Quake3World

[Edit: New version up with non-mappack textures and minor layout changes.]

Hey folks, I've been playing around with a basic layout and some movement tricks over the last couple of evenings, and it seems to have evolved into a decent tourney map (at least I've been having fun with the bots).

Other than Hipshot's kickass sky, the texturing is asstastic, as is the lighting and geometry detail, but the only thing I'm concerned about at this point is gameplay. Once that's sorted, I'll dress it up.

Any problems with the flow? Suggestions on improving item/weapon placement? Health quantity? I've put a lot of thought into movement, connectivity, cut-offs, and assorted sneakiness on this, and tried a few different tricks to break up YA/MH/RA, and since the map has a lot of level-over-level and vert, I tried to cluster most of the powerful items toward the bottom as well, to make things a bit more dangerous if someone wants to control said items.

For those of you with the leet madd ninja movement skillz yo, it's possible to get the RA without going through the doors first (i.e. from the side with the teleporters). And it doesn't require weapon jumping/climbing. That's all I'm gonna say (except that the first time I did it, I giggled for about five minutes). First person who figures it out gets a cookie.

Screenies (even though they don't look like much):





Downloads (about 3 meg):
Fileplanet
Scourge34-Is-Cool-Mirror

[Edit: Known issues--the clipping on the long pipe on the wall near RL is h0rked. Weird stuff happens. Will fix. Also, the jumppads won't show up correctly unless you have the Raven Map Pack, but they'll still function properly. You really *should* have the map pack; it's cool.]

Where's my cookie, beyotch?



(I have to say, that is one of the coolest trickjumps I've evar seen. Is it possible to do it without the RJ off the JP?)

wviperw wrote:Where's my cookie, beyotch?



(I have to say, that is one of the coolest trickjumps I've evar seen. Is it possible to do it without the RJ off the JP?)

No cookie for you!!! (I clearly said no weapon jumping/climbing required. )

"it doesn't require weapon jumping/climbing" there's your answer foo.

I'm going to download this now and I'll let you know what I think.

If I get the jump, I won't post a video of that. I don't want to give anything away. But I may send the video to you... that is, if I can get it.

I must be doing something wrong, most of the textures are not visible and I'm getting the "hallodeck" look over 90% of the surfaces. I unzipped the pk4 directly into the q4base folder. Was the wrong?

SonicClang wrote:I must be doing something wrong, most of the textures are not visible and I'm getting the "hallodeck" look over 90% of the surfaces. I unzipped the pk4 directly into the q4base folder. Was the wrong?

That's...weird. Did you actually extract files from the pk4 itself, or did you just extract the pk4 from the .zip? You should only do the latter, and you should end up with the pk4 file sitting in q4base. Now I'm worried that I messed something up, but it worked for wviperw, so I suspect there's something odd on your end.

On another note, I've decided, after more playing and thinking, that I'm dissatisfied with the teleporter set-up. I'm questioning whether you should be able to go RA --> YA quite that quickly...

Things I'm considering are a) having both teles go to the same (lower) dest. This would introduce telefragging as a part of the map strategy. I have mixed feelings. Or b) simply moving the top dest. Question is where? There's not really a place currently that feels good, so I'm considering adding a small hall/stairway/connection of some sort somewhere...

I deleted everything from when I unzipped it and then I just put the pk4 in the q4base folder and it's still doing it.

Let me load a few more levels and see if it happens with them too or not.

Your DM level, High and Dry, works fine.

Here's the error I'm getting.


I just tried re-downloading the file to see if it was corrupt, and I still get the same thing.

Whoops. Sorry man, looks like I unintentionally used texs from the first map pack: http://www.quake3world.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15029

I'll switch them out for the next version. I'd suggest downloading it anyway though; there's some good stuff in there--the CTF map especially.

Ya know what's funny? I was just looking at id's site today and saw that they released a map pack and I almost downloaded it. If I had I would never have known you used different textures. Funny.

It's working now, the pack did it. So that RA jump thing... I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out, just because I know you well enough to know how you think, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to actually GET it.

Ok, you're insane. I'll just have to see you do it because I just have no idea. I can jump all the way to the far teleporter (the one directly beneath the RA), but I can't get enough speed and height to make to the armor.

Thought this was a Q3A map... had been wondering about the strangely flat lighting... drat had been looking forward to some Q3 gaming

Changed the topic to make things more obvious for folks.

Heh. Thanks AEon, and sorry for the confusion--I thought the pjw4 prefix made it sorta obvious, but yeah, it's better to make it explicit.

On another note, I killed one tele-to-the-top and added another physical route (shaft/jumppads) instead. I'll post the newest layout in a while, without mappack textures. It feels better.

One part in particular didn't sit right with me. There's the one really high jump pad, and at the top a door opens to let you through. Well, if you come from the opposite side of that door, there's simply nowhere to go unless you want to jump down and hurt yourself, so most of the time I turn around and run back down. To me this is a dead end, and I don't like it at all. You could add one more path to that section and greatly increase movement.

Besides that one part I think it's pretty good. I anxiously await the updated version... and your explanation on how to get that RA without going through the door. you can e-mail that to me if you'd like. If you don't I'm going to break your arm.

