Pie's Tw map- help needed(Screenshots attached)

[Pie]

Okay, I know every map I make is an utter failure, but this time I want it to be different. I'm really excited about the prospect of doing this.

Okay, my idea is to have a map which doesn't have a basis on flag capturing. Before you yell "Whoa nelly! TW is just a really long, flat, no jet version of Ctf, what is the point of not capturing flags if it's ctf?" Well, I was thinking of coming up with a map that focus' on Ec's Domination scripture. You gain X amount of % of map for holding the ground for X amount of seconds or whatever.

I've been wanting to make a map for a while, i've had ideas in my head but most of them have been done before or aren't good enough for people to like the design.

I might be jumping the gun here but I want to describe my new idea for a map that i'm designing as we speak.

Okay, this map idea hit me like a half brick to the back of the skull, I was watching Blood Diamond with my lady friend last night, Never having seen that movie before, I enjoyed it pretty well. about 3/4 of the way through, there is this scene.

This particular scene gave me the entire brilliant idea.

The scene i'm prattling on about is, and I hesitate to write "The part where the dude and the black dude..." But Caprio and the other actor are walking attempting to escape the city, now under control of the rebels(The city is ruined) And they come to a cracked wall outlooking to a small camp with two guards. In the background you can see dense jungle and a suspension bridge. After caprio deals with the guards, he walks to the cliff edge and looks down, there's a pretty steep winding trail and then a deep ravine.

This scene went for nigh on 4 minutes, and in those 4 minutes I had formulated an idea and as soon as the scene ended I had run off, grabbed a pen and a pad and started to roughly sketch the idea.

Okay, enough jabbering... Now to the explanation of the map...

As you can see, the main topic of the map is centered around three specific points, The crumbling cityscape, the bridge and the ravine and the dense jungle.
Using those three places as major hold/fight points would be key in this map.

I would use the jungle to host some kind of guerrilla warfare tactics, camping hiding, stealthing, Give multiple places for players to hide and recover, give players the chance to pop up and fire and disappear the next second into a new foxhole. I would also place a village in the jungle to act as one of the teams bases which would hold their flag and their spawnpoints.

The city would again be different, hosting several buildings, with different stories and floors for players to fight from, cover would be given on both sides, the rooftops would be another place to fight from, giving the chance for maximum tactics to take place, Distract your enemies and get a sniper to sneak onto the roof and pop targets while your troops reload or move forward. The city would end at a building with a single floor and the players would spawn and have their flag around this building.

The third, and possibly, most crucial place to be held or fought for is the center bridge. The bridge would be fairly long, have a bunker in the middle of it with exactly two floors and no windows. Players would be able to enter the bunker via the roof or from the bridge. This sounds like it's your average bunker, but it isn't.
Under the bunker is a steep ravine, but players would be able to drop down the sides if they are clever and skilled enough. At the bottom of the ravine is a small lake with a statgun placed near the edge of the lake. On the other side of the lake there will be jetty with a less steep incline so that players can traverse easily up or down it. There will also be a few secret places in this area(hopefully).

As you can see, the layout isn't terribly generic, it was designed to be complex and for the player to feel as if they are playing on a real life map setting.
The map will not be symmetrical, there will be good spots for players to hold, just like in real life. The map will, however, be balanced as much as possible.
The point of this map is simple, for the team to win, they have to have players that can adapt to a change in play style. If you only play rushing bunkers, then you will fail on the city and jungle parts, if you play as a stealth backstabbing barsteward, then you will excel in the jungle, but fall on the bridge and the city. As the map changes, you need to adapt to play with the terrain and the pace of the map. If you need to run fast for the city to gain ground, but slow down and wait in the jungle for an ambush, then a rush only player will have trouble with this map.

And that is my idea, I would really like some feedback, Please don't ask for screenshots or plans as they are not 100% complete. however the idea is completely formulated and i need players feedback to make this a reality.

Thank you.


Date Posted: July 10, 2008, 11:53:09 pmBump

Screenshot of the bridge layout. Left of this will be the city type environment and right of this is the jungle.

This is really basic and not as flashy as theV's but yeah, what do you think of the concept?

[Hair|Trigger]

GREAT IDEA

Dividing the skills among different map sectors would bring trenchwars around.

But will people co-operate with it?  you need to consider what would happen if nobody at all payed attention the to formula, and everyone goes rushing bunkers like they always do on other maps.  I mean if you think about it, who cares about how the map is supposed to be let's just play it like a normal TW map and scream out LAG and CAMPER NOOBS every time we get owned.  Sorry if I ruined your idea but if you're careful enough im sure you could find a way to prevent this

I still love the idea.  Maybe if the regular TW layers played how they like it but the "pros" had an advantage somehow..  the plan needs flexibility.  So yeah, good luck with your map!

