Fog Town Version: beta 5 Type: Capture Point http://www.ice-worlds.com/source/fogtown.php Description This map is a small, fairly open, non-linear capture point map. My main goal in designing it was to avoid static fights at choke points and to encourage players and teams to make tactical decisions about where to engage the enemy. Because any point can be captured there shouldn't be any sense fighting a losing battle for one point and players should see advantages to pulling out. They can go after another point or regroup and try to pin the enemy down on the point they just took. Players will hopefully also see advantages to staying in small squads since they'll be able to spread out and capture more points. The map is also intended for smaller games. It could probably comfortable handle a dozen players, but more than that and I think it will start getting crowed. Victory Conditions Each point on the map will slowly deplete the enemy's reinforcements, after about 20 minutes of play one team should have run out of reinforcements and lose. If, before then, one team manages to capture and hold all seven control points for one minute then the enemy's spawn will be deactivated and all the points locked. The winning team then just as to mop up any remaining players on the enemy team to win. I'm considering just adding a kill trigger at this point so as to avoid a scout hiding off in a corner for five minutes and dragging the map out, but I'll only do that if it become necessary. [Victory condition removed (beta 4)] Tanks The map has vehicles. These vehicles are spawned automatically. The vehicles are spawns at each team's starting point, or if the team holds the vehicle building point, in the garage underneath the point. The vehicle building will spawn lights/AFV, mediums, heavies [Heavies removed (beta 5)], and APC while the starting point for each team will only spawn lights and mediums (and one jeep at the start). The exact loadout of the vehicles will depend upon how many points each team holds. If a team holds a lot of the points then their tanks will spawn with weaker armour. Conversely if a team holds very few points then their tanks will spawn with much stronger armour. I hope this will make an unnoticed difference to the fighting to help keep the match closer to even. [Loadout variation removed (beta 3)] Beta 3 Screen Shots Beta 2 Screen Shots
You could tell if it wasn't carve because how much mb's it had and how long it took you to load up the map(let alone have the map crash)
The intersecting arches were constructed primarily using the clip tool. I think I used the Vertex tool in a few places to get the two arches to line up without cutting one of the brushes, but in most places that wasn't really possible and so the brushes of both arches are cut up to match the edges of the other arch. It's not something I'd aim at doing again.
Hah! Considering the rest of the map featured simpler geometry, it did seem like an unusually difficult task to make those arches line up without using carve. The curves in the roads look very nice, too.
Alright, here's the review. The map is not resource intensive, there were no issues of FPS drop or lag in any sections of the map. Your indoor areas are very unique and interesting, while I can't tell you how they'll play yet. One thing I didn't like was the areas were fairly sparse and didn't have any props. The distance between each "combat zone" was pretty far on foot and in the wide open, with engy walls disabled, meaning vehicles will be pretty dominant and roadkills might be too easy. I'd suggest a lot more cover and props scattered throughout the streets, more burning hulks are okay, but the burning BE heavy at the capital building is a bit too fiery. The appearance changes wildly with location, the indoor infantry areas look very pretty, but the outdoor areas are very very ugly and sparse, like I've said before, some props would not go amiss. I don't know if you've restricted turrets, but I'd really hope it's level 2 or lower, with the huge wide open spaces of the streets, level 3s seem fairly nasty. Your dynamic vehicle spawning sounds very cool and I'd love to see it in a full match, I hope you've kept in mind LTs are better than NF meds. Perhaps a 3 plate LT might be a cool vehicle lategame? I understand you're in a beta, and I really hope the gameplay is good, I still look forward to a match, and the unique infantry combat zones for each area should make them all fun and interesting, though some areas need more entrances. Some further underground areas wouldn't go amiss either.
I argue that NF meds with HE are better than LTs. Anything with HE is better than anything without HE. But I think this map looks awesome aside from the aformentioned problems Empty said, so i'm gonna get it up for a playtest on g4tc main. And if it's ok with you, I'll put it in the map pack soon.
The NF Meds have HE and dual ML. The BE Meds have Long Range, Salvo and STD MG. APCs have 50cals. LTs have STD CN and STD ML I didn't check the rest, and he has a system to fluctuate armors.
Minimap tells you very little. It's a big donut, and the centre has a park with a flag. The layout of the map is basically symmetrical, and the outdoor areas are fairly boring and bland. The indoor areas are where it's at and it's hard to show them.
You can build that quite easy with clipping, looks good though. The rest of the map however... Less pleasant. Rather simple and the lighting is somewhat dull. Try doing something other than square buildings and evenly spaced lights. And good god don't have glow in the dark fog, in fact don't have solid fog at all if possible because it looks crap.
I must say, I like the idea. But most of the time the map feels pretty empty. This reminds me of the fact that we need more Empires releated props. Ofcourse we could put half life 2 props in the game but those look totally out of place. We need chairs, cabinets, lamps/lights, candles, seats, benches, decorative props, billboars, windows, doors, ect. Outdoor props like pillars, gates, fences, trains, vehicles, aeroplanes, mining equipment, ect. The problem is not that no one wants to do it, or no one can do it(seen various work on the art forums and on the websites of certain members), it's just that we don't really know their style. I am often guessing my how the Empires world looks like, what do they eat? What do they wear? What cars do they drive? What types of transport do they use? How do their appartement buildings and desks look like? How is it like to go shopping? What monuments do they have? But also famous persons and events, I am not asking the developers to write a complete story about how life in Empires looks like, but identifying their style would be a good step to take.
Well I don't know how much it will really tell you, but it's easy enough to make a quick top down view from the minimap. Thanks for the feedback so far. I'll of course be working on the street front a lot. I'll try and provide players with some protection when moving along the outside of the main avenue as well as the other streets. It'll probably mostly be alcoves in buildings and small interior areas that the vehicles won't be able to get into. Thanks for pointing that out Empty. Turrets are currently not restricted. During testing it became apparent that there wasn't good feedback in game to indicate the turret restrictions. It wasn't a huge problem but it was a little annoying. So I pulled the turret restriction out for testing. If level 3 turrets are an issue I'll defiantly add the restriction back in. Trickster, I really appreciate you putting the map up for testing. And you're welcome to add the map to the map pack, but as this is still an early beta, and lots of the map is still just placeholder buildings, I expect to be updating this a fair bit. Chris0132, do you have any tips on how to go impliment nice fog? I've been playing around with it but not really had any luck making the faded out buildings look decent.
