A Little Chaos.... (Map Feedback)

[GC6]

A 'little' something I've been slaving away at..


A scale reproduction of the original Battle Drone map..

Slightly smaller than the current Map we're using... and, as you can see, a very faithful reproduction of the original.


Spaces are tighter / smaller - tunnles have less width, open areas are also more compact, some areas have

structures that have had to be omitted to make them fit better... but for the most part everything is there.


Of course - the coords don't quite line up the farther out from center you get (map is centered on usable area - not based on 'coords'..) so for instance, J12 is actually between J11/J12 on this map... as you get to the corners of course... obviously what we know as A1 isn't at A1..

 

Anywho - look it over, let me know what ya think... changes / suggestions... etc...

I'm not big on LVZ or graphics, so if someone has or wants to contribute art, that'd be cool..

 



 

Also - I'm not worried about the 'in zone leader board' to be quite honest... so I won't be editing the map to include that.. because it really breaks the feel of the map.


I have done some limited flight testing on this... it's pretty uncanny feeling - can almost fly it by memory in most places, of course some of the restructured areas will take some practice..


Oh, almost forgot, this map is about a square coord box smaller all the way around compared to the current Map, just to give you an idea of it's scale..


Enjoy!


 

[Plutorus]

Any chance of updating old castle to the newer "wobit's house"?

 

-Plut

[GC6]

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Any chance of updating old castle to the newer "wobit's house"?

 

-Plut

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Erm...  Sure... I'll take a stab at it..

[CypherJF]

This looks rather familiar to the map that's stored on the SS VIE CD, or am I missing something with it? Great reproduction though!

[Axe Demento]

Nice job. If u can't get it up any where I would be glad to host it. As I will change maps often. So for me the only need would be a way to fly outside the box as I hate any spot on a map I can't get to. Or map the surrounding area solid tiles so there is no chance of getting there. What would u do on the map? Old school no flags? Power flag or chaos flag


I love seeing people make maps! The old client is great for flying a map solo for testing. I only at first made a zone so I could test my maps out.


Have a great night!


And may all your dreams be green.


...axes iPhone

[GC6]

Quote:<div>
This looks rather familiar to the map that's stored on the SS VIE CD, or am I missing something with it? Great reproduction though!

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..Thank You! 


Allow me to illustrate (as the original screen shot doesn't give a good idea of the scale.. )


All of these pics are screenshots from Drakes SSME 'radar' view (which shows the entire playable area that a map takes up)


Thus, a "Full" map, the original Battle Drone from the CD.




The Current Map up in Chaos...




My Map..





As you can see, it's more compact than even the reduced size CZ map.. the idea was to

reduce the size , but keep all the original compontents of the Drone that we all know. (for the most part..)

As you examine these, you'll see where and how they differ.. mostly at the exclusion of walls, compontents of

enclosed areas, and lessening the width of tunnels. It's tighter in the tight paces, but still open and familiar enough

to 'run-n-gun' - as I said, flying around on it is kinda uncanny even for it's size..


I have some alterations I want to make still, so it's still a WIP..


Thanks for the interest!


 

[Nude For Satan]

Looks really cool. I like how it's a little smaller, but not much. Map size reduction has reportedly failed in the past but I don't know how massive a snip was made.

 

Yeah I'd play on that without a second thought. It's probably about time I played with a first thought, though ...

 

Good work GC6

[Gruntster]

I am thinking about vegetables

[Axe Demento]

A bit of triva.  In the version of that map that has the BattleDrome Letters.  Jolly roger added it for me.

it was my 2 man enters one man leaves nod to Mad Max Across the Thunderdome.

 

I have a few copies of those maps as well.

 

...Axe

[GC6]

Quote:<div>
Looks really cool. I like how it's a little smaller, but not much. Map size reduction has reportedly failed in the past but I don't know how massive a snip was made.

 

Yeah I'd play on that without a second thought. It's probably about time I played with a first thought, though ...

 

Good work GC6

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Thanks!!



My goals were..


Center the map ; Allow us to better utilize the radius settings with less need for 'mapping voodoo.'

Reduce the size of the map slightly.

Retain the look, feel & flow of the original map.


I agree with assesments of past 'reductions', and to explain a bit of my thinking on this topic. 


Past reductions have been tricky, primarily becuase ; We tend to want to retain total familiarity with the map..

Ie: you know what J12 is, and how to get to it form anywhere on the map.. also for instance, "The Spiral"... )

However, Maps also have some physical constraints that must always be considered.

For instance, it's 1024x1024 'tiles' (think a single square tile, or small asteroid in size..)

Center is of course tiles 512/511x512/511 (4 square tiles)


Physical Settings correspond to these 'tiles', those settings being :


Radius settings:  How far out objects spawn from the center per number of players (usually) 

1: Green Spawn Radius

2: Player Spawn Radius

3: Flag Spawn Radius.

