MP-Station

[trauma1337]

Hello, this is my first Gears of War level and it is called MP-Station. I wanted to create an MP level that centered around low cover and a straight forward layout with vertical play involved. There are three levels of play in this map the main floor a top level and a basement level. Each level has weapon spawn that will direct play into all three areas depending on play style.

The top level has a sniper rifle spawn which will reward the player who is able to obtain it nicely, the main floor has a hammerburst spawn for the player who doesn't fancy the lancer much , like myself, and the basement level has a boomshot spawn for the player who likes to blow stuff up.

This level is located in a train station and is a well lit level that has an airy feel to it. I wanted to get away from the darker levels that was the standard in Gears 1 and try to capture the brighter lighting of gears 2 with out the help of lightmass it was not possible to achieve the feel of gears 2 lighting but I feel I came rather close.

This is a beta version of the level and I have no yet finished all of the visual elements but you can get the main idea of what I am going for. Please post any and all feedback on the level here, since this is my first gears level there is no doubt some cover link issues that I have no found and problems of that nature. Please post any problems you find and any comments on the visuals. I am making this a portfolio piece for my graduating portfolio from school so please all the feedback I can get is extremely helpful.

Thanks, Trauma

Update:

So I have gone in and finished the level visually and have also gone through with a fine tooth comb and found all the bugs and problems with the cover links. The problems shown in the video from guardian_legend have been fixed they were due to some cover links on the floor below going rogue. I am posting a link to the newest version of the level for anyone who is testing it for me to see if they can find anymore problems. Thanks again for all the help and feedback y'all have given.

Update #2:
So I have come to a point were I am finished with this level aside from any bugs with cover that come up from playtesting. I have made a version of the level that has bot support, I tried to simulate a 5v5 battle as best as I can with the bots. So on start up of the level 4 COG bots spawn and 5 Locust bots spawn and the match starts once the Locust are dead the game is over. If you find any problems or have any thoughts please post feedback is always helpful. Thanks for your time and testing and I hope you all enjoy this level.

MP level download:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20234...Station_b3.war

Bot level download:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20234...on_b3_bots.war

Updated Screenshots:








Screenshots:








Please post any and all comments!

[JUGGERNUT]

It's like subway, warmachine, and garden had a threesome.

[TheS19Project]

The lighting looks amazing on those screenshots.

[Serenius]

Looks cool!

Lighting could use some variation, as it's very monochromatic.

[PureFunkayy]

Holy sh.. Nice!

[PureFunkayy]

It's like subway, warmachine, and garden had a threesome.

Duh Winning!

[bobfuria]

If you want my advice, once all visual elements are finished, you could add bots, or a horde mode with character selection so whomever is testing will get distracted and won't notice any errors you may have not noticed. The map looks incomplete to me, and as you posted, it needs more work .

For the horde mode, you can see the kismet of these ones and get creative.
http://www.moddb.com/games/gears-of-.../hordewave-v11

For this one, do not open the lnc2 file unless you have lance.
http://www.moddb.com/games/gears-of-...e-for-gears-pc


And try to make your own horde mode, and release it here once finnished and at least I will gladly test it.

[taakuu]

bot in mp_station?

[Serenius]

I don't see this working well as a bot map. AI have no logic to incorporate weapon drops, making a lot of the design behind the map have no bearing other than the player trying to get a weapon. It would likely require an extensive reworking to be bot friendly.

[bobfuria]

Maybe adding a extensive amount of bots to compensate for the map design? It does not have to be lance, but a horde mode with plenty of varied locust swarming at you. A horde mode with ending would be nice (in case my idea is considered).

Also, managing bots to work on that type of map design can be a plus for him, since it is a school proyect.

The weapons scattered around the map could be to aid the player againts the locust.

[Guardian_legend]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZuSaO6Wa9A I made video preview of map. If you want play with me on this map ask me.

[trauma1337]

Hey everyone thanks for the input so far. If I have time this quarter, which is not likely, I will try and make a horde mode for this level although I am currently working on a 3 part single player level as well as finishing this level up. Guardian_legend thanks for the video showing those bugs unfortunately I was unable to reproduce the bug were you slid into cover above the stairs. The collision problem by the spawn areas has been fixed.

