Map: Repulsion

[cosmo]

King Of The Hill themed map 'Repulsion'
Beta 2 Release for gameplay testing.
http://cosmo.spaceboyz.net/openarena/z_oa_koth1.pk3

Again I need a few opinions before I can finish this map. (screenshots see below)

At the center there's the big gun located, grab it if you can.
Unlike my last attempt 'slimefac' this map suits better for more than 4 players. I used my simple textureset combined with 2 rock textures. Sources will be included in the final release.

Things I know of:
Poor texturing and missing details in several areas as well as ceiling and roofs. Better lightning in dark areas. I just put plain sky over it because I did severe layout changes during the last few days. It's still possible to rocketjump out of the map and there is no clipping. Please be aware of that although you won't rocket yourself out of the map during normal play.
I had big problems with q3map2 -light segmentation faults which occured using sky shaders. I don't know why.
The map should work together with slimefac.pk3 in your baseoa. If not, please report that.

What's your oppinion:

Performance issues? Frames drop below 60? I once had the map more open but r_speeds hit 10k so I added a few more walls and hint brushes.
Rocks don't 'fit' to the simple textures?
Too many jumppads?
No good connectivity?
It's too hard to reach the 'hill'?
More/Different ways to reach the 'hill'?
BFG shouldn't be in a map at all?
Boring layout, texturing sucks?
Too many items/weapons at all?
Fog of Death is not good?

Kit89, thanks a lot for your Liz model.

[iLeft.bye]

no colors
jusst green

[Ylle]

While Slimefactory was neat with its textures, here it just looks plain boring. Try using another color perhaps? Just hueshift it.

[antisocialist]

where the level meets with the sky, it looks rather, ah, clashy, maybe you could make the sky different so it isnt as clashy with the map?

[cosmo]

Thank you guys I appreciate your help.

Yes, I know about the boring texturing. For next release I will change this completely removing all that gray-green and adding lots of details. The final map will be some technical construct in between some massive rocks, cave like. I'm just thinking about where to get new textures. Maybe I have a look at these photos from Bulgaria somebody posted here.
@antisocialist: there is no ceiling or roofs yet. I will remove the sky almost everywhere.

Do you have any complains or hints about gameplay, connectivity, item placement?

[antisocialist]

i will make a quick runthrough when i have time, havent played it yet, just noticed the sky part from the pictures

[cosmo]

Okay,

just a statement that I'm still working on this one. Enjoy new screenshots.

Retexturing is not finished yet but I decided to alter several gameflow things. I removed passages so there is less connectivity and less symmetry. I added a door but I wonder how I can change the sound of it.
Still ceilings are missing and most of the rock brushes will be replaced by some smooth patches. I need to keep an eye on r_speeds anyway.

I have a feeling the map is faster but less balanced now. Beta3 will be released when I'm done with my teleporter models and a decent torch to get some warmth.

[kick52]

Huh.. everyone here is full of crap. Not one compliment?

Anyway, looks nice, though maybe the sky colour should be more dreary?

[iLeft.bye]

Huh.. everyone here is full of crap. Not one compliment?

Anyway, looks nice, though maybe the sky colour should be more dreary?

I still have place for more

[kit89]

I believe if you add some red lighting to add warmth to the scene & possible a red sky(not pure red), it would give the map a better feel atm it feels bland.

Remembering back to the layout it was pretty damn good.

[baronofhell]

The map plays well, good job!

Definitely needs texturing, you're screen shots look good.

Just a thought, isnt that BFG an overkill? it's easily accessible and I kept going for the BFG all the time and wiped out the bots.

The gameplay would be a bit balanced if the BFG is replaced with a rail gun.

just my 2 cents.

[cosmo]

Thanks a lot guys,
yes lighting is far from being done. I will go for some dreary colours when I figured how my textures turn out better.

Another problem with my door appeared:
1. How do I change sounds?
2. Somehow q3map2 ignores the areaportal brush/shader of OA. During compile stage it tells me there is no image in that shader (yeah, we don't want it to be 'visible') but Quakeengine renders it as solid brush with 'texture not found' grid (although there are no warnings).
Maybe areaportal doesn't work with two door entities 'teamed up'?

