Swamplands

[StickZer0]

Hey babes, played this with bots this morning because I couldn't make it last night ;D

I know the bots won't give proper feedback, but here's some stuff I saw about the map.
This area has always seemed kinda spammy - there's no way a player can get around without facing spam. Look at goldrush stage 1, spies can take a sidepath and cloak past a lot of the spam while avoiding the major chokepoint. Maybe knock a hallfway through that rock on the left going into the building?

I went through that doorway so many times when using the forward spawn, and each time it really annoyed me that to drop down, I either had to take fall damage, or I had to jump in the water and fumble my way out.

I had a pretty good time as blue wrangling from here. Not sure if yo might want to add some cover or something up there though. Keep the full ammo pack.

This area's problem? There's no cover, red can just happily spam away and the cart won't get much further. And if you try taking the flank route, you come out

here, with again, no cover from red. I know blue can spam downwards but a wrangled lvl 3 sentry down there and a pyro to reflect explosives spam and that point is locked down. Luckily there is the side flank if blue want to uber in.

So to recap:
Blue need more routes for flanking round
Red need their sightlines cut at the end because its two sightlines, one after another
The water is annoying to have to jump into to avoid fall damage.

 

[J4CK8]

-17/08/2010-
Alpha 5a release
-Fixed stickies on RED doors
-Fixed RED's forward spawn not disabling
-Added some rocks that provide limited cover in some areas
-Added a small route through cap C
-Added a small route through the cave into the building near cap A

Small update for pre-gameday fixes. I also encountered the spam area with bots. Shame bots don't seem to remember where a sentry is, so instead they just run into its fire. They also wouldn't realise that the raft was blocking them from getting out of the water, so drowned.

EDIT: 2 areaportals, one in each of red's spawns, aren't working properly and are both acting as if the void is behind them. Both are the small doors too oddly.

 

[Captain Hatman]

It's good, but a little too attacker-friendly for my tastes. It didn't feel like red really had much hope of a successful defence unless the blue team was actively incompetent, which isn't how it should be.

also, there are serious problems with the area portals. Many of them look like windows into infinity. I'd recommend deleting the lot of them for now.

The upturned boat that serves as a ramp is neat, but can be a little tricky to get off. I'd recommend angling the edge of the platform it leads up onto to make dismounting easier.

Similarly, the water in the airboat area could be a little tricky to get out of.

I found that trying to stand on the airboat next to the cart just resulted in getting left behind by it, and not being able to run to keep up.

Finally, I felt that by the time the blue team are pushing the final CP, they've got a hell of a trek in front of them and really have to rely on their engineers. the big obstacle appears to be the ridge with the upturned boat ramp, immediately outside the spawn. if we didn't have to go around or over that, it would feel a lot less like you have a long way to go. Perhaps a door that opens when the penultimate CP is taken?

I had a lot of fun, but I definitely think it needs a few tweaks.

 

[Ida]

DAT RAFT

It is awesome.

As for the rest of it, I think it plays pretty well for the first part of the map. I had fun! But I do agree that it can be too attacker friendly, at least in the part after the raft ride, before the last point.

But the last point is what needs the most work. It's small and cramped - For defenders it's a deathtrap because of all the spam that rains in there, yet the attackers can't really push in because the doorways are so inconvenient and there are sentries you can't get an angle on unless you're right in the middle of the room. I think that one room at the end basically needs a big overhaul.

 

[DaBeatzProject]

1) give the raft a trainwatcher - it'll prevent people from getting stuck on it!
2) this this this this and this.

Okay that last thing has nothing to do with your map Although I must say that naked burning heavy scared me.

 

[Mr.Late]

[1] Fix those glitches

[2] Jumping through this window is annoying...

[3] I think there is a pretty long sight line, but I am not sure...

[4] Sight line

[5] Glitch

Imo the starting area needs more ammo, it was hard to build up a sentry in time.
Looks nice so far!

 

[Karnage]

This map was awesome. I think there needs to be more ramps out of the water, or sloped riverside, something like that. I'm not really sure why but blu had it too easy. I really liked those doors into infinity. You know, the ones that you couldn't tell what was on the other side and looked like you were walking into another realm or something.... jks fix those areaportals
can't wait to see the next version

 

[J4CK8]

-02/09/2010-
Alpha a6b release
-Fixed walkway not opening/closing at the right time
-Rebuilt the final point again
-Expanded the first control point area
-Various other fixes

Push the cart up here...


