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i began work on this map for the noghost mapping contest but didn't have enough time to get it done before the deadline. there's still a lot to do both in bsp, textures and playtesting. but i think the map has potential and hopefully gets fun. it's a capture the flag map for at least four players on each team. the textures i'm creating for this one is more or less copies of those in the quake live map "siberia".

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-f7-091218.jpg)

Looks promising!
Will we get a testing copy soon?

another image. nothing done for almost 2 months. but today it was fun to map a little. hopefully i can find some more time ahead.

peter silie: unfortunately i think it'll take some time before it is ready for testing.

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-g1-100207.jpg)

Can't wait to install it here...
Hurry up, pulchr! ;)

I see evil stairs ;)

looks nice. will definitely help testing gameplay on it! gogogo! :)

popejo : how do you mean evil stairs?

I agree it looks nice and promising. Can't wait to try it. :)

well, stairs slow everything down. in defrag, some people bind +jump to the mousewheel and when you hit a stair you spin it like mad, in order to cross stairs without loosing too much speed.
so stairs can tacticaly be used to slow incommers down (like on mlctf1beta). besides that, they are often a bit annoying ihmo. :)

This map looks awesome like every pulchr map :)
Go on

would a sloping surface be better? or is that the same as regular stairs?
if that's just as bad as stairs, here's what i can do:

1. remove all height differences (this will result in a map like oa_bases).
2. replace all stairs with jump pads (slow and people are just as vulnerable).
3. remove all stairs and place teleporters at the top and bottom on all the places where there used to be stairs (seriously...)
4. let the players rocketjump or plasma climb everywhere (noob friendly).
5. scrap the map (so i can go outside and build a snowman).

if people get slowed down in the stairs and can't take that they will have to take another route. i know it can't be seen in these screenshots but most of the stairs lead down into the flag rooms - so they attackers come from above.

any suggestions? :)

EDIT: oh! i forgot:

6. i can replace all stairs with lifts (that's fast and funny for people chasing).

ah, it was meant as a funny sidenote, hence the ;) <- behind my "evil stairs" comment.

ramps can be crossed faster, but they look ugly. so you can decide in absolute freedom.


if the stairs do indeed effect the gamplay in a big negative amount, I will tell when gameplay-testing it. (but I doubt they will, unless the whole map is a big stairs, with blue flag lower, and red stairs upper ..  hey, what a great idea for reptctf50) :)

i wasn't all to serious in my reply as you probably saw :)

my plans was to put a weapon_clip around the stairs to ease out movement. this helps bots and let's the player walk up and down without taking each step if walking slowly (works just like ramps). it might look a bit odd if people look closely - but they shouldn't - cause that means they will die...

check out pul1duel and see if that's ok. i used the weapon_clip there in all stairs.

that's perfectly fine :)

Maybe you should take a look at Neon Knights GoD-Version of oasago2 (oasago2f9_god).
He did nice stairs there together with ramps, so the player can choose what he wants to use.

BTW , am I wrong or binding +jump to mousewheel is cheating ?

mDd defrag Q3 community has a rule for that ; and they've forbidden the use also of rj ,cj , strafe scripts and strafe bots .

They probably have a detect system in their servers , something that could be useful to have also in OA so we will see for sure who's really good at defrag :-)

haha, lol. an update to this is long overdue ;D

i've put a couple of hours into this map again and here's a room from the neutral middle area.

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-h2-100827-a.jpg)
blue team have their base to the right from this view. the middle of the map is just around the corner to the left.

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-h2-100827-b.jpg)
player coming from the red base - middle of the map straight ahead.

gah, i need to make a playable version of this. i'm getting tired of running around all by myself. i want to frag you all :)

on a more serious note... i should be able to release some more screens this weekend. about three rooms need encasing in a couple of brushes and then i should rearrange the shader-files and the new textures before i can release any kind of beta.

I like that one!
So cool in frost theme.

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-i9-100918-a.jpg)
one of the incoming routes to blue base.

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-i9-100918-b.jpg)
that's a lightning gun!

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-i9-100918-c.jpg)
open room in front of the blue base.

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-i9-100918-d.jpg)
neutral white area straight ahead and down the stairs.

