[q3a] el3t4 beta 4 (UPDATED again! Final?)

[evillair]

**updated to beta 4**

Here's beta 4 of the map formely known as "arghfuckkill" (was a temp name)

I renamed it to: Pillamyd

Comments on anything appreciated.
Made with CPMA in mind.

Changes:
- Changed the yellow & red armor's position
- Many visual changes (details etc)
- Started the lighting phase
- Added a few trick jump areas
- Removed ledges from stairs, added a ramp where you should be able to double jump.

[lvlshot]http://evillair.net/tmp/el3t4.jpg[/lvlshot]

Download here (6.3Mb) (final version updated)

There's some things I'm not 100% sure about, I'll see if I'll keep them from the comments.
Thanks in advance...

[ix-ir]

Good job, this is much improved.

Hardcore bunch of changes to make this into a competitive level:

The RA platform should be far enough away from the sides to require a jump or at least a very strong circle turn on the ground to cross to it, at present you can walk to it. Remove the little 8 unit trims on either side of it you can walk on.

Remove the water underneath the Mega - at present you can double the step created by the water depth and ride the angled wall up to mega from below. The sound effect is unnecessary given you'll make a fall sound taking the mega from above.

Flatten the raised item platforms - the needless stepups generated by these can kill movement at the worst times in fights.

Remove the remaining ramp, it gives an easy double jump from Mega to RA.

Remove the thin wall outcroppings and teleporter indents. Reduce the depth of the decorative wall indents and preferably weapon clip them flat. Taking out the routes these generate will help make the map more strategic by reducing the anywhere from anywhere factor, there may still be too many routes in some places for players to effectively predict enemy movement, once there is too much freedom it becomes impossible to predict, great depth comes from the simplest left, right or stay choices in many cases.

Replace the lift with a bounce pad and match the width to the corridor width to remove the overhangs. Lifts give a very frustrating freebie escape and only work in rare contexts like the q2dm1 lift where the escape is deserved. Bounce pads are better for pace.

Items - RA is in the right spot, mega possibly, the rest I think needs work but we'll come to that after the geo, for example RG is right next to an RL, YA is very close to the RA.

Consider ways of removing flights of stairs, there are still a lot of unnecessary stairs.

RL level in the main RA atrium should not be reachable with a normal jump from the intermediate level next to it (other than by the stairs). At the moment you can double the light and then jump to the RL.

The map only needs 3 different height levels, it has 4 and some.

Areas and edges need more texture differentiation or visual clues of some form.

[evillair]

Great suggestions...here's a new version.

Download beta3b (5Mb)

Changes:
- Switched RG and SG places
- Fixed platform where RA is
- Removed water and clipped angled wall where Mega is. Not sure I'll keep the clip there.
- Removed item platforms
- Replaced ramp with stairs
- Removed 3 stairs and blocked a hallway
- Removed tele indents
- Replaced lift with bouncepad
- Other visual changes


First posted updated aswell with new beta just in case.

Thanks for the help.

[v1l3]

see now..this is a fine example of why I don't stop playing Q3. It's plays REAL good, and is attractive on top of it. I'm glad you went back to work on this one. Maybe they'll take my comment from 4 years back about it being a good CPM Mappack map seriously. Ah..their probably not even making the mappacks anymore..but, I just wanted to say that.

[foralarx2k3]

I haven't posted here for ages .. but just had to post a quick something for this one. Frankly I think this map is one darn good map sir. I do like the changes you've made between b2 and b3.

I play RA3 and VQ3 1on1 for the most part and I know this map is intended for taking advantage of the CPM movement, but frankly the layout is that good I didn't feel I was lacking anything in VQ3 (please take that as a massive compliment EL ). It just works. The teleporters are still easily accessible as are the exit routes, both to upper and lower levels. RA is still accessible from the LG via a circle strafe without having to go round the sides. RL below the RA is still accessible from the SG pit, via the light and then a hop up the ledge without going up the stairs, though it's more of a risk, because if you get the timing wrong you are in the SG pit again. If I can do this in VQ3 others here will be sure to say it's still all too easy in CPM to reach it, but I think it's now enough of a risk to warrent no further changes there.

