Quake3World

Hi guys,
I am working on a new duel map for the Maverick Servers summer comp and thought there might be some players here who would be willing to give me some feedback on my layout:

[lvlshot]http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/5540/ezt3.jpg[/lvlshot]

This thread shows the progress of the build:
http://maverickservers.com/forums/viewt ... 38&t=22946

I have a .pk3 of the current Alpha layout for Quake 3 Arena, and will later convert to QL. Bots are not implemented, but any feedback from multiplayer testing would be appreciated. The map was proposed for duel, but it might end up being better suited to 2v2 etc because of its scale, I would compare it to a DM6 type map. I will consider any feedback, but will ofc make final decisions based on a range of views and my own vision/time, but all feedback is welcome and appreciated. Here is the file:

NEW PK3 COMING SOON*

If any duel players could post a replay from their play that would be fantastic to see.
Thanks!

Crayfish.

Looks nice! Good job!

Man, you don't have to convert your map to QL unless you're sure you won't place the competition at least at 3rd prize... In such cases, you might be sure that id Software will search for source map file and will convert themselves. See the last three winner maps from previous competition...

Will update feedback after some testing. Your layout seems good, from screenshots...

I compiled an .aas bot file for the map and used the suggested bots to play FFA, not any form of duel. So the comments may be a bit off. Also note I do not yet understand the layout completely, after 20+ minutes of playing, so I am probably not completely appreciating some of the pathing.

• First off, the generously wide stairs give the map an overall ... generous ... feel. IMO, a good thing. Though it does suggest a few areas might be slightly un-fattened, i.e. trimmed down to shorten the paths.
• Several of the respawn points are pretty far away from any weapon. This leads to the player and bots running around with only the MG a lot. You might need more weapons, e.g. two SGs in areas that are weapon empty. In any case it might be helpful to look at each player respawn point and check just how far away the next weapon is.
• The lowest part of the map with water has the RL, the RA and the PG... upping the special stuff density quite a bit here. Even though I am not a huge fan of teleports... just adding the RA down here, and then adding a TP to get out of the lower part of the map might be something to think about... maybe.
• I am not such a huge fan of the backward-flinging JP that throws you up near the YA (not the YA near the LG). As it is, it works for the player, though I am not sure bots actually use it (needs more testing). In general and JP that you run into forwards but throws you up and backwards is not so ideal IMO. Maybe a TP here could work... again only maybe.
• One thing I did note is the path down to the RA, passing the PG. The path down the stairs takes quite a long time to run down. IMO, this slows down gameplay just a bit too much, making me wonder if players will really take the time to go for the RA. Again, I may be overlooking a more obvious path to the RA from the upper levels of the map.
• I like the MH arena for the most part, i.e. the vertical fighting, and especially the central column with the 50H on it, since even I can make the jump to reach that 50H most of the time. I just noted the only way to get out on the lower floor is to take the long-winding cellar route, or the JP that makes you very vulnerable. I somehow have the feeling another exit path at the floor level would help, the obvious path would be via MH to the RL room. But that would lose the thoughts you put into sectioning off that direction, i.e. you can see the MH from the RG, but cannot get directly at the MH from the RG side.
• A second arena in the RG room might be nice, i.e. adding meaningful vertical fighting here as well. Not sure who this could be done, but if possible it would raise the overall "interest" in the gameplay IMO.
• The RG room seems to contain just the RG? 3x5H are there, maybe add some Shards as well? And some more ammo.

I'll take a closer look at the layout these next few days, and try to see if I can suggest some "un-fattening" of the pathing layout. To make the map a bit more compact, without losing the overall feeling.

thanks CZghost, I'll look forward to that!