I will like this map, for sur!  ;)

holy crap add { detail } shader stages!

since this won't affect the gameplay of the map i'll put this at the bottom of my todo list.

i was hoping to put up an open beta this past weekend but i'm now aiming for the coming weekend instead.

good luck! :)
That look really awesome ;)

I tottaly agree

(http://www.pulchr.se/random/pul4ctf-l7-101015-a.jpg)

here's an overview of the latest version. as you can see the map is still just placed in a giant box and the floors are not adjusted to size. this is the first mirrored version and there are LOTS of things to fix - but i hope that i can put up a downloadable version tomorrow.

ok, here's a first pk3-package (http://www.pulchr.se/downloads/pul4bl9.pk3). it's quite big (12mb) since it uses almost only targas.
as you'll find out there are lots of things to improve and while i'm aware of much of the oddities i hope you'll find even more.

this map is quite big - much larger than i first had in mind - playing with bots i would say that four players on each team is too little.

anyway - i hope the pk3-file is complete and should work.

Oh man, I think I'll test that soon :)

Quite impressive, possibly the more good-looking OA map. Well detailed (the metalplate texture is so good).

The gameplay as you said, the map is so big, but it is ok for me, i like the "wide arenas".

Oh my Moixie !!
The map is awesome, good looking, amazing gameplay with bots

I ve just 2 apprehension, is the map too big and will the quad ruin the map? (I ve a personal problem with the quad..)

yes, the map is very large - and i'm not that happy about a couple of the rooms. if i can find a good way to make it a bit smaller i will try that. but i'm not sure that it is possible without remaking a very large amount of it - and then it might be better to leave it as it is.

i think it can be fun to try the quad. i've seen some quake live matches on siberia and the quad can really be fun and add to the tactial part. it has a respawn of 2 minutes so it will be interesting to see what happens when played with real players.

5v5 Graion and bots. Story from the maze. :D

After 30 seconds, I met another player - it was enemy, died.
After a minute, I realized I shouldn't be the team leader, if I can't find anything on the map.
After two minutes, I found the flagroom.
After 4 minutes, I started doing my own waypoint-system in my mind. Respawns made it corrupted a bit.
After 15 minutes, I knew where should I go, and where is it, and where am I.
After 19 minutes, my team won.

I like this map. :D A nail'd do a favour but it's great ATM.

Played with the map for about half an hour, looks good and plays nice. Bit hard to figure out at first due to it's size, but not a problem. Playing 5vs5 is about a minimum to not make it look desolate. It may be big but I like it this way. Nice work.

I played with it a bit and liked it.  I find some CTF maps are too small, and it's nice to have big ones where it's easier to get lost between the flags.

I temporarily added it to this server (http://dpmaster.deathmask.net/?game=openarena&server=212.85.158.133:27981). (ROFL Yo quiero follar)
I'd like to make a call for testing it with real players, so I'll try to see on IRC and here and there if I can gather some people this evening ;) around 20:00-21:00... CEST ? (damn I'll never understand a thing about these timezones).
Goal would be to provide a few feedbacks ... I quickly tested it single player but currently have none valuable in mind.

On a side note, I'm still circumspect about how things which are "inspired by" (which translates to "from scratch, make it look like") are dealt in terms of intellectual property laws, while I think there is no serious reason to worry.

So, let's hopefully meet and play this evening :)
Monday 18th, ~20:00.

sounds good caca! i'll definitely try to be there.

we're not many, but we're in right now :p

Played a bit on that server...
nice map, but a real maze!!!
It's not easy!

Once you know the layout it's pure fun! Unfortunately we couldn't test it with 4vs4, but I think you should keep the size. Or if you want to change it, please keep the bases and the rooms around them as they are, they're awesome!

Playing on the ROFL Yo quiero follar makes even a better impression on me (despite some "technical" difficulties on my end). It's really a fun map. I agree with Udi, you should keep the size.

Really nice map!
And that would become a really skilled one in some days  :P
Huge, tactical, awesome, full of nice items, fast, great!!!

N1!  ;)

Hi,
just played few more minutes on the map. Followed a bot that got my flag and realized flagroom to flagroom is only 10 sec away!! A revelation after spending, yeah, some 20 minutes trying to figure out the map. Seems there are 4 main ways from one flagroom to another and many ways to switch between them which is great.
The map has corridors but they are well sized and feel 'spacious' to run through. Textures are just fine - no need to change.
The map is big, but I see that as a good thing and think after an hour or two of playing everybody will feel at home in it.
Hope we can play it 5vs5 soon as I'm sure it is going to be loads of fun!
Really good work!

