Civility (Testing)

Currently yes, they have both for each base. :x Mongoose in front of each base and Revenant and Hog for each base in the garage. I didn't take that into consideration, the whole team being airborne. Hmm, maybe after some testing it will prove to be a money-saver to get rid of the Falcons. I still would rather test it with them first with 5v5 or higher. :x

 

Sure. Also, I just found out I'm off all week (after wasting Gas....) so hopefullly the process can be sped up.

EDIT: If I take out the 4 vehicles in the garage and rework that area into something new while also removing the Falcon and changing that portion of the structure, will having only Mongoose and Banshee on the map be a problem for anyone? It will free up a good chunk of the budget. I'm thinking I may do 2 versions of this map for testing purposes. One as it is and the second with all of your suggestions taken into account so far and a few of my other ideas.

 

Think I might start doing little changelogs for the heck of it.

*Version 1 is now scrapped in favor of version 2. Got to play it some, despite douches dropping out early then mocking later. Was fun for me and a handful of others. Still haven't been able to play with the listed testers. Sent friend requests so I can see when you guys are on. Either being denied or you haven't logged.

*It is no longer possible to get your Mongoose wheels stuck in the glass covering. Because of this, walking of top of them is now slightly more risky. This is a favorable outcome. Walking onto the larger portion of the panel will cause you to slide off, so players must stay toward the middle.

*All weapons have been rebalanced in spawn times (ranging from 20 seconds for weak weapons to 3 minutes for the strongest). No, weapons will not be removed. I play for fun and variety. Cosntantly playing maps that utilize just DMR, Needle Rifle, Needler, Plasma Pistol, Magnum, AR, Sniper, and Energy Sword is ****ing boring and I won't tolerate it.

*The Sniper Rifle is now surrounded by hazards.

*The quad has 4 points of cover per side, rather than just 1.

*Bases now have more than 3 easy means of penetration. The more difficult means of entry are still in tact as well. The Quad area now has grav lifts on each end, to throw players onto the roof of each base, allowing for top entry without jetpacks.

*Bases no longer have a basement level.

*The teleporters in the bases no longer allow you to face the wall entering from certain sides of the teleporters. This allows it to be more obvious on what to do with the flag.

*Grenade Launchers now moved to the garage area.

*Fuel Rod Guns are now slightly hidden.

*Classes were created for CTF. These classes will be carried out into other gametypes.

*Teams no longer have Falcons or garage vehicles.

*Aesthetics have been upped a bit since V1.

Edit: 11/28/10

*Aesthetics have been updated once more in an effort to eliminate framerate lag. I believe I've gotten rid of all of it now. There are also changes made to guide the player's eye and allow for less confusion.

*The quad now has 6 points of cover, the garage now has 2. In the quad, there is a central structure with a large blocking rock for each side. There are 2 boxes, one for each team to hide behind near their ramp furthest from the respective base. Lastly, the quad has a large structer on both side, just before the rooftop grav lift, that can be used very well as cover. The garage has only two simple structures as cover, lit yellow to lure the player's eye to the Grenade launchers.

*A note to go along with the above: The Shotguns have been moved just slightly, since there are no longer rocky/grassy portions on each corner. These areas were replaced by a much less lagtastic 4x4 corner.

*Plasma Launchers and Banshees don't spawn until 90 seconds into the fight. Since Spartan Lasers are there to take out the Banshees, they are also subject to this change.

*Sniper hazards have been reduced for the sake of frame-rate. It now rests atop a fusion coil.

*The Fuel Rod Gun and Gravity Hammer remain hard-to-notice by design. Consider them Easter Eggs.

*Bases now have a second teleporter. This can be used as another escape route for Flag theft or to reach the Banshee more quickly. These also ensure more players will make use of the bottom section of the map. The teleporters are located in an extra room in the back of the base, third floor. They are meant to only be slightly noticeable from the inside, since they are the easiest escape route. If your flag-stealer doesn't notice it on his way out, he'll have a lot more trouble to deal with. It's noticeable enough, however. It can easy be seen entering the third floor from the second floor and can also be seen slightly in view when running towards it.

*Classes have been rebalanced. Everyone wanted to use the Jetpacks. To remedy this, Spartans with Jetpacks get no grenades from the start and Elites with Jetpacks only have one weapon and one grenade from the start. Camo users (Elite Species Only) have been given a heavy boost since this is a more seldom-used AA. As it stands, there should still be more incentive for some players to switch over to playing Elites over Spartans.

*All soft kill zones are now properly placed. Previously, there were spots for snipers to get aerial reign. These areas were riddled with frame-rate lag (though, oddly enough, Banshees seem unaffected by this) so they had to be restricted.

*There are now 12 FFA spawns on the map. Still having trouble placing the last 4 along with respawn points.

