DM-Yro3-Alpha1 needs alpha test

[ROY]

Name: DM-Yro3-Alpha1

Version: 1st alpha

Compatibility: UT3

Description: medium sized deathmatch map

Comments: As to be seen from the title, I need some people for an alpha test of a UT3 DM Map. This is an alpha test because only the basic gameplay is meant to be checked. What does that mean? Maybe it is easier to understand, if I tell you what should not be tested in this map.

Not to be tested:
- Lighting (not yet implemented)
- Sound (not yet implemented)
- Static Meshes (not yet implemented)
- Bots (working, but not optimized)
- Textures (not yet implemented)

All these things are not implemented in the map at the moment. They will be tested in a beta test in the future. Only the following points should be tested.

To be tested:
- Itemplacement
- Architecture
- Gameflow

Here are some example questions in order to specify those points a little more precisely:

- Are there enough Weapons/Ammo/Pickups? Which ones are missing? Which ones should be left out?
- Are the Weapons/Ammo/Pickups correctly distributed in the Map? Should some Weapons/Ammo/Pickups be added? Should some Weapons/Ammo/Pickups be removed? Are some Weapons/Ammo/Pickups too easy/too hard to reach?
- Are the Rooms/Walkways built up correcty? Which Rooms/Walkways are too small/too large/too narrow/too long?
- Are there enough/too few connections between the Rooms/Walkways?
- Are there places which are too hard/too easy to reach? Places which are too narrow/too open? Places that should be completly removed? Places which should be extended?
- Is the map suitable for the UT3 movement? Is the map too large/too small for the UT3 movement? Can specific Moves/Jumps be done? Should parts of the map be changed so that specific Moves/Jumps can be done?
- Are the slants too narrow/too steep/too small/too wide?
- Is the Elevator Jump too hard/too easy?
- Should the Shield Belt be removed/placed somewhere else/replaced?
- Should the Keg O'Health removed/placed somewhere else/replaced?
- The map can be dominated too easy/not easy enough?

As mentioned above, these are only some example questions. Please report everything that can help to improve the map.

When you look at the map you'll find a lot of gaps in the walls, the ground and the ceiling. I've put them in the map only for myself. I use them as markers while I build the map. They will be removed later, so please simply ignore them.

The screenshots that you can see here are not very impressive, cause there are still no final static meshes, textures and lights in the map. In addition everything is still looking very "cubic", cause for the alpha test all rooms, walkways and stairs are build out of simple geometric objects. This will definitly change in the final version.

I would be pleased if some of you can play the map and could give me a feedback.

Screenshot:
http://www.albacht.de/UT/DM-Yro3-AlphaPic1.jpg
http://www.albacht.de/UT/DM-Yro3-AlphaPic2.jpg
http://www.albacht.de/UT/DM-Yro3-AlphaPic3.jpg
http://www.albacht.de/UT/DM-Yro3-AlphaPic4.jpg

Download: click me to download (http://www.albacht.de/UT/DM-Yro3-Alpha1.zip)

[Rohit_N]

Thanks. This is how one creates a map - gameplay first, prettiness second. I'll try it.

[Mr.UglyPants]

Yep, thats the correct formula (hell it worked for Epic).

[porcup!ne]

Dling, and will post feedback. Yro was one of my favorite maps in utk4, glad to see you're making a UT3 version. Are you sticking to the layout from the k4 version, or modifying it a bit? also, just looking at screens, I think that the keg should be a bit less accessible.


[edit]played it. layout is good. lift jump seems a bit easy, maybe make the ledge to jump to a bit higher, but thats just my opinion.
I think that there maybe needs to be a way to get to shock from the lower level in that room, but then again, that may make shock more dominant. the movement is great though, there are some good walldodge spots that allow you to get around( the upper catwalk across from the shock rifle in particular.) i cant wait to see this fleshed out with Static Mesh! are you going to keep the same theme from utk4, or maybe something different? oh, and PLEASE make sure the music is in from the original! it made the map that much more enjoyable. Upbeat loungy/jazzy music while blowing your enemies made the map all the better.

