You're welcome to just play even if you have nothing to test - or to play an old map of yours. I've done both on a number of occasions.
OH GOD WHY??? My new map has at least one inescapable hallway. I plan on trapping er'rybody in there.
Good luck on your lobby tonight. Appearently the launch of the new GoW is taxing the Xbox Live servers pretty hard. I couldn't even hold a successful 2v2 Lobby as most of it was spent in black screen.
Yikes. Hopefully they'll have it straightened out by start time, but if it's really bad, we'll just wait til next week.
ok, think i am sorted... after forging a whole new layout i have faced problems that cannot be fixed in the time allowed...however i have decided to retread libertads halls one last time in one flag ctf....assuming i got the damn set up correct!
Sorry guys, something's come up and I won't be able to make it tonight. I'd definitely be there if I could. I hope the lobby goes well!
Recap for Tuesday March 19th I would type something witty in this post, but I'm too busy picking Berb's bullets out of my backside.
The highlight of the evening for me was camping the flag with two hogs during that last round of one-flag on Tombo's map. An unfair tactic maybe, but lolololol
It wouldn't have been that bad if we actually spawned on our side of the map. The highlight of my night was camping the flag with two mantises on tombos first test. Probably equally as frustrating as that last game was for us. Tombo if your online at the same time as me. i will set up capture the flag for you so people spawn correctly
We were wondering if you lagged out. Apparently the new Gears of War was slowing down Live yesterday. Our lobby was experiencing some hiccups when it first started, but after the first game or two I don't remember any big issues.
thanks for the offer. aside from the zones, i am still not sure what makes a good spawn point. not in my defense, but my dont hate me excuse is i ran out of time. i forgot the time difference and lost an hour prep time. but i didnt get the spawning well for 2 flag so i doubt i would have done it properly! [br][/br]Edited by merge: MAPS LAST NIGHT .VANGUARD (unrivaled20) LCG NEVEREND (lee c g) DIAMONDBACK (another claymore) REACTOR3F (xaudienceofone) PAVILION (nutduster) ERMAHGERD FLUUUD (el trocity) SEQUENCE 13 (juanez 'dirty' sanchez) LIBERTAD 1 FLAG (O.OO5/0.003) (tombo V1) LCG ETERNUM 1.2 (lee c g) ARCHWAY (another claymore) .CONVENT (unrivaled20) ENDFALL (blackoutsix)
I recap VANGUARD I like this map a hell of a lot. We were rippin it up for most of the game however, and I did some big fat camping towards the end of the game. Its just awfully fun I have no issues. Would like to play this more, you certainly cleaned it up from the first tests. NEVEREND Very nice first test. I did find the forge a bit over complex, or busy in places. There were a few too many hops, jumps and slides here and there for me- however it was only a first playthrough and More map knowledge will help me get around lots better. One note was that I have been criticized before for making a map where you can grav lift up to an instant cap with the flag. Perhaps try moving the flag spot away from the lift a little?? DIAMONDBACK This was crazy, maybe too much at times, as when the flag dropped to the lower level we could see anyone coming from above in whatever direction. The issue might not be your verticality but the radar. It's such an accurate and easy to read radar that it's really no surprise when someone crops up (or drops down) to try and snag the flag, so much so that I could even time my boltshot blast for when they approached the flag. I do very much still like the central lift, it's looks great. To be honest this is the most fun I had on this map so far, once again map knowledge helps a great deal, this being my 3rd time on here. REACTOR Splendid, great routes and sightlines, The beam rifle thing was a shame, about the only thing wrong. Central room is fun to fight over and you done a good job with the aesthetics too. I DID get some framerate, but I have faith that you can strip out whatever is causing it. I reckon it's time for flag on here. PAVILION Wow, good stuff. The central room looked great and love your use of the sniper towers as pillars. Pretty aren't they? I have used them a few times before, on radiant and the one from last night. I did get a tang of frame-rate looking from my base down the center, but very little- it's a complex dome and it looks splendid. Weapons were beautifully placed, however I got a bit confused as to what spawned where with so much personal ordnance flying round. I think you could maybe open up one side of the bottom of the blue base to allow peeps that go under there to use the grav lift up to the top. I got stranded under there holding the flag for ages. Also some aesthetic touches were insane, like the base stripes bracket under the ramp on the outside. That was niiiiiice. EHRMADERD FLUUUUUD I was like 'groan, fllood. Don't like flood' but this was awesome! Firstly very very nice place to build it, the fragments of meteor are a superb and underused thing- secondly the gametype was a blast. Flood were tough and strong but you needed teamwork to kill humans and the humans had a decent arsenal to use. The FX looked good too, with it being gloomy yet colourful and at times very difficult to see cloaked sneaking flood. Layout is as usual a bit random for flood, but it's not a field I am exactly strong in. I think you said that all areas mostly had to be the same amount to vulnerable/ campy. I WILL BE BACK WITH MORE SOON/TOMORROW