I like the SG / RG switch, it just makes sense. I didn't find that the loss of the hallway detracted from the gameplay in any way and the changes to the JP and MH area made sense, though from a purely selfish point of view I'd just lower the mega so it's available on the lower floor to stop the bots lottering underneath there when I'm playing this on me tod. The only thing I can see now is the closeness of the RA and YA ..... others here are much more better qualified than I am to talk about item placement. I did have the crazy notion that it might be better if it was switched with the PG, but as I said I hardly ever play CPMA, so others are better suited to answer on item placement.

In short EL, it's very very good. Well done and thanks for taking the time to share this with us all.

FoRa!

[evillair]

Thanks for the comments guys!
foralarx2k3, thanks for your suggestion for the YA. I like it

Here's beta 3c
Download here

Changes:
- Switched the PG/ammo with the YA.
- Added visual stuff.

[foralarx2k3]

I'm really liking this, can you have a look at the aas file for me, I think it's not gotten compiled right this time, the bots just stand around doing nothing, and the file size of the aas is a lot smaller than the last beta.

I really think you should get some more feedback from CPMA players, (v1l3, ix-ir??) on item placement. Other than that I think you are pretty much there.

(Btw, this has got me wanting to retexture The Rage and start on a new one of my own. So thanks for kick-starting the bug again )

[v1l3]

yes.. very true foralarx...the bots aren't roaming. I ran it in cpma1.40, and the bots just stand there, and when you approach them, they spin in circle in the area that their in in front of you until they run out of ammo. I thought at first that it might be the bots since the 1.40 bots are questionable at moments..so I ran it in ver.1.0 and it was the same. 1.0 bots are the same as regular Q3 so...

aside from that..I really like the changes though...especially with the lighting! I like this map!

[dichtfux]

the bots just stand there, and when you approach them, they spin in circle in the area that their in in front of you until they run out of ammo.

Sounds like '-forcesidesvisible' wasn't used.

[evillair]

Yeah, the aas was messed up. Sorry about that.
Thanks for all the help!

Here's beta 4... final?
aas works fine in this one.

Download beta 4 here (6.3Mb)

[foralarx2k3]

Wow, good timing on my part, just logged on . ... downloading now .. brb.

EDIT:--- That is just so much fun ... 5 Gold Stars from me .... You could rename this Aerowalk2 it's simply that good

That's yes on the final from me .. See you at the launch party

FoRa!

[krekits]

Nice. A bit cramped tho. TP should be animated and perhaps emphasized with something, perhaps and arrow embedded in the floor. Too dark in a few areas IMO.

[obsidian]

Whoa... krekits! Haven't seen you around in a while. What are you up to these days?

[krekits]

Hello obsidian!

Well, I've been trying to cut back on time spent by the PC. Not suceeding very well though. Gaming wore me out so I stayed away from the scene for a couple of years. Nowadays I just game occasionally, once a week or when I feel like ti. It's intresting to pop in here from time to time, even nicer to have somebody actually remembering my, thx! No mapping for a long time though. I bombed by video card way back when, a contributing factor to the decline in gaming I guess.

Have been looking into the stock market since April, hopefully my investments will be profitable a few years from now.

Am fixin' to be fourty, can you believe it! Still feel like 28 though. Hope I'll get a new vid card for my birthday. Then I'll probably finish Quake4 (stuck in the middle somewhere, can't seem to find a way to get past a boss type character in the game).

[Fjoggs]

Hey krekits! of course we remember you

[Scourge]

Holy old timers, batman!

Just turned 40 myself back in April. Could've sworn I just turned 30 last year. I still come in here and peak around a bit myself. Good to see you again.