[Cenobite]

Flak spawn could be placed further down from the lift. So when you get off the lift, flak should be in the next corridor instead of right by Lift Exit.

Other than that it plays well.

[Relief]

Yep, thats the correct formula (hell it worked for Epic).

It works for any developer.

[Xzodus]

Impressive, I like this map a lot, personally I think the pickups need to be built a little-bit more flowed to the map; I think (for example) the super health, should be built not under the platform, but around the corner or at the top of the platform, just to keep the flow of the DM map going; because the the worst thing you want is to pickup a super healh, then get cornered and blown to bits.

[VladTheInhaler]

I've played though it a few times and I gotta say, I enjoy it so-far. Although, I do agree with Cenobyte, and that the Flak should be moved away from the top of the lift. Feels awkward imo. I would also raise the floor a little for the shield belt, that life jump feels too easy to me.

[BooGiTyBoY]

I just wanna say putting your weapons off to the side, in alcoves, and in corners like that totaly ruins map flow. Make them part of the players travel path and this map would have killer flow. Maybe not all of them as there should be a small risk involved with grabbing a heavier weapon (like the RL in the corner), if you are up against someone decent that corner is a deathtrap. :D
Just my 2 cents :). Good start to it nonetheless.

Plus it actually helps new mappers out quite a bit to see a map built in stages like this, from the barebones up. :)

[revel911]

Downloading now. Glad to see someone keep a good solid head on their shoulders.

As others have said, I would move then Flak Cannon down a bit farther into the corridor and then I would personally switch the shield and flak cannon placements.


I just wanna say putting your weapons off to the side, in alcoves, and in corners like that totaly ruins map flow. Make them part of the players travel path and this map would have killer flow. Maybe not all of them as there should be a small risk involved with grabbing a heavier weapon (like the RL in the corner), if you are up against someone decent that corner is a deathtrap.
Just my 2 cents . Good start to it nonetheless.


They have a good point. I would switch the placements of the health pack and Link Gun. I also noticed that your bot paths go across the link gun, but they never pick up the health pack.

In the room with the Stinger, put a set of Thigh pads where the stinger is and move the stinger to underneath the stairs.

Get rid of the Keg, it loses point in a map this size.

I see that next to every weapons spawn, you have a set of ammo. Get rid of that ammo and increase the amount of ammo types you have per separate ammo clump. (That make any sense?) This makes the players choose to either be more efficiently with their shots or veer out of their path to get more ammo instead of it given to them.

How many players are you seeing as ideally playing this map? 2-5 players? 2-6 players?

Otherwise I have the feeling this has the beginnings of a great DM map.

[ROY]

First of all I like to thank everybody for their comments. That's all extremly helpful for me to improve this map. Thanks a lot.

Before I move on to the new version of the map, here are the answers to your questions:

porcup!ne: "Are you sticking to the layout from the k4 version, or modifying it a bit?"

The layout of the original version was some kind of starting point for me when I began to develop this map. With this older version in mind I started to build some of the rooms and hallways. But these first areas of the new map had a much simpler shape which gave me the opportinity to resize them and to change their shape a bit. The output was very "cubic" but this was intended. It was easier now to add new areas and to rearrange existing ones. It also helped me dividing these new areas in smaller divisions, which are defined by those gaps you can see all over the map. These divisions serve as some kind of smallest units in the map. They can easily be added, deleted, resized, moved, copied and so on. And they will also be very useful in the later beta versions of the map when it comes to creating all the static meshes.

porcup!ne: "are you going to keep the same theme from utk4, or maybe something different?"

I have released two different versions of this map for UT2k4. DM-Yro and DM-Yro2. They were more or less the same except the theme. The first version was much brighter than the second one. I always wanted the map to look like it's mainly made out of plastic or some kind of synthetic material combined with some glassy and some metallic parts. But unfortunately it did not work. I did not made a decision about the theme of this version of the map.

revel911: "How many players are you seeing as ideally playing this map? 2-5 players? 2-6 players?"

