My DM map (for UT2003)

[smattbac]

All info and and download can be found here (http://www.leveldesigner.com/forums/index.php?action=thread&ID=1535).

Tell me what you think. images/icons/smile.gif

[Oso]

Awesome screens but I only have Unreal Gold =/

[widowmaker]

DLing now. I'll let you know what I think in a bit.

[widowmaker]

Okay I played it and Speced some bots for a while and here is what I came up with.

The Jump spots / Paths need a little work. The bots get to certain jump sppots that they can not reach and spend all day repeatedly trying to translocate. There is a spot by two adrenalin pills and by the super shield booster on the suspended platform. An easy fix though. Right lick the grey bar with the view option and it will have a drop down menu of things, turn on view pths so you can see the paths between the jump spots and path nodes. You will then see that a couple of the links between jump spots pass through a solid object thus preventing the AI bots from being able to use that path effectively.

Layout is very square. Something to detract from the squareness of the map would be great.

Ambient sounds need to be cranked up. I had to get rid of the bots and go arond and carefully listen at obvious places to see iftehre were any ambient sounds. A couple more woudl be nice too. Like some kind of air or pipe sounds by the large vents.

Lights were of some concern to me. You doubled up on your lights just about everywhere. To get the nice shadows you used one light and the another below it, which in turn fades out the nice shadows being cast by the upper light. My advice would be too remove the bottom lights and bump up the intensity of the top lights to 128 or even 191. That will give you some serious shadows and provide enough light to still see well. If you really want that area brighter bump up the light level in the zone info a bit.

Weapon and item placement was pretty good with enough ammo to fuel whatever weapon(s) players choose use.

Liked the wall tube bit. Didn't notice it had a triggered mover the first time through though. I had figured it was a translocator only area. Which also brings to mind that the map has enough jump through areas that the translocator canbe used effectively to escape your opponent or ambush them. Good work on that part!

Texturing was consistant. No odd or out f place textures. As nice as it all worked out the map does get boring and the lack of contrast in the lighting and texturing in areas could have something to do with that. I don't know if I would change anything about that though. It all works now and looks like it all belongs together. I may just be nit picking.

Not a bad little map. images/icons/smile.gif

[smattbac]

Then get UT2003 you silly boy! images/icons/smile.gif images/icons/tongue.gif

[smattbac]

Thanks widowmaker. images/icons/smile.gif

I've released a final version, you can get it from my site (http://www.multi.fi/~mattbeck/su).

[Joe Siegler]

I'll check out the level this afternoon. images/icons/smile.gif

[LeJimster]

The map has a quite nice flow to it, there are some parts I really like. Only thing that springs to mind the lack of ease getting to the sheild with double jump, and how low the ceiling is in parts i frequently kept hitting the ceiling, when jumping through a hole in the wall.

GJ, keep up the work

[Joe Siegler]

thing that springs to mind the lack of ease getting to the sheild with double jump<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Translocator.

Me and another guy here played it yesterday afternoon. It flowed pretty nicely. Lots of interesting ways to get to places, and good hidden places. I liked it. Probably will stay in my rotation.

[smattbac]

This pic (http://www.multi.fi/~mattbeck/stuff/meepjumps.jpg) shows the jumps that are possible (to my knowledge). There's also sheildjump.

Green is how I originally intended it to be, the two others just happened to get in there. images/icons/wink.gif

Glad you liked it. images/icons/smile.gif

[Joe Siegler]

I don't see the Translocator as cheating. The reason is that it's in the menus. If you had to access it via the console, then I might buy that, but given that it's a switch toggle, it's not cheating.

Maps should be designed with the knowledge that people can and will teleport around like that.

I play using the translocator as a weapon. Shoot it at people and teleport - instant telefrag. images/icons/smile.gif

[widowmaker]

Many servers run with the translocator on. Cannot recall the last server I went to that had it disabled. Off Line I use it too. Less off line since the bots don't move nearly as well as players do.

[LeJimster]

Originally posted by Joe3DR:
I don't see the Translocator as cheating. The reason is that it's in the menus. If you had to access it via the console, then I might buy that, but given that it's a switch toggle, it's not cheating.

Maps should be designed with the knowledge that people can and will teleport around like that.

I play using the translocator as a weapon. Shoot it at people and teleport - instant telefrag. images/icons/smile.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Na, i wasn't saying it was cheating cheating images/icons/tongue.gif , i was just saying DM servers dont have the translocator enabled as default (like you say, it has to be switched on or you can't use it), and the mappers know this and dont design DM maps in mind of the translocator. Whereas, take for example... CTF-LavaGiant2 the powerup/pickup (i forgot whether its the sheild or tag gun) is positioned on the mountain inbetween the bases, so the only way up there is by using the translocator images/icons/wink.gif .

If I ever get a DM map finished worthy of releasing i'll make sure you have to do some cool trick to get to the main powerup images/icons/smile.gif . For example.. DM-Compressed has a hidden room above the 2 parrallel elevators. The way the map was designed is that you get on the elevator and by timing your jump it sends you flying really high, high enough to get into this room where some adrenaline & double damage is.

