Stahl

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Matth
Dretch
Posts: 54
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 8:57 am UTC
Location: Germany

Stahl

Post by Matth »

MMS-Stahl

Description:
Hi everyone!
Here is my first map for Unvanquished. It is called 'Stahl' wich is the german word for 'steel'.
My goal was to build a small, fast arena-like map with decent graphics, simple gameplay and a dark
atmosphere without any eye-catcher stuff. About 4 signs and a colored minimap help players to orient properly.
It is a modular-evironment-arena-styled map with a simple, symmetrical 2-2-3-2-2 layout.

Build time was about 2 weeks. You can play the map by connecting to my server (->Matth's Map Server).

Known issues:
-The intended fog doesn't work with the current game version. Therefore i deactivated it. In my opinion CG is not a acceptable
replacement. It may has its use but it doesn't look the same / does not create the same atmosphere i wish to have.
-The minimap background needs to be black like the ui-minimap background does (blemish).
-Some pipe-structures have texture-fit-errors.
-No NavMesh so far. :yawn:

Files & Copyright:

Code: Select all

map-mms-stahl_v01.pk3
|-contains all necessary files to play Stahl.
|-All files including in this package are from scratch and done by me and therefore have their own license. 
|-Check the included .txt for more informations.

mms_stahlsupport.pk3
|-contains additional material (ambient sound) wich has its own license and was only edited by me. 
|-Check the included .txt for more informations.

Thank you for reading. Have a good day! :wink:

Last edited by Matth on Sun Jan 11, 2015 5:23 pm UTC, edited 1 time in total.
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illwieckz
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Re: Stahl

Post by illwieckz »

Hi, I have tested your map some days ago. Il like the dark athmosphere :grin: . There is just one thing that displeases me, and in fact that is not specific to your map. Sorry, you're gonna be the first to whom I complain about that thing that annoys me in many maps.

Image

I know, the gameplay requires little corridors, but please, do small corridors that seem to be needed in real life, as if they were circumventing something real. It's annoying to turn in the corridors only because the mapper wanted to and not because the imaginary universe requires. It's boring and it prevents to immerse oneself in the game. :confused:

Image

Unfortunately, boring corridors do not prevent to snipe down the Overmind in this map, so you get drawbacks of both:

Image

There is some texture issues on the boxes:

Image

To be not too negative, yes I like the dark athmosphere :smile: , and thanks to have added this kind of curved things in your map:

Image

Because your map is full of perpendicular angles, this kind of curved decorations are very important. :thumbup:

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Matth
Dretch
Posts: 54
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 8:57 am UTC
Location: Germany

Re: Stahl

Post by Matth »

illwieckz wrote:

Hi, I have tested your map some days ago. Il like the dark athmosphere :grin: . There is just one thing that displeases me, and in fact that is not specific to your map. Sorry, you're gonna be the first to whom I complain about that thing that annoys me in many maps.

Image

I know, the gameplay requires little corridors, but please, do small corridors that seem to be needed in real life, as if they were circumventing something real. It's annoying to turn in the corridors only because the mapper wanted to and not because the imaginary universe requires. It's boring and it prevents to immerse oneself in the game. :confused:

Image

Unfortunately, boring corridors do not prevent to snipe down the Overmind in this map, so you get drawbacks of both:

Image

Hi! Thank you for your feedback.
About the corridors: I understand your critic about that but unfortunately
i have to do such boring build because of the way the game computes VIS.
This has to do with stable fps. But maybe im able to get around of that somehow. The thing is that this map is kinda sci-fi and not related to 'realworld'. I want to keep the map as simple as possible.
.. im working on different other maps that doesnt follow this 'simple- ideology'
so i guess its just the nature of this map to be somehow.. boring? :bugeyes:

About the OM-Setting. This was intended. I don't like maps wich alrdy have perfect spots for important buildings. I think players need to improve it by themselves. That way it is more exciting. But maybe i add something else at those spots to make the env. more dense and less 'open'. Good point!

illwieckz wrote:

There is some texture issues on the boxes:
Image

Yes, sometimes the light compiling goes wrong or ends up with weird results. I already had this problem on several other maps. It looks like the light of the red-advertisement near alien base shines through some walls. I work on it.

illwieckz wrote:

To be not too negative, yes I like the dark athmosphere :smile: , and thanks to have added this kind of curved things in your map:

Image

Because your map is full of perpendicular angles, this kind of curved decorations are very important. :thumbup:

Thank you!
Haha don't worry about criticism. Actually that is why i posted my map. To get feedback and to improve. There is no good without bad :wink:

Last edited by Matth on Sun Jan 11, 2015 5:24 pm UTC, edited 1 time in total.
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illwieckz
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Re: Stahl

Post by illwieckz »

About the OM-Setting. This was intended. I don't like maps wich alrdy have perfect spots for important buildings. I think players need to improve it by themselves. That way it is more exciting. But maybe i add something else at those spots to make the env. more dense and less 'open'. Good point!

Yes, perfect spot at start is not fun, but if you add only one or two boxes (for example) between the om and the spot where it can currently be sniped, the om will still be vulnerable to a human attack coming out of the corridor, but this human will be forced to advance a little more, just enough to be vulnerable too (which is exciting too :tongue: ).

im working on different other maps that doesnt follow this 'simple- ideology'

Nice!

Simple ideology is not bad, people like fast and symetric maps (like the ACTS one :grin: ) but why not add a bit of circular symmetry in addition to reflective symmetry? something like that:

Image

Thus, the corners will be needed to go from left to right, naturaly. With this trick, this is no longer the VIS which constrains players to turn, but the path, which is more natural. VIS does not exist IRL, but diagonals exist IRL. :cool:

Edit: or like that, which is more more more better:

Image

With this layout, the center room becomes interesting, the path from top left to bottom right through the center room will be the fastest path, but not the naïve one (do not say it to neewbies :grin: ).

Edit:

There is no good without bad

It is a more philosophical issue, but I think that good exists without bad (light does not need obscurity to exist), but perhaps we cannot discern and appreciate good if we do not compare it to bad, and we don't have the opportunity of not being able to compare.
:wink:

Last edited by illwieckz on Fri Nov 28, 2014 2:17 pm UTC, edited 3 times in total.
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Tom
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Location: France

Re: Stahl

Post by Tom »

Nice map, I also love its atmosphere – the dark atmosphere is very well transcribed. :smile:

I agree with the remarks of illwieckz, especially:

illwieckz wrote:

I know, the gameplay requires little corridors, but please, do small corridors that seem to be needed in real life, as if they were circumventing something real. It's annoying to turn in the corridors only because the mapper wanted to and not because the imaginary universe requires. It's boring and it prevents to immerse oneself in the game. :confused:

Here are some more suggestions:

  • Players and structures seem a bit small in the map, as if the map had been dimensioned for giants. Perhaps downscale the map, but I prefer to wait for the opinion of other players.

  • If you feel it, you can add more curves and rounded things like tubes.

  • That's really my personal tastes, but I really like maps with verticality, maybe add bridges, slopes, stairs, holes, etc.

I eager to play your map at the next dev game. :wink:

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Matth
Dretch
Posts: 54
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 8:57 am UTC
Location: Germany

Re: Stahl

Post by Matth »

Hey guys!
Thank you for the game yesterday. I will resize the map to make it way smaller and add more details and 'stuff' to it. Right now it is very open and the distances are to long.

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