We're just testing the map today. 2.3 or whatever it's going to be called isn't ready yet. I'm working on rehosting the map right now, but all the web apps seem to have froze.. Map is right here http://www.filedropper.com/emparidrc3
I appear to have messed up my EMpires installation somehow, I'm getting the error 'Server has different class tables.', looks like i'm going to have to re-download empires so unless I get a really good download speed, I'll have to give it a miss.
MAP Arid 3 Ok this is how i see it after testing. 1,couldnt see any obvious bugs except ladders not working? 2,both Infantry and tanks should be very useful as there are many different paths between bases , love the underground tunnels. 3,although the centre is for inf combat the roadblocks accross bridge would be awsome if they were minefields instead? 4,the terrain seemed good with no tank traps in way of holes in ground to get stuck in, i still got stuck on walls tho lols. 5,The tunnel doors and centre flag are confusing, you need signs to say how/where switches are. What does the flag cap do = rez multiplier??? 6,some of the slopes where hard to climb with 3 phase jeeps ? and on the whole i always likes this map when played from rc1, My only stupid question after seeing what can be done with sinking is : IF you could floood the lower pathways then have it recede every few minutes like a river Ebbing. just high enough to kill tanks ????? maps with gimmiks are cool but its a great map as it stands, good work Silk.
Ok, we had about 10-12 people at peak, which is more then i had hoped for. I'll list everything i wrote down, and i'll give a few of my opinions afterwards. 1) It's possible to place a building partially on the landing platform 2) The platform texture is very dark, and the platform surrounding brushes texture looks too much like the terrain 3) I have to finish improving the dynamic entities to avoid having wrong shadows (putting them closer to the ground) 4) C4: Big tree floating above the ground 5) Tunnel entrances can be blocked ==> add nobuild brushes 6) BE base defense SW: health box entirely in concrete wall 7) Skybox visible through displacements when they do not got drawn because of ... that z thingy 8) Red NF tower roofs too ... cartoony ==> more militairy look 9) NF base entrances: something should block the entrances so people know they drive through it + add in skybox a reason why there are entrances 10) Placing walls on terrain above the tunnels makes the walls stick through the tunnel ceilings when not build ==> add nobuild above tunnels 11) Vehicles can get stuck in the middle of the vehicle bridge ==> add metal bar in middle 12) Skybox base ground texture is dark and glitchy 13) Ladders of BE towers don't work (intentionally) 14) Complex ladders don't work (center complex ladders do work) 15) Smoke from res spots should stop after placing refs and return after destroying the refs 16) Mines that restrict access to the NE hill can be reached with cv, ending the map at once 17) Infantry can slip through the minefield by staying close to the edges 18) copy paste from melee: The tunnel doors and centre flag are confusing, you need signs to say how/where switches are. Extra: add more signs for the mines 19) copy paste from KT: The ladders are really hard to work, specifically that square metal piece right above the ladder. Move that down a meter and put it flush against the far wall, just like the ladders in middle. Those middle ladders are pure genius, they're so easy to go up and down (once the glitching is fixed) 20) copy paste from Doggeti: You forgot to list the place in B3 (i think) where I got stuck in between some cliff rocks. 21) To align the wall textures between map and skybox, adjust the scale of the textures in the map to a value that can be divided by 16 22) Improve displacements in 3d skybox 2 points should be discussed: 13 and 16 13: Currently the BE walls have 3 towers in total. I did not put them there to be used, but to add diversity to the wall. Since a tower that can't be accessed looks stupid i added a ladder model, but no ladder function. So now it looks like there's a ladder, but it won't work. I've seen 3 suggestions: - Keep them but make it obvious they can't be used (remove a part of the ladder so it doesn't go all the way up) - Remove them and add something else that could be used for accessing the tower (painted door + floor entrance) - Keep them and make them work as real ladders ==> can be used to defend or by enemy units to snipe the base I can live with all 3 of them 16: Most complaints about RC2 were about running into the skybox (cause you can't see the edge), and unbalanced in favor of NF because they have more ground and access to the entire Northeast corner. I fixed that by putting obstacles in the map along the skybox edge with warning signs warning for danger/explosives, actually followed by mines on the northeast hill. The problem is that the obstacles are spread far enough so that the cv can get through at some points, ending the map right away (takes only one griefer) Personaly i like the mine idea, so i'd like to put the obstacles north just a little bit closer so vehicles can't get through (even with vehicleclip to be sure) so only infantry can blow themselves up on the mines. Another suggestions is something entirely different: make the NE hill accessible, use lots of trees to place along the edge, and put a ladder on the BE side so they access to it as well (but not with vehicles). imo that's a lot of work (to make it look good) for a part of the map that isn't worth much, though i can understand why it was suggested. But it's very hard to cover the skybox edge up with trees plus i think that part of the map won't be fun to play in. Edit: Green = fixed, Yellow = Changed but untested, Red = wild guess *crosses fingers*
Covered far more than all of my points for sure. The only thing I want to add is that the underground infantry pathway under the bunker is really red, and the ladders are really hard to work, specifically that square metal piece right above the ladder. Move that down a meter and put it flush against the far wall, just like the ladders in middle. Those middle ladders are pure genius, they're so easy to go up and down (once the glitching is fixed)
Yes i know, but the problem is that all those rock entities have at least one place, and often more then one, in which you can get stuck. I've become stuck in rocks in isle, canyon, crossroads etc as well. But it's true that the one in B3 is close to the ground so people won't know they shouldn't jump in that empty space, so i'll add it to the list. But when someone jumps down from the hills onto some rocks into the canyon, they can get themselves stuck as well, like in canyon and escort(last flag). It's not practical to put nodraw brushes on every hole of all rocks. I'd like to mention the lack of time i have. I'm in my last year at college, and we're right in the middle of lab tests. Immediately after that comes our final exams. So before june 24 my free time will be very limited. Add to that the best weather we've had in 13 months and it should be obvious that i'll spend most of my free time outside. So when i'm working on my map i'll be doing the most important stuff first. Wether i can finish it entirely depends on when it has to be ready. It's the first time ever i hope the next empires version isn't released too soon.
