What if you had a map built along just one street? Boulevard is built around that very simple concept. It's a very long arena, bridging the cliffs of Hemorrhage canyon. There's a tower at either end and a very, very long street down the middle. In the middle of that street, at the map's mathematical center, is the sniper rifle spawn. It's built for team slayer or CTF. This one's a $10,000 map - I used every cent of the complexity allowance. The place is a bit of a sniper's paradise: not only are the sight lines long, but the rifle respawns every 30 seconds, and there can be up to 3 of them on the map at once. Don't think that snipers are invulnerable, though. There's plenty here for everyone - as long as you use cover intelligently and stay out of the open as much as possible! Even snipers have their work cut out for them. First of all, you have to survive getting the rifle out of its exposed spawn point, and there are mounted machine-guns and various other things in your way. If you do get the rifle, the obvious places to snipe from are the bases at either end of the map. But to make the game fun for everyone, these places aren't just impenetrable fortresses. Following something Chris Carney mentioned in his article on level design, I designed them as hard-points with multiple entry possibilities: through the front gate, via the ramps from the understory, and also via a grav lift on the tower's right side. In all, there are four places to enter the tower from, even without a jetpack. That's enough for an entire CTF team to assault at once, each from a different place. With judicious use of armor abilities, there could be some interesting strategies here. If you're not into sniping, don't worry - there's plenty of good hunting for you here. Underneath the street is a twisting network of rooms and passageways laced with power weapons, with close- to medium-range sight lines. As you can see in this image there are also plenty of grav lifts between the understory and the upper levels. This is a great place for people who like to run-and-gun or just plain old sneakin' around. So watch your back: it may be a big map, but it's surprisingly easy for people to sneak up on you, pop up right next to you, or overtake you if you're running with the flag. Among the power weapons under the map is, of course, the rocket launcher. But be careful, its spawn point is a little explosive . . . There are also a couple of options to make getting around quicker. I've put in a couple of Mongoose ATVs at either base. There are also man cannons at either end of the map. They're a great way of covering lots of distance in a hurry, but they do make you quite exposed. Skeet shooting for snipers is a definite possibility. My friend Stuka1941 noticed that Mongooses (mongeese?) can also ride the man cannons, to hilarious effects. This is the first map I've posted here and I'd love any feedback you have. Happy playtesting!
I liked the solid idea behind this and the execution is really good. Love mongeese on man cannons for frantic fun. Could be too sniper-iffic, but if you keep low you can get some sweet assassinations, especially on slayer pro where there's no radar! We'll spend some more time on it playtesting for you and let you know what turns up! PS. The needler is DEADLY downstairs - armour lock FTW
That's the idea - upstairs is sniper paradise, but really it's only an issue if you run around like an idiot without cover. If you run in a straight line over open ground when there are snipers all over the place, it's your problem if you get headshotted. If you stick to the buildings or go to the understory, you've got a lot of different tactical options. You're right about the needler downstairs, too. It basically counts as a power weapon down there. But then again, there's two shotguns and a rocket launcher there, and a lot of cover - so everyone takes their chances!
From the shots, I really like the look of the map. I'll dl now and check it out, hopefully get a few friends on it if I like it.
Well, I ran around it for a bit and really enjoyed it. I like how everything is easily distinguishable from not walling the place up which is quite annoying in most cases. The flow is really good just running around but i'll have to wait to have a few players to see how it goes. Looking forward to showing it to a few friends and having some customs on it.
Glad you like it, Bleuprint. I've just had a 4-on-6 game on it myself, and I'm discovering that this map encourages a very particular type of gameplay. It's very tactical, and demands some thought from the players. A lot of maps, like Pinnacle or Asylum, give you a frantic sort of combat, with everyone running around and melee fighting in the open. If you try that on Boulevard you'll get pwned. And lots of people did. On this map you need to use the cover and the understory to sneak up on people.
I really like the long bridge like feeling. It make for a good back and forth struggle. I'm not sure if the top is too open or not, but I haven't been able to test it with friends. Great job though. Looks great.
Glad you think so. A couple of people have told me I should add some cover to the street. I'm a bit torn on that - I could do it, but it's kind of the point to have a long, uninterrupted sight line, you know? Maybe some of those transparent covenant temporary shields . . .
Hey, played this one today and got pwned by snipers! wonder if the limit is too high, i learned my lesson up top but every time i tried to rejoin my teammates i hot headshotted - maybe there should be some spawn zones that'll help you get back to your team quickly. the spawn on the tower near the GL is a bit cramped if your whole team gets wiped out too. Very tactical map, but it's too tempting to just run out! Maybe some covenenat or human barricades in the open might help break that snipers aim for long enough to survive? we played team slayer, on splitscreen with a couple of xboxes. graphics suffer quite a lot so couldn't see the threats even with click zoom sadly, maybe look at blocking a couple of the sniper spots. or maybe i'll just have to stop sucking!
