arena map i'm working on for the ducksoup arena contest. the name comes from the environmental trap. the map is reflectionally symmetry (like lumberyard and ravine). the 2 key ideas in mind are: heavy industrial, including lots of pipes, a certain amount of environmental fog, and if i can fit it in (read: if i can work out how to do it), maybe even some particle effects of gas escaping from pipes. the other key idea is the furnace. - there is a large health pack in a small room. however, if anyone sees you enter the room they can shoot/touch one of a number of buttons to seal the door, and roast anyone inside. so it's up to you if you want to risk going for that juicy health pack. the lighting - i'm still toying with it, particularly in the area in screenshot2. i was going from a gloomy sorta environment, so the outside areas have a night sky, and the inside areas are sharp contrasts of dark and light. a4 + b1: sound tweeking steam effects added lighting origins and view distances modified reduced "spawn room" size slightly added a global "chime" sound when the furnace is activated further details a3: tweeked kill effect of the furnace continuing to add more details around the map map name changed to refinery (previously: arena_furnace) added a teleport area to prevent people getting stuck off the map a2: iron vats, moving buckets, and minor details 3d skybox sounds added to the furnace a1: added sniper rooms a0: basic gameplay + furnace mechanics
A large health pack seems too much for me. Anyone with few HP will take the risk without hesitation...
Same filename, different gametype. I don't want people confusing our map with yours or your map with ours.
cp_furnace arena_furnace To the average punter thats no difference what-so-ever. It suggests we've turned furnace creek into an arena map. And if it doesn't suggest that there will be people playing one and thinking its the other. Its not the accepted thing to do, to use a map name already in use.
arena_incinerator arena_incinerate arena_forge arena_smithy arena_cremator arena_heatstroke Shouldn't be too hard to think of a suitable substitute.
either arena_smelter or arena_refinery i guess then although most people who've played it are telling me to be stubborn, but being stubbonr never solves anything...
It is kinda bland, no really pop or anything that sticks out, it has a very um... generic FPSish look to it. Put more RED/BLU textures in it or make the molten steel play more of a role in gameplay.
play more of a role in the game beyond killing you if you fall into it? i'm afraid i'm not sure what you're getting at here? what more gameplay effects could it have? also, not sure what you mean by generic FPS looking. FPS covers a vast array of themes from space stations and antarctic bases, to jungles and even the hanging gardens of babylon. i suppose it looks slightly less toony than a typical valve tf2 map, but i was going for something more foreboding than the 2fort farm theme. the way it looks is from my decision of wanting a gloomy feel from both the fact it's set at night and that i felt a dimly lit structure would fit the idea of a refinery better than a well lit spy-tech themed structure.
version beta2 is out. also is there anyway to change a thread's title? (since the name is refinery not furnace now)
I would break up the "white space" you have on a lot of the walls, especially at the mid point. In the main hallway just outside of spawn I would add a truck at one end and some large crates at the other to break up the sight lines. Add some office space with windows overlooking the arena CP, maybe an extension of the "snipers nests" on either side, just not accessible to players? You have a lot of neat details on the top half of the map, like all the crazy backlit stuff behind the furnace, those imposing windows opposite the furnace, but there's nothing really below the gray/green "bathtub ring". Maybe you could add some fenced off storage areas below the ring. Take a look at how empty white space is handled on maps like junction, freight, steel and others - lots of fenced off rooms with large objects in the background. Maybe a fenced off area where workers are repairing those giant buckets? Heaps of coal fenced off at ground level on the other side. Behind that racks of data tape or something. One last suggestion, the four rooms behind the point there on the second level, if you could better define which are on red and which on blue that would help. I've probably played 8 hours on this map and still get confused as to what side I'm on. Don't get me wrong I love this map and it plays great, but it's hard to keep new players to stick around due to the perhaps overly stark color scheme. I think game play is perfect and everyone loves "the oven" as it's lovingly referred to on our server. Fix the white space issues and I'd love to try and add it to our rotation on the server. Thanks for a great map!
thanks zpqrei. the white space thing you mentioned hadlock, i've had in mind to expand the back wall so it's open and overlooking a lower level (which i'd shape to look like that robot factory in attack of the clones (at least i think it was attack of the clones...) the reason i've not done so yet is because of A: time constraints and B: concern on how this would effect the FPS. there was also the fact that the map was for a contest that was to end on the 8th july (but now has been extended a month). anyway - i'll try and squeeze in time to put out a new version, some time this summer. with regards to the long passageways from the spawn rooms - i don't want to put a truck just inside as it didn't look right when i did. however, using pipes going across the the passage, i could, and probably will create "walls" of pipes with doorways in them to break it up some more. the store rooms in the back of the map - i could make them look more red/blu but i'm not sold on the necessity of it really, since in arena there isn't really any "sides" that one team owns over the other. ... i'll look into it and see if i can do something that's both fitting asthetically, and looks clearly red/blu.
