As Night Falls

Thanks so much everyone for all the compliments, I've worked very hard on this map for months now and I was afraid that it wouldn't go over well with the community, seeing as how many infection maps get posted here per day.

It took me forever to get the transformation from light to dark correct (or at least acceptable to me), and stopping people from getting to areas inaccessible to zombies. There used to be a fort on the ledge adjacent to the Municiple Building with a turret that had two entrances (one of them being a bridge from the catwalks), anyway lets just say it did'nt turn out right but I loved the design of it (plus it was the brightest spot on the map). So I took it apart and a made a similiar structure in the opposite corner which is now the "Shack". The shack is entirely more fair to zombies, plus when it gets dark out that's the darkest part, except for the pipes...

Eventually I had to entirely block off the ledge by the municipal building, first reason was that humans would jump on each other's heads/ grenade jump up there and zombies would get frustrated and quit. Second reason was that it wasn't creepy there at all, ya know the whole brightness thing. In addition to blocking it off, I gave humans increased gravity, and zombies less just in case. It really sucks when a human gets somewhere you can't and you have to just keep rushing (and dying) until he's out of ammo.

Also ZANDER1994's post got me thinking, I never really thought too much about the buildings re-inforcing themselves as time goes on (such as the starting building), and I got to thinking about how much of an effect it has on gameplay. Currently i'm testing this idea but I was wondering what you guys think of it; The first fort the "cramped" fort could build itself from scratch, the bottem parts spawing first at 10 seconds, then upper parts at 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, and 120. So by the time it gets the darkest out the fort will just have been completed. So bottem line, at first you'd have two forts, and shortly a crappy one that gets better as time goes on. So far i've played about 12 games with this happening (saved as As Night Falls2) and so far it hasn't had alot of effect on gameplay. I'm aslo currently doing the same thing with the middle building fort, where at first all the entrances are open aside from the bridge with the water crate. I'm just wondering how that sounds to you guys. Depending on how well it works i'll post a link to the "revised" version (but not taking away the original link).

Anyway, sorry about the wall of text. Opinions?

 

I hope this doesn't count as double-posting, seeing as only one person has posted since my last post... Anyway I just wanted to let everyone know i've played a few more games using the timed-building thing. On my varient of As Night Falls at the very beginning of the round there are absolutley no forts, and by the time the last filter comes in all of the forts are assembled.

So far the biggest thing this has effected is that instead of everyone immediately rushing out of the starting building to get to a safe fort they either stay at the starting building and hold off zombies until they think there's a fort assembled, or they immediately head out and sit around the area where a fort will be built and then enter it. This is what i've realised from 3 games (4 rounds each), i'm still trying to decide if I want to keep it like this...

I just wanted to get this information to you guys before I go to bed, let me know what you think.

 

Let's just say before I added in the time limit, there was'nt one... At one point in time during playtesting (before the time limit) I played a game that lasted close to 2 hours. Actually I enjoyed it (even though I got infected early on), there were three points during the game I had 16 people, but for obvious reasons most quit, but others joined during. By the time the game was over I (the host) was the only person that was there when the game started... Even though I enjoyed I knew others didn't due to the length, so I decided to put a time limit on.

The length was a hard descision, I really wished that respawn times for items could be set longer so that the Nova filter would come on 10 seconds before the end of the round (to represent the rising sun), but unfortunately you can only set it to a max of 3 minutes. 3 minutes is too short for a round of this, since I wanted it to feel like a long night, your last night. So I figured if the round ever lasts that long just assume daylight is coming very shortly and the remaining humans survived the night. But, the round hardly ever lasts that long. It's only lasted that long for me twice, one being the near-2 hour game.

On a seperate subject i'm also going to try another small varient of this where the round begins with all the filters used in this map already on, and the rounds lasting 3 minutes, with nova spawning 150 seconds into the round. Probably going to call it Til' Sunrise... just something i'll work on.

Also, the play testing for the forts assembling during the game has worked out extremely well . Is it okay to post the link to the revised version here on this thread along with the other original links, next to it stating that this is the revised version with an explaination as to changes, or do I make a new thread? I'd really prefer to just add the link on this thread. All it is is changes to item's respawn rates in vey specific order that i've playtested and worked well, so I don't see the purpose of creating a new thread for the same exact map, but with different respawn rates....could be wrong though.

 

Alright everyone, since I was not told to make a new thread for it I posted the link for the updated-version of As Night Falls on the original post. Check it out! (If you liked the original version, you'll love the revision!)