& 4: LVZ Object placement (The leaderboard in Wobits House for example.)


Simply put : We want to make sure that Players and objects aren't spawning outside the playable area of the map.

Obviously not a concern with a full size map as the radius are limited by the 1024x1024 size of the given playable area.

As we start cutting into the map, we create issues....


The struggle then becomes balancing the familiar with the needs of the game engine.

We end up with an oddly shaped map, that is not really centered, limiting the spawn radius so it gets to be more static, than random.

(Ie; at some point, we won't spawn any farther out no matter how many people are in the zone / greens never spawn in area X etc..)


I believe that we are firmly at the epoch of using the 'original map' in any capacity without hacking it so much that the flow is completely destroyed, or,  having to better center it - which causes another re-hack, and coord familiarity is lost.. Ie: J12 is now J6 or other such oddities. Which is why I think my several attempts to re-hack the map to reduce it's size simple did not inspire me.. it gave up too much, and couldn't be done without drastically leaving the playable areas off center, and causing more spawn radius issues than we already face, and or destroying the natural flow of the areas, killing running in certain places, and or leaving abrupt dead ends where escapes used to be.


Naturally, I had to conceed something, and I choose the coordinate familiarity , and balanced that by reproducing as closely as possible, all of the orignal map. I feel that is what is most familiar to most people, and with %coord and %area  it's not that big of a deal.. I'm positive you can say "I'm at J12", and everyone would end up at the same place, even though it's now at J11 on my map,


Plus, we get to actually use original areas that haven't been in play for a decade or more... and at reduced scale, it will be new enough to level the playing field a bit in terms or learning the map again... of course, I expect that Lancasters, Terriers, and Levys will be a lot more dangerous in these tighter spaces of the map, but will still have enough room to stretch the legs of the Jav, and lots of spots to lay in wait for cloakers, and lots of tight gaps to lace with the sharks razor wire bullet streams. The Warbids manuverability will come in handy in the tight spaces as well.  I think it will increase the aggregate "chaos" in the zone, and hopefully help bring back some of that feeling from days when we still have 80 people in zone - so avoidance and conservation become an active skill, and not a byproduct of not seeing anyone on screen for 5 minutes because you're hanging out way on the edge, where greens don't even spawn. 


I didn't take this lightly... I've been thinking about this for a while now, and still am, as you can see... I just wanted people to know my process, if you understand it, you can suport it better, get excited about it's goals, and you'll know what you expect going in instead of being blindsided by it... I think many of us have found recently, that we're to the point that we're going to need to abandon certain constraints to keep things fresh and working for the population we have.  I think a good start is to stop trying to make a map made for 200 people work for 50 people... and making life harder in managing settings to make it work that way.. and shorting other opportunities in the process. The map is brilliant, so I get why we've done all we can to keep it as much intact as possible..


Hopefully, this project is the next step for the zone... I really do hope so...  


This map is the map I always wanted to make for CZ.. So thank you for your reception of it thus far.. please spread this thread around to more regulars so they too can see, and offer feedback..


Thanks!

[Bonus Booster]

very well thought out

 

I want to try it

[GC6]

Thanks BB!


Next steps:


Removing and re-placing/spacing all the objects.. (too many X'es and other objects about etc)


Cleaning up areas and adjusting gaps etc ; to be more consistent. 


Mini-me treatment for Wobits Haus...


Then tilesets and tiling...  which, I'll have to get some feedback on tilesets... because I'm quite conflicted on it atm...


My tiles are old school, and 'dark'  - the new CZ tiles though, a little too bright, too disruptive for my taste.. but I'm not really a huge graphics type so hand creating a new tileset prolly won't happen ..but lets cross that wormhole when we come to it..  

 

[Axe Demento]

Check out Kenshin's  KAOS War tiles they are a nice blend of new and old.  Tho so many tile sets out there best move is to state exactly how you want it to look.

Your other move is submit your map have a stack of people tile it pick your favorite.

 

 

...Axe

[GC6]

turned this out tonight...  let me know what you think..  

(it is the same size in cordinate area as my map above - and roughly the same size of the current league map)


I tried to incorporate some placement of different objects to fill areas that were left gutted by reduction

of the map area, as well as some new safe zones to balance out the map a touch more..

 



 

In light of this, and other feedback (adn thinking about it more) I might shelf my earlier project...


I hope to have this ready for the next reset..


 

[Axe Demento]

Keep up the great work!

Let me know when i can vote for your map.

 

...Axe

[Nude For Satan]

You had me at T20!

[Plutorus]

looking good GC!

[ufotable]

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You had me at T20!

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[GC6]

Final map has been posted everyone : To see it ; look here... (also downloadable!)

http://www.subspace.co/topic/27421-new-map-bdhardar-v2/

 

And 'Thank You' for the support!

 

I re-posted a thread for it, so all discussion could now center around that map - and not be lost under my other projects listed here.