Horrible DM maps.

[daveron]

Honsestly , the out of box maps are the worst in the whole series.
For TDM the only good new map seems to be Defiance. Shangri seems to be ok also. And thats it. And none of these maps are stunning , or at least very good.
For 1v1? We have bunch of very avarage and un-inspired tight maps (where you will curse the overpowered in close range bio-gun ), and very avarage heatray (if u don't use the darkwalker), with tons of things to get stuck by. Sentinel could have been a decent map, but it's ruined by only one spot to get yourself healed...

Very poor work by epic , which is a big shame since the gameplay in new ut is very good... It seems that only custom maps can make things better.

[Sharpfish]

DM-Sentinel looks very good (and i'm talking gameplay not just graphics)....

[Therealjoe]

I agree about some maps not having very good flow and just random run around and hope for the best type feeling.

They dont feel right.

Maps like deck are good because they are well balance and facilate people with different styles of play such as sniping and running around shooting anything that moves.

But on some maps your running around and you get lost in a place with no reasoning.

[.51.Lestat]

yah deck is a classic, good for tdm and good for 1vs1, if anyone could port liandri it would b great.

[TheBypasser]

Well, most dm maps are good, way better then those of 2k3 stock - and the new stock maps of 2k4 (that are very good indeed) are by the other mapmakers so are to be treated as community maps. As for UT3, the maps like Arsenal, Sanctuary, Carbon Fire, Deimos, Deck, HeatRay, ShangriLa and some other are very good indeed, quit moaning! Bad there's no 1v1 maps however..

[Kantham]

Horrible? No, Tight, Yes.

DM-Sentinel is great so far.

[seaman]

I come from Quake which has tiny maps..

but so far the only duel maps which seem half decent are..

Sentinel and Diesel..

Biohazard - You can literally run ALL the weapons in rotation just leaving the sniper rifle..

Fearless - Useless, can be utterly controlled from armor/stinger/rl area and he can't even get close to you

Rising Sun - stand at flak and kill him with minigun, run minigun and shock rifle..

[dethmanrulz]

I'm liking a lot of the DM maps... I actually find them quite fluid.



..... and they are certainly NOT the worst of the series... did you forget the stock UT2003 maps?

[Spec7re]

I come from Quake which has tiny maps..

but so far the only duel maps which seem half decent are..

Sentinel and Diesel..

Biohazard - You can literally run ALL the weapons in rotation just leaving the sniper rifle..

Fearless - Useless, can be utterly controlled from armor/stinger/rl area and he can't even get close to you

Rising Sun - stand at flak and kill him with minigun, run minigun and shock rifle..

half this game so far is spam rockets, mini, and combos.

[utzBluesman]

To like (or not) a map is very very personal and say it in foruns cause flame discussions.

[mischa316]

I've played on Shangrla and that map is stunning. Also the one with the water I dont remember the name of that one but that looked really good as well. I thought the maps I've played are pretty good. I know the other one I tried was the one with the Trains. I was not really looking at the map names I was looking at how many people were in them. If it's below 5 people I will not go into the map. I know they all look good though on my 22" monitor.
Mischa.

[oldkawman1]

They are all excellent maps. The DECK map is a true masterpiece. This is the ultimate remake of a map. These are new generation maps. I cannot wait for the community maps to start coming out. UT2004 maps seem so cartoonish compared to these. The authors of the maps did an excellent job, too bad there were not more of them in the release.

[R9naldo]

Yes most of the maps sucks for competition but you must remember that it was even worse with UT2K3 and UT2K4, while UT99 was an exception.

I truly dont really care right now for the amount of maps that are playable as long as there are atleast 3 good 1on1 maps, which would be Deck, Sentiel ( after some item replacing, especially health ) and Biohazard/Diesel/Heatray/Shangrila/Arsenal ( 1 of them must be good for 1on1 altough i didnt checked all of them ).

For tdm there is a problem but i think that shangrila, deck, defiance and maybe heatray can be fine to keep the TDM community alive.

