[SalaciusCrumb]

It's been a while since my last Duke-related release, which was "Into the Storm", completing a user map trilogy for the SST TC I had been working on for 5 years. I honestly didn't think I would come back to the scene once more, but here I am! (You can blame the awesome DUkePlus for that)

The basic premise is that you have to infiltrate a small base on a desert island. The thing is that this base, former EDF property, houses a very large teleportation device. You have to use that teleportation device to reach and destroy an EDF troop carrier hijacked by enemy forces.

I have already finished the second part of the map, the carrier, and originally intended to release it as some sort of a mini map. But now it's a full-blown user map, and I hope you'll like the result.

Below is a teaser shot. More screens coming soon. It's good to be back!

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[Danukem]

I never played much SST, but I enjoyed your Voices of Authority map. Looking forward to this.

Why the Princess Bride reference?

[Mikko]

Hah hah, I have said people don't quit the community, they just die.

Anyways, great shot, among the best terrain design I've seen!

[SalaciusCrumb]

DeeperThought, on Mar 20 2010, 08:25 AM, said:

Why the Princess Bride reference?

Hehe, the funny thing is that I just learned that it was a Princess Bride quote immediately before I posted here. I heard the phrase before, and I just thought that it would make a nice map name

Oh, and here's a new screen. Enjoy!

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[SalaciusCrumb]

The midi for the map will be "Flight of Icarus" by Iron Maiden.

And another one:

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[Geoffrey]

Very cool, definitely has your stamp on it. Why aren't you using the HRP/polymer though? That would be super mega awesome.

Stupid comment, since then I won't be able to play it (properly).

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Nice map design. Looks old-school without being too rugged. I also like the random title name.

Now do a map named "Get To The Choppa!"

[SalaciusCrumb]

Just a short update: Map design is finished, and the mission is fully playable. Things left to do is sound work, enemy placement and then beta testing. I also got around 100 sectors left, so I'll see what I can do with them. Some lighting work, perhaps some new location, you know the drill. It won't be a very long map regarding the playtime. I just played WGCity on Attrition, and boy, it was daunting! Great map BTW, one of the few city maps I really like. But I think you'll get plenty of bang for your buck

[SalaciusCrumb]

Okay, it's BETA TESTING TIME! Link is attached below.

IMPORTANT: You'll need DukePlus v2.07 for this map! HRP and Polymer not required.

I look forward to any feedback! Please post it eithere in this thread or PM me. Thanks

Attached File(s)

•  hfstc.rar (64.2K)
  Number of downloads: 463

[Mikko]

Shortie, took me only six minutes.

But anyways, only two things. First, you should place the first two turrets so that they can be destroyed. Just good manners to give the player a chance to hit them. Second, the scene where you're supposed to use the jump pad to get to that ship, I have no idea what to do. The door is closed so I just fall down (which doesn't even seem to kill me). I just dnclipped through. I assume this is something that's been left unfinished for now?

[SalaciusCrumb]

First: thanks, Mikko, for checking out the map

Okay, let's do this quote by quote...

Mikko_Sandt, on Apr 15 2010, 06:08 AM, said:

Shortie, took me only six minutes.

Yeah, I know I wanted to provide an alternative to the many maps out there that have an epic playtime. Often, however, this playtime is achieved by artificially stretching out the map with access card hunts, which I personally dislike. So I decided streamline my efforts into what I hope is a short, but very memorable experience. I see it that way: If you want to play a map that keeps you busy for a long time, try out all the great maps that are out there (William Gee's map, for example). If you want an interesting alternative, I hope you'll find it here.

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But anyways, only two things. First, you should place the first two turrets so that they can be destroyed. Just good manners to give the player a chance to hit them.

I just played the map again, and I had no trouble hitting them. The problem is that I would have been forced to give the player the firepower of an RPG right at the beginning, which I wanted to avoid for balancing and pacing reasons. I mainly added them put pressure on the player, but basically you're right. Any suggestions?

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Second, the scene where you're supposed to use the jump pad to get to that ship, I have no idea what to do. The door is closed so I just fall down (which doesn't even seem to kill me). I just dnclipped through. I assume this is something that's been left unfinished for now?

There is an RPG right in front of you once you are on the skiff. Fire it on the door, and it will "open"

[Spiker]

It's a good map. It could use some more shading here and there but even if it's short it's definately worth trying out (y)

[Mikko]

Yeah, I don't mind it being short.