It's true - this map really requires quick thinking and tactical game play. People who like rushing in guns blazing tend to get ripped apart mercilessly. I'm one of the thoughtful ones, but I'm learning that not everyone likes to play that way! The draw distance in Reach is a problem here too. If you're playing split-screen on this one, it's almost impossible to see your enemies because the map is so big. It's like playing snipers in Hemorrhage. Full-screen or nothing on this one, looks like . . .
I had the same design issue with my carrier. How do I give the people cover on the flight deck when doing so will take away from the theme of the carrier itself? In the end, I left it open, no crates or other obstacles (which really took away from the carrier feel when they were present). Stay with your design. It will be fine as is.
@MrGreenWithAGun I think that's what I'll do. It's true - snipers totally dominate open maps. It's what they're supposed to do! The trick in Boulevard as in Flight Deck, is to go underneath, sneak up behind, and assassinate the bastards!
I'd like to re-iterate how much I enjoy this map. A few friends were going through a bunch of maps we've downloaded and this one got a lot of high praise, especially the overall feel or essence. I think it has great staying power to be played often. I'm hoping this one gets a feature and I'm really not much of a fan of the larger or non-mlg maps.
How do you get the image that shows up in the forum? when i post maps it just says No Specified Image or something like that. Can you help me? Also the map looks amazing!
Registered to comment on this map! Played a fun round 4v4 on Boulevard last night with some friends, and it went pretty well. Interestingly, there was quite a lot of action out in the street, and the snipers seemed happy to stay inside the buildings and shoot along their length. There was solid action in the sub-level as well. A few people felt that there were too many sniper rifles (this included a guy who got a whack of sniper kills) and not enough cover on the street (which seems to be the point, but there you have it). We also had some trouble with grav lifts in the machine-gun towers: if you try to use them from the street level, you often won't get enough lift to reach the roof and will drift down to the basement where you'll have to try again - not exactly a speedy escape! One poor fellow also spawned amongst the enemy a few times; not sure if this just a function of people being all over the place, or of there not being enough respawn points or what. Might be something to look into. At any rate, this was a blast and I'm sure we'll be playing it again. Good stuff!
It's not a bad concept, but I think the execution may be somewhat lacking. Not that the forging is bad (actually it looks quite clean); rather, you have this very open street which anyone in their right mind would stay far away from, and what looks like some smaller and better-covered alternate paths (or path - it's just one lower level, right?) that will become a high-traffic area for anybody wanting to not get sniper-drilled. Right off the bat, I would recommend two things: 1. More cover in the main street area. Even one major line-of-sight breaker in the middle of the street (or a couple of them, bracketing the sniper spawn) would make a big difference and give people something to duck behind. If you don't want to lose the "empty street" feel, maybe just some scattered smaller pieces of cover more toward the sides would help. 2. This is a more significant re-design thing, but I would love to see more interplay - or more obvious, visible interplay - between the street and the lower level(s). Think of the relationship between the bridge and the under-bridge in Narrows from H3. You want players to move freely between your two paths; otherwise it becomes two basically separate battleground areas. And while that can work for some maps, I think you are running a risk with this one of creating what one of my friends used to call a "meat zone." Basically a popular area where everybody converges and dies. And because the street is very open and very dangerous, I think it would end up being the lower level. If you could move back and forth between them more readily, I think it would encourage players to use both levels and not just focus on one.
You could try territories on this map, as there is at least 5 places that would be adept at running them and it would really give the map a push and pull feel to it. On the whole a very good looking map that would play well if i could get some friends of black ops
@bleuprint Why thank you, kind sir. I'm glad you enjoy it! If you think Boulevard should be featured be sure to nominate it! @Tanith 6627 - I'm interested to see that you had a good 4 v 4 game. This map is so big that that's really at the quiet end of the team size - but I'm glad it can sustain. I agree with you on the sniper rifles - I think I'll reduce the cap to 2 and increase the spawn time to 1 minute. That's still pretty frequent, but with only 1 spare clip it should come closer to balance. The idea is to make sure snipers have to keep coming back into the middle for more ammo, thus making themselves vulnerable. I'll try and put in more spawn points, too - but many of them will be exposed and not behind cover. I've tried to be really careful not to put in any spawn points that snipers can see from either base. But there aren't many more spots like that left. @el megapwn - Boulevard actually has more ways to get from the street to the understory than Narrows does. To get up, there are 6 grav lifts in all, plus 2 ramps. To get down, obviously you can take the ramps as well, plus there are 12 places where you can drop down to the lower level from the street. That's a total of 14 routes down and 8 routes up, while Narrows only has 8 in each direction. You're not the first person to ask for cover, but that's the point! There's no cover on the street . . . though since everybody is asking for it, maybe I'll put in a couple of those transparent Covenant shields near the center of the map. Otherwise - a question for all of you: I tried playing CTF on this map the other day and couldn't. I got an error message saying the map isn't set up for CTF, even though I've put in flag spawns. What am I missing? Anyone know?