PLR Snowthistle B5b

[Maid]

I love how this is starting to shape. Medieval maps have never gotten the limelight... Hoping to play it again soon!

It's not medieval but tysm!!!!

 

[Maid]

- Changed rocks and cliffs to AsG_Alligator's mossy versions.
- Roughed up tops of ruined walls with very small displacements.
- Rimmed and retextured stairs.
- Metal flooring in right spawn tunnel.
- Changed bushes.
- Thinned cables.
- Lighting changes.
- Blocklighted the spawnroom doors.
- Made it foggier.
- Attempts at optimisation.

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[Wyvern]

I really like how this map is turning out, awesome job detailing! In a few areas it seemed that the cobblestone texture looked a little 'blown up', but I'm super nit-picky, so it probably won't matter too much. Awesome work!

Spoiler: Example

The stone wall nearest the camera looks a little bit out of proportion imo, but the rest looks really good so far.

 

[Maid]

I really like how this map is turning out, awesome job detailing! In a few areas it seemed that the cobblestone texture looked a little 'blown up', but I'm super nit-picky, so it probably won't matter too much. Awesome work!

Spoiler: Example

The stone wall nearest the camera looks a little bit out of proportion imo, but the rest looks really good so far.

Thank you!! I see what you mean there, but I think it might just be that section of the texture that has a lot of large rocks - it's the same texture scale as everywhere else. I might try it out with a different part of the texture in future n see how it looks.

 

[Maid]

- Added signs for speedup by checkpoints.
- Added a custom poster as a lil signature.
- Mentioned cart speedup in setup onscreen text.
- Nobuilded under some foliage.
- Added a rock under a bush by spawn to lessen potential of camping.
- Messed around with a lotta prop lighting and lightmaps - I don't think anything can fix the ivy underneath the wood platforms. :/

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[Simon.R.K]

The map design reminds me on DeGroot Keep and Viaduct. I like the gamemode idea and especially the ideas and details of the map. Rotating spawndoors, dancing Robo-Engi, slippery ice lake.

 

[Vhonny Barjo]

Any chance to play this somewhere soon?

 

[Maid]

Any chance to play this somewhere soon?

It's part of the Payload Checklist Contest, so casual playtests are being hosted regularly on the tf2maps servers - there's quite a few maps total so it won't be played every day, but that'd be the best place to play it with a relatively full server of people - the same goes for all the other contest maps, if you're asking so you can vote.

 

[Maid]

It's been about two years since I started this map, and more than a year and a half since I last updated it. There's a lot of things I really like about it and quite a few things I think could be much better, not to mention I've had a huge amount of playtesting on the most recent version from the contest judging period. This update is focused more on gameplay refinements than visuals. Let's hope I haven't ruined it

- Fully tore out and rebuilt spawn areas, which are currently remaining undetailed while they're being tested. The new spawns should vibe a bit more Gravelpit.
- Generally a lot of the visuals around spawns and spawn yards rn are work-in-progress while I'm playtesting this change.
- Relocated waterfalls.
- Added a spot in the first corner on the spiral ramp where you can crouch jump to the nearby ledge.
- Slightly moved pickups at lower floor of mid inside the central tower, to be more visible and in a less tight space.
- Turned clipping above corner towers into shorter spikes with trigger_pushes, which should hopefully be less obtrusive to jump classes.
- General geometry and displacement adjustments, especially with the aim of creating less awkward little spaces to get stuck in during combat.
- Messed with prop lighting settings.
- Swapped mossy rocks for plain or frosty equivalents (might try find or make a frosty waterfall rock skin later).
- Additional debris and supports.
- Removed cables for now.
- Disabled far-z clip plane.
- HDR changes.
- Some additional optimisation, not done by any means. The map is no longer a diaper skybox !!!
- Fixed a small logic issue concerning cart checkpoint skin changes.
- Removed flame effect from carts. Will likely make a decision about cart behaviour after round win in future versions, since the current behaviour is an issue for some people.
- Quite significantly reduced amount of unnecessary custom content.

Also, if you can think of a better name for the map, pls hit me up on discord with it! 'Snowthistle' was always meant to be temporary and I'd love to find something better fitting

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[Gravidea]

Hey! Not sure if it's just not added yet, but it seems like the clips around the map preventing you from going outside the intended borders are missing! Figured I'd let you know, just in case it was a mistake and you turned them off before compiling. Good map by the way! I'm interested to see where this goes.