I wasn't there and I just posted to give an idea,
what about doing it everytime there s a new map?
I mean, testing a beta version of a map in a server with some players around for 1 or 2 hours, it would help to target problems and to, by the way, improve the map. (endless parts with bots have bored me so much...)

Right!

i'd like to thank all of you who showed up and played - it was fun when we actually found each other! :D

i now have some valuable feedback to work with and i'm certain it will make the map better. a good test all in all.

You're right moixie, I'll try to repeat these kind of small events in the future, but I'd also add some maps require testing more than others, this one is particularly big and would need many players. Considering the effort pulchr made to make it, it's also normal to try to provide more feedbacks.
For some time I've been administrating a Beta Maps server, but it was too much efforts to maintain.

If pulchr releases a new Beta I'd suggest to test it again, this time calling for more players in advance. We didn't play-test it thoroughly yet.

It was fun to play, a bit exhausting because I don't like to strafe and run all the time, maybe I should improve my running/move skill.
We mostly played 3vs3, and yeah it wasn't enough. I played without trying to understand the map layout, but after a quick test today I quickly realized a few more things :D

I noticed a detail which may have confused my orientation yesterday while playing :D. When you're in base, right side, and try to join the enemy camp, you can follow wall colors, and seek after the white lines. Though at some point you can lose the track because of it. I took a few screenshots to show the path:

http://download.tuxfamily.org/openarena/files/screenshots/m/shot0000.jpg - you start from there
http://download.tuxfamily.org/openarena/files/screenshots/m/shot0001.jpg - some white line, great :D
http://download.tuxfamily.org/openarena/files/screenshots/m/shot0002.jpg - then you follow it, turn left, and it's back to blue ... doh !
http://download.tuxfamily.org/openarena/files/screenshots/m/shot0003.jpg - I should have taken that path, but I see blue there !

Edit: ..hmm ... it's not that tricky because you can always come back to the grey area ... so right now I wonder why I posted these screenshots. There are a few hints which, depending from which side you watch them, can trick or guide you ...
But most of the time when in base, I was wondering how to get out of it ! :)

I did not test an important thing yet... does this map support the additional gametypes?
One flag CTF, Overload, Harvester, Domination, Double Domination?

If not, it should...

nothing apart from standard ctf is supported atm.


caca: seeing it like that it's the wall colour in the little room to the left in picture 01 that should be blue. but if you come from the RA room you want to see that wall as white to give a hint of the direction to the central room. so it's not really a good solution depending on where you come from.

The placements of the ffa-spawnpoints makes it good for DD too. The map should contain a white flag. Even in normal CTF the bots uses the whiteflag to plan an alternative route.

that's interesting - i've never heard that before. is this something that was introduced in Team Arena then?

Yes. It is located in the function BotSetupAlternativeRouteGoals in ai_dmq3.c but I must admit I have never felt any difference in bot behavior. The idea of using the white flag as a way of planning primary and secondary routes would not be that bad considered that the white flag is often placed in some often crossed place.

Great map!
          :)

How about another beta test?  ;) you know.. You just GOTTA test these things!! over and over again! just gotta!  ;D
Right now the server is empty.. anybody interested in meeting at ROFL server?
If we are 10 people, we can setup time to all meet there?

i haven't had the time to work on it since the last test - so there's been no changes yet.

Yes, on the other hand I'd like to propose new meetings, even if the purpose is not to test a map, I've got a few ideas in my bag.

this map is currently in rotation at [OANAGE] server. Just /callvote custom ctf, and it'll come around eventually, or just /callvote map pul4bl9 :)

i tried this map around when it was put up there, fun (challenging) stuff, rly big, lots of places for ppl to jump out from! not used to looking around all the time. LoneWolf deathed me good a few times. i hope to make maps this well sometime. :P

Great map! Congratulations pulchr!

The only thing I would suggest is... arrows guiding to the bases. :P

If you can make a better replacement for those arrows in the proto2 folder, it would be nice.