CEONSS

put the file map directly in your message so that can download and see everything by yourself.

fors wrote:put the file map directly in your message so that can download and see everything by yourself.

I believe it's on page 2 of this thread.

Basically Heinz is going through maps suggested by players at the start of this thread and reviewing them. You can find the download links there (pages 1 and 2).

i want an unevan map dont know about u but im tired of maps with nodes in the same places but differand sides

Geometric symmetry, as in the collection of terrain, BSPs & st.meshes comprising the biggest part of map's form, is understood to be one of the fundamental ways of ensuring maps are fair to both teams, no matter what region they start from. It's definitely not the only factor that can affect balance in terms of mapping (background colour neutrality is another if you consider how ONS-RedPlanet or StripClub disadvantage the blue team; [sun]lighting being yet another, with an apt example of partiality there being Crusha's StarReach-Edit7 ...sorry, man ), but mirroring remains widely regarded as a very important aspect to get down right from very early on in a map's creation. Otherwise, you get chronic whining about hill parity just like what's been going on with Dria for, well, pretty much ever.
Could there be asymmetric maps that still manage to offer fair chances of success to both teams? It's possible, but even popular poster boy of that school of thought, Spiffingrad, hasn't manage to demonstrate it after all these years, since the team starting by the pier (reds, I believe) always faces a literal uphill battle.

ONS-MeteorCity:

Size & design suited for:
o low player counts (1-11): too big and cramped for few players
+ average player counts (12-22): ideally designed
+ high player counts (23-32): big enough even for many players

Geometry:
o asymmetric design, but tolerable differences
+ z-axis usage: several floors, plenty of room for flyers, many higher buildings for snipers

Nodes, link setup:
- disruptive back & forth layout, asymmetric in addition (blue has 5 hops to centre, red only 4)
- no cutoff opportunities
- completely choke-noded
+ sufficient hops from core to core
- plenty of unused rooms existent where nodes could have been expected, actually

Desirable playstyle plurality:
o on foot play is possible but the focus clearly lies on vehicle play, there's no jumppads or anything similar
+ sniping very well possible
o average node defence: partly covered, partly reachable from afar, no turrets to be manned
+ super weapons available (Redeemer & Target Painter)
+ flyers, although their manoeuvrability is quite limited within the hallways
o wheeled vehicles: no Benders, Paladins, just Scorps
+ tanks

Undesirable playstyle encouragement:
- vehicle camping is to be presumed due to the awkward combination of narrow indoor areas, tanks and choke nodes
+ excessive sniping seems not to be very likely, flyers are supposed to be able to deal with snipers soon
o base laming is possible but not overly rewarding
+ weapon spamming is improbable, battle areas are large enough to prevent it

Weapon & vehicle choice & balance:
- weapon lockers are uneven and incomplete
o vehicle amounts looks alright at cores, potentially slightly overdone otherwise
o mediocre flyers vs. anti-aircraft balance: no manual mode turrets, Hellbenders, too few shock rifles (always quite handy vs. flyers)
- Redeemer and Target Painter available at weapon lockers, should have been placed somewhere else to be rightfully earned
- those auto-firing turrets are completely superfluous, they don't serve the gameplay in any positive way
o only few special goodies placed here and there, mainly at nodes, could be some more at meaningful locations
- the Ion Plasma Tank probably already is the dominating vehicle on this map, but 1500hp wtf? Thought 800hp was default?

Aesthetic aspects:
+ accomodating overall look
+ decent lighting
+ neutral colours, no team seems to be favoured
+ those cheering spectators, very nice!
+ team sides are red/blue coloured, quite nifty as an orientation
+ moving tubes and a spacecraft like in Coruscant in the background, really cool

Performance / Resources:
- huge download packages
- low framerates

Bugs:
- gaps between some buildings, if you fall in, there's no way out other than suiciding

Conclusion:
Really nicely designed in regards to aesthetical aspects and rudimentarily as for its terrain layout. Looks quite unfinished and pretty premature in terms of nodes placing, link layout, resources distribution (vehicles, manual weapons and super-weapons). Also, low framerates of around 40-50 at some spots point us to an unoptimised performance design.

