Detour Ahead is a campaign designed to mimic the Left 4 Dead campaigns. It will feature Crescendos, working Safe Houses, and Zombie-hub spawns. Now, I know you are probably thinking, "Oh, great, another "Left 4 Dead"-esque type map..." Well, if your tired of them, then this isen't your thread. Backstory on idea of the map: I made a campaign in Halo 3 (Entitled, "Brain Dead") and, in a (failed) attempt to recreate it in Reach, I decicded to do another one entirely. Brain Dead featured all the Special Infected (Hunters were invisible, Smokers had Sentinal Beam, Boomers had Flame Thrower, Tank was CP and Gravity Hammer) but, unfortuantly, Reach's new mechanics don't allow me to do Special Infected, so I took 1 for 1 and allowed zombies to choose spawn areas through teleporters. (Which was not a possibility in Brain Dead). I had a lot of fun making Brain Dead, and I'm sure I'll have just as much fun making Detour Ahead. Also, as a little challange and in coherence with my alter-ego Scott, I'm attempting to make the campaign take place in a city, using every possible way the move about the city that isen't in the streets. Backstory on story of the map: The survivors crash into the city. "You HAD to shoot the pilot. You really had to." Erik complains. "He turned! It wasen't Scott's fault, man." Wallace counters. "Well, it still sucks. You couldn't shoot him when we WERE'NT over a freakin' zombie dreamland?" Erik argues, looking at Scott. Scott doesn't say anything, and walks away from the wreckage toward a boarded up store. "Don't complain about it, Erik. Just be happy we're alive." Ramona states, practically shouting at Erik. Erik just brushes her off. "HEY! Shut up, over there! You'll attract more of them!" Scott says, pulling the last crate of a crude barricade and walking into the shop. "Excuse ME for trying to defend you!" Ramona shouts at Scott. The 3 sit down, looking a the seemingly abandoned streets. Scott comes out with a crate, filled with handguns. "Take one. You'll need them." He says, handing the crate to his comrades. The 3 give eachother glances, but agree and take one. Wallace points out a clinic right across from the gun shop they just stole from(How convienent). They all grab a medpack and heal, plopping the rest on a nearby table outside. "Well... let's find another school, shall we?" Erik says sarcastically, about to walk down the road. "Erik!" Scott harshly whispers, "Get off the streets! From above, I saw the streets were practically filled with them!" Erik takes a glance behind him, and starts heading back. "Well, were are we going to go? We're lost in some unknown city, no way to defend ourselves, we mine as well..." Wallace goes into panic, staring at his handgun. "Calm down, we're making it out of here, ALIVE." Scott reasures him. "But, we're are we going to go?" Ramona questions him. Scott breaks down a weak fence behind them. "I guess we'll have to take a detour..." He says, and starts heading to a nearby 2 story building. Well, I hope you enjoy reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it. Information about the map and gametype (Check back constantly, it will be updated!) -Part 1, The Alleyways, is complete, but is updated constantly. -Part 2, The Rooftops, is in it's final version. -Part 3, The Sewers, is structuraly complete, but needs to be tweaked with aesthetics and gameplay tweaks. -The current gametype, 'Left 4 Dead', is the final release version. (Read below) -A new gametype, 'Left 4 Dead:Expert Mode', is tweaked for those of you who hate 17 to 20 swipes to kill. It is in beta and has not been tested nor released. -I tried to make the gametype as close to Left 4 Dead as possible... Meaning, it does NOT take about 4 swipes to kill someone... more like 17 to 20. But, given the fact that the map has a lot of tight corners and lots of possiblities for ambushes, I believe it balances out. (At least, testers have yet to complain) Also, this enforces teamwork within the zombie range to gang up on a certain survivor(s), instead of every zombie for itself. As for survivors, there will not be any more then 4 survivors in a game (unlike Rifte's gametype) so zombies will ALWAYS outnumber humans. -I made this before Rifte posted his second part to No Hope, it was never posted until now for countless reaons. (I don't believe I was the first to come up with this idea, please, no hate mail for this) -Brain Dead is still avaliable for anyone who wishes to play it in Halo 3. -Each chapter is about 4 minutes long, if you don't count the 10-15 seconds the Survivors spend in the Safe House. -The Survivors only get points if they survive, no kill points (except for zombies). -This was all updated in about 30 minutes. -All the pictures (more will be added soon) below are only from Part 1, however the pictures may be outdated. "Human start point, a falcon is crashed behind a fence, and the only weapons they have are the pistols from the gun store." "the first thing the humans see is an open street, they can take the building to their left for a short way towards the crescendo, or go the long way towards the tower for weapons. This is the first zombie attack point." Left 4 Dead - Detour Ahead, coming soon.
I wouldn't expect too many comments on this if I were you. It's nothing towards your skill at forging, it's just that this community tends to favor competitive maps over infection. From personal experience I can say that this isn't the best map genre to go into, not only because of what was stated above, but because any journey map will always be compared to Rifte's maps. I'm not saying that they aren't great maps, but they got a large amount of attention because they were the first to come out in Reach. I don't say that to discourage you; it's more of a reminder that this is a very hard genre to succeed in. Onto the actual map itself: In the first picture, it looks like you have a falcon set to explode in the human path. I'd advise against this for a couple reasons. For one, unlike other human vehicles, a destroyed falcon carcass looks nothing like the original aircraft. Secondly, it would provide more cover as a whole vehicle, which is important in these games. In the second picture, if budget allows, I'd recommend that you use banks instead of capture plates to make the umbrella. And, I'm not sure if it's intentional, but the railing in the bottom left of the picture doesn't look like it's too neatly forged. Best of luck with your map. You may also want to check out the fourth link in my signature, it's an extensive guide to creating journey maps.
I really don't expect to succeed in linear maps, I just have nothing else better to do then post them . This is what the community is for, isen't it? To become a better a forger, and that's what I want to do. Thank you for all the information, and I really like the guide! It's very helpful. Also, to point out- The falcon in the poster is destoryed just for the poster, in the actual game it isen't. And the railing that you pointed out is actually a fence, blocking the Survivor's access to the falcon. What I mean: If you look to the right in the actual poster, you'll see some sort of fence. That's the same fence that's in left of the picture. For the poster, I deleted the front of the fence and destroyed the falcon, but for the actual map, the falcon is blocked off by a fence and untouched. Also, just a REALLY big warning here- I tried to make the gametype as close to Left 4 Dead as possible... Meaning, it does NOT take about 4 swipes to kill someone... more like 17 to 20. But, given the fact that the map has a lot of tight corners and lots of possiblities for ambushes, I believe it balances out. (At least, testers have yet to complain) Also, this enforces teamwork within the zombie range to gang up on a certain survivor(s), instead of every zombie for itself. As for survivors, there will not be any more then 4 survivors in a game (unlike Rifte's gametype) so zombies will ALWAYS outnumber humans. I'll explain more about the gametype when (if) I update this thread, and if I don't, all the information will be explained in the actual map thread. For now, The information above will be copy-pasted into the thread.