I wasn't thinking of any player count at all when I began to build this map. But now as it has a kind of starting shape and size I think around 4 would be appropriate. Although I think it could also serve as a 1on1 DM map. But it will not have this "1on1" tag in it's name. The final name will be DM-Yro3.

Let's come to the map now. Here is what I have changed for this next alpha version:

- The elevator jump now is a bit more challenging. I did this by decreasing it's movement speed which will result a smaller boost for the player. (Difficult enough now? I hope not too difficult.)
- The Flak Cannon was moved away from the elevator. Now it's positioned more inside the hallway. (Far away enough?)
- Almost all ammo pickups have been moved more within the normal travel path of the player. (Enough or do they need to be moved even more?)
- The Link Gun and the Stinger are no longer located in those alcoves. Now it's much easier to reach them. (Rocket Launcher and Shock Rifle are still at the same spots. I suppose they are the most desirable weapons in the map. Should they stay there or be moved to places where they can be reached easier? What about the Link Gun and the Stinger? Are the new positions ok?)
- The size alcove near the Link Gun was increased a bit
- Keg O'Health is now located in it's own alcove, which was created especially for this purpose. (I'm not sure about the Keg. It was supposed to be a kind of counterpart to the Shield Belt. But maybe it should be deleted from the map? Or is the new spot ok?)
- The Sniper Rifle and Sniper Rifle ammo pickups were added to the map. (Not sure here. Does it make sense to add the Sniper Rifle to the map?)
- The floor underneath the Shild Belt now has an opening. Players can walk over it, but weapons can shoot through it in both directions. (This idea was from a player who saw this in a UT2k4 DM map. I'm not sure how this affects the gameplay in this map. Useful or crap?)

As you can see these changes also brought up some new questions. Especially the Keg O'Health and that new opening underneath the Shield Belt are the two biggest questionmarks for me.

It would be great if some of you find the time to test the new version of the map and could post some comments. Also all new ideas that help to improve the map a welcome.

I know that this new version of the map does not contain all the ideas you posted here. I tried to put everything in that sounded like the most important points. But all the other ideas and comments are still on my internal list on my hard drive. :)

And here (http://www.albacht.de/UT/DM-Yro3-Alpha2.zip) you can download the newest version.

[ozztehbozz]

I think this map could be a nice 1on1 map if you replace the keg by 50+ armor, make the Rocket/Mini Rooms a bit smaller and move the vials into some areas which are not on the "normal waypoints".. maybe underneath the stairs or something. Because atm there are to many vials @ the lift f.e.

The room behind the belt is a bit to large, too in my opinion.

In conclusion:
- Replacing keg with 50+
- Remove old vials
- 3 Vials underneath keg spawn from ver 1
- 4 Vials @ Minigun
- Resize the Rocket/Mini Rooms (bit smaller)

[ROY]

OK OK, I'm convinced. :D I'll replace the Keg with the ShieldVest. Looks like the Keg is not really a counterpart to the ShieldBelt. I wasn't really happy with the Keg anyway.

[ozztehbozz]

I'm really looking forward to your next release because this map has a lot of potential i think.

[ROY]

I just uploaded alpha version 3 of the map. Here are the changes:

- Adjusted the elevator jump. The movement speed is now in between the speeds of the first and the second alpha version.
- Keg O'Health was replaced by the ShieldVest

It seems to me, that all further changes of the architecture and the item placement are relatively small, so that I can start with the first beta versions of the map.

The beta phase will take much longer than the alpha phase cause I have to create a lot of static meshes and textures. So don't expect to see a beta version in the next days. Also I will open a new thread for the beta test in this forum.

I want to thank all of you for your comments and ideas. You really helped me to improve this map. Thx everybody. :)

Here's the download (http://www.albacht.de/UT/DM-Yro3-Alpha3.zip) to the 3. alpha version. And if somebody still wants to leave comments or ideas, please post them in this thread. I'll keep on watching this thread and everything will be put on my internal list on my hard drive. Nothing will be lost.

