randomizer (as a far as physboxes and push triggers go) works perfectly. Next up is the more complicated entity rigging.

Being both completely automated and completely random, the process usually takes somewhere around 2.5-3 minutes. IF what I want to have happen works as I hope it will, we could be looking at a selection time of 2 min max. Slightly longer than the standard-issue Chooser, but I think it'll be acceptable.

 

[The Asylum]

Complex entity rigging finally done

Now all that remains is making it look presentable

I mean, what kind of mapper would I be if i released it like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBo13lBbHdI

 

[The Asylum]

Crazy as it may seem, I'm still hoping that the resupply lockers will be useable again in the future. Not today, but some day. That got me thinking of how I'd rebuild the side-hallway spawns- leftovers from my much simpler time on the old Meleefort builds. While I was plotting out how to make them look better, I suddenly found myself thinking of the KOTH spawns, and how awful I now consider them. So while we wait for the next breaking update, CTF and DM are getting their spawnrooms touched up, and KOTH is getting ACTUAL spawnrooms, in an incredibly significant mangling.

 

[The Asylum]

sonofabitch

While polishing up the KOTH restructuring, I discovered an extremely serious flaw, present in every single melee fort build I've ever released, that, well, kind of crashes the game

oops.

It's easily fixable mapside though, so A16 and forward will be crash-free. I'm actually kind of amazed that it went this long without ever happening.

 

[The Asylum]

quite frankly, i amaze myself

Not only was I able to seamlessly slip in a brand new spawn room for the upcoming build of KOTH Melee Fort, but I did it in what seemed to be no time at all. And it looks SO good. Then that got me wondering: What else can I do with it? Should KOTH and SD be the only ones with secret train tunnel rooms?

I guess I'm not satisfied quite yet with the butchering I gave CP Melee Fort recently, because I'm feelin' the itch to rip it apart again.

On my mind right now is adding the new KOTH spawnrooms to CP Melee Fort, and making those the new 2nd forward spawn, as opposed to the boxcars right under the middle point. Who knows? Maybe this little extra transit time for the 4-1 team will help the team that's completely collapsed to put up a bit more of a fight. Plus, the slide doors in the boxcars have always looked "off" to me.

 

[The Asylum]

its progress time, its progress time

The Slobberknocker Storehouse gets a little prettier, thanks to the KOTH restructuring

The secret train tunnels from SD Melee Fort serve as the new spawnroom

goddammit valve why did you have to break the resupply lockers on melee fort y u hate it

Now that this area is vestigial at best, idk what to put here :/

..... also, allow me to apologize in advance

Once I started, I couldn't stop. I just couldn't stop. Oh god help me, I just couldn't stop.

 

[The Asylum]

no

dear god, no

please brain stop this right fuckign now i cant deal

With regards to Melee Fort Event, sure the secret labs look marginally better with something pretty to look at above the stage, but you know what I've got up above the stages in the other builds?

Yes, Titantrons. And against every ounce of mercy for myself in me, I'm thinking of doing them. Again.

Or maybe I should just get a gimp outfit and parade myself on the street instead. It's likely to be less painful.

 

[The Asylum]

it begins

 

[The Asylum]

Almost been a month since the Moonbase theme was revealed on tf2.com, and more details ought to be upon us soon.

Oh, we're also working on a Moonbase! It's got a whole bunch of interesting new gameplay and we're pretty excited about it. We think you will be too.

"Interesting new gameplay," is certainly interesting to me. While I doubt we're looking at a new game mode being added like SD or MVM, I suspect it'll be a significant break away from what we consider "Standard" TF2 gameplay- low gravity, push triggers, etc.

What has this to do with Melee Fort? I don't yet know, but I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't already thinking of how to convert the Melee Fort layout into a space base.

Speaking of layouts and Melee Fort...

You know how I'm finally starting the Beta builds? Detailing aside, there's one huge, huge, HUUUUUUUUEEEG hurdle I'm gonna have to be jumping if I'm to make it presentable as a Beta build. Right now, the second-last Control Points on CP Melee Fort sit inside the hallway, and it's pretty hidden. At least in the case of Badlands, with it's second-lasts waaaaay out of the way, they're still clearly visible from a far distance. I'll say it again, deviating from the Valve Standard is something I really really really don't want to do too much of. Sure, you might argue it's not a big deal, as Well and Granary's second-lasts are only visible inside certain buildings, but still, they're pretty hard to miss. So what's the plan for Melee Fort? Why, shortening the L-Hallway, in the same manner as Melee Fort Event. If I'm to do this, however, it's going to take a HELL of a long time, and lots and lots of skybox rebuilding. I hate doing this, but if it's for sake of better gameplay, I'd gladly do it with rusty nails being hammered into my feet. Yes, even though it's Melee Fort.

And all that's assuming that the Moonbase theme DOESN'T introduce a new game mode, and in the case that it DOES, you just KNOW I'm gonna find a way to work it into Melee Fort too.

 

[The Asylum]

Time for another edition of "Asylum Is Tired and Talks Way Too Much About Stupid Shit," with your host, The Asylum.

<applause track>

So it's like this: One way or the other, Melee Fort Event is getting Titantrons made. The big, big, big question is, what songs do I sample from?

My thought process went a lot like this: Gotta keep it "Classic," ie, from within the early 70s to early 80s, as TF2 takes place from 1968-1973 (or at least it does for now, you never know with this new moonbase thing). So I thought, "Hey, why not the MONSTER MASH?" That idea lasted for all of three minutes, ending when I went to listen to it on Youtube and found nothing worth an 8-second sample. Also, the rest of the album it came off was pretty lame, we can't have both teams using the same theme, can we?

