Ironwood by Pat Howard [FINAL]

[Pat Howard]

Ironwood by Pat Howard

DOWNLOAD LATEST VERSION (JULY 14, 2014): FINAL 12.0mb
GAMETYPE: SMALL CTF
BOTS: YES
SEXY VISUALZ: OBVY

[lvlshot]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3305662/baseq3/screenshots/ironwood/shot0091.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3305662/baseq3/screenshots/ironwood/shot0082.jpg[/lvlshot]

Please let me know of any bugs, or whatever you think of the map. I may be able to use your suggestion. If not, your feedback will help me create better maps in the future. Thanks a bunch!

-pat
lvlpathoward[at]gmail[dot]com
http://lvlworld.com/author.php?q=Pat%20Howard

[Pat Howard]

hello everone, first map in quite a while! i'm making a small ctf map for the maverick competition.

looking for feedback...
- item placement
- scale
- paths
- overall balance
- whatever.

thanks very much!
-pat

[Pat Howard]

alpha II is up. see first post for link. the update improves on movement and scale of areas. i'm hoping the map will play faster now. feedback much appreciated!

-pat

p.s. does anyone know why the areaportals for my two center room doors on the upper level are not working? do i need to seal off the lower level entrance with a door too?

[obsidian]

Does anyone know why the areaportals for my two center room doors on the upper level are not working? do i need to seal off the lower level entrance with a door too?

Yes, areaportals must be completely sealed off from one another for them to work. So if you have two doorways to the same section of a map, both have to be filled with areaportal.

[Pat Howard]

okay, thanks. alpha 3 is up. this will probably be the last alpha. as always, feedback appreciated whether you want to put it here or on the maverick page.

changes...

- added third path inside each base
- re-did item placement.

[AEon]

Mind you I am not a CTF player...

Some things I noted:

• The fog-of-death thing, IMO, should be rethought. In a small map having several folks on your tail, plus no way to avoid them easily (corridors also narrow, per se OK), you really get stressed out when you also have to look out where you step all the time.
• The overall feel was compact, takes a bit to get used to less than ample corridors. Especially the doorways felt cramped. Note this is just a feeling because most recent maps have much more space to move.
• Central Arena: The two jumppads' flight path almost clobbers you into the ceiling of the upper level. You might want to carve out some ceiling space for the landing area.
• Lifting the central arena's ceiling by a factor of two or so with a sky would make the map less claustrophic, IMO.
• I felt the upper path, though long, was by far the safer and my preferred path. Trying to run the lower path past the JPs felt very vulnerable. The problem I see here is that one sniper should pretty much control the complete central arena. Some glass "fences" might be a good idea to better protect players on the lower level. Plus carve into the walls behind the JPs to make more room to move.
• Now this is a slightly contradictory point of view. But when on the upper path I was *really* scared to jump down the first time I had the flag. Indenting the lower level, to not be directly under the upper level would help here. Or add some "landing areas" at strategic points on the lower level (over the fog) to let folks change path from upper to lower path without suiciding.
• I still believe you should carve into the walls more to not have the upper and lower path share the very same tight space central arena.
• A third path was another thing I was considering.
• Obviously, you will be adding more direction arrows for dummies like myself to better orientate?
• I felt the railgun in such a cramped slightly overpowering, especially in the cental area and around the bases.

Just some thoughts... maybe there was something useful in the list.

[Pat Howard]

Bump. back to work on this. lots of changes so please take a look (first post) and let me know what you think.

- expanded flagrooms
- increased scale
- removed high launch pads in center atrium
- removed death pits in flag rooms
- more play between high and low routes
- removed LG

thanks,
-pat

[AEon]

Some thoughts:

• The overall wider corridor paths help.
• The shorter path at the upper level statues too... makes them less of a trap.
• Closing all the pits in the bases helps.
• JP destination landing areas in the main arena and the bases are strangely lacking in head room, i.e. the ceiling is much too low for no apparent reason, making those areas feel cramped. Depending on how you use the JPs you even can bump your head.
• I would try and integrate the base JPs near the flags more into the wall geometry, instead of placing it "somewhere" on the floor.
• Use a cylinder patch for the JP in the main base (near flag), that way the top is perfectly round like the JP textures... the rounded off square patch wastes tris and looks weird IMO.
• In the main arena you have a "tall step" next to the GL... I felt that was a path "stopper"... and the bots will not be able to take this path either. Just add another step or two there.
• The RA pad in the middle of the map, represents the direct path with some risk... obviously the bots will be barred using this path as well. You might consider adding some form of narrow bridge to not block this path. A narrow grated bridge would still have a high level of risk, i.e. of getting pushed into the abyss, but the bots would have a chance to actually take that path.
• About the vertical fighting... standing on the main arena upper ring, you have to "carefully" stand at the edge to shoot down... in a fast game that will probably rarely work, since on the lower level the player will already have run past the zone of danger (in the line of sight from the upper level). You can look into the the other base area, so that may not be all bad... but I don't see defending your own base from the upper level as that valid. Defending the own base upper path, per se, should be OK, but you then need another player to do so on the lower level as well.
• I still have the feeling that using the lower levels outer wall ring radius, and using that for the upper level's inner ring radius, i.e. upper level ring is concentric to the lower level ring... might be better. I.e. letting you actually jump down from the upper level to the lower one without falling into the pit. Idea behind this would be to integrate the whole lower area into the vertical fighting. Maybe applying my idea for an asymmetric 50% of the arenas upper floor might work well, to keep some cover for the lower level.