I dont mind the layout so far but TW maps only have one direct path to the flag, it never has several hidden paths or anything like that.  Maybe a small tunnel here and there, and the huge ravine is a pretty hard thing to compensate for..  considering the fall damage and the ammount of people who would avoid it and use it to avoid others, that takes away form tw.  because in TW you MUST fight through every player to get to the flag no excuses.  (unless you go really fast :O)

but enough of that, good luck on your map! 

[Pie]

Second overview.

In this one you can see what is going to be dense jungle(to the right) and what will eventually be made into a small rebel village.
What you can't see is what will be on the left, which is the city part of the map.
Any suggestions would be welcomed.

[Hair|Trigger]

good.  Like I said dont over-do the tunnels.

Bunker doesnt seem where it belongs on a bridge.. maybe have guard towers on each side and very small obstacles along the bridge, but its an open battlefield.  If thats the part you want to exploit the stealth weakness, then you should do this.

[Pie]

good.  Like I said dont over-do the tunnels.

Bunker doesnt seem where it belongs on a bridge.. maybe have guard towers on each side and very small obstacles along the bridge, but its an open battlefield.  If thats the part you want to exploit the stealth weakness, then you should do this.

Thanks for putting up your thoughts. Where I am at the moment is i'm just finishing the exoskeleton of the map itself, I haven't added sceneries or much shading, I haven't even done the left hand side of the map yet.

To be honest, the bridge turned out to be longer then I expected, so I compromised by adding a second bunker, I didn't want one team to be in the complete open while the other team had massive advantages (The tower and the stat)

I plan to add a lot of box sceneries and make sure that the players have a lot of cover, but again this means that there will be a lot of nades going off because they will be hitting colliders.

I hope I didn't overdo the tunnels, I just wanted to give players the chance to ambush the enemy, have one side attack and have the other wait for the right moment to stab them in the back.

I'd like to know if you'd prefer anything to be changed or remade, I want a lot of feedback so that a lot of players have the chance to change things and make it perfect. The more people that imput, the better the map will be in my opinion.


Date Posted: July 11, 2008, 09:04:53 amMy last screenshot for tonight, i need to get some sleep for work tomorrow.
I added some scenery, i'm worried about the polygon count.

Any suggestions, Remembering that the left hand side of the map needs to still be done.

I'll be releasing the basic version tomorrow if anyone wants to play test it and offer suggestions.

until then...

[TheV]

HOLY CRAP THATS ALOT OF TREES...

Uhm... Huge pits - DEATH ITS REALISTIC!

My only problem so far.

[Eagles_Arrows]

For aesthetics, I suggest you darken the trees to fit the polygons and use a more detailed background scenery for the bunkers.

[Pie]

HOLY CRAP THATS ALOT OF TREES...

Uhm... Huge pits - DEATH ITS REALISTIC!

My only problem so far.

Well, so far, You can fall from the bridge into the lake at the bottom and just live if you're on full percentage. I'm sure you can drop down on the right hand side with no damage. I kind of took the "If you jump off the edge then you deserve to die." approach because there's really no other way you can fall down their unless you're trying really hard to get down there.

For aesthetics, I suggest you darken the trees to fit the polygons and use a more detailed background scenery for the bunkers.

The bunkers aren't fully completed, the blank.png's behind the polygons are just there to show that they are bunkers.
With the Tree's I was thinking that I could put a Blank.Png behind them, colour it brown so that it sort of looks like a cliff face, then maybe put rocks and vines coming off of it?

What do you suggest I do for that?

Also, i'll work on the map some more when I get home from work.

[cojaca2]

This looks awesome so far, though I'm afraid I can't offer any suggestions, I'm not so good at mapping
I don't think I've ever even done a map that big, or at the very least a map with that many polygons...

[Hair|Trigger]

Very nice scenery.

I suppose this could be pretty good.


Polygon count wont be so bad if it was just over 1000, I think the bunkers on the bridge are your primary focus.

But the trees are very nice, hope it turns out appealing to the eye

[Pie]

ingame shots:

[Hair|Trigger]

well they're a bit out of contrast with the background, make them darker and change background colour.  Then add other minor stuff to it like vines and roots, it looks like a forest or beech trees more than a jungle.

[Pie]

I need sceneries, And i've tried hardcore to make them myself, but I can't.

If anyone has a tropical jungle scenery for a backdrop, it would really be appreciated.
I know that some not so known mappers do, but they refuse to help me, so can someone give me some please?