Through here...



Onto the airboat raft...


Around here...



And out off the edge...

 

[Tyker]

There is something wrong with the water/area portals here. Weird wireframe things popping up.

Apart from that, liked the map. Had fun. I do think you should place the swamp-speed-boat behind the buoys, instead of in the gameplay area it is now.

 

[Okrean]

Ive only breifly played through it, but from what I saw the map was brilliant.

I did however notice some strange white wireframes popping up near the water. I don't know enough about Hammer to know why that is happening. It might just be on my end.

Also, its very hard to move on the raft. The raft moves on and you stay static. I can imagine it being very cool having a heavy moving along on the raft shooting at the banks. If not it may be an idea to allow players to push the cart from the banks of the river aswell, instead of having to tred in the water.

Great map, keep it up ;-)

 

[J4CK8]

Swamplands- Now with a brand new look!

I'm hoping the new layout will eliminate most of the old versions problems. I've aimed to make it more open in areas causing less spam fests and chokepoints, as well as majorly reducing the distance which the cart travels across the water.

Push the cart up here...




Through here...


Across the water...


Around here...


And out off the edge...


​

 

[Tyker]

So you're using VIDE still.

Yeah, sad thing is, it's useless. It has some errors that completely screw up any packing whatsoever. I had it with drag too. All you can do is go back to packrat, load all the textures and then just eliminate the ones you don't use. It's lots of work, but I haven't found another way yet.

VIDE is the thing causing the water to disappear and the wireframes to pop up. I hope somebody else can make a tool that detects textures on props and works without bugs soon

Apart from that, I can't give you any feedback on the gameplay because my internets went awry

 

[Mr.Late]

Yep...

Map plays quite well, it just seems to be a quite roll for blu though except the last point.

 

[J4CK8]

-17/10/2010-
Alpha a8 release
-New sentry positions around cap one and two
-Balcony added over cp two
-Altered capture reward times
-Altered respawn times
-Textured ground and cliff faces

Packed with PackBSP this time, hopefully should have worked.

 

[Wilson]

You know, i am really wondering what is map filesize going to be when this reach beta.
I mean, if you going to use swamp theme to pretty much everything on this size map, the filesize is going to be pretty large. (Drag is almost big as this and it was 123mb at one point)

Anyhow, i like the map a lot and you should enter it to next EU gameday.

 

[J4CK8]

You know, i am really wondering what is map filesize going to be when this reach beta.
I mean, if you going to use swamp theme to pretty much everything on this size map, the filesize is going to be pretty large. (Drag is almost big as this and it was 123mb at one point)

Anyhow, i like the map a lot and you should enter it to next EU gameday.

Thnaks, and I will hopefully be entering in the next gameday. As for the size...I know it's going to be huge if I ever finish it. My swamp themed artpass map (which had near enough all of the props, most of the textures and a couple of particles) was 153mb...and that was a pretty small map. :unsure: I can just pray that Valve decides to make the swamp pack official

I'm pretty sure my next map won't be a swamp themed map though. Too much work pakking it properly (and remembering to pack it) and uploading it takes forever.

 

[Tyker]

With 3DNJs artpass, a lot of the swamp theme is going to go official. So this map (and any other swamp map) are going to seriously reduce in size!

I hope it will happen soon.

 

[Terr]

Packed with PackBSP this time, hopefully should have worked.

I may seem to be sort of dead (Curse you, Minecraft!) but if anything doesn't please file a bug report and I'll investigate.

 

[J4CK8]

-25/10/2010-
Alpha a9a release
-Altered position of the caps
-Red forward spawn now has 2 exit points
--->One leading to cp two, locks after cp one is capped
--->One leading to cp three, locks after cp two is capped
-Blue Now have a second forward spawn enabled after cp four is capped
-Raft should be much more playable with less chance of getting stuck
--->Shouldn't be able to be permanantly stuck
--->Can however be stuck momentarily if the raft 'runs over' you
-Fixed other bugs listed on the feedback page

 

[Okrag]

Self explanatory.