I have gotten a fair amount of work done on this level and fixed some of the big issues I found and I will be posting an updated version of the level for feedback in the next day or two. Thanks for all the help it is much appreciated!

[Quinn DelHoyo]

I like the direction you are going with this. The lighting looks pretty good considering that you don't have Lightmass to help you out. Kudos to you there.

I haven't ran around in the map but it looks like you could run into some issues with the seperate floors. Players could be on any of the three floors and not find that much combat due to 4v4 team size. There also doesn't seem to be much interplay between the floors.

Very interested to see where you go with this.

[trauma1337]

Thanks for the kudos on the lighting, after working with UDK and lightmass for the past year getting pretty lighting inside of Gears was not an easy task.

As for the problems that could arise with the multiple levels and small team sizes those issues did come to mind when I was designing the level and the reason I went forward with having three levels was because in my experience inside of gears many people seem to gravitate towards a specific route a majority of the time they play which usually leads to alot of the same fighting going on.

So by having these multiple levels I open up more avenues of play from the start and people who want to use different weapons will gravitate towards them and direct the flow of battle to the other levels. Also it just adds more options to the player which I fully expect not everyone to take and by having both the top and bottom levels some what lacking in cover most of the game play will be focused on the main floor which has a fair amount of cover and loads of opportunities for interesting fights to happen.

The main problem with the three levels will come into play in warzone or execution when there are only 2 players left and then the added levels just become a labyrinth of hiding places. This is for sure the biggest downfall to my level and I found this same problem happening in alot of the most popular stock gears levels so I let it roll hoping that the situation will not happen often due to the nature of gears and how fast paced combat is.

The player interaction will predictably happen mostly on the top level in the middle lane because visually and physically the level leads you down that lane which was intended and then I give the option for the players to peel off and go up or down or just to the sides so again hopefully the concerns you mention will only happen in small cases and those are my hopes as well when I found the above mention issues during my design process. If worst comes to worst and the feedback I get from people on the forums is that level is to big with the three levels I can close off the bottom level by making it look like it collapsed and then there will only be the two levels which would make the level smaller and force more player interaction, I will see how testing goes but in general that might just be the smarter option in the end.

Thank you Quinn for the feedback and I hope you get a chance to run around in my level, real feedback from an Epic LD would be the best critique for my portfolio I could possibly find.

Thanks again!

[darksin]

Good to see more bot maps coming, nice work man....

[trauma1337]

I have updated the original post with a link to the final test version of the level if no problems are found in this version then I will call it finished and post in the Final releases. I have also uploaded a version that has bots in it, the bot level tries to simulate a 5v5 setting. Please post any problems or comments find or have. Thank you for your time and testing it is much appreciated.

MP level download:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20234...Station_b3.war

Bot level download:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20234...on_b3_bots.war

[neolancer07]

This is a good looking map. Good lighting and visibility. I quickly played through the bot version several times. In my opinion I could see this map work with human players but I don't think this map would work very well with bots. Due to fact they're bots, they're straight-forward and predictable in terms of behavior. Although they're aggressive and they stick together, they don't form any unique strategies. They usually attack head-on and never seem to try to flank the enemy.
This could make a good horde map. Are there any plans to implement horde into Station?

[darksin]

Finally botted, great work man!!, what a busy day,lol.........

[TheS19Project]

Map looks great, congrats on getting praise by Epic Staff. Good to see the Epic Games staff/moderators paying attention to the User Maps & Mod section a bit more recently

[JUGGERNUT]

Good to see the Epic Games staff/moderators paying attention to the User Maps & Mod section a bit more recently

Yeah, makes you wonder if they're finally going to give more gears to PC.

Also spam bots are on this thread, hahaha, it's that popular, hahaha.

[darksin]

Finally painful download finished, as bullet PC not bad, maybe Epic is thinking about Gears 3 PC this time, yeah, the final chapter of Marcus, PC need more UE 3.5 official games....

[darksin]

Played it, perfect layout and lighting, gameplay is great, but no bot respawn system?,

what a pity, i hope the author can make locusts bots respawn, thx!!!....

[Guardian_legend]

anyone wants to play it online?