*The map now fully supports Assault, KOTH and Crazy King. More gametypes are still in the works. Territories seems like it's going to work out well here. Headhunter will be implemented last, since it will work with both FFA and Team types. I will be making a class template for users to follow, rather than editing all of the gametypes with the proper classes within. I simply can't hold that all in my fileshare.

The map will likely be released this week. This map is only for fun play, not competitive play. With that in mind, you should understand exactly why this map has power weapons and not just **** weapons. If this isn't your thing, don't bother with the map or simply edit them out.

Much thanks to GnappyAssassin for his help throughout the versions and all of the testers that have popped in and out.

 

12/7/10 Update:

*The map now supports all game-types with the exception of : Race Types, Invasion Types. While placing spawns for these modes, I ended up hitting a hard-limit on my objects! x_x

*The Plasma Launchers were moved and the ornamental display from the screenshots in my Weapon Perching thread has been disassembled for the sake of frame-rate.

Still looking for proper tests... and, if possible, someone to do a video or at least a fly-through. I think I'm able to do that, I just don't know how to get it rendered, so I can edit it, without a Bungie Pro. What would be great is if someone could record some gameplay...

I also did a map on the side, on Tempest, to test my ability to work within the confines of a map's terrain. I'd like to test that as well.


12/9/10 Update:

*A few items have been used more efficiently - this cuts down even more on any lag issues!

*Kill zones have been further revised. There should no longer be any spartan-sized gaps anywhere.

*All FFA, Infection and Team spawns and respawns should be properly placed now.

*There is now enough budget to place more cover in the basement/garage area. However, this may bring back lag. In my experiments, even when these items aren't visible they still seem to add lag from certain points of the map (namely, looking from Red base's 3rd floor down to the center of the Quad).

Here are some updated screens:

Spoiler

The bases, front and back.


Learn to properly arch your shots and you can shoot right into the flag zone of the opposing base from your own. Guns that don't arch are even easier, naturally.


A decent way to halt an opponent as he tries to get on top of your base.


Pretty easy to see the changes to the quad.

Some over and side views of the map, again:

A preliminary map, for getting a better grasp for those that still haven't played:

Spoiler

So yea, there is really not much more I can do without testers. The chatbox is only good for being ignored or mocked, when asking for testing. Everyone else on my friendlist is either bored with Halo and playing other crap or simply way too spread out in the times they log on (really, no more than 2-4 friends on at a time anymore... not enough for testing this map). So yea, still looking for larger testing parties and a video guy.

I really need testing on the Territories types and Assault types, as I'm not very familiar with how they should be played.


In other news, my Tempest map has been glitched away. This pisses me off... It now loads Civility, from under the list of Tempest forges... yea, that makes total sense. So that project is scrapped already. -.-

12/24/10 Update:
The map has received an almost complete overhaul. Many changes were made to improve flow.

*There is no longer a basement/garage area. Because of this, many spawns, hills, flags, and weapons have been moved and rebalanced.

*The sword section remains in tact, though is now much larger than before and has been filled with more incentive items.

*Bases no longer use a teleporting system to traverse between the second floor. All floors, including the rooftop, are now accessible from floor 1.

*Bases have undergone a slight aesthetic rehash as well.

*2 new side routes have also been added to better allow flanking.

*Ramps around the Quad have been revised. They are now completely Mongoose-friendly.

*Needlers, Needle Rifles, Focus Rifles, Spartan Lasers, Banshees, Grenade Launchers and Grenades have been moved.

*Plasma Repeaters are now gone from the map, though still selectable by Elites in their loadouts.

*Sniper has been moved and a second has been added. Each team now has access to a Sniper Rifle.

*Kill and Safe Zones have been revised

Despite having added so many more objects, the map refuses to suffer from framerate lag. Yay! Because of this, I'm thinking of making the old sniper areas accessible once more. I will need to have a play test first, however, to test for framerate lag during actual fights.

Also, the Tempest project I referenced int he last edit was rebuilt and nearing fruition.

