CTF4-Startemple [beta - nearly finished]

[Radiosity]

Waaaaaay back in the depths of time and history (otherwise known as the time of UT2003 ) I created a simple little CTF map that I never bothered releasing, simply because it was made in about 10 hours flat. It's a fun map However, with CTF4 being released, I thought it was time to add a bit of polish to the old girl and convert her to four team CTF. And this is the current result.

It deviates from the 'standard' cross shape of a lot of CTF4 maps and takes a more side-by-side approach. Lighting still needs some work in places (the arches at the front of the bases mainly, after adding a sunlight actor, making things somewhat brighter than they were), and a bunch of the coronas seriously need a scale decrease, because they're visible from a greater distance in this version. Also need to change all the blue and red fire emitters to the same ones I've just added for the other teams. And there is still some BSP and misc tweakage work to be done. Otherwise... it's fully playable with good bot support (apart from their habit of dropping into the depths of space, but that's no fault of mine).

Feedback and critique as always are welcome, but bear in mind I'm not going to be making any major layout changes at this stage. The two platforms on either side, although very cool looking, will probably be removed to save some polys, because they're not likely to be used. Screenshots! Click to enlarge:

[screenshot]http://www.radiant-studios.net/junk/shot00.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://www.radiant-studios.net/junk/shot01.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://www.radiant-studios.net/junk/shot02.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://www.radiant-studios.net/junk/shot03.jpg[/screenshot]

Download CTF4-StarTemple (3mb)

Ignore the frankly very dodgy description text, I've yet to write up something more appropriate

edit: It's already pretty well optimized so you shouldn't have any framerate issues, but there might be in places, as I haven't tested it on lower end machines than my own.

 

[Old Gil]

looks pretty sweet mon, i would d/l it with some more in depth feedback, but i dont have CTF4 yet hopefully this is the start of ALOT of CTF4 maps

 

[Dark Pulse]

I hope so too. The Community will make this shine, as I've told myself and the rest of the devs all throughout the making of the mod.

 

[Renegade Retard]

.... but i dont have CTF4 yet

Working on it Bro.

 

[TAZTG]

Will Nali City be the Host of these CTF4 maps? To help this MOD work we need to have a centralized place for Map D/L's.. I know a few «BuA» members are working on maps..

 

[Artman40]

Could you add some powerups in the middle? Like super shield in the middle upper part and double damage in the middle lower part? Also can you add redeemers to both pyramids because you can easily get there if you use a translocator?

 

[shadow_dragon]

If you add super weapons don't add that many.

 

[Radiosity]

Superweapons? Probably not, no. The redeemer is about the only thing that could, and I'm of the opinion that it would ruin gameplay. I'll add one and see how it works though. There will be powerups in the middle areas, I just haven't added them yet I also still need to tweak weapon placement a bit, to take into account the different play style of CTF4.

edit: and there are already two damage amps in the map, so I'm not adding any more. Dunno if you found them? They're not that well hidden

 

[Artman40]

...If not superweapons, then maybe small shield packs and alot of health vials...

Just some of the routes have not enough items. Players need motivation to get to the further bases.

EDIT: I have an idea...how about a nice row of adrenaline and health vials on floating pyramids, super shield among with some ammo on the middle upper path and super health pickup in the center of middle lower path and small shield packs in the room where blue base meets red and green base meets yellow (rooms which lead to the lower middle path)

 

[Zoeff]

Wow .... that map looks SWEAT

i'd be glad to test that one *IF* you want ... Map Exploiters

- Zoeff

 

[Renegade Retard]

Superweapons? Probably not, no. The redeemer is about the only thing that could, and I'm of the opinion that it would ruin gameplay.

/me high-five's Radio

 

[shadow_dragon]

It's an interesting layout, it'd be interesting to see if people will cross over from the two on the left or the two on the right. It'd be kinda like a standard CTF match but with a chance to drop out of your teams fight and interrupt someone elses. heh heh!

 

[Taleweaver]

I must admit the map looks good. There are some things that just could be improved just that little bit, other things have to be done completely different.