[v1l3]

It feels good to me evillair..Very Nice work! I don't think it's too dark. What would be the point of the lighting if it was all bright..it'd look poor and have no mood. That's an easy r_gamma fix for someone. I say leave it.. imo. This really..really turned out good. I like the MH move also. I say final.

[evillair]

Thanks!

Here's the final version...

Screen:
[lvlshot]http://evillair.net/tmp/el3t4.jpg[/lvlshot]

download (6.8 Mb)

Special thanks to v1l3 for getting me my lost bsp so I could finish it!

Btw, where do I release this again? It's been a long time!
I posted at the cpma forums, map-center and lvl.

[v1l3]

Submit it to the queue at ..::LvL, and give a little 'heads up' to Planetquake about it also. I think Jube is doing the majority over there these days. He's done some announcements about maps in the queue.. like he just did for ShaDoW with q3shw20. Then you'll also get a download count...whether that interests you or not, I dunno. Of course you'd have to wait until it's in the queue first. Tig's been pretty on top of it.

[roughrider]

I have always found your maps to be quality work EL, I can't say much about this except thanks for working on it again to finish it. Unfortunately with my bs dial-up connection I can't upload any screenies without waiting for hours so I wont do that. My only complaint is that it takes forever to download, no fault of yours of course.
And since it takes a while to download anything on this POS connection, I will wait for a "formal" final version before I grab anymore.

[foralarx2k3]

Eeeek, EL, sorry bout this didn't notice it before now.. But you have an invisible ledge ... here ...

EDIT:- Image removed as fixed

It runs the length of the ledge I'm next to...

Like the new teleporter textures btw

[evillair]

Doh!

Recompiled and uploaded new version.
Thanks!

I didn't notice it.
Same link.

[DTS]

The chainlink fence texture looks out of place; it looks out of place on any Q3 map, especially a Q2 themed one.

One of the problems with chainlink fence textures is you have it so the weapons bounce off an invisible wall that is the gaps in the fence; you have the same problem with some gratings, some you have it so rockets go through the gaps, some in the ceiling the rockets don't. Also some chainlink fence you have so weapons do fire through them. So you've got inconsistency in the physicality of your textures.

The scaffolding everywhere looks lame, and I don't like where you've put the flags. It looked better without them. I mean you could put flags maybe if you could find somewhere decent to put them, but they just don't fit where they are. It looks forced...

The teleporter's effect could be a bit more noticeable.

There's a missing texture under the SG.

I wasn't going to say anything cause the original was alright apart from the lighting, and I don't like a lot of the changes you've made, especially the ones I just mentioned, but I had to mention the missing texture cause no-one else picked it up, so I decided I might aswell mention the rest.

[foralarx2k3]

The chainlink fence texture looks out of place; it looks out of place on any Q3 map, especially a Q2 themed one.

One of the problems with chainlink fence textures is you have it so the weapons bounce off an invisible wall that is the gaps in the fence; you have the same problem with some gratings, some you have it so rockets go through the gaps, some in the ceiling the rockets don't. Also some chainlink fence you have so weapons do fire through them. So you've got inconsistency in the physicality of your textures.

The scaffolding everywhere looks lame, and I don't like where you've put the flags. It looked better without them. I mean you could put flags maybe if you could find somewhere decent to put them, but they just don't fit where they are. It looks forced...

The teleporter's effect could be a bit more noticeable.

There's a missing texture under the SG.

I wasn't going to say anything cause the original was alright apart from the lighting, and I don't like a lot of the changes you've made, especially the ones I just mentioned, but I had to mention the missing texture cause no-one else picked it up, so I decided I might aswell mention the rest.

Each to their own on this I guess ... I don't go round shooting chainlink fences so ..whatever floats ya boat really... the only one that really matters in that context is the windowed one overlooking the lower corridor and that's weapon clipped nicely so I'm happy. Also I think the scafolding and flags add quite nicely to the level and give it that little extra atmosphere.... like I said each to their own. As for missing texture ... what missing texture ???

EDIT:- Image removed as issue has been solved.

[DTS]

what missing texture ???