Huge thanks again Aeon. Could you send me the .aas file? I've yet to actually learn that compile process for Q3.
To address the points:

* Very fair criticism. The overall size is a concern. The widths will shorten once I start actually detailing the level, tho shortening the length of the paths would be a major structural undertaking that Im not sure I have the time left for unfortuantely. I will be enabling the game for TDM, FFA etc, so the excessive room might turn out to be a plus in those modes.
* I did start with all my (duel) spawns pointing toward a weapon, but as concern about the size grew and I decided on adding support for team modes, I had to add allot more spawns that dont directly face a weapon. I will say that once u learn the layout, the weapons aren't too far off, but adding a SG in is a great idea, thanks.
* I gave the lower area the RL and the RA because the map is designed overall to give you great control from the upper areas, but (like Lost World and other maps) if you want items, you have to drop down to get them. The basement area has 3 exits up to the top / mid levels that can be controlled from the upper areas, so I wanted there to be 2 power items down there to fight your way out and make the trip down worthwhile. I added in PG to give people a long range gun entering the basement from spawns that only had the LG or GL.
* The backward facing JP is unfortunate. I did consider a a teleporter, but that route is an extremely quick way between the RA and a YA that overlooks the MH pit, so it really needed to include some risk that being locked in a jump arc gives. I'll see if I can remedy the 180 turn if I have time.
* Yes, there are 2 other routes to the RA basement from the upper / mid level including the 180 turn JP that I made wide on both sides for that very reason. I specifically made the route from the MH pit long because it is a direct route from the MH to the RA, so players seeing you going that route from one power item to the other have the chance to cut you off by taking the faster routes.
* Yes, the MH pit is supposed to be a death trap. In the same way the RA is in a location that is vulnerable from all 3 exits that take you down to basement area.
*The Rail gun room might seem like it is understocked, but it is the main junction room of the whole map. It has an entrance to the MH room, the YA JP room, the other YA room and has LOS thru the grate to the MH. Also, just like in ZTN Bloodrun, there is no RG ammo on the map, to reload, you must return to the RG room. This might be a design fault tho, if the map turns out to be primarily a TDM map?

Big thanks again Aeon, thoughtful and fair criticism as always.

About the bot compile, I use a batch file I name doaas.bat for that:
You will need to fix the paths to the Radiant folder and to where your bsp map files end up (the development maps folder). From the Windows console, cmd, you would then type doass Cray3t1a08 to do the compile.

Here the bot file:

Adding to AEon's instructions, make sure you run his batch file AFTER you have a completed compiling a working BSP file. Also, instead of going into CMD and typing the map name, you can just drag and drop your BSP file over the .bat file.

Note:
I updated GtkRadiant 1.6.4 (the next version rolling out the pipe) with updated compile switches in the build menu. It includes a better AAS compile option right in the interface.

Interesting, I was not aware you could drag and drop a file on a batch file. I seem to be too oldschool .

Update: Actually tried it just now, and dragging fails on my batch.

Thanks allot guys, I will look into this in the coming days. Will be nice to have the aas compile within the editor too.

AEon, I've remodeled the RG room, moved the GL to the RG room balcony and added in a Shotgun where the GL was. All spawns now have atleast LOS to a weapon, and most are very close. Added a small ledge in the YA area so you can now run circuits of the upper area clockwise as well as anti-cw without a Defrga superjump. I took a chisel to the YA area and RG room and sliced 4 blocks (256 units) out of the maps width, so the long upper routes going W-E & E-W are now much quicker.

EDIT, new version (Alpha 09) 30th July) Now with Bots. Thanks to AEon:
http://www.mediafire.com/?7ehwaewnqh3juc1



[lvlshot]http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/3160/9zok.jpg[/lvlshot]

Btw, could anyone tell me if peer to peer / direct netplay is possible in Q3, and if so, how?

Quick one... added another aas file here.

A quick run of the map seems to show that all your changes indeed did help up the consistency. Now for some windows

Huge thanks AEon!

Update the .pk3 on all threads. The bots move around the map really well, even jumping down the JP shaft as I had planned for human players, but they all seem to cluster spawn wherever the action is, instead of accross the map how duel spawns work*

AEon, that's because you have the file extension in your batch file. Try the following:
Note: I just removed the ".bsp" following the %1. Also, you shouldn't need to "call" executables.

No two ways around it, everything points to whole map having to be re-scaled:
[lvlshot]http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/1020/xkh9.jpg[/lvlshot]

Hmm... what brought up the rescaling of the map?