Then, as I usually do when my creative engine gets a rock stuck in the motor, I looked to the established Valve Standard (valve standard, wanna follow, even though melee, blah blah youve heard this before).

The Thriller taunts.

"Why don't I use some classic Michael Jackson tracks?" I thought to myself, loudly, in the lunchroom around all my co-workers. And then I started making sketches of the Titantron animations in the lunchroom around all my co-workers, thus cementing my status as King Nerd of All Haz-Mat Disposal.

Since picking "Thriller" as a theme is totally expected, I decided to go with it's album-mate, "Beat It," another killer Jackson track. As for the other one, I'm totally thinking of going with "Smooth Criminal." The problem with that is, it's from 1987's "Bad," when Mikey was already past the point of no return of his transition to a white woman. To me, it's a little too modern to stay in harmony with the classic themes of the other versions, but I simply can't think of another older track to take its place.

Let's see how much this new "moonbase" alters the TF2 lore first, then I'll sort all that out later.

EDIT: and what if the moonbase theme DOES include a new gametype, and I end up making Titantrons for THAT TOO? WHY AM I DOING THIIIIIIIIIIISSS!?

 

[The Asylum]

So another big update is upon us, and with it comes the BRAND NEW-

.... wait, no space base?

........... um....

............... well this is unexpected. There are new weapon entity names that need to be stripped though, so A16 will finally see the light of day! now lemme see if I can find them under all this dust...

 

[The Asylum]

oh my god

oh my god oh my god OH MY GOD

I'VE FINALLY GOT IT!! I've finally come up with an idea on how to handle sudden death idlers on DM Melee Fort. And not only that, but an idea that also encourages brawls inside the courtyard rings!

oh my fuck how did I not think of this before? IT's been RIGHT THERE, STARING ME IN THE FACE ALL THIS TIME! oh god yes this is going to make DM mode SO MUCH BETTER

</mad scientist moment>

 

[The Asylum]

NEW MELEE FORT FUCK YEAH

http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/181523

Here's CP Melee Fort's sexy new 2nd Forward Spawns, born of a truly terrible idea to make Melee Fort Pipeball. I don't know what to say, sometimes these things just "happen" to me.

Let's see 'em grief on CTF mode now.

No, this isn't cp_2melee_fort_a16, it's still DM Melee Fort. Why the control points in the Hud? Well, if you're awesome enough to stand around deep in enemy territory and hog their ring all to yourself...

FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU-

Sudden Death Idlers, your reign of annoyance is finally at an end.

And last but not least, BEHOLD! The brand new RANDOM CHOOSER!

"A big hole in the ground? Asylum, wtf is this shit? You're better than this, why are you wasting our time w-"

and then the boss battle theme from mario land 2 hits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvGe5GqzM1o

One by one, the PUNCH TANK picks off the Heavies representing a game mode, the last Heavy standing being the lucky mode randomly selected. As you'd might guess, "???" means you're about to experience a RANDOM random selection! WHAT A TWEEST! (also im still totally doing mvm melee fort, its just taking a really long time, prease understand)

CHANGES FROM A15
(i had a changelog for a16 but it vanished, heres what i can remember)

GENERAL CHANGES
- Fixed a potentially game-crashing bug that's apparently been here since the very beginning. How it went this long without ever happening is a miracle.
- Added the alcove in the L-Hallways to versions that did not have them (Except PLR and RCTF)
- NEW CHOOSER (officially) ADDED! Introducing the RANDOM Chooser!
- Love and War Update compatibility added

CP CHANGES
- The 2nd Forward Spawns are now inside the train tunnels

CTF CHANGES
- Put barbed wire on the cage doors. No more camping up there either.

DM CHANGES
- Idlers griefing in the spawnroom duting Sudden Death? No problem! Just capture their courtyard ring, and all their spawn protection is disabled for one minute!

KOTH CHANGES
- New spawn rooms in the train tunnels, hooray!

SD CHANGES
- Tweaked the endgame explosion

 

[The Asylum]

i'll just leave this here...

 

[The Asylum]

valve why

you go 7 months without a major update

and then two in less than two weeks

well ok, the new beta maps aren't exactly "major" updates as they aren't quite official just yet, but all I can do now is pray to Amun that they don't break Melee Fort too soon (and even if they do, there's still the failsafe system so i may just say "fuck it").

But on the topic of the new Asteroid base, however. yyler, wherever you are, I want you to know that I AM fucking thinking about it.

Beware, ye of bleached pulpy mettle, the sketchbook page apocalypse is upon thee!

 

[The Asylum]

Boo.

So I'm back, I guess. Lots of shit went down in Asylumland since my last post. I've maybe booted up TF2 three or four times since then. Hammer was only used to plot out furniture/pool table arrangements in my new living room. I've been out of the game for a long ass time, and it looks like I'm not the only one. TF2 seems, well, dead. At least in my old favorite servers, anyway. RD_Asteroid hasn't changed much since last I remember, but at least Valve's creating new assets for it.

Speaking of things that are dead, so is MVM Melee Fort. Shit just does not work in a melee-only setting. Forgive me, yyler.

In it's place, though, I'll be taking DM Melee Fort and turning that into RD Melee Fort! This'll replace the MVM spot on the Random Chooser. The Manual Chooser, however, hrmmm. I'd have to tear down and re-work pretty much everything about the Heavy Bag Hunt if I'm to add another game mode for manual choosing. How that's going to happen, I have no idea. Well, not yet anyway.

On the bright side, it's good to know that I can disappear for a year and find that my failsafe system still works as intended! Hooray foresight!

 

[Moonrat]

Coo?

 

[HQDefault]

Coo?

Doo.

 

[The Asylum]

Foo'

 

[Zed]

Goo.

Eoo.