You haven't had good weather since last April? Remind me not to visit the low countries then! You're doing a great job Silk, whatever you can get done is appreciated
Two things I would like to add to that list Silk. 1) The center bridge's switches need some sort of lights to indicate that is the door open or closed or closing or opening. Maybe green light to indicate that the door is open and red light to indicate that it is closed and maybe either no light when it is opening/closing or yellow light to indicate that. 2) The NF starting base's skybox fortress could use some sort of hatches at the towers. It isn't that big deal but it looks a bit silly when there are 4 high towers yet there aren't any kind of enterances to them. Maybe simple hatch picture in the middle of those towers would be enough. Edit: Mootant, isn't this meant to be a some kind of little surprise for the public players when the working 2.2 comes out on Orange Box engine and this map is included with it as official? At least I have understood this so.
Official? And who said this map is fine? And why the hell some random custom map that was played by 50 players total should be made official? I don't want any new crappy maps (see cyclopean).
No need to swear... But I think that's what I read from somewhere and that was the reason why we were testing this map: to improve it so it could be included as official.
I asked KT to organize a playtest for this map, it could use some playtest support for him to bring the map to a good standard and to be included as official, have you tried to play it MOOtant? it has a good layout, good terrain and proportions, good cover for infantry as well as having a good terrain for vehicle combat, I could spot atleast a couple of viable strategies. The only problems I remember is that a few spots were a bit unrefined and out of place, some areas had too rough terrain while they IMO should have been viable expansion locations and that if the corners were to become the chokepoints, that they would not have enough cover. I do not believe that it is in anyones interest if we just wait and hope a map comes by that is perfect at its first release, especially if playtesting a custom map could help the mapper improve it to this status.
I agree that no crappy map should ever be official. That said, this is what i think: The empires playerbase IS 50 players! Why? A good reason seems to be lack of maps. It's something i keep hearing again and again. In fact, it's why i myself have stopped playing empires, with the occasional exception. Proof of that might be the fact that you see people playing maps like the trenches, gorge, fastestmap and other maps i consider to be of lower quality. After one try i never play them anymore, that's how much i dislike them, yet after all these years some people start to prefer them over the official maps just because they're not 'old meat'. Some start playing stupid maps, others like me just stop playing. If cyclopean doesn't meet your standards, fine. Fact is that many like it, and without it empires would have even less maps. The playerbase would've been 40 instead of 50. Dizzy said something about improving arid, to see if it would be good enough to be official to address the problem of the lack of maps. I stopped working on my (newer) map to improve arid. If it's too crappy to be official that's absolutely fine by me. It's easier for me to do what i like with it on my own time anyway. I make maps because i like to do it, not because i want them to become official. Just be sure about it.
There are 12 official maps. Now I'll make a list of maps with problems: - crossroads (being fixed) - cyclopean (trees and city area that distracts players from strategical places) - escort (balancing is mostly done) - glycencity (totally unplayable with turrets and stickies that rape paper armor) - slaughtered (map bugs in 2.2) - urbanchaos (everything gets walled also see glycencity) - streetsoffire (no way to defend in base/strike back because of tickets and refineries) So more than 50% of the maps need fixes or balance changes. I didn't see emp_arid even once but I'm saying that making map official is quite a big decision. You have to support it in future versions. It's not just "omg I have a good map let's add it".
Whatever plans you have for the Glycencity, please, make two versions of it. The current one and the new one with your changes. I LOVE Glycencity as it is now. It is AWESOME now. I love the balance in it. It just fine in my opinion. Vehicles aren't too overpowered but neither are the infantry either and if the turrets bug you off... Well. Get half of your time to switch to grenadiers and the other half to riflemen to give them support while they pick the turrets one by one down. I like the glycencity JUST EXACTLY as it is and it is the most enjoyable map in the Empires for me at the moment, especially when both teams have equally skilled players. ------------- Anyway, about the amount of maps which Silk meantioned. It is true that mod survives longer when it has more maps. Let's look at the zombie master, for example. I have seen ALL of it multiple multiple times over and over again. Yet I keep going back to play it once in a while again. Why? Because it has so massive amount of custom maps. The mod would have died 3 months ago already without the amount of custom maps for it. The basic idea is just too simple: Either kill everyone within the time limit or survive certain amount of time while you do objectives if you do. But it is living well because of all the custom maps which people have done for it because they are interesting and new and they have to learn how to play them and they can enjoy at them while they are doing that. ------------------- But I can agree with you that Urbanchaos could use a bit fixing. If both teams know what they are doing it is very hard to get around and actually tip the balance towards either faction.