1/5/11 Update:
*Bases now have yet another means of entry. This entry leads to the second floor, which previously only had 2 valid ways in. A lift accessible from the left side, near the pistol, drops you onto the second floor. The original intent was a ladder, but I lacked blocks and didn't manage to get it working properly with inclines-sandwiching. If others can help achieve this, I'd be grateful. Using 1 way shields left me with $10, so the Plasma Repeater is still gone from the map.
*The central rock garden has been replaced by a new central structure, allowing MUCH more cover in the Quad.
*Sticky Grenades have been placed on the map in key points. Prior to this, I expected players to sometimes choose Elites - they were the only way to get stickies. There are now 6 on the map and 1 Frag (since MOST people play Spartans).
*Framerate issues were discovered again and have been revisited once more. There are now even fewer objects on the map.
*The Fuel Rod Cannon has been made slightly more obvious though still easter eggy. Instead of only being visible from afar, they can now be seen from the majority of viewpoints on the map.
*The health packs above the Quad have been slightly moved, to be more apparent to players.
*The health packs in the bases have been flipped to the other side of the wall for easier access.
*Hills and other objectives have been moved slightly. For the main gametype, CTF, the flags have been moved back a smidge, to force rooftop thieves into turning a bit to take the flag. They are STILL easy to remove from the bases, by design.
*More "intel-jumps" have been added to certain areas.
*The ramps on the back of the bases have been widened and cleaned up.

Spoiler

[mouseoverimage=http://www.furnation.com/symplicidy/halo/Civility/NewCivQuad.png]http://www.furnation.com/symplicidy/halo/Civility/NewCivAbove.png[/mouseoverimage] An overview, showing many of the changes made. Moused over, it shows the new central structure on the Quad.

[mouseoverimage=http://www.furnation.com/symplicidy/halo/Civility/NewCivSword.png]http://www.furnation.com/symplicidy/halo/Civility/NewCivLift.png[/mouseoverimage] The new lifts on the side of each base. Mousing over, you can see the slightly altered sword spawn..

1/6/11 Update:
*The spawn system has been completely redone, again. Ran into an object hard limit, despite having less renderable objects in the map, so I had to totally redo my spawns to be more re-usable throughout gametypes. The non-rendered objects still count towards total objects for this hard limit. Anyway, this system needs testing both FFA and Team matches now.
*The Gravity hammer is gone (sadface) and the Plasma Repeaters have returned. They can be found on the back ramps of the bases.
*The Shotguns have been moved to more obvious points.
*Killzones SHOULD now be finalized.

1/9/11 Update:
Bases have had some somewhat major changes:
*A large balcony now protrudes from the third floor of each base. The flag spawns out here now, to cancel camping's effects. Players can now choose to drop down in the center, left, or right from the rooftops.
*The Banshee was moved tot he backs of the bases, onto the ramp system. This was done to prevent enemies from stealing it too easily.
*Concussion Rifles have been moved onto the jumping pillar, out front of the bases. This was done to discourage camping in its previous spawn.
*The Plasma Pistol has also been moved to negate camping.
*The Magnum has been moved to be more obvious.
*Banshee's spawn timers are now 150 seconds.
*Spartan Laser's spawn timers are now 120 seconds.
*The side paths no longer have railings - I feel they are wide enough for players to not easily fall off (4 meters). I'm debating on whether or not to add cover to them for flag thieves.
*Overall, even less objects are on the map to render. Still debating on whether or not to get rid of the Mongooses. They add onto lag.

1/11/11 Update:
*I've gotten rid of the Mongooses for now, despite them being good for objective gametypes. They were simply adding too much to lag. Kind of a painful removal. I suppose I'll have to get both land and air vehicles on another project.
*The lifts on the sides of the bases are now more noticeable. They are also now more efficient, throwing the lifted behind cover, if they hold forward. Before, it would place you right in LoS of players outside the base. Players are, of course, still vulnerable to anyone inside the base.
*More tweaks to the spawn system have been made. It is no longer possible to camp the opposing team's DMR spawn area from atop a team's base. I'm now out of spawn zones. D: Supporting zones unique to Team and FFA respectively is a killer.
*Because the Mongooses are gone, I MAY make the glass covers more forgiving to bad jumpers, since I no longer need to worry about wheels getting stuck in them. I doubt I'll do this, though... I don't want people walking (worse yet, camping) on the sides of the glass, only the tops.
*The Needler was moved to the quad-entry-ramp opposing each team's base.
*A few extra respawn points have been added. Other have been moved or rotated slightly.
*Getting rid of the Mongooses and adding the extra shield doors to make the lifts more efficient has left me with 0 budget once more.
*The Plasma Grenade count has been lowered to 4 due to budget constraints.

1/12/11 Update:
*FINALLY got a proper 6v6 match on the map last night. While it played quite well (no lag either!), I didn't like how slow some of the flag movement was. Because of this, the 'geese are back! They are now placed by the lift, to bring more attention to the area. I do fear they will re-introduce a small element of framerate lag but it's worth it, to me.
*Added support and gametype for Invasion Slayer! It is set up to play just like any other team slayer match but forces Spartans Vs. Elites. Because it is set up to be just like a team slayer match, invasion spawn zones are not going to be placed. Weapon/Vehicle drops will not be implemented, to keep with the Team Slayer playstyle.
*Sniper ammo was dropped to 8 total, instead of the default 12. With the new base design, they too easily brought about dominance in the hands of skilled snipers.
*I would really love to add hazards to the 3rd floor of the bases... alas, I lack the funds. I COULD achieve this at the sacrifice of even more aesthetics... but I really don't like the idea of the entire structure just floating between Alaska and Montana.

