Quake3World

Here's the alpha of my first CTF map for q3a.

Hope some of you find the time to give it a try and comment on the usual things. I'm especially interested on whether the flag rooms are to hard/to easy to defend and other gameplay aspects like that because it's my first CTF map ever.

I tested the map against bots in CPMA and vq3 with different numbers of bots and gameplay varies dramatically between vq3 and CPMA (mainly because the vq3 bots don't do strafejumps). CPMA bots do much better in general but tend to take a hot bath more often.

It's an alpha, so no details, no lighting, ~ 3 textures, very ugly.
Here's a screenshot anyways:



Those of you who dare to look at more screenies or want to have a look at the readme before downloading can do so >here<.

Download link :

> get spirit3ctf1-alpha2 < (300kB).


OLD download link, still here for the demo posted below only:

> get spirit3ctf1-alpha1 < (300kB).




Bot file is included of course.

Concerns so far:
* Should I remove REGEN?
* REGEN is too close to RA
* is there too much armor in CPMA (due to the added JAs), should the JA near RL be removed or moved up to where LG is?
* bots have strong preference of using the path on the middle level
* think about moving LG to the other side of the launchpads (where +25H is atm)

Not much I can tell you from the screenies since you already know that it is ugly, but some things I have observed via the screenies atm is that it's too square.
Everything is blocky and has no curve taste to it. I know it is an alpha so it is still early yet, but you want to have all that in mind right from the start so you dont have to go back and destroy a square area later on that you might have spent hours on to put in a better looking curved-type piece.
That being said, I will say though that learning through destruction works wonders for pre-planning. In other words, if you are the type of person that can't plan a whole map out right at the start (like me) then building as you go and changing plans and ideas "on the fly" is cool.
Here's some off-the-wall ideas that you could do, and this is just by looking at the screeny. I would move the flag off that location and drop it in a more central location, like the lower floor right in the middle. And if you keep the flag where it is, I would definately work on the platform that the flag is sitting on. Maybe turn it into a circular-rotating platform or something, anything but that square-nothingness type ledge.. I would loose the lava too, that is more of a ffa-1v1 type thing. Lava doesn't have much purpose in a ctf map. And to be quite honest with you, in my opinion, lava looks like crap in ctf maps because of the useless-ness of it and the ffa type feeling I get when I am around it. The stock lava doesn't have much flavor to it either, imo of course.

Thanks for the comments, roughrider!

roughrider wrote: Everything is blocky and has no curve taste to it. I know it is an alpha so it is still early yet, but you want to have all that in mind right from the start so you dont have to go back and destroy a square area later on that you might have spent hours on to put in a better looking curved-type piece.

You 're right, there's not a single curve in the alpha. That's partly because I didn't even decide on the theme of the map yet (gothic, tech, whatever - I currently tend to make it look rather old with lots of curves.). Makes the screenies look even worse, you're right. But they would suck anyways, even with curves.

The idea of adding some of the important curves even in the alpha is good though, because they need more space then corners and could really mess up things when added later.

roughrider wrote: That being said, I will say though that learning through destruction works wonders for pre-planning. In other words, if you are the type of person that can't plan a whole map out right at the start (like me) then building as you go and changing plans and ideas "on the fly" is cool.

I start creating floor plans of my maps using pencil and paper when I have the layout of the first room (flag room in this case) ready in my head. These floor planes usually show the major layout of the whole map and it takes me quite a few hours until such a plan is finished.
I tend to build the alpha of the first/major rooms quickly to test for jump distances, "travelling times" between items and LOS problems. The map starts to evolve then, using the floor plan as a base but not sticking to it by 100%.

roughrider wrote: Here's some off-the-wall ideas that you could do, and this is just by looking at the screeny. I would move the flag off that location and drop it in a more central location, like the lower floor right in the middle.

Hehe, you can't see this on the screenie (because half of the room is not visible and the defenders positions are behind/below the position the screenshot was taken at) but believe me: this just won't work. It will completely break the lower route to the flag and make the upper one pretty useless, too.

This image may illustrate what I mean, but screenshots aren't appropriate for this imo. It shows the middle and lower routes to the flag. The tele goes to the upper route.

roughrider wrote: And if you keep the flag where it is, I would definately work on the platform that the flag is sitting on. Maybe turn it into a circular-rotating platform or something, anything but that square-nothingness type ledge..

I will! :icon14:

roughrider wrote: I would loose the lava too, that is more of a ffa-1v1 type thing. Lava doesn't have much purpose in a ctf map.

Thought about loosing the lava, though for different reasons - mainly because the bots jump in very often and you can't put NODROP on the ground in CTF maps because that will instantly return the flag to its base if an FC dies in it. :-(

I considered replacing it with water, but I don't want the bots to swim around it for hours diving for weapons that fell into it. I'd prefer to see them die quickly in the lava then tbh.

Apart from the bots, I see little reasons against using lava in CTF maps: it makes an area more dangerous - no matter whether it's FFA, tourney or CTF. Or am I missing something? (And it's ugly, you 're right.)

In this map, ithe lava punishes messed up tele-to-flag-jumps and makes the sneaky lower route that has MH and RG more dangerous. It's rather shallow though.

...

a13n wrote:nice green compilation

Hehe, thanks. :icon30: Seems people like it, a friend of mine also noticed it. I should maybe create more of those in future maps, shouldn't I?

Btw: are you starting to write your comments with the *ahem* help of M$ Powerpoint, a13n?

EDIT:
Here is a demo that shows some ideas for CPMA movement on the map:
download demo (500kb)

dichtfux wrote:Btw: are you starting to write your comments with the *ahem* help of M$ Powerpoint, a13n?

Yes, PP is really useful for many purposes.
Using M$ office or any kind of their products doesn't really matter as long as I won't be one of the primary victims of their conspiracies.

dichtfux wrote:EDIT:
Here is a demo that shows some ideas for CPMA movement on the map:
download demo (500kb)

It would be cool to attach this kind of demo for cpma n00bs. :icon14:

You can give alpha2 a try now (see first post for download link).

changes alpha1 alpha2:
* moved LG to other side of launchpads
* moved JA near RL up to the ledge where LG was before (CPMA/OSP only)
* removed a 25H from bases
* added support for oneflag, harvester and overload gametypes (Q3TA)
* improved bot clipping and bot navigation
* added waterpool below RA in center room, moved REGEN in there
exception: oneflag (because the white flag is down there in this mode)
* fixed playerclip near MH

EDIT: *sigh* noticed some bugs, will be fixed after exams.

I finally managed to give this a quick look today (sorry, too much real life going on).

First impression: "Wow, this is for 1-on-1?! It's HUGE for 1-on-1."

Seriously, this map could be cut in half, size-wise, or maybe even to 25% of it's current footprint and work much better for 1-on-1 CTF; right now it's really big. Note that this says nothing about the layout and gameplay with regard to anything but teamsize.

If you decide you want to keep the size as-is, I'd forget about the 1-on-1 novelty and just make it a straight CTF map.

I like the regen in the water. I'd make the lava a bit less deep (maybe 24 units?) so you can jump out and it's not quite such an insta-buzzkill.

If you decide to keep the size and not give it a dramatic chop, I'll try to give you some more feedback re: layout and items soon...

thanks for having a look, pjw.

Yeah, it's too huge, I know. That's why it's called spirit3ctf1 atm, not spirit3ctfduel1 - maybe I'll save this one for later and redesign another one for ctfduel.

no time atm, exams in 2 days. more on wednesday.