Hi, this is my new map, Blackguard. Mainly designed for 4v4 team games, I drew my original inspiration for this map from Guardian, though a lot of people compare it to Blackout. The main difference between Blackguard and either of those maps, however, is that it is symmetrical. Each base has a lift you can go up or down similar to gold lift on Guardian, or Red lift on Blackout, as well as matching sniper towers on the sides. There are several lifts that will take you quickly to other parts of the map, and a large circular platform in the center with very little in the way of cover, but which is the fastest way to get anywhere else on the map. As far as weapons, there is a 2 spare clip 180 second respawn sniper rifle at the bottom middle of the map, and two no clip 120 second shotguns on the bottom left hand side of each base. There are also 6 DMR's, 4 Needle Rifles, 2 Plasma Pistols, 2 Needlers, 2 Plasma Repeaters, 4 Assault Rifles, 2 Pistols, 10 Plasma Grenades and 2 Frag Grenades on the map. There are 2 basic levels to the map, with the bottom level having all three of the power weapons, as well as a fair number of the other weapons, but with the top offering superior sightlines. Enough jibber jabber from me, time to show you the map itself. ^Overhead view of the map. ^View from red sniper tower to blue base ^View from bottom mid to red base lift ^Angled look at the middle section of the map. ^View of blue sniper tower from above red base. Any comments, suggestions, concerns or compliments will be gladly received. I'm not an experienced forger by any means, but I hope some of you will give this map a chance, and I hope it gives you many fun games. Happy shooting!
The name came from the maps people compare it to. Black(out)Guard(ian). Since that made a word, I made it the name.
^^^^ Totally my idea, Mattiyahoo. Anyways, the overview picture for this map looks gorgeous, and after testing it I must say that I was pretty impressed by how neat everything looked despite being off-centre, and how it combined Blackout and Guardian so well. My only concern is that the flat mancannons seem to propell you before you walk into them, which is a little disconcerting. But I'm sure you can fix that. Cool file, bro.
So, I did something I promised myself I would never do. I changed the map after releasing it. Links and pictures are updated in the first post. There just wasn't enough cover up top, so I put some more in. Promise I won't touch it again!
I am quite impressed by the final result of this map. It offers a unique blend between close quarters and open air gameplay. I feel that it plays its best in slayer based gametypes. I can not find any problems or preferences that I do not like about it.
^Thanks Out of curiousity, every time I open this thread, it says the only gametype I selected that it works for is territories, when it works for nearly every gametype. I edit it back, but I've had to do that three times now. WTF?
Awh yes, I remember playing a KOTH game on this. I ended up leaving because I had other requests and my team was well over 200 points anyway. Curious how that game ended but oh well. It was pretty good, a bit too jet pack friendly. I would put 1 way shield doors on top of the bases so people with jetpacks can't jetpack into them. That also helps with grenade spamming.
More cover... you mean the centerpiece ripped straight from my map Oracle? But anyways, the map is quite fun. The name works well aand everything flowed nicely. The side towers didn't get a ton of use during testing, but thats about it. I think the map would have benefitted from coordinate editing, but that's your choice. Overall, very fun map. Slayer was definitely best, but KOTH and oddball were fun as well. Speaking of KOTH... You'll be happy to know that after you left we got completely **** on.
Woops....We were up by like 100 lol. Anyway, my favorite part of this map was the center area. The raised disk actually provides a good amount of cover if you strafe around it.
Oh, maybe you were on the other team... And I'm glad you like the center, seeing as it's originally from my map.
I don't like it when people claim parts of a map as copying a part of theirs. It's just a disk, many maps have that in them, and unless the author explicitly states that they took elements from another author's map or say it was inspired by that map you can't just assume they copied the concept. That's like someone with trees on their map blaming another person with trees on their map for stealing their concept.
I'm pretty sure that he didn't steal it from your map; I've seen the 2 inverse antennas in plenty of maps, including one of my own. It's not like it's a complicated structure... It takes literally 20 seconds to make. Anyway, I really enjoyed this map as I'm a fan of both Guardian and Lockout. I've been waiting for good spiritual successors to these maps and not crappy imitations and I think this one fits the bill. I can see this staying on my HD for many custom games to come. Great work!
Thanks to anyone who's downloaded the map, and thanks to Psychoduck because I did indeed get the idea for that from Oracle. He's given me permission to borrow it from his map, so I'm not gonna change it cause it works like a charm. Oracle is definitely a map worth checking out.
I checked out this map after you commented on Champion. I must say, this is really good, and probably better than my map. My map didn't have any gravity lifts and looks as though it will flow differently than this, but your aesthetics are clearly much better than Champion's. You put a lot of time and effort into this. If you want to run customs sometime, send me a pm. My GT is Antares777x and I'd love to test this out for 4v4s. I mainly want to see how it flows compared to Champion, so send me a pm for a specific.
It's nice to be done with it. Every time I thought I was finished, someone would point something out, or suggest something, and I'd have to redo a bunch, then Falco would come in and break it in 15 different ways, and I'd have to fix that, then basdfuiafsdbuiop. It's good to have a finished product now. I'm not forging that map again. I love it, even though it's not the greatest map, but I never want to touch it again.
I like this map will definately give it a try in my customs rotations - I noticed the cannon on red caused some shield damage and one thing that would possibly be good is to rotate the bridges then add railings to the outside, it seemed to me it would encourage people to make more daring jumps and break outside of your intended flow. but I see above you don't plan to reforge so it may be something I do on my own. Anyways good work!
Both the downwards lifts have a chance of doing minor shield damage. If I had them a bit lower, they wouldn't do shield damage ever, but there'd be a chance of falling off the map. I figured it was the lesser of two evils, y'know? I may revisit the map in a while, but right now I'm trying to get way the **** away from this map because every time I load up forge, I just start building this map again. It's quite frustrating.