@baronofhell: Thanks for your concerns about BFG in maps. There's already a railgun included. Did you try to add more and harder bots? I planned the map for 4-8 players. Everybody spawns at the lower places. BFG is located at the top that's why it's called King of the hill. Do you know a better approach?

[pulchr]

i haven't played it, but bfg spoils the fun in any map.

[kick52]

Yeah, especially when the BFG isn't actually completed (well it is in svn) in 0.7.

[Ylle]

Looking pretty dang awesome.

[cosmo]

Thanks!

It's time for beta 3
I managed to retexture the whole map, reduced symmetry, improved lightening, added torch and teleporter model (the latter one needs a good texture still), rock/cave style in parts.
I used several of Sindwillers Bulgaria photos for texture creation as well as a few photos I went for in my hometown. I don't regard them as good fitting for OA and will alter/change them for next release. Texturing could be improved in a few spots and there are no decals left. I had mysterious q3map2 segfaults with them.
A framedoor is missing for teleporter target. I've got a good idea how to solve that.
Music will be removed (or changed to official OA music) in final release. Soundeffects are missing yet.

Playerclipping is not done as well. Sorry, you're able to rocket yourself out of the map and some obstacles might be annoying.

BFG is still in there. Again I need to test gameplay which will happen when I'm back from vacation. So here are screenshots and file:

http://cosmo.spaceboyz.net/openarena/oa_koth1.pk3 (Save target as...)

I hope for helpful comments.

[kick52]

Haven't played, but it looks fucking awesome.

[Derity]

The pics looks great, I will test it for sure.

The bfg will destroy the whole map balance in 1on1 and in dm...
but the map architecture seems to even suit a decent 1on1 on that map.

[andrewj]

I think the architecture and detailing is excellent.  Perhaps a little big for 4 players or less (just my humble opinion).

But the biggest problem is the overall lighting level which I think is way too dark.  I set r_gamma to make it look reasonable, then loading some other maps (like Aggressor or oa_rpg3dm2) for comparison, and they were very bright.

HTH.

[Joshua]

I think you have made excellent progress and new version looks good.
The issues I have are:

• The map is too dark.
• There are some missing textures in places.
• Some of the textures in the lower parts of the level seem out of place.
• The room with the Battle Suit has sparklies around the door to the portal

Keep up the great work, I can't wait to see where this goes!

[cosmo]

Thank you guys.

When I planned this map I had more than 4 players in my mind.

I fixed the problems you suggested. BFG is gone and replaced with a Quad powerup.
Lightning is an issue but will be okay when I'm packing everything together for committing to svn.

I created a second teleporter model I feel more comfortable with. Skinning is still in progress.

I won't release another beta of this map. Thanks for testing and commenting. It's been helpful.

[Udi]

@Udi: oa_black is not done yet. Please be patient. I am far from finishing it. Do you have any suggestion about oa_koth1? I did not have enough time to talk to any players willing to review it. I can imagine retexturing it and turning it into a rock/industrial basement map although I am not in the mood spending too much time on it alltogether.

Well, it's a good map, the gameplay is perfect, the textures are nice and interesting. No need for big improvements, just little polishment here and there, so the map can be more enjoyable and popular.

The map is not popular on the multiplayer servers because it's size. There aren't so much online players to easily fill a 4+ players big map, so it's not your fault or the maps fault. I only remember playing it online once, it was really fun, gameplay is perfect. But I don't like to play the map in single player mode, because you can be 100% sure that Sarge will be on the top. No kidding, even if Major is lucky enough to grab the railgun and kill 4-5 people before she gets killed the 25 fraglimit is so high that Sarge will get on the top. Now I spectated a hardcore botmatch, Major got 24 frags, Sarge only 22, but Sarge made 3 consecutive kills while Major none. It's insane . It's like reading a detective story knowing who the killer is. And it's not because Sarge has increadible skills, it's because he prefers the shotgun. No human players will play as boring (and as effective to be honest) like Sarge, humans tend to get fed up with one weapon, and try to kill with another one. It's the same like playing oa_shine on nightmare against Major: you know it's unfair, so you stop playing it. Probably these bot issues will be solved with the Brainwork bots.

