(WIP) pl_smoke

[Ida]

Well, watching that demo was indeed very helpful.

It seems that BLU used lower and upper shortcuts frequently and even put up sentries covering the final point, while RED didn't even put up a forwards spawn there even once. That's a problem, since that's exactly the opposite of what I intended.

Now, I will for sure turn around those stairs to make them more welcoming to RED and more risky for BLU to enter. I will also make a gate that remains closed until the first point is capped, to make sure BLU doesn't get a lot of time to hide any sentries in there before RED gets there. With a team of at least one competent Engineer, it should then be a lot easier to secure the upper spawn and use it as a forward base. As I mentioned before, all other entrances to areas that are designed for use by RED are now partly or fully blocked as well.

I'm not going to address the spawn camping problem itself yet, because I'm sure the roots lie in how easy it is to defend the final point.

 

[Ida]

Alright, alpha 2 will be out tomorrow. Here are the changes I've made so far:

- Replaced the doors in RED spawn with see-through gates. These gates disappear after opening on setup finish
- The RED spawn is now a waiting room. The actual spawn room is a new room, that leads to this waiting room. It also has an exit straight out to the battlements.
- Flipped the stairs next to the RED spawn around so that the steps are right next to spawn, encouraging more frequent use of the shortcut by RED
- Added gates to the entrances of the two "shortcuts" in the map, that open when the first point has been taken.
- Added one-way gates to said "shortcut", to prevent defending Soldiers/Scouts/Demomen from entering them.
- Slight changes to the wooden structure near BLU spawn.

EDIT: - Removed the water puddle near BLU spawn. It made the area feel very claustrophobic. It was also made in the first place to remove fall damage for attackers, but that's really not a big deal.

 

[Ida]

Gah, triple post. D: Sorry.

Anyway. *ahem*
Alpha 2 is released! Go get it now!
http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=528

...And here is Alpha 2a:
http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=529
I didn't know there were any problems with the cart texture until recently, so this should fix any problems with the cart textures.

^These two are obsolete.

 

[Ida]

And here's Alpha 2b:
http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=534

Yeah, the cart texture problem wasn't fixed, apparently. But now it should be.

I'd really really appreciate it if someone would want to playtest this version on a server so I could get some more feedback. That's what I need the most now, I can't really progress much further before I have more feedback.
(So in the meantime, I guess I'll do stage 2)

EDIT: Err, admins: If there's a merge post function, feel free to go crazy with it if you don't like my quadruple posting.

 

[Ida]

NEWS FLASH: I've finally realised how stupid it is to have BLU defending. For the next release, I'll convert the system so that BLU attacks and RED defends, remove as many giant walls as I can and replace them with some other scenery and probably increase the length of the stage a bit.

That'll take time, but if I can somehow find a way to revive my scanner, I'll show a sketch of how I hope to make it look.

Also, I seem to have completely forgotten to update the topic with alpha 2c, so here we go:
http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=535