ONS-MatrixUnderground

[Pegasus]

Since everyone else is still reluctant to provide any input, I guess I might as well go ahead and offer some myself. Considering this is a WIP and not a complete project, I'll address mostly planning issues.

You seem to be designing the map with the goal of inducing specific fight scenarios similar to those in the Matrix movie. Difference is, many folks' preferred playstyles may not happen to be conducive to bringing that about and, worse yet, even more might not even want to because they might not even like the movie itself. What's more likely to happen is, other playability-related aspects of your map might take a hit from choices you made while trying to steer action down that path and your map ends up overall worse for it.
Instead of trying to approach mapmaking as a movie director with a rigid visual result in mind for how things should play out, you'd get much better results by looking at the problem as a game designer - which is pretty much what a map creator/editor is anyway. Your aim shouldn't be to arrange map elements in such a way that certain fight scenarios can occur from their combination, but to provide enough useful, balanced tools and interesting locations so that the gameplay that emerges from that mix, however dynamic and unpredictable, is varied and of high enough quality based on what ppl want from ONS.
Some googling around reveals that you are also the author of ONS-MyRoom, so while that brushes aside my previous "first time ONS map maker?" question, given that that map was also problematic in some regards and couldn't manage to retain its place in the server's roster, the next suggestions could help improve that one as much as this map: for a creator/editor to produce a good ONS map, they first need to understand what constitutes good ONS. To get that experience one needs to've played the gametype long enough that they've become well versed in its nuances, intricacies and baseline quality requirements. It also helps a lot to spectate other good players - especially if it's your map being played - because they're bound to do stuff at some point that bends or breaks your design's previous gameflow assumptions or elements' balance in it. Observing ppl playing within your gaming world and noting where/how they succeeded or failed at their goals with the tools you've given them - i.e. playtesting - is one of the best ways to understand problems, analyze them and become a better game designer. Do this as much as you can and as soon as your creations hit a releasable/beta testing state that the concept underneath it is now fully formed, even if they're still kinda raw in their beta state with visual warts n' all; ppl's feedback will help you save time later on by avoiding big overhauls to fundamental flaws not discovered earlier. The same applies to dissecting others' creations when trying to discern which combination of elements made them successful, which didn't and why.

In this specific map's case, two big concerns are already apparent: the map's not symmetrical and the node link setup is a string of chokepoints. A third, lesser oddity is that you've already decided that the Helix vec will fit the finished map's action, which could be premature at this point.

Players want to know they're starting off a match on an equal footing - random team stacking notwithstanding - and that's why the crushing majority of surviving maps today in team-based gametypes are symmetrical - it best conveys this sense of fairness and assuages imbalance concerns. Hell, there's only one asymmetrical ONS map still around that I can think of here (Spiffingrad-T32-Crusha-Beta2-*) and, statistically speaking, the verdict's still out on whether its irregular design hasn't been slanting the two teams' chances of winning from the start. Asymmetrical maps are a very tricky act to pull off even for the most experienced mappers on a full credibility cachet; it'd be inadvisable to make such an attempt as a beginner mapper.

Players also expect meaningful variety in their playstyle and strategic choices from ONS maps offered to them. Although you can reasonably get a tour of an entire map from a node link setup arranged as a string of chokepoint nodes (see ONS-PlainsNaPali for such an example), this "anal beads design" will always prove as prolonged and unpleasant a tug-of-war experience as its name suggests and always cripple your map's popularity. Conversely, if you enlarge your map's size, place more nodes around with different defenses and vulnerabilities to them and link 'em up in a smart way, the strategic opportunities arising from that will make it that much more rewarding to replay. Same goes for geometrical chokepoints and "natural bottlenecks" too, such as long corridors and narrow entrances, as they tend to hamper gameflow just as much as game objective chokepoints. In this map's case, I'd hate to be in the shoes of any player surviving a mutually destructive heli fight by dropping out in the middle of any of those tunnel tubes; only option to get back on the game then would be suicide. That's pretty bad. You shouldn't force design in a direction antithetical to fun just for the sake of thematic authenticity; your audience are primarily ONS players, not movie fans.

Lastly, as alluded to earlier, concentrate on getting your map's basic geometry layout (terrain, brushes and st.meshes) finalized before even starting to consider what the vehicle loadouts will be. Ideally, the texturing should be done before that point as well. Point is, if you don't know whether there'll be vast stretches with long lines of sight around or numerous lumpy formations that prevent that, or how high/low your ceiling's going to be, there's no sense trying to lock down what kind of fliers, anti-air or armoured artillery type vecs the players will have/need this early in the map's development.

Okay, that's all I got. It might be a lot to take in at once, but I hope it helps your efforts.

PS: Mega may be a fast n' shiny new cyberlocker, but the time and resource requirements they impose on users through mandatory flash use and en/de-crypting downloaded files (particularly in non gaming-PC setups running, say, lightweight browsers without scripts or plugins) IMO make them far from the most practical service to use for sharing custom content in creative communities like the UT one. I'd recommend easier and lighter alternatives such as SendSpace instead. Edit: Putfile is dead now? Huh...

[laboRHEinz]

I couldn't even download the file(s). Cancelled or incompleted downloads, corrupted files... I even had to reboot my comp since the fokn Flashplayer blocked the files and wouldn't let me extract them. Choose a better dump please.

[laboRHEinz]

Ok, while we are more than happy about the fact that there's still a mapper out there offering new maps like you did (thanks a lot!), well, after having checked it, I can only affirm Pegasus's conclusions: This map seems to be still in alpha phase and we can't put it online as it is, not even for testing purposes, sorry.

What he said, make it symmetric, add further pathes to avoid choke-nodes, check gameplay yourself first and get it eyecandy, then we'll see.

BTW don't you want to fix the issues at MyRoom first before releasing another map? http://www.ceonss.net/viewtopic.php?p=1589#p1589