This is my new project - well, one of them anyway. It's an asymmetrical map made for 4v4 one-sided objective games, especially 1-flag. Remember the joys and sorrows of 1-flag and territories on High Ground in Halo 3? I was aiming for something along those lines. There's also inspiration from Halo 2's Backwash in the form of that central tower (though mine is fairly different). What I am hoping will make Terrorium play well is both the uneven, slightly-uphill design and a carefully-constructed midsection where a player going in either direction has to maneuver past dead ends and through strategic chokepoints - it's not nearly as free and open as it looks at a glance. Screenshots below. Testing begins next week (in our weekly TCOJ lobby, if you want to join). Overview (ceiling removed) EDIT - Now notated with key locations of stuff. Looking at the tower from red side View from blue objective - they have a small cave, with a sniper in it There are cutaways to the ocean at either end of the stream that runs through the middle of the map. (These are soft kill covered once you pass the railing.) One view from blue side, showing off blue team's funky teleporter One entrance to red's "base"; the grav lift takes you to center tower Tower a bit closer up
Looks nice. I got my TCOJ contest map done so getting it in the testing would be nice. So invite me on testing day I'll try to join.
Actually - if you can refrain from testing that with us, that would be ideal. I don't know if we can avoid it entirely of course, but generally it's probably wise for the judges to not be much more familiar with some maps than others prior the judging period. You're welcome to play with us any time you like though, especially if you have anything else that needs testing. Edited by merge: May revisit after we get a first playtest in, but for now I am happy with it. I wanted it to be the more "natural" side with red being more man-made and structural - that's a pretty direct homage to High Ground. So almost all of the LOS blockers and so forth is made up of large rocks rather than how it is on the other end, which is a mix of natural terrain and blocks/platforms. The only significant non-natural part of blue side is the teleporter pavilions. I actually built five or six different structures around blue objective before realizing I wasn't happy with them because it just broke with my basic concept of the map. As soon as I made the little cave in that area, and the mostly-rock platform in the back/center, I was a lot happier.
This map looks fantastic- I hope to play it sometime. I cant say much else on the matter though- having not played it.
It looks really nice duster , im glad someone else could find some inspiration to build something along the lines of a hybrid of back wash and high grounds. I love when someone manages to build a more natural style map using the terrain, while still creating something unique like this it really adds life to the map. What made you decide to not add the grav lifts to the towers bottom more like backwash? Just asking because I've been leaning toward adding them in to a tower design that takes inspiration from backwash for my new BTB map. I really love your interesting looking teleporters lol the merge covenant crate adds to the portal style you seem to be going for. Only thing I see from the pictures that I'd say attempt to add more to would be the rocks within the gardens, work on trying to make the gardens look more natural, several smaller rocks instead of the one giant one would look much better in my opinion .
Thanks for the comments! About those rocks, unfortunately on the red side they need to serve some specific purposes - blocking a few key lines of sight and breaking up a big, open chunk of land into several separate areas. I'd like to be able to sprinkle a couple more small rocks in there for variety, but I'm also trying to really watch framerate and object count, so it may not be possible. The small cave actually looks pretty cool at ground level - I'm looking forward to testing that out and seeing if people like playing in that area. With the tower, the design pretty much prohibits lifts unless I were to make it a lot bigger. It allowed me to do some other interesting things though - a bridge runs underneath on the 2nd level, and the stream runs through the same area at ground level. Basically you end up with multiple ways to get from one end of the map to the other, but most of them push you back through center - you just have to choose if you want to go through the tower, the bridge under it, or the stream under that. (There are a couple other routes as well, just so the center doesn't turn into too much of a traffic jam.)
Thats understandable , framerate can be a nightmare to a map of this size due to how many objects it really takes to make it appear like you see it in your mind. I wouldnt want you to sacrifice framerate performance for a more realistic garden especially if the large rocks serve to block off the sightline you mention. I cant wait to get to do some testing on this map after you have finished and released it, it seems like it will be a blast. And thank you for replying about the tower I honestly like the way you used the platform xxl and large walkways to give it a forerunner style appearance. And I understand now why you designed it the way you did and left out the grav lifts, in some ways leaving off the grav lifts will also reduce the camping that backwash tower sometimes experienced. In general its a solid map you have here, and I wish more people took the time to design on natural terrain like this. This truly proves not everything in forgeworld has to be grey .
I should probably be more specific that these are not "dead ends" in the conventional sense (where you walk down a hallway, reach a wall, and are forced to go back the way you came). The map is designed more like this: it looks like a big, open box with an elevated ring around the outside, but depending which way you are going on the ring, you can reach stopping points that force you to move back into the middle. And the ground level of the middle has the same thing. They're not really dead ends as much as forced travel routes - places where you have to turn right rather than just keep going straight. Basically there are four ways off initial spawn to get to the other half of the map: 1) going around the right side of the ring (the left will force you back into the middle area eventually); 2) through the tower; 3) across the bridge under the tower; 4) through the stream that runs under the tower and bridge both. The "dead ends" on both sides just force you to leave the outer ring if you're going around it to the left, or in the case of the natural ones (the rock walls), they force you to stick to the stream. Hopefully the effect will be similar to the wall on High Ground - there are only so many access points, and the wall prevents you from just waltzing right into enemy territory any way you like. My wall is just a bit more complicated and staggered, instead of going in a straight line across. The only one that actually works somewhat like a real dead end is the natural wall coming from blue side (screenshot #5 shows it). That's just because it was part of the terrain and I didn't want to waste objects reinventing an existing wheel. It's not much of a dead end though - the entrance point to the stream is just out of frame in that screenshot, bottom right. Probably a better name for them than dead ends would just be "walls," I guess. -- EDIT: On further review the two natural dead ends may become not-so-dead with the addition of moderately difficult trick jumps. More info after further testing.
Played it and it's gonna be a great map when it's finished. Bring your A-game though, it seperates the men from the boys lololol
So I've been mulling over the game on this map for a while trying to come up with something constructive to say. There was something that was bugging me about it but couldn't put my finger on what exactly that was. But I think I finally figured it out! I wish it was bigger. Not btb size, more like 5v5 or 6v6 size. I know the map could probably handle it as is, but I think it might play even better than it already does if it were larger. I know you probably don't want to do a rebuild on this and even if you did, the framerate probably wouldn't hold up either. Anyways those were just some thoughts from a crazy person.
I think 5v5 might be best actually- keep the same map just add 2 players. Though I never thought 4v4 was an issue. It was very fun to play.
Yeah, it should support 5v5 as is. I suppose I could enlarge it (probably make it wider, I don't think it needs to be any longer to capture that High Ground "mile of flag running" flavor). But then, I'm lazy. Plenty of changes have been made, by the way, which we'll be testing Monday. Two basic categories of changes: 1. WEAPONS. Replaced the blue side shotgun with a sword. Removed the red side shotgun, moved the grenade launcher there, and added a focus rifle where the grenade launcher was before. 2. THOSE PESKY DEAD ENDS THAT PYRO HATES. There are now jump-ups on the two rock walls, and in the one facing red side, a small hole in the wall you can jump through without much effort. I don't want to discourage people from passing through the stream (and I don't think this will as the stream is very protected), but these additional routes will open up more movement options and make objective running a little more interesting - the "best" route to go won't always be obvious, as I felt it was in our first test. The walls on the outer ring are still insurmountable though unless you have a jet pack or are willing to grenade-jump it. I definitely want to keep that - letting people just run around the outside the whole game is bad in my book.