Quake3World

Hello,



I decided to start over from scratch after the last alpha posted here, and throw visual planning to the wind and concentrate on the layout and gameplay. I'd like it if I could get some feedback on a couple of things:

-Is the MH jump too easy?
-Do the slime pits do enough damage?
-Is the RA setup interesting? Improvements?
-Item layout?

Shadow was saying he disliked the dead-end-ish nature of the YA room behind the MH, but others have said they like it. I am inclined to keep it because it makes the MH and YA riskier. There is also a lack of weapons in that room, which I might change by moving a SG in there, perhaps where the 25H bubble is.

Unfortunately I'm stuck on dialup for the next couple of days, but I coerced Maverick into putting the map on his server with an offer he couldn't refuse. edit: If you want to setup a game I'll be on #maverickservers on irc.quakenet.org, whenever I can. This way will be better than me sitting in an empty q3 server. :P

Q31.32c
/connect mapping.maverickservers.com:27960

Thanks for any feedback. I'm aware of visual issues such as the slime not being slime-caulked, but feel free to mention them if you're so inclined .

That map is already fun to play! The MH jump is not too easy, at least not for me, but I'm not one of those movement pro's. The RA setup is in fact interesting, I was wondering where the switch was to lower these bars - until I found the way to get it by accident. Here's one suggestion I have: I'm by far not as experienced when it comes to item layout compared to many other users here, but I found a route to get the RA, a YA, the MH and another YA in just 10 (!) seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1woIVE0tKrM

I have no suggestion how to change this, as I haven't played the map long enough to remember the layout well enough. I'll do that now and might post some suggestions, when I remember it better.

Thanks for the quick reply, and especially for the video

-I do want to make the gate opening more obvious, so that new players can quickly comprehend the setup.
-Glad the MH jump is somewhat challenging.
-I'll see if there's anything I can do about elongating that path.

Cool map
Seems completely different than the first alpha, aye?

A few thoughts from myself:

-The MH jump was easy for me, I wouldn't even call it a challenge. My inclination would be not necessarily to make it harder, but make the penalty for screwing it up more severe. IE: a pit of death rather than slime which is more of a slap on the wrist than anything (especially if you've got armor and just picked up +100 health.) For reference, I was playing with /sv_fps 125 which likely makes it easier than the default setting.

-Seemed like ammo was a bit sparse. I played with a few bots and I didn't see any, and then I deleted them after about 10 minutes and ran around by myself and it still seemed like there wasn't enough. No particular weapon's ammo stuck out as sparse over another, just seemed like ammo was sparse on the whole.

-Might want to consider dropping one of the YA's, probably the one near the RA. 3 armors and a MH in a map this small seems like a bit much to me. Either that, or switch the RA with a YA, and make the RA a lot harder to get.

-Overall the item layout seemed a bit unfocused. However this is likely because I had a hard time figuring my way around because everything looks the same, and also I was playing with 5 bots which might have been pushing it. I don't have any specific thoughts on item placement other than what I just mentioned... the RL did seem a tad out of the way though. Again, hard to say when everything looks the same

Keep pluggin' and keep us posted.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also found a route (different than DaEngineer's) which yielded me all four power-ups in ~10 seconds.

Thanks

-I'm inclined to agree about the MH jump, I'll have to experiment to see if a pit of death or just super damage slime is the way to go. I didn't want to make the jump frame-rate dependent.

-I'll have to think about the ability to quickly grab everything. There might be a few things I can do to make the shortest routes longer.

-I'll keep the ammo situation in mind.

-Others have mentioned the RL placement, I agree it's not in a commonly traversed area, and is a little awkward. Maybe I can come up with something better.

I remember this map, and I can see some improvements here. I like how you changed the RA room, with the grates that open on only one side - that was a creative fix. I also see you replaced the lava with slime, which makes me predict that you`re going with a tech theme for the beta release. The mega is easy to get, but I think the danger in retreiving it is enough to outweigh that. The slime may not be so much of a danger as players rocketing you when you try to grab it. I can imagine DaHang and Rapha playing against each other and one of them being pummeled by the other guy`s rockets, or fried by LG. Alternatively one could "sneak around" into the YA room and catch them by surprise.

I think the item placement is fine as it is. In a heated duel, by the time you got the RA and YA in the video, your opponent probably has already snatched the mega and other YA. If you`re controlling one side of the map, most likely your opponent will have gained control of the other, and it can "rotate" along the course of a match. It would be rare to be able to pick up all four items without at least getting into a conflict with your opponent. Besides, I can`t think of any way to space out the items more without significantly changing the layout, and I personally like it the way it is.

I did notice a minor visual bug. (besides the slime of course ) The SG isn`t aligned onto it`s marker properly, it`s somewhat "off" by about 16 units, enough for me to notice. Nothing to phone home about though. I wasn`t able to find any major issues yet, besides the ones already mentioned.

Good luck with your map, looking forward to a beta.

what's up with this? any update? c'mon man, it's been 19 days... you got an ETA on your next map release? any personal problems in life delaying you? what's happening? keep me informed wtf...

btw, for a second there that shot reminded me of doom2. cool.

I like the "hard love" enthusiasm you're showing for the betas floating around in LEM now :P - but you're right, personal issues are delaying any further work on this one. Nothing dramatic, just another semester of school that has destroyed my free time... I'll post again as soon as I get some time