[revel911]

Roy, I would say your map is a 1000% better. This is going to be a quite enjoyable map.


- The Flak Cannon was moved away from the elevator. Now it's positioned more inside the hallway. (Far away enough?)
- I would still like to see a bit farther, but should be good enough


- The Sniper Rifle and Sniper Rifle ammo pickups were added to the map. (Not sure here. Does it make sense to add the Sniper Rifle to the map?)
- I don't think this map utilizes the Sniper rifle with it's smaller rooms and quick flow, while it definitely utilizes the Shock rifle


- The floor underneath the Shild Belt now has an opening. Players can walk over it, but weapons can shoot through it in both directions. (This idea was from a player who saw this in a UT2k4 DM map. I'm not sure how this affects the gameplay in this map. Useful or crap?)
- I love the way this turned out.

- The ammo in the rocket launcher room is placed quite oddly, I would say it looks inconsistent compared to all your other ammo drops.

[chicken-]

I like it! Seems perfect size for TDM. It's hard to really get a grasp on the layout with the default textures, I really look forward to seeing your next release.

[chicken-]

After I posted I noticed the link to Alpha3 at the end of this thread...you should edit your first post and change the topic name so people know there is a new release!

[ROY]

Looks like I can't edit the name of the topic. I try to do it better when I open the thread for the beta version.

[chicken-]

ROY whatever happened to this map?

[ClockworkJB]

After having played both alpha versions of this map, I can safely say that it is getting better and better. The placement of the stinger and LG is now perfect, keeping the map flowing smoothly. This looks to be a keeper, hope you continue to refine the gameplay and make some impressive visuals to go with it.

[ozztehbozz]

Mhh.. new releases yet?

[ROY]

No new versions at the moment. The next version will be the first beta.

Here's a little status report:
- Deleted all brushes from the alpha version and replaced them with static meshes.
- Created about 200 new static meshes and threw away about 100 of them. The rest is still in the map. :D
- I guess I will need to build another 50 static meshes before I'm satisfied with the result.
- The map will be entirely made out of static meshes at the end, if everything works as expected.
- Not sure about a release date at the moment. But I still need some weeks cause I have to create the high poly meshes for the normal mapping, the textures and materials and at the end there's the lighting and the bot pathing. But the last two points don't eat up very much time.

Creating such a "zero-brush-map" made out of 100% custom static meshes is a bit time consuming cause I always have to keep an eye on the fps count. And on the other hand there's my PC which will celebrate his 5th birthday this year. And I can tell you this little baby is not the fastest on earth.

[ozztehbozz]

can you make any screenshots? :)

[chicken-]

Please don't turn your potentially good map into an FPS hog that nobody wants to play.

This map has potential to be used in tourneys but we would like to be able to PLAY the map, not LOOK at it.

[WrATH]

Please don't turn your potentially good map into an FPS hog that nobody wants to play.

This map has potential to be used in tourneys but we would like to be able to PLAY the map, not LOOK at it.

Then lets have no textures and meshes right?, you may as well play your tourneys in different size boxes.

[ROY]

I hope that I can deliever a map that has both, high fps count and good visuals. ;)
But in case that the fps count will be too low I have some more options:
- replace some meshes with brushes
- change the lighting
- release a second version

But at the moment it looks like the engine can easily handle tons of meshes without any problems. I guess the lighting will have a much bigger impact on the performance than the amount of meshes.

[chicken-]

wrAth, don't speak of what you don't know :)

Even guys with high end systems prefer FPS style maps. We don't play the game to look at eye candy, it's about good matches. Allowing a wider range of players to play the game increases the fun for everyone and helps make the game bigger.

The author of the liandri remake did 2 versions, a bsp style on and another with static meshes, the difference is about 30fps on my system.

[ozztehbozz]

blaaaaa.. i don't want to play ut3 on the ugliest maps like deck-fps... worst map ever, even ut99 was looking better!