Beta: The Liberation of Ephyra: Ch. 1 - Embry Station (Singleplayer)

[Serenius]

Final version: http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=759009

[SportingSCP]

LOOKS tasty, ill give this a try tomorrow about to go to bed ;)

i'm sure you could have given use bigger screen shots :D

[darksin]

Hello everyone,

I promise to do a Horde map as my next project.


i'm always waiting for that... and feedback later...

[Serenius]

Thanks, guys! It is now available for download. A few areas I would love some feedback on if possible.

How does the pacing feel? Too fast, too slow, too many things going on?
Are there any areas that don't look right?
Did you find it immersive, suspenseful, or scary at all?
Were the encounters challenging without being tedious or frustrating?
Was the lighting bright enough, or did you have a hard time seeing?
Anything else the you liked or did not like?
Did you encounter any bugs, minor or major?

I appreciate any feedback you can provide. :)

[JUGGERNUT]

Minor bug, when you "find alpha" to the left and up the stairs is a door which you can just walk through, make it solid and add a door trigger or something...

So far, your dialogue is perfect, the hints from Marcus about the glass is priceless

Update:
I liked your high quality work, but I found it a bit too short, still, it was a challenge and I enjoyed the ending.

Pros: The music was flawless, I noticed you used the music bank, you and I are probably the only modders of this forum that ever did, I salute you!

Cons: A bit too dark for my taste when going through those doors, I'm sure you'll add stuff in eventually so remember to solidify those doors!

Tips:
-Add a gun for all cinematics, attach it to the skeletal meshes hand, and it'll work by itself, just remember to hide/unhide it along with the model.
-For the end, you should add a gun for the ending as Marcus picks up the whatever from the cog and have him toss the hammer away as he walks into the sunlight.

[Serenius]

Thanks for the feedback, Jugger! I'm glad you liked it. I knew it was going to be short, but with the timeline I set for myself and all the things I had to figure out to pull it all together, I knew I couldn't make it a long map. The music was an interesting bit to reverse engineer, but very well worth it. Thanks! :)

When you refer to the doors being too dark, are you referring to the ones in the hallway right before you find Alpha?

Yes, I didn't manage to get all the guns put in the cinematics yet. One of the items on the ol' "polish" list. :)

[darksin]

Ok, played it, looks like a mapper skill test map, not for players, short and no actual battle, now i c why you say i'll feel regret for adding cover, since they are useless, it's more like a demonstration, but we can see a lot of potential work is well done and prepare for the future porject. So i think Serenius did a nice job, grasp the editor quite well and more.

Like JUGGER said , dark in hallway corridors, the map is not very detailed and reminds me old classic Doom, old fashion style, but optimized very well, high framerate, how is those dialogue made? sounds very interesting. The music is good and the cinematics is fun too, although no gun. Some penetration bugs but not a big case, as this is not a long battle shooting map, so can't say more, no horror no scary etc, maybe i played too many horror games, lol...

About future Horde, hope wide open area with massive locust battle experience, high quality detailed texture buildings is not that really important, but many cover objects and intense battle against all types of locusts waves is a must and the best for horde maps, all for gameplay. Also original maps maybe better since too many botted depot gridlock etc already,Thx man!!

[Serenius]

No actual battle? Did you open the map with the "_P" at the end?

[darksin]

sorry you mean berserker? i played till that....

[Serenius]

sorry you mean berserker? i played till that....
The whole map was built around that encounter and the one following, so if you're skipping that, you don't get the full experience.

[darksin]

Well, i shoot the class but no effect, so is that a bug or sth? i haven't go further till that...

[Serenius]

What weapon were you using? Lancer, shotgun, or pistol? It takes 10 damage to break it. A few bullets from the lancer breaks it every time.

[darksin]

Ok, i'll try later...hope the Horde coming soon, good luck man.

[SportingSCP]

Pros: The music was flawless, I noticed you used the music bank, you and I are probably the only modders of this forum that ever did, I salute you!


I use music banks too! :D


this map is a tease :) a bit too short. Kinda sucks there's no cover links on most walls, i like to bounce while going down a level :D Hope this continues where marcus leads to at the end

[Serenius]

I know it's short. It was one of those things I had to accept going in. I was basically challenged to come up with a boss level, and pump it out in 4-6 weeks by my wife. I'll look at adding in more coverlinks for the final version. I tried to leave them out as they weren't really relevant to gameplay, and it's really easy to get stuck on one and get squished by a berserker (trust me, it's quite frustrating when that happens).

I'd also love it if someone could take a screenshot of the areas they mentioned were too dark. My monitor is super bright, so darkness doesn't stand out quite as much when I'm doing lighting.

[Serenius]

Playthrough video added to the original post for those who want to see it before checking it out.

[Serenius]

I really need to learn to do incremental backups. I went back to polishing this map up after making the mistake of adding terrain to my new map, and now this one is crashing the editor every time I open it. :(

[JUGGERNUT]

I really need to learn to do incremental backups. I went back to polishing this map up after making the mistake of adding terrain to my new map, and now this one is crashing the editor every time I open it. :(

Perhaps solution b would help? (http://forums.epicgames.com/showpost.php?p=27214752&postcount=116)

[SportingSCP]

:) that works like a charm, :S but most of my links got broken when i copy/paste into notepad and back to kistmet

[JUGGERNUT]

:) that works like a charm, :S but most of my links got broken when i copy/paste into notepad and back to kistmet

A small price to pay compared to starting from scratch, although prefabs get messed up big time, so my advice is to never put in prefabs until the end.

[Serenius]

Solution B still crashed the editor when opening the level files. Good thing I hadn't moved TOO far from the beta release. I'll just have to go back to that.

Edit: Crap, that's crashing the editor too. Goddammit.

[Serenius]

Getting close to completion on the update for this map. Added a lot of detail, improved lighting and post-processing, completely redid cutscenes (and removed some), more scripted events, and an additional enemy encounter (not zerkers).

Here are a few WIP screenshots of the progress made over the last few weeks of picking this back up.

http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/NewIntroCutscene.jpg
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/NewHallway.jpg
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/NewTicketTerminal.jpg
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/NewEnemySpawn.jpg
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/NewArena.jpg
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/NewZerkerIntro1.jpg
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/NewZerkerIntro2.jpg
http://i718.photobucket.com/albums/ww189/Hadishi_Serenius/Gears%20of%20War%20-%20Subway/EndCutScene.jpg

[Serenius]

For the few folks who care, I've finally finished all the major revamps of this map and will be releasing the final version in the next day or two. It will be slightly longer, but most of the work went into cranking up the polish on all the scripted events and adding boat loads of details.

[Serenius]

All done. Have a bug with the final checkpoint not streaming the sub-level. Will release the final version once fixed. :)

[Etz HaVoK]

Nice Awesome light effect your are too good at this ;) maybe tomorow i will realesed some screenshot of my map good job

Etz HaVoK

[Serenius]

Final version is up. :)

http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=759009

[Etz HaVoK]

nice work serenius ill give it a try right now :)