OK, recap time! Vanguard - This is a fun map, and I enjoy playing on it a lot. Good move closing up the former shotgun spawn locations; I don't think that added much to the map except a bit of confusion for me. I do think jetpack is a bit OP on the map but I don't know what I'd suggest that you do about it - maybe a few partial ceilings or higher walls? I also still am not crazy about the look of the corner walls in the bottom mid room; it feels like artificial cover rather than a structural necessity. Apart from those minor quibbles, I like playing on this map and look forward to doing so again. Neverend - I found this map surprisingly busy for you, Lee. Camber has a very clean, open feel, and while Interchange is more complicated and has some tight interior spaces, it's still a design that didn't take me too long to wrap my head around. This map seemed to trip me up a lot despite not being all that large; there are lots of very narrow corridors, oddly-shaped chokepoints that are a tight fit to move through, and a general feeling of the map being kind of hard to move around and segmented as well. I found myself wishing for more open lines of sight so I could be more involved in the action that wasn't immediately in front of me, and also so I could figure out the layout better. Also, I found the map's outer borders to be problematic - there was a part downstairs somewhere that you can hop over a railing on to natural geometry that is so close, it looks like it should be playable - yet once you hop over you end up in a hard kill immediately. I really would like for A) the natural geo to be farther away so that its non-playability is visually clear, even if it's still possible to get there; and/or B) a soft kill first, then a hard kill, so that if players can get outside the map it doesn't just immediately kill them; and/or C) maybe just a wall of some kind to make it harder or impossible to foolishly destroy yourself. Diamondback - This was the best game on this so far and I like the nips and tucks you've been making for the most part (although the fact you could hit your head on that middle bridge when using the lift was less than delightful). But I don't think we're really playing this map to advantage. It seems to me like a 2v2 or 3v3 map that would play best without trackers. 4v4 is just very busy and with trackers on, the middle becomes a big death trap. Of your projects, I see potential in this but think Archway is the better map, or at least more suitable for our team sizes and the types of games we usually play. Reactor - I'm looking forward to playing a rebuilt version of this map. Didn't care for this particular test at all though. It might as well have been king of the hill with one hill location, which is something that makes me kind of crazy. The only strategy my team employed was either rushing the center room or trying to flank (usually via the mancannon), and then rushing the center room from the other side. It was a very repetitive game. Pavilion - I was iffy on these initial tests, though I do think it's the most visually attractive map I've made so far. My next tasks will be fixing the framerate issues (hopefully!) from blue base, and breaking up a couple of those long lines of sight. Some of that is cool but I felt like these two games were too DMR-dominated, and the sniper location is currently a good spot to get massacred. Ermahgerd Fluuud - This was really fun, even if I'm not the biggest fan of flood games. Pretty good layout and I like that you can't tell where the flood will be coming from. Also it seemed well-balanced between spartans and flood; and the aesthetics were nice. Even the one building the humans gravitated to eventually wasn't that OP, though one more entrance or vulnerability of some kind might improve it. Sequence 13 - This felt very much like a Juanez map. A few areas made me feel like I was back on Radiant again! I don't feel like I remember it very well now, unfortunately; probably gonna need another test or two before I can comment intelligently. I will make one mildly critical remark: I feel like to some extent you're making the same map repeatedly, with that kind of square or octagonal shape, bases on opposite ends, and a bridge running through the middle that you can pass underneath (or that has an actual room under it). This isn't true of ALL your maps but it is for a lot of them, and seemed to be the case on this one as well, if I understood its layout properly. I don't want to dissuade you from following your muse, but I hope some time soon you challenge yourself and make something wildly weird and different just to see how it goes. Libertad - This map has come quite a ways and is generally fun, but the setup of these 1-flag games was not ideal. You need to fix the spawn zones, as already discussed, and the design is such that defending at the flag location is kinda pointless; it's easier to switch positions with the offense, let them grab the flag, and then mow them down in the wide open space around the flag capture location. The plentiful turrets and hog turrets (as well as the mantises in the first test) also created this feeling that it was less a regular competitive match and more about finding a way to get in the big open area and mow people down while they try to move the flag one inch at a time. We eventually figured out it was easier to let the flag reset and try to drive it in, but that gave the other team so much time to set up their hog-pile that we got only a little bit closer with it. Convent - I thought the extraction gametype was a really good match for this map, with good target locations; and also I think this map might be the best thing I've seen from you so far. The structures and the natural geometry just work well together and the overall feel is like a real place. Good job on this. One small criticism: you may need fewer power weapons, because I was crushing with almost nothing but. I had a sword and/or rockets for basically the entire match, and when I ran out of those I used the mantis for a while; felt like I needed a shower after all the exploiting I was doing that game. Eternum - Fun game on a design you know I love, but I do prefer the original, I think. Rocket hogs! Archway - Still a very good and beautiful map, but I don't feel it works well at all for oddball. It's too damn big! I spent most of this game sprinting, sprinting like mad across wide open space and then dying twenty feet from the oddball. In general I think the nature of that gametype is that it works best on smaller arena-style maps. For this map, hot potato might be a better choice than oddball so at least occasionally the ball will auto-reset. Also, it seemed like there was only one oddball spawn point - I recommend a few so that the respawn isn't so predictable and easy to control. But that may be a matter of personal preference...