1)The most important fault is weapon placement. Just 2 spray weapons is not enough to set up a decent defense. At least put another weapon in front of the flag.
2)Your flow isn't that great either. There's a high route and a low route...and no possible way to change your course
3)As artman said: put some good stuff in that center! The gametype is CTF-4, not 2x CTF. Give the players some reasons to take for a longer flag run, by providing them a keg or a super shield
4)If I were you, I'd rescale those floating pyramids on the side just a little bit, so players can dodgejump back and forth on it, for a different way to a neighbor flag. Otherwise, you can try putting jump pads on the sides.

Allow me to show some screenies for the rest:
[SCREENSHOT]http://users.skynet.be/golden_dragon/Startemple1.JPG[/SCREENSHOT]
-for some reason, the wall around the flag isn't equally big on all sides. It's just cosmetics,but can this be changed?
-For consistency with the adrenaline on the right: change the med kit to a trio of health vials
-the weapon...already mentioned before
-I'd make those small ramps into walls down there. It looks more natural, and it reduces the amount of hiding spots in the flag room
-on the left: a possible future jump spot?
-on the right (blue): just letting you know that you can walldodgejump on top of the wall; maybe intentional, but nothing bad

[SCREENSHOT]http://users.skynet.be/golden_dragon/Startemple2.JPG[/SCREENSHOT]
-on the sides of the main platform, there are some blocking volumes that you can walk on (marked with a red cloud)
-The tower has 3 floors...But why? The top one is just to house a damage amp. All in all, the top floor won't be travelled, so it's better to keep the damage amp as a part of the level.
-When I approached the shrine on the left, I thought I would find at least a huge power-up. I was pretty disappointed when I found just a flak cannon...Or am I missing something here? If not, it has the same problem as the top of the tower: it's not a part of the level, and will likely be completely abandoned for a big part of the game.
-The second part of the tower is just a little too big in the Z-department: if you fall down, you lose some health...though it's a pretty common decision by the average player to drop down from a place like that
-IMO, the arcs over the main routes (where I'm standing when I took the picture) have a bad distance. It's just too big to do a normal dodge over them, and a dodgejump gets you too far unless you seriously hold back. Also, I always barely miss a running dodgejump from the tower...Maybe Zoeff has more luck on this one (hey! no shield gun ), but I think it's best to rearrange them a bit, and adding one.

 

[Radiosity]

/me high-five's Radio

Back at ya pal

Zeoff - thanks, but I'm going to work on the next version first, and fix a lot of the problems currently in the map (most of which are because it was originally a CTF map, not four team). You can grab the next version I put up :tup:

Everyone else - thanks for the comments

Taleweaver, thanks for the in depth comments pal, appreciate the feedback. Ok...

1: Weapon Placement - yeah, the placement isn't the best at the moment as I haven't changed it all. I'll work on that for next version.

2: Flow - yup. Suggestions? Possibly an extra route underneath? Hmm... maybe in an X shape, giving more of a direct route from the opposing corners.

3: Center - as I mentioned before, I will be adding stuff here, no worries

4: Pyramids - biggest reason for the pyramids is the sodding great antiportals in each one Helps no end for occluding the base and players etc next to your own base. And haven't you noticed the bots xloccing across to the other base via the pyramids? I did it like that on purpose, because you can't xloc while carrying the flag. Dodge jumping across would more or less make the other two bases obsolete, as you could simply jump across to the base next door, then jump straight back to your own base.

5: Wall around base - yeah, it'd be easy enough to change that. I didn't spend long on the BSP in the original, so I'm working on it more now. Expect various other BSP stuff to be updated (the platforms on the lower level outside for example).

6: Health vials - good idea

7: Base weapons - I'll think about adding one behind the torch, but currently that area is taken by an AI script for defending bots. I could shift it over slightly though I guess.

8: Ramps - Good idea again, especially since bots like to camp down there.

9: Jump Spot - that's exactly where I've set up jump spot actors for bots to xloc over to the pyramid, funnily enough.

10: Walldodgejump - ths is why getting feedback is important. No it wasn't intentional, and I'm not that good at super jumping around the place so can't really test things like that. I can't see it giving anyone an unfair advantage though so I'll leave it.

11: Blocking volumes - no, there aren't blocking volumes there. It's a known bug with that particular part of the BSP. There's nothing there, but it blocks you. No idea why it happened, but it's easy enough to fix (I just forgot before releasing this version )

12: Towers - don't forgot, this used to be straight CTF, so the setup works fine. I agree that they're kinda redundant now though. I won't remove them simply because they add to the overall look of the map. I will remove the amps and rebuild the structure though, to make it look a bit more solid and generally be more useful.