[Blacksheepboy]

Wow, your working pretty hard-core on this map. I get awesome ideas like these, but never get around to finishing them because of either lack of awesome and functional scenery, or just lack of motivation.

I wish I was good at making small detailed scenery, but I haven't had any luck so far. I have tons of downloaded scenery, but all that I have that works for jungles is the generic VTT's vegetation pack (don't quote me on the name..) stuff, such as: (see attached pic). Most of it is tropical anyway, and not exactly jungle. I could upload it if you like.

Edit:

A cartoony representation of a basic jungle if you need one: Jungle Reference

And it just dawned on me that you appear to already have the VTT Scenery Pack, but if you don't have all of it, (possibly just downloaded some from maps), then Here is the original thread.

Date Posted: July 12, 2008, 03:06:59 pm
Yes, I acknowledge the double post...

Eh, post discounted because I forgot you couldn't upload the straight prefab file to the forums. I wrote a nice little fancy thing to go with some jungle example of mine, and I won't bother to retype it all for the sake of annoyance.. Nevertheless:

I was inspired by who-knows-what, to make a small jungle scene as an example (screenshot attached..). This was done mainly to show that making a thick jungle without too many trees is highly possible. I count about 5 places to hide in this small scene.

A jungle wouldn't have too much grass as bushes mainly dominate the area, as well as some dispersed trees. I stretched out a few bushes, and made them opaque to comprise the background. I also added the biggest tree as a foreground to make it seem as though there are trees in front of your (the gamer's) view, but so as not to block out most of the scene, I made the largest tree (which is in "front") pretty opaque.

Yeah, so that's the whole of my example. Whether you needed the example or not, that's for you to decide. I may or may not be able to scrounge up some more jungle scenery but if you need it, just ask...

Zipped Prefab of the little scene attached at bottom...

I do this not to discourage you, but to encourage you. I really think your idea is pretty sweet, and you're guaranteed my download when you finish. Good luck.

[Pie]

Thanks a lot, this is a really big help, i was actually thinking about giving up until I read this.
I know that looks like a jungle, and a mighty fine one at that, but(And there's always a but) i want the jungle to look dense seeing as the map is based around south africa and south africa has a lot of dense unpopulated jungles.

I'll try and find an example;
http://www.elvincountry.com/travel-images/10408181.jpg
http://www.markhorrell.com/travel/uganda/rwenzori/images/jungle2.jpg

While your jungle looks really good, I would like to create the effect of dense and deep jungle...

But still thank you a lot, it really helped me.

[Hair|Trigger]

Try stealing trees out of far cry 2 screenshots

It could help.  I have done a couple of jungle-related sceneries for my map INF_Kokoda.  Not anything helpful though I dont think, just some bamboo sticks and a platform

anyway if you need anything specific PM me and I might give it a go at making (keep it simple)

[Pie]

The layout is done, little to no scenery has been added, I'm going to post the overview and the map .pms so you can test it and get back to me.

[Blacksheepboy]

That's a nice polygon count to end with for a screenshot, lol...

Edit:

Too bad bots see you, even if you're behind scenery. It would be nice for the whole stealth aspect. With bots, you sorta have to rush all the time.

[Pie]

That's a nice polygon count to end with for a screenshot, lol...

Well it could change

Depending on what people say, I may have to remake entire sections.

[Blacksheepboy]

Here is my little critique. I play-tested it a bit, and this is what I thought (I typed this up in notepad first, so it may look a little odd..):

Shading is pretty nice. I liked it.

Tunnel under the right village is unnecessary. It's a nice thought-out
feature, but I think it'll just complicate gameplay more than help it.

Should extend the little village a bit more to the right since the
town is pretty long, I think the village, mixed with thick jungle,
should match that. The town has a bunch of hiding places in the
buildings, the village should have a bunch of hiding places in the
buildings+jungle.

I like how you did the foxholes in the first lil' valley (one without
bridge). I'd probably make the one on the left less deep, as they
were meant to make it so that you could peer out, yet still not be
seen. In here, you're in a hole, so peering out is harder.

The bunkers on the bridge, I thought were done nicely. Also the
watchtower is vulnerable, which I like. You can't be too well-hidden
when sniping up there, but it allows for nice sniping opportunity.

The town on the left isn't too bad. You should stick with your plan of
having the town end at the bridge with just some single-story house.

****************

Overall, I liked the map. Try to keep in mind those 3 principles that you talked about in your first post. The stealth idea and all that. If you successfully implemented those 3 things into this map, I think it would be a very nice feature. Gameplay would change throughout the map, which if you had a nice bunch of players, stealth etc. could be played out very excellently.

Good luck with scenery. There are a few bugs in the left town, so double check that area.