Another issue is that the map is too dark. I have to set the gamma to 1.3 or else I just shoot where the plasmaballs come from. I think you can increase the overall brightness of the map, oa_shouse has more light, but the same sky, so more light coming from above appears to be real. And you can also increase the light coming from the red (lava?) floors, you can make that more bright and glowing red. You can even add flares to it, just like to the floor next to the battlesuit:

More light will do good to the long corridor, the walls are nicely striped red/grey, if there's more red light than the contrast will be more noticable.

You have huge walls covered with grey/brown brick texture. I don't know if that texture is used somewhere else, but what if you would paint it more red? It would give some life to the map, the contrast between the brown caves, gray floors, grey metal walls will be increased. Here's a simple GIMP screenshot retouch:

Only those walls needs to be more red, no everything else in the map, since we don't want it to be a lava map, just a bit more colorful and vivid.

To emphasize that red wall more, you could replace the yellow lights on top of it with the red lights found elsewhere. The yellow lights don't even have flare, so they are a bit weak.

I know I shouldn't test the maps with flare on, so you can ignore that comments, just mentioned how it looks.

And at last but not least: there are some blue spots in the map. Are they bugs, or are they some intentionally placed crystals? And is that painted door really necessary? These two artifacts make the map look unfinished:


So much for my review. The gameplay is really balanced and perfect. The changes I suggested will help the map defining it's own visual personality, it won't be a grey/brown/unremarkable map anymore. As for now I cannot imagine it with rock/industrial textures, but maybe it's not even needed.

[cosmo]

Thank you Udi,
I needed a review why it's not popular. So people should stop crying for bigger maps then!
If you check the screenshots in the post above you'll notice I created the map with different textures which got replaced in 0.76 by fromhell. That's why I intend to alter this map because it looks foolish at the moment.
I had another public playtesting and we did only come up with minor structural changes (less jumppads for example).
There's quiet a lot to do. I put this to the end of my queue.  :cool:

[Gerbil]

I'll try out this map when I get some free time, I am sure it's fantastic, you know I always love your maps cosmo

[bill-----]

Well, that explains the texturing that didn't seem to fit together. 

Repulsion, like sleekgrinder, has as much going on as any two ordinary maps.  The
'mezzanine' deck circling the center section is a case in point.  At first, it looks like
a good sniping/camping spot, with RG and RA near each other.  However, there are
several access points, and the only health is on the far end of the deck.  Because it's
also a good way to get from place to place, there's just too much traffic if there are
several players to try to hold it.  Good work there. 

Big maps like this, intended for FFA or TDM, don't suffer from inclusion of QD or other
'gimmick' pickups, and in this case the central platform with the QD is the ideal QD placement,
out in the open, but reachable quickly by the skilled and daring player with circle-strafe jumps
to/from the 'mezzanine' deck. 

The mayhem continues in the large lower room below the central area, especially with that
jumppad beneath the QD platform that bounces the player up to the central area.  You'll
definitely be the center of unwanted attention there!

The passageways that circle the lower level have good variety of structure and connectivity
with jumppads to the upper levels.  Getting to the RG from lower levels is particularly good fun. 
The BS room has it's share of bouncy fun too, and many points from which to fight for the prize.

Not normally a big fan of death fog pits, but for me they work on this map.

As for spending time on looks, in my opinion this map is worth the trouble.  It may not be
a 'serious gamer' map, but it is good fun and a thoughtfully made, well done map besides.

The 'blue crystals' looked like map tears to me too, when I first saw them, but with a
strong glow, perhaps as a light source, they'd look pretty cool.  A couple of them already
have this, I'd just emphasize it a little more, and for all of them.

I thought the 'chalk outline' door TP target by the RG was funny.  Not a problem for me.
The TP room seems a little too far from the action, though I don't know what I would
do to fix that, offhand.  And there is *that* TP model.  People use it, and somebody
worked hard on it, but it just doesn't do it for me.  How about another chalk outline?

My only real complaint, and a small one, is that the top of the base of the Liz statue is clipped. 
Could you clip only the model, and so allow the player to jump onto the base?  I like structure
to make sense, and when I see something I ought to be able to jump onto and can't, I feel sad :-(.