Update 1/15/11:
*Major redesigns have occurred on the structure's surrounding the Quad. These structures now provide new routes and more cover.
*The rooftop lifts have been moved to the Quad, making traveling to the rooftops more dangerous but extremely quick compared to all other routes.
*A few weapons have been moved in accordance to the redesigns.
*2 Custom-Power-up orbs have been added to the map. The details will be explained during the map's release.
*6 seconds have been added to the initial spawn time of the Plasma Launchers, moving it up to spawning 96 seconds into the game instead of 90. This makes guessing when it will spawn a tiny bit more confusing.
*Team Head Hunter and FFA Headhunter play in completely different game styles now. Team treats Headhunter as a more Objective-type game. Each base Has two drop zones within their bases and they never move. Any skulls picked up need to be hauled back to your base for collection. FFA plays in a traditional style.
*My Elite Vs. Spartan mock-slayer now works properly. Sadly, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of the drop zones of Invasion Slayer. Setting them to not spawn into the world causes the voice to say "Destination Moved" every few seconds. Because of that, the zone MUST spawn. Players are to simply ignore it. It spawns far below the map in a kill zone anyway. This is NOT to be treated like Invasion Slayer - it is meant to be a normal Team Slayer game with forced species on each team. Players have the added benefit of spawning on allies and choosing where they respawn, allowing them to control whether or not they get spawn killed. At the start of the game, player loadout-choosing time is extremely limited - this cannot be changed. During gameplay, players have ample time to choose their new loadout after death.
*Explosives have been placed in key spots in the bases. See the screenshots below.

[mouseoverimage=http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9471/civoverclose.png]http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/9025/civover.png[/mouseoverimage] The new overview of Civility. The changes are quite visible here. Mousing over the image gives you a slightly closer view.

[mouseoverimage=http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9480/snipehazard.png]http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8745/basetop.png[/mouseoverimage] This is the new 3rd floor of the bases. The hazard in the center has a large damage radius and even larger blinding radius. Blowing it up will temporarily blind any player within 2.5-3 (or even 3.5-4, I have to properly test this further) meters of it, regardless of whether or not they are facing it. It will, of course, kill anybody too close to it. Mousing over, you can see the hazard for anyone trying to camp the tongue of the base. That explosive WILL kill anyone, even crouching players, on the flat part of the sniper's nest. It will severely damage them if they have backed onto the ramp. This explosive cannot be seen from most points of the map, making this spot still usable if the enemy cannot get LoS of the explosive.

[mouseoverimage=http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/7375/sniperhole.png]http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/642/epicsniper.png[/mouseoverimage]The redesign of the sniper spawn is pretty bad-ass. :3 Mousing over, you can see the new drop-down from the Quad.

[mouseoverimage=http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5706/swordfishy.png]http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/415/quadside.png[/mouseoverimage]This is the new bookend structure of the quad. It opens up a few new routes for players to use and contains cover, healthpack, power-up, and shotgun. Big thanks to Jonzorz for encouraging me to rip down the old structures. Mousing over, you can see the repositioning of the Plasma Launcher spawn. Instead of sticking straight up and being unnoticeable, it stick outs and looks like a Swordfish.

[mouseoverimage=http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/8483/baselift.png]http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/4308/grav.png[/mouseoverimage]This is the new positioning of the rooftop lift and the covering of the ugly corners belonging to the Wall Coliseums. Mousing over, you can also see how Jonzorz helped me make the lifts MUCH more apparent and user-friendly. Players don't even need to jump into the base's side-lifts now - they can crouch up the ramp and the lift will pull them in, allowing for sneak-attacks.

1/20/11 Update:
*I've managed to get rid of 2-player split-screen 'discoing' on the map! This was tested from numerous viewpoints on the map but not tested with both in Banshee flight (because I'm only one person). There is still framerate lag caused by split screen but without the disco-effect and the increased rendering speed, 2 players are much more able to play together on the same xbox now.
*A Few more aesthetics tweaks have been made. Covered up a few more things I REALLY didn't want showing and changed a few of the elevation points. I managed to save on budget again - Civility now has $20 left that will not be used (yay!). I COULD end up saving 100 total but that would be at the cost of aesthetic and a slight sight-line adjustment. Aesthetic cohesion versus aesthetic sensibility.
*KOTH and Territories objectives have been thoroughly revised.
*The map's presentation work was started a few days ago and I plan on a release at the end of the month or the first week of February.
*My version of Headhunter was tested today and went quite well.