Dont forget about the map packs that Epic used to release and ofcourse the community made maps, there will surely be tons of maps made by the community and some of them must be good for competition so fear-not, its only a matter of time.

[kray28]

Disagree that they are horrible....they actually quite good, with some very interesting interactive elements to them.

I wish there were more of them though.

It's quality over quantity though. I think Epic is passing the buck to the community mappers though...they're an engine company more than a game company ala iD.

[daveron]

As i previously said i think the maps are un-inspired. Why ? Just check the 1v1 maps - they are all very similiar with medicore gameplay. Flat, usually one-leveled maps (nothing like roughinery) , no decent use of teleports (check out q3 maps, they had insane gameplay due to teleports, there was also a fine conversion for 2k4 of aerowalk which was awesome ). Apparently Epic thinks that if u wanna make fast pieced map it needs to be very tight and small which is wrong. And they'r lack of imagination is also visible by placing amps on clear 1on1 maps. Last time we played with amp it was 2k3, which had sick shield.
Idd Sentinel looks ok, but for me it is only playable if they make some RE ver. As i stated earlier one place with 3 +25's kills it. It's just to easy to camp if the enemy is hurt , and he can't do much in such situations. Sure there are some vials , but this isn't helping. Plus , since we have no sliding on the ramps, the way to the shield belt is from the shock or by the stairs that makes the game to predictable, as i think we should be able also to get there from the rl side.

Oh and btw. I don't think that deck is something to be happy about. I like fresh stuff, not playing the same stuff (even tho it's great) all over again

PS.2 Personally i think that 2k4 had much better maps. Roughinery, Ironic , Trite, Rankin for 1v1 , and for TDM we had , antalus, goliath, corrugation, rankin, deck ... Some of these are also medicore, but it was something to start with ...

[kray28]

The Deck map is too dark and has a sparse and lacking texture/mesh palette....it's still Deck though, and the gameplay/flow part is great, but the overall look and feel is step down I believe.

[Emmet Otter]

Too bad we don't have any cool antalus style maps or anything fully outdoor.

[Swatguy]

i am still learning the new maps, i think it's too early to add the words failure yet.

There does seems to be a lack of interactivity, stuff like a pressure machine button to explode people going for powerups, or giant elevators carrying you through a map's multi levels. that element of risk/reward

Everything seems to just be a giant maze designed to be as confusing to learn as possible.
the skill was supposed to be in the weapons/movement not the best cartographer.
Deck is classic because you can access areas easily using main ramp/jump boots or a quick drop down.

[Nacher]

I just can't agree with the OP at all.

I think the average quality of UT3 maps is beyond all the previous UT titles. In my opinion, there are only medicore, good and really good maps. At least I haven't found any bad ones yet.

The DM maps have two distinct characteristics : They look like real world locations instead of your basic quakish gothic arenas and they are very complex and interconnected. In other words, much like UT99. This may be why some people don't like them. They're just totally different style than Quakish DM maps. I think the DM maps are amazing. DM-Diesel was love at first sight. The retail maps generally have a smaller scale than demo maps, so flak is more useful now :P.

Of course some of the DM maps are more like conceptmaps, which work mostly for FFA DM, but not competitive play, but they still aren't bad! I actually thought DM-Gateway was absolute blast! Also to my surprise, DM-Arsenal seemed to be a really good map and potential TDM map.

If you compare these to stock maps of UT2k3, the difference is totally night&day. I'd say the average quality of UT3 DM maps surpasses both UT99 and UT2k4, BUT I have to admit that none of the UT3 DM maps is a absolute masterpiece and classic, like few UT2k4/UT99 maps were. I'm referring to maps like Rankin, Roughinery and Tempest here.

I'm often critical towards stock maps, but I can't possibly see, how someone could consider UT3 stock DM maps horrible. Of course they are confusing during the 5 minutes of play, but that only means that there is a lot to learn and those maps won't get boring fast.