 

[Maid]

lmao thank you for telling me!

 

[Maid]

so i compiled b4 with toolbrushes off lol
ty gravidea for telling me

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[Maid]

Back for more, nearly a year after the last update! This update mainly focuses on optimisation and lighting, with some layout adjustments sprinkled in for flavour.

- Removed an entrance to mid on each team's left side. This entrance was underused, awkward to leave through, opened up a problematic sightline and hit frames hard, so it's gone. Entering mid from this area is still not too difficult, as you can simply go around the wall or go over, so it hopefully shouldn't impact player flow. I've added an arrow sign to indicate the existing route into mid around the wall.
- Added a truck prop in that left side area to give a bit more interest and opportunities for spy and teleporter play to a now sparse zone.
- Added an internal ramp over the barbed wire wall at mid to make moving through that area more streamlined.
- Changed the floor texture of mid to something less visually noisy but still in the same spirit.
- Changed the most controversial part of this map - the cart explosion now explodes both carts instead of turning one into a phys object. I fully expect public outcry from this decision.
- Changes to spawn: right internal exit is now wider and more direct, and left external exit has been pulled back along with the internal exit being moved slightly to make the cave transition more direct. Restructured the inside slightly to accomodate these changes. The spawns are still completely undetailed, as these changes still need testing.
- Lighting improvements over the entire map, and lots of general ghost lighting, to hopefully make many areas more clear, especially where fog would help to hide sentries or players against dark walls. Have also brightened the ambient light colour to help problematic shadows a bit.
- Moved back the start of the fog a little bit for the same reason.
- Minor visual improvements, mainly to add more interest to sparse areas and better denote team side ownership at a glance.
- General clipping and geometry improvements around the map, mainly continuing the aim of having less weird spaces to get stuck on or in while fighting, and balancing sniper/engie spots.
- Turned a few fences into world geo where them being transparent was unnecessary and just worsened optimisation.
- A LOT of optimisation (hinting, occluders, areaportals), especially around and across mid, which should hopefully make a positive difference!
- Added fade distances to most smaller props on the map.
- Slightly tweaked the explosion particles.
- Many, many minor tweaks n fixes to weird stuff from 2018.
- i tried to add an env_sun but every time i did it broke my vmf.

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[Yaki]

- i tried to add an env_sun but every time i did it broke my vmf.

Setting angle on this will crash the map.

For reference, Da Spud Lord's FGD removes this bit:

//angle(float) : "Yaw" : 0 : "Override for Yaw in Pitch Yaw Roll, similar to Pitch." // FICOOOOOOOOOL THIS CRASHES THE GAME FICOOOOOOOOOL YOU CANT DO THIS FICOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

 

[Maid]

Throwing it out here for advice - I've been looking to rename this map since it was first released, since I've never been satisfied with Snowthistle as a name. However, I've not got many ideas - I was inspired by seeing the word Halcyon this morning and wondered whether that would make a good name (meaning a period of tranquility, and also a mythological bird that nests at the winter solstice) but opinion on that from discussing it on the discord isn't super positive as people don't consider it particularly memorable or communicative of the map's nature.

Has anyone got any ideas to offer? I'm most interested in single-word names, especially those with double meanings reflecting elements of the map - the location, vibe, weather, or most preferably the cyclical gamemode.

 

[MegapiemanPHD]

What about winterhaus. It literally means winter house but has the old world german twist with haus that could easily also mean castle.

 

[Katsu! :3]

Any plans to bring this to rc1 soon?

 

[Maid]

Any plans to bring this to rc1 soon?

I'm working on it on-and-off, but there's still a lot to do before it's rc ready - the spawns remain undetailed, there's no 3d skybox, there's a lot of optimisation stuff to work out and i've got countless other minor things i could probably change before i call myself happy with it

 

[Maid]

Maid updated Snowthistle with a new update entry:

Version B5b

- implemented an overtime bugfix by Le Codex.
- fixed a single wrong decimal causing blue to win 70% of matches. ive known about this unbalance for YEARS but only worked out what was causing it this morning due to a random discord message.
- both these bugfixes have been implemented into the gamemode prefab.
- added cubemaps throughout the map.
- minor prop changes.

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