Off topic, but in AEglow I seem to have run into that problem as well, thus the map was never finished. The compontents I used, doorways and stairs looked fine. Trouble was they made the map too "bloated" and "spread out".

AEon wrote:Hmm... what brought up the rescaling of the map?

Off topic, but in AEglow I seem to have run into that problem as well, thus the map was never finished. The compontents I used, doorways and stairs looked fine. Trouble was they made the map to "bloated" and "spread out".

Hey AEon,
I think as soon as you did the .aas compile for me and I saw things in scale for the first time, I knew deep down it would have to be re-built. All successive feedback points to the same conclusion. Its all good, Im real happy with the way the new build is going.
Its certainly easy to let things start to run away scale wise if you don't constantly keep things in check.

The "good" thing about such things is that you can condense the gameplay... shorter paths but with all the "features" still in there. At least so I would imagine.

Complete re-scale complete!
Map is now around 60% of its previous size, many areas redesigned and teleporters and jump pads added to speed up the gameplay.
There is a new teleporter based on the Hub (Aerowalk) style RA ledge that allow you to escape from the megahealth pit. You can strafe jump it from a stand still on the floor in front of it. Its about the same distance as the jump to RA on ZTN, and not as long as the RA jump on Hub which its based on. Beware that you dont miss the jump though, or you will have to fight your way back out again!

I've also included a Takeshi's Castle style water trap below the outer YA. There is a teleporter in the Rail room that allow you to escape if you get trapped on the upper ledges that dumps you outside in the water trap. It gets you out of immediate danger, but not for free. If u escape, it gives the opponent a little time to get after you!

Huge thanks to AEon, Kaustic, PJ & his friend for all the help and feedback so far. Here is the new .pk3:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sc8aez0p0zjpw3b

[lvlshot]http://imageshack.us/a/img822/1363/tka0.jpg[/lvlshot]

EDIT: Bonus shot of Mynx's butt cheeks sticking out of the water where she fell
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6977/ulvx.jpg

After some more running about, also embracing the inner rocket jumper in me, I was surprised how many jumps you can pull off to get to all sorts of locations quickly. I even double-RJed... woha... what will they think of next

So I'd say the layout is actually quite interesting.

Thanks AEon. I suck at defrag type movement, but I can loop the entire maps items extremely quickly now using a couple of Rocket Jumps shown on the pics above.

I'm totally dysfunctional at Defrag. Anyway I was meaning to post this earlier but got busy doing other things(not mapping).
Anyway I don't know if you seen it yet or not but - In the water area where you have to go up steps to get out you get hung
up and have to jump a couple of steps . Something transparent there. Then in another water area you can see what looks like
a clone of a brush Z fighting at the edge below the health from the waterline down.(pics are in backwards order but I'm sure
you will know the spots).

Also I do like this scaled down version much better .

Thanks kaustic.
I cant find anything transparent there, maybe its just the way u move in water when encountering steps. I'll put a playerclip ramp there to help.
I think that artifact in the basement was because I was working between QL and Q3 settings in 2 radiants and couldnt use watercaulk/nodrawwater and had to coat the whole brush in the water texture. Should be fixed now bc Im going pure Q3.
Thanks again.

Real sorry to say guys that I won't be able to make the deadline.. I had about a week taken out of the time I thought I had left to finish the map due to unforeseen irl commitments.
I am still going to finish the map, and I hope some of you guys will still check it out when its done. Real sorry to AEon, Kaustic and other various people from irc etc who have helped me so far. If I had an extra week I could have made it..
Soz guys.

We all like meddling... ähm... testing ... so no problem. When you have the time release a new version and I will look into it.

Still working on it, glad in a way I not locked in by the deadline because I'd have never got it to a point I was happy with:

[lvlshot]http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/2933/mhad.jpg[/lvlshot] [lvlshot]http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/7710/hs6f.jpg[/lvlshot]

I find it interesting how some mappers can create an abstract version of their map, and then go in to meaningfully decorate it with textures... never really worked like that for me.