I just love the maps of UT3. Totally amazed by their overall quality. Also while UT3 retail doesn't look technically much better than the demo (ie. fire up shangrila and it looks quite much the same), some of the retail maps look AMAZING and really utilize the UE3 engine well.

[brdempsey69]

Agree with Nacher 100%. Some of them are very complex, but overall I think they are outstanding and I like playing 4 vs 4 TDM and no map has disappointed me, yet. I played DM-RisingSun before I ever touched the campaign mode and fell in love with it because 4 vs 4 with highly skilled bots produced a real bloodfest that was the most fun that I've had in quite some time with any PC game. And DM-Diemos just rocks for anyone wanting to play a low gravity style map.

[Hickeroar]

Funny, i thought the map selection was the strongest of any of the series. If they just stopped making everything so dark I think they'd appeal to more people.

[brdempsey69]

^^DM-Deck specifically is a little darker than I'd like it to be, but one thing about it has not changed from the original -- if I get up on that upper deck with the Sniper Rifle, enemy bots are in for a rough time.

[Hickeroar]

^^DM-Deck specifically is a little darker than I'd like it to be, but one thing about it has not changed from the original -- if I get up on that upper deck with the Sniper Rifle, enemy bots are in for a rough time.

hahaha true that.

[Ultron]

Most of the maps are really good, I think. Also there's probably a smaller percentage of bad maps in UT3 than in any previous version of UT. There's a couple gimmick maps but most are really playable, and are designed around the specific movement abilities of the characters in the game.

[NakhtiUT3]

I must say I love Defiance and Rising Sun ... I will miss them when I return to UT04. Maybe someone can try and make them for UT04 ... that would be sweet as I really like the flow and themes for both.

[raVepl]

ut2kx had the worst map ever, only a few was really good: ironic, rankin, grendel....

[Nacher]

Okay, after some more playing, I have to admit that one of the DM maps sucks : DM-Biohazard. Really, what is point of that overly blue/hazy small and cramped map with 10000 bioguns scattered around? Kind of successor of DM-Fetid...

DM-Carbonfire is borderline bad, others are nice.

Edit: It's a bit dissapointing to see how badly DM-Deck runs though. It was the only DM map where I couldn't get solid 60fps with my settings. It's actually slower than majority of the Warfare maps and WAY slower than Shangri'La. Deck definetly needs optimizing! Also, it's so dark that the casual DM skins are hard to see. Teamskins are more visible though.

[Ultron]

UT2k3 had some bad maps, but a few were good. Antalus was surprisingly accepted and popular. UT2k4 had a higher number of new good maps, but that was because Epic really focused on making maps really fit the movement system. Some of those will have to be tweaked a little bit to be playable in UT3.

[Amikar]

DM-Sentinel and DM-Gateway are my favorites. The DM experience absolutely pwns, QUITE SUPERIOR TO UT2004. The maps are not quite up to UT99 standards, but they are very good. My DM maplist has 8 maps on it at all times.

The naysayers should just mail me their rigs so I can give them out to my friends.

[HorizonX]

I adore DM-Diesel, DM-Defiance, and DM-Sentinel. The stock DM maps are fine, and IMHO superior to most user-created DM maps that aren't remakes.

[Uzi Downes]

I adore DM-Diesel, DM-Defiance, and DM-Sentinel

I was just about to post those but you saved me the time :)

[deviantX]

What I don't like is the addition of a Dark Walker in Heatray. I guess that's the whole point of the map, because of the name, and I guess it adds a little flavour to a TDM/DM map but at the same time, it's placed at like the main chokepoint where everyone fights, and if someone cranks it up everyone dies instantly.

Maybe they should make yet another game mode, Vehicle Death Match. No guns except for enforcer and avril pickup, just vehicles, every single one.

[Elohim]

The only map I really don't like is Biohazzard - it should be banned on all servers. DM-Deimos is the best looking map IMO. The map I probably enjoy playing the most is Sanctuary.