[j3st3r]

Think there needs to be another lower path. Maybe that cuts thru the ra pillar?

[Pat Howard]

thanks for the feedback, AEon and j3st3r. i've updated the link with version five. i've decided to just cover the central fog pit with a grate. i feel it was making the top path too imba, because taking the low path meant risking falling in every time.

please let me know if you have any more suggestions. i am pretty much out of ideas for improving this layout and i think i might be ready to move on to the next stage.

[fKd]

everything looks in order, the mid jp's feel a bit floaty and i'd raise the ceilings on all the upper levels by about x2. apart from that it looks like its ready to get detailed. also, not sure about having a medkit in the bases.. but thats more something for the gameplay techs to discuss..

[roughrider]

SInce I'm a CTF kind of guy, I'll take a looksy and run around in it for a bit. Will come back with thoughts later

[Pat Howard]

@pete, thanks .

@roughrider, looking forward to it. i just put up an updated version which you might be interested in. i am trying to make the low route as fast as possible here and i've also shrunk the center area slightly. it's still alpha five since i can't say i've made any major changes. no worries if you comment on the older version.

[roughrider]

I grabbed the newer one and will add fresh thoughts after running around again.

[roughrider]

One thing I would strongly suggest doing, which AEon mentioned already, is in the central area where the gl's are located, that needs to have a step added there. Even though the outer edge has a lowered piece to it so the bots can go up, it still tends to be a stopper spot especially if someone is "on guard" in that area and then have to make a quick turn, that makes for a sure annoyance.

shot0068.jpg

This next shot, it looks rather awkward to have that "piece" under the health ball. IMO, I think you need to remove all of those that you have under weapons and the various health balls and replace all the weapon location ones with the weapon markers. If you have 3wave maps then while in GTKRadiant, look in texures->ctf-> ctf_unified and you will see the weap_floor decals along with base logo floor and wall decals as well. I strongly suggest not putting anything under the health balls

shot0069.jpg

Here in this next shot, I don't know if this was intentional or not but, in the drop down holes you have in each base here, little "ledges" are on back part of that wall in the screeny where someone can hop over the hole and stand on those itty-bitty pieces and camp that.

shot0070.jpg

Other notes:
The speed from base to base, regardless of which path you take (upper or lower), is relatively fast. Only hang-ups I noticed were the previously mentioned gl spots. The jp's in the central area seem ok to me but the jp's in the base close to the flag I recommend changing. I would remove those and drop in the jp decals, which you can also find in the ctf_unified textures.
When doing the decals, make them 1 or 2 units tall and put them 1 or 2 units above the floor so they look right. If you set them right on the floor, sometimes it tends to not show at all or you will get z-fighting.
There are a few other locations that could use some changes and I'll touch on them again in my next post, I want to run around a little bit more before I get into that.

Hope this helps ya some.

[Pat Howard]

got back to work on this .

[lvlshot]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3305662/baseq3/screenshots/phctf1/ironwood.png[/lvlshot]

using phant's textures from windsong keep with permission.

[AEon]

Makes the map look quite medieval... screenshot looks promising.

[Pat Howard]

BETA is finally up!

still to do:

-add some sounds
-touch up lighting & texture alignment
-refine performance

[fKd]

have you done a clipping pass yet? Also i found an overlapping brush, i'll put up a screenshot when i get home.

[Pat Howard]

yep, i have. but i am sure there are some spots i forgot about. thanks for taking a look.

[Pat Howard]

anyone know why i am seeing the q3a symbols on my flags on some computers but not others? (compare the flags in this shot to the ones in the very first shot of this thread.)

[lvlshot]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3305662/baseq3/screenshots/phctf1/flags.jpg[/lvlshot]

[Theftbot]

Try on a clean install

[sst13]

Missing Q3 logo = missing shader

[deqer]

From the screenshots, it looks like there's just not enough color for the blue/red sides. The red flags and windows just isn't enough, for some people.

For me, simplicity is key, and I'd rather know what side I'm on or what side to travel to without directly looking for these things, but rather to simply know (by peripheral vision) where I am.

So, I think adding red/blue trim along the whole map would improve this.

Edit:
Thick, bright, lighted trim.

I see that you have some colored flooring, which helps; but those colors are too bland; so, a player might think those colors are just part of the overall castle theme, rather seeing those colors as a clear indication of what side(red/blue) they are on.

[Pat Howard]

thanks for feedback, everyone!

@deqer, this was one of my main issues with this map from an artistic standpoint. imo, lights of any kind really don't fit into the theme here. i tried a bunch of times to create red/blue trim textures that "fit in", but they always ended up clashing with the map's subdued colors.

between the torches, flags, stained glass, and fog pits, i think i have just enough color indicators for the average player. i will still look for more ways to work red/blue into the map though.