You are so very very right about me making the same thing over and over. I think I may be obsessed with a certain forged halo3 map. Onslaught. No word of a lie, I close my eyes, think of forge, and it's there. I desperately need a breakthrough of some type. Maybe I will skip next weeks tcoj, i need some room to think :-(
Well hell, man, I didn't mean to inspire an existential crisis or anything. Your maps are invariably fun, I just think you have more in you than that, too. Maybe try building something intentionally different just to see how it comes out, or sit and doodle some designs on paper? I find inspiration a lot from scratching out weird ideas on paper until something seems plausible. Sometimes the results are not great, but I've also made a few maps I was quite happy with, and that aren't too obviously indebted to the maps I was secretly stealing from...
that is what I like to do... always provide a warning that a hard kill is beyond the soft kill. The player may not be happy they died, but the soft-kill warning is a way of me saying "well, I told you so!"
.VANGUARD (unrivaled20) new name, same map = same fun. middle doesnt seem to be overpowered yet, though i have only played it twice. i really have no critique for this. lets test it a few more times LCG NEVEREND (lee c g) some really nice aesthetic touches on this map making it stand out. especially the narrow corridor. i also liked how you melded the existing geo to your forge. i got confused when unrivaled was talking about being outside the map, but after looking in forge can see what they are referring to. i thought it played ok for a first time and will reserve better judgement until another test and i am more knowledgable of the layout. but i have nothing bad to say at this time. good job. DIAMONDBACK (another claymore) i enjoyed this map and the gametype. im not sure on extended plays though. i like the verticality and the big lift in the middle is different - though you are stuck with the bouncy top. REACTOR3F (xaudienceofone) i have a poor memory and cannot recall what differences there are between this and reactor8 i played. i still like the idea, but i have to agree with nutduster in that my options were rather limited. i still had fun though. i look forward to your rebuild PAVILION (nutduster) very nice looking...again! asym maps are very difficult to pull off for balance and it started well until berb and nut hit their stride and i found the teams were unbalanced. there was nothing that stood out negatively i just want to play it some more. i really liked your central tunnel/room. crates i assume? looked different in a good way. ERMAHGERD FLUUUD (el trocity) i really liked the map layout and the effects used created a good atmosphere. you have forged on a little used area to great effect. i dont play flood that much - but i felt i was too weak as an initial flood, or not quick enough to catch people. when the flood are great in number it is nicely balanced though. SEQUENCE 13 (juanez 'dirty' sanchez) a classic design. its cleanly forged and i thought played well. its another of those new maps i would have to play a few more times to find anything productive to say invite to any tests you may do. LIBERTAD 1 FLAG (O.OO5/0.003) (tombo V1) in the short time frame to get something ready for testing, this was the best i could think of. i spent my time getting the flags working and making sure that the mantis could navigate some low ceiling levels and ran out of time for spawning. my biggest error though, on reflection, was underestimating players. the game started off as expected, rush for sniper. i expected it to be harder to get the flag out, but that was quite easy! the spawning didnt help, but both games were one sided. i personally enjoy dying a lot inching a flag to the capture point, but the majority do not. i didnt for a second think that people would just camp the flag capture area making it into more of an assault type gametype. (memo to self, putting 1 flag into a neutral area could recreate one bomb assault...or create a one flag assault gametype...) i'm definately done with this map though. you may see parts of it again, but no more! i do have an idea for my next test though - see a couple of lines up...) LCG ETERNUM 1.2 (lee c g) this map really played into my strengths. i bit the bullet and started using perks and with mobility and nutduster picking up my slack i easily ran in four flags.with a hop and a skip i could navigate my way from side to side with the flag without fear of dying or even being seen even though i went straight through the middle each time. i still think that its a decent map, but after seeing its daddy its just not the same. ARCHWAY (another claymore) this is playing well, im not sure what changes you can make. it is a bit open and as already stated you probably need another couple of spawns for the ball. .CONVENT (unrivaled20) a lot of fun. maybe one sided but not your fault... this map reminds me of yesteryear and all the things i liked in fps games. being on the roof and finsing spots to take people out up there was a lot of fun. really liked the lift in the house next to the mantis instead of the steep incline. it looked a lot nicer too. ENDFALL (blackoutsix) the orange created a great look for this map. nutduster said it was a 2v2 and it was manic for a 4v4. it was also a jetpackers dream, which most the other team did...! the raised hills were ok i thought, but the jetpacks rendered them useless as the height gave you no cover from someone gaining height advantage from anywhere they like. but a really nice map otherwise.