Indeed, it's easy to destroy the turrets if you turn autoaim off. I don't know how many play with autoaim so hard to tell if this is gonna cause problems knowing that some people want

The problem with these destroyable sprite doors (or sprite obstacles in general) is that those with only casual experience of usermaps don't know they can blow up doors like that. Apparently even more experienced players/mappers like me tend to overlook them. So, I'd fix this either by making it the way it's usually done, a normal sector door with a crack on it or by putting a button outside the door. I don't understand the point of putting a destroyable sprite door there when you can do it the way it's done nine times out of ten, i.e., using a crack.

[Danukem]

Mikko_Sandt, on Apr 16 2010, 06:02 AM, said:

The problem with these destroyable sprite doors (or sprite obstacles in general) is that those with only casual experience of usermaps don't know they can blow up doors like that. Apparently even more experienced players/mappers like me tend to overlook them. So, I'd fix this either by making it the way it's usually done, a normal sector door with a crack on it or by putting a button outside the door.

Or even easier, he could paste a hitagged crack to the sprite door, to indicate that it can be destroyed.

[Mikko]

Yeah, but the destruction effect of a sprite door (the door "flies" as it's blown open) is much lamer compared to what you can do with a sector door.

[SalaciusCrumb]

I actually just did what DeeperThought suggested so players know what to do. I kinda like the sprite door flowing ut of its hinges. For a piece of metal, I think it's more fitting than a regular sector crack. However, I have no problem changing it; what do people prefer?

EDIT: I attached the current version to this post. It also includes the MIDI this time.

Attached File(s)

•  hfstc.rar (69.02K)
  Number of downloads: 444

[The Commander]

Just to let you know that you can/should rename the midi to the same name as the map.

EDuke32 will automatically play a midi if it has the same name as the map.

[SalaciusCrumb]

Oh, okay, thanks for the heads-up. Re-uploaded the .rar to my previous post.

[The Commander]

SalaciusCrumb, on Apr 17 2010, 07:34 AM, said:

Oh, okay, thanks for the heads-up. Re-uploaded the .rar to my previous post.

It just helps in the long run if you have a lot of user maps in one folder, most of them tend to have there own "dethtoll.mid"

[Forge]

The health/ammo/weapon/alien ratio is good. Needs shading. Good architecture/design/detailing/layout.

The water texture at the beginning is not aligned with the water texture in the out of bounds area.
Several of the sprite made crates in the 1st building cross sector lines so they turn "invisible" when looked at from the wrong angle or when up next to them.
The floor aligned switched to drop the force field in the 1st building is difficult to activate at its current height. It can be shot or kicked to get to work though.
In the 1st building, when entering the room with the crates head strait through the door until the wall is reached, turn right and head behind the first crate encountered. There's a blocking wall where there shouldn't be one.
After jumping onto the skiff and transporting to where the three turrets are. Shooting the turrets leaves bullet holes in the sky.
In the hanger after the blue key is used and the turret wielding drones are spawned. Walking out of the hallway and into the hanger. Stop right after going through the doorway and look left. There's a turret that does nothing sticking halfway out of the wall.

Non-map related I think. The double barreled shotgun wouldn't work for me until the hanger and I had previously picked up three of them from dead pigcops and the first one at the beginning of the level.

I have screen shots, but no photobucket account to upload them to. I can post them at DN-R or email them to you if you want to look at what I'm talking about.

[Forge]

fyi: the installation notes for you attached text file refer to a voa.map, dethtoll.mid, and running a setup.exe file.

[SalaciusCrumb]

Okay, first: thank you very much for the extensive feedback! I fixed the water aligning and also lowered the switch one step to make it easier to activate the switch. However, I couldn't find the blocked wall and the "ghost" turret, so screenshots would help a lot! You can also upload pics to your posts here, or is your upload account full? If yes, DN-R or email would work fine, just tell me how you want to post them. The readme has also been fixed.

[Forge]

No. I made a mistake, but I just figured out that this site doesn't allow tga extensions for attached files.

The attached screenshots should be in the same order as the list of items I mentioned in my previous post. If not, the screenshot of the back of a couple of crates shows the area where I could not move through like there was a blocking 2 sided wall there and effected movement approaching from either side of the crate.


btw: the map is pretty fun to play, so I believe you achieved what you where going for.

[Gambini]

Just played this map. It´s great to know there are still maps of such a quality to be released. That´s more encouraging than the most top notch ultra high technology on textures/engine. Took me about 13 minutes and i´m guessing i played the ¨old¨ version because the door i was supposed to blow up didn´t have a crack (i didn´t get stuck there just because i´ve already read this thread). Great architecture and texture set (kinda reminded me Mikko´s style), very entertained gameplay and good use of DP effects. Just found an annoying thing: the jumppad destination keeps pushing you up like a trampoline until you get out of its reach, very annoying if you accidentally fall into it when walking backwards while a firefight.