Hi it's nine,
these two maps are both VK and really cool!

They are:
COD cubes-of-death

Aggressive ally

Ten and I will be looking forward to seeing these maps one on poll and then on the roaster!

Ten will post some pictures in Cat's stile and look at the map

nine

Nice work Nine look forward to seeing them!

Well it seems like Ten can't post them because of the 'bmp' code I will try to post them

UT saves the pictures taken through its built-in screenshot system (by default bound to the F9 key, I believe) in the uncompressed .bmp format. That means, even with a resolution as small as, say, 1024x768, those files will be 2.25MB each and obviously that's pretty large when it comes to host storage and web distribution, particularly in aggregate. Since the msg board has been configured to cap attached files at 2MB, in order to upload a pic here you'll need to go to your UT's screenshots subfolder, open the pics you want with almost any image processing program and just save each one (preferably in some other location) in a compressed format like JPEG or, if you want to preserve every minute detail, PNG. Even MS Paint has this feature, btw. On average these files can be as small as 10% of the original filesize (often even smaller) and should upload without problem.

ONS-WarLords:

Size & design suited for:
o low player counts (1-11): bit big
+ average player counts (12-22): well dimensioned
o high player counts (23-32): size ok but too few nodes & paths

Geometry:
o partly asymmetric design: arena vs. temple, plus centre tower (see below)
o average z-axis usage, the original idea of the centre tower being a laudable exception
- centre tower: its two nodes on different levels along with the (quite unreliable) one way elevator fuels asymmetry; also, very tight rooms inside
- temple: pillars are too close to each other to provide a decent battle zone

Nodes, link setup:
o simple and clear node layout, but the centre tower is too much in focus
o marginal cutoff possibility
- two choke nodes
+ sufficient hops from core to core

Desirable playstyle plurality:
o on foot play is well possible inside bases, tower, arena and the temple, but outside it's underprivileged
+ sniping: lightning guns & locations available
+ nodes are covered pretty well and therefore defendable, some few turrets are also existent
+ super weapon usage (deemer & painter)
+ flyers
+ wheeled vehicles
+ tanks

Undesirable playstyle encouragement:
+ vehicle camping: this mainly open design should prevent too much vec camping
+ excessive sniping is not likely: too few appropriate weapons, although the centre tower's outside stairs could be a vulnerable object
+ base laming seems improbable: only few rewarding targets, the base areas also allow for on-foot defence very well
o weapon spamming is unlikely due to wide areas, except for the tower's inside

Weapon & vehicle choice & balance:
- in part poorly equipped weapon lockers
- not enough vehicles for higher player counts, especially at bases
+ strong vehicles (tanks) wisely placed at bases, good for comebacks
+ flyers vs. anti-aircraft balance looks decent
+ super weapons are to be worked for, they are on an extra level in the tower
o not many special pick-ups available
o tanks could be slightly dominating

Aesthetic aspects:
+ overall look is alright, amazing evening atmosphere, looks a bit dusty though
+ decent lighting
o orange colour theme slightly favours the red team (orange/blue being a complementary contrast while orange/red is close to each other)
+ cute titty bust at base, although a bit angled, oversized and artificial. Could distract base lamers though
+ nice ancient greek theme (at least partly), slightly reminding of the Temple of Zeus and an ancient arena (olympic flame included, yay). Also a picture of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, although dated roughly 2000 years later and pretty christian / jewish in opposite to greek mythology, but uhmm, who cares? Anything older than 100 years is the same soup eh?

Performance / Resources:
+ no extra download packages / file dependencies
+ framerate is ok

Conclusion:
Size, playstyle plurality and aesthetic aspects look just fine. Its choke node layout, weapon & vehicle choice is unsufficient, but the real deal-breaker is the centre tower (asymmetric nodes, narrow inside, stairs outside, one way elevator).