13: Shrines on the edges - I mentioned before that I was probably going to remove them. In the CTF version there is one either side, and they had some spawn points for both teams, so a weapon was essential. Not needed now though (even though I like the cool yellow energy effect).

14: Tower height - yup, I'll address that issue when I rebuild it.

15: Arches - I'll have a play around with the distances and try adding an extra one

Thanks again

 

[Old Gil]

Working on it Bro.

sorry dude, i read that again just now and it sounded like i was saying "i dont have it yet.. THANKS TO REN! HURRY UP!" my bad, seriously take ur time i dont care if i get it tmorrow or next year

 

[Artman40]

But this may be an original CTF¤ map because routes to all enemy bases are different:
Red/Green and Blue/Yellow: Getting the enemy flag takes a short time but getting it to your base takes long
Red/Blue and Green/Yellow: Taking enemy flag and bringing it back to base takes an average amount of time.
Red/Yellow and Green/Blue: You should change that because it takes the longest time to take the enemy flag and bring it to your base so you should make special diagonal routes (maybe using kickers or moving platforms somewhere).

 

[Radiosity]

Guess you didn't read my previous post I already mentioned that I was going to try an extra X shaped route underneath from corner to corner.

 

[Taleweaver]

Got some more thoughts/pics:

Flow isn't something you get by adding in more routes. You get it by intersecting the ones you do have: make sure that players can change from up to down route and back, without having to get back to the flag room first.
So instead of an extra 'X'-route below, you could consider transporters, like in this setup:

[SCREENSHOT]http://users.skynet.be/golden_dragon/Startemple4.JPG[/SCREENSHOT]

The routes to all the enemy bases are still different, but red/yellow and blue/green are now about the same distances (both with and without flag).

...But I was talking about increasing flow. Take a look at this picture (it's made with the ghost command, so there's nothing going wrong ):

[SCREENSHOT]http://users.skynet.be/golden_dragon/Startemple3.JPG[/SCREENSHOT]

With the shrine being removed, you can use that area to make a stairway up and down to connect both routes. Another thing you can do (or even both), is adding a lift between the lower and higher roads.

Adding lifts adjacent to the center part of the map (the '-' in the 'H' figure), has an incidental advantage: you can add a super shield and a health keg in the exact center (one on the upper and one on the lower route), without having the risk that someone will time both power-ups...But this is somewhat a detail.

I noticed there wasn't much health on your level, so I added a suggestion for a 50 armor spot. I also advice you add a couple extra health packs in the bases.

Then we move on to the next picture:
[SCREENSHOT]http://users.skynet.be/golden_dragon/Startemple5.JPG[/SCREENSHOT]

Flag runners are cowards by definition. They will try to camp as close to the flag as possible, preferrably with a weapon like the flak cannon. As you can see, your map features such spot. Can you put some solid wall on this spot, please?

This outside lower road is obviously too small for moving comfortably. You can either broaden this on the outside, but I guess this wasn't done in the first place because you don't want ppl dropping down from above
(hint: they still can, if they jump toward the wall behind me on the picture, then walldodge back to the lower road).
Another option is to make the walls on the other side smaller. I would even say remove them, but I guess the SM next to it doesn't have a backside. So just make that wall as small as possible

At the end of this outer road, there are two 90° turns. IIRC, there is nothing behind this structure, so you could consider making this into one 45° turn towards the center.
You can do this on both sides if you want, but if you want to use the staircase down, you probably have to make the entire tower platform another shape (still a square, but with the edges ending in the roads rather than the center of the sides leading to the roads).

EDIT: I've noticed that the standard CTF-4 maps (as well as JB maps) have their own 'level is loading' picture. Can this be set for custom maps as well? (Dark Pulse and Overload... I'm looking in your direction here )

 

[Dark Pulse]

I've noticed that the standard CTF-4 maps (as well as JB maps) have their own 'level is loading' picture. Can this be set for custom maps as well? (Dark Pulse and Overload... I'm looking in your direction here )

I think we have that planned... We, of course, did our own pics, and I know we had a Custom load screen planned, but I will have to double-check with him.

 

[Murtey]

That map looks very nice indeed I downloaded CTF4 because it looks ace but i didn't see any servers running it earlier.

Anyone got any IP'S for me? Because i want to play CTF4!!!