I do agree about using the translocator as a weapon though images/icons/grin.gif , i used to have great fun with UT's translocator! It was much better for telefragging, and I once won a 10life LMS match soley with the translocator images/icons/grin.gif . Damn, can't wait for LMS in the bonus pack! w00t.

[widowmaker]

Originally posted by LeJimster:
Damn, can't wait for LMS in the bonus pack! w00t. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am not a fan of LMS. It is a very poor form of play flawed in the design. It shoud be called Last Man Camping. There is no reason to explore or wander a map. Just find a nice quiet corner and camp out while the other players / bots frag each other. Then when you have a huge lead go out and put the finishing touches on the match. Since UT2003 does not keep stats tehre is no point in collecting frags, and since there is no second place you may aswell just camp out. Another sad example of how the video game industry is at a creative stand still.

* shakes head.

You can limit the number of lives players/bots get already. That makes it a last man standing type of match, only you actually have to work for it. No camping.

[Gideon]

I played it. The level looks really nice. Everything looked tight. The only problem I had was the flow seemed a bit wierd. Not saying it was bad, just different.

It felt like there was more map there that I was missing. I felt like I was going around in circles or something missing the turn to get to the rest of the level.

But like I say, it looked really nice. Good job.

[LeJimster]

Hehe, Joe thats cheating with the translocator images/icons/tongue.gif . Only maps that shouldn't have any real thought to powerup placement are BR & CTF maps, because translocator is defualt but for DM there normally has to be a trick that requires a bit of skill to get the powerup images/icons/smile.gif .

The 2 ways for his map are, jump onto the box on wall, and dodge-jump to the sheild platform. Or do a sheildgun jump (but that way takes some life away obviously). I was just saying i found it hard to do the dodge jump from the box on the wall, which i presume was placed there for that reason. Kinda would kill the gameplay in a heated battle imo.

The map reminds me of DM-Stalwart and some other UT maps they i used to enjoy fraggin to images/icons/smile.gif .

Here I made a little demo to show u what i mean about the jumps, i was quite suprised to perform both jumps in a row. Spot of good luck images/icons/grin.gif . Meep Powerup Jumps (http://www.iamlj.btinternet.co.uk/Temp/meep.dem). Oh yea, to play the demo.. Place meep.dem in your UT2003\System folder. Open UT2003 and bring the console down and type demoplay meep

[ 03-04-2003, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: LeJimster ]

[LeJimster]

Oh, nice just found another way to get onto the platform, non of them are dead-easy to perform in the middle of a heated battle, but the other1 i found is by dodge jumping from the window on the other side of the door.

[LeJimster]

Originally posted by widowmaker:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by LeJimster:
Damn, can't wait for LMS in the bonus pack! w00t. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am not a fan of LMS. It is a very poor form of play flawed in the design. It shoud be called Last Man Camping. There is no reason to explore or wander a map. Just find a nice quiet corner and camp out while the other players / bots frag each other. Then when you have a huge lead go out and put the finishing touches on the match. Since UT2003 does not keep stats tehre is no point in collecting frags, and since there is no second place you may aswell just camp out. Another sad example of how the video game industry is at a creative stand still.

* shakes head.

You can limit the number of lives players/bots get already. That makes it a last man standing type of match, only you actually have to work for it. No camping. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Lol, camping.. Let me tell you something. Camping online doesn't work with good players - infact its suicide. I played the gametype regularly for 2+ years and there were tons of ppl that i knew throughout those 2 years that kept on playing the gametype, why? Because its great.

Campers are what made the game fun! images/icons/grin.gif , infact if there was some1 foolish enought to camp, we would say "team-up" and it would be come huntsville. The thing that REALLY spoiled the gametype was certain clans like XLC (Xtreme Lame Campers) aswell as others, because they would do the camping together and use aimbots. But really the gametype is great if played with cool ppl, and i must say a large percentage of LMS players in UT were great ppl.

I'm not counting on the gametype becoming very successful in UT2003 because it wasn't acknowledged in UT either, but if they do it right... I know I'm going to have plenty of fun!

[widowmaker]

I hope you enjoy LMS. I know I won't and didn't in UT either. But I am not going to harp on it. I am interested in the Alien Assault game mode (whatever it is called). That could be interesting too. At any rate it will be nice to have a couple new game modes.

Some Mods comig out soon too.

(Please excuse the Pimpage)

Proleague (http://www.planetunreal.com/proleague)

A rapid fire instagib style of game play.

[Co11]

Originally posted by Joe3DR:
I don't see the Translocator as cheating. The reason is that it's in the menus. If you had to access it via the console, then I might buy that, but given that it's a switch toggle, it's not cheating.

Maps should be designed with the knowledge that people can and will teleport around like that.

I play using the translocator as a weapon. Shoot it at people and teleport - instant telefrag. images/icons/smile.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">so, YOU'RE the type of person who does that.. images/icons/smile.gif I once got telegragged 10 times in 1 minute