Oh yeah, and I wasn't confused for a second about this being for Q4. pjw stated well over a year ago he was done mapping for Quake 3, anyone who pays attention on this forum should know that. Plus, come on, he works at Raven, why would he NOT map for Quake 4?

Heh, also thought it was a Q3 map at first. Mainly because there isn't much in terms of normalmaps, but I was thinking, 'hrm... how did he get Q3Map2 to generate such crisp lightmap shadow edges?'

SonicClang wrote:there's simply nowhere to go unless you want to jump down and hurt yourself

You can actually walk off where the "caution" decal is and drop down to the slanted wall and go on down without getting hurt, but it's not real obvious and a bit tricky. You can also drop off to the pipe directly below too, but it's also tricky. I'll scoot that pipe over a bit to allow you to do that more easily.

I'll hold off on the RA trickjump explanation for a while--someone will get it (wviperw is close).

[Edit: Map is updated--same link. No more mappack textures. Only one tele now, and a new shaft area with jumppads from bottom to top. Various weapon/item shiftage (although MH and armors stayed put). It feels better now, although a bit bigger. I certainly wouldn't want to add any more to it at this point.

This is feeling pretty good to me. Unless I get any brilliant ideas or complaints over the next few days or so, I'm probably going to start making it actually look good and working towards beta.]

Yeah I know you can drop down to the pipe from that top part, but in the middle of a battle you're not going to take the time to drop just so. But I guess there are worse things that having to drop and lose 5 or 10 health.

I might send you a short video of me attempting to get the RA and you can tell me if I'm close. I know it has to do with the tiny little bit of a ramp right as you're going off the ledge, but how you have to get enough speed to make the jump is beyond me.

SonicClang wrote:you can tell me if I'm close

You have mail.

On another note, I just realized that I screwed up the clipping a bit on that pipe you drop down to, and...well...weird things happen. It will be fixed for the beta.

You mean like when you walk into the corner you can walk on air?

Okay, time to get my cookies...

Managed to get the ra from another way than thru the door without using weapons. Actually found three similar but different routes. Here are the (net)demos(q4max .71). Also I included a little demo where I encountered a small glitch where you can slip between a pipe and a wall, quite annoying, since you can spam most parts of the map from there.

Finally here are my 0,02€ about the map itself: first of all, I enjoyed the quite unusual layout a lot, although the flow is a bit choppy in the beginning. I would think about removing the one-sided door near the ya, at least make it passable from both sides. Now it's kind of a dead end there.
I also hope it gets more easier to navigate with better texture work, because I still get lost on the map several times. Dunno about the items, I'm not that 1on1 pro to give you advice here, sorry.
Ah almost forgot it: remove or clip this ledge please. Would make a decent camping spot, but maybe this problem gets also solved with removing the door.
[lvlshot]http://www.tzi.de/~maze/ledge.jpg[/lvlshot]

When I try playing those demos I get an error
.......GAME MAP SHUTDOWN......
.................................................
stopped playing.
.......GAME MAP SHUTDOWN......
.................................................
*******************
ERROR: Bad render demo token
*******************

Any ideas? Do I need to place the demo files somewhere else? I put then in q4base/demos.

@SonicClang: d/l Q4Max and q4replay from the Q4D forum.

maz0r wrote:a small glitch where you can slip between a pipe and a wall, quite annoying, since you can spam most parts of the map from there.

Yeah, that's the clipping issue I referred to above; I screwed up the clipping when I messed with the pipe. It's fixed.

maz0r wrote:I would think about removing the one-sided door near the ya, at least make it passable from both sides. Now it's kind of a dead end there.

Hmmn. The only reason it's one-way is to make YA-->MH a bit more involved and dangerous. When it wasn't, you could simply drop down the shaft and be next to MH...at least this way you need to expose yourself a bit. Although I have moved YA nearer HB and rearranged that top area a bit in the latest version, so maybe I'll go ahead and kill the one-way door.

maz0r wrote:I also hope it gets more easier to navigate with better texture work

It will. It's pretty plain right now.

maz0r wrote:Ah almost forgot it: remove or clip this ledge please.

Why? If it would make a decent camp spot, why not leave it? I'm not getting why it's a problem...

Thanks a lot for the demos! They made my day. (And I didn't even think you could make it from the #2 spot, although I was aware of both 1 and 3. Nice job. Cookie for you:



(Sorry, it's kinda busticated, but it tastes good.]

hmmm delicious, thanx pjw

The problem _I_ have with the camping spot, is that it is very secure to camp there. You can only be attacked by someone coming up the jumppad, since the ceiling is too high and the ledge big enough to avoid splash damage from rockets spammed from below. And this makes the spot a secure frag when you wait for your enemy coming up.
Maybe it's just me, but I hate other people getting frags without having any chance to do something against it. A good solution will be, if you make the ledge small enough to be able to hurt your foe with some spam rockets.

Oh and I wasnt aware that you knew about the clipping thing. Must have read over your text passage. Shame on me. I just dropped in there accidentally ...