Considering it is (or that´s what i read) a beta i would work a little more on the shading -a darker atmosphere would be better- and would add some vegetation in the beggining.

EDIT:

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Several of the sprite made crates in the 1st building cross sector lines so they turn "invisible" when looked at from the wrong angle or when up next to them.

That can be easily fixed (or barely improved) if you make those sprites wall relative.

[Geoffrey]

There's a bunch of sprites in the top center of the map grid, did you have a different map pasted in for texture/effect reference?

[SalaciusCrumb]

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There's a bunch of sprites in the top center of the map grid, did you have a different map pasted in for texture/effect reference?

No. But I originally planned the first part of the map to be quite different. The player was supposed to arrive at the scene just as the carrier lifts off, so I copy/pasted the second part of the map so I didn't have too build the ship twice. When I learned that I just couldn't manage to pull this off the way I wanted to, I deleted the sectors. What you discovered were the remnants of this attempt. Thanks for the heads-up!

Okay, latest report:

-First, I used up some extra 90 sectors to add lighting and some shading (mostly outdoor, intended to be more realistic, as if a sun was present to influence to shadows). I hope you'll like it.

-The water alignment problem is fixed.

-Regarding the problem of the visibility of crates: I didn't build them with sprites. These crates come with DukePlus, and they are .MD2 files. Using these crates was the only possible to place crates in dynamic angles. Watch the structure above the crates; doing the crates with sectors would have caused a complete mess.

-I originally built in the "trampolin" because I feared that the player would take damage from the landing otherwise. Stupid me discovered it isn't so, so it's gone now.

Below the latest version so you can check out the added lighting.

-The "lazy turret" was a one-time leftover from one of the drones. I didn't encounter them when I played through the map again.

-Some plants were added to the beginning.

-Regarding the "bullet holes in the sky problem": I honestly have no clue how to fix this. I unblocked the walls around the border and changed to a "genuine" sky texture...nothing working. So if anyone knows the solution, I would be very grateful

-I walked up every part of the room and could not find the lonely blocked wall, sorry. Could it have something to do with the crates?

-I lowered the floor alligned switch by one step, and it works perfect now.

Attached File(s)

•  hfstc_vO.9.rar (74.82K)
  Number of downloads: 427

[Danukem]

Just played it. It's a great little map! The battle in the crate area is pretty tough (especially with advanced AI on). It occurred to me that it might be fun if the player had the gravity gun there. Then he could use it to grab the smaller crates and throw them at monsters. In DukePlus, the gravity gun replaces the expander when that option is selected, and you can give the player the expander (tile 32) without giving him any shrinker ammo.

In the room opened with the blue keycard there is a cylindrical machine that you place an object in front of. If you try to go behind it the cylinder on the right side, you get squished (at least I did).

In the skycar escape, I didn't know I was supposed to fly straight out, and the first time on that part I turned and started hitting invisible walls. Maybe you could somehow make it clear that the player is supposed to fly straight there? (perhaps by putting something off in the distance that the player will want to fly towards)

Now that I've played the map, I can see why you were asking about starting a level with the player in the skycar. If you're still interested, I can add that in sometime in the next few weeks.

[Gambini]

SalaciusCrumb, on Apr 18 2010, 05:37 PM, said:

-Regarding the problem of the visibility of crates: I didn't build them with sprites. These crates come with DukePlus, and they are .MD2 files.

Again, make the sprites wall relative and see how it improves. I know those are models, but when you make a model wall relative it looks the same plus doesn´t dissapear so easy. Just try it.

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-Regarding the "bullet holes in the sky problem": I honestly have no clue how to fix this. I unblocked the walls around the border and changed to a "genuine" sky texture...nothing working. So if anyone knows the solution, I would be very grateful

Make the walls that get shot hitag >0. this way bullets will keep hitting them but there wont be bullet holes anymore.

[SalaciusCrumb]

Okay, I think I fixed/added/removed everything you came up with! If there aren't any objections, this is intended to be the final version. If there is anything left that bothers you, then please, by all means post it

Below is the 1.0 version of the map.

Attached File(s)

•  hfstc_v1.0.rar (75.36K)
  Number of downloads: 434

[Geoffrey]

Sorry if it's been brought up before, but why not use polymer lights? Your architecture is made for it.