Be sure to submit your comment
I really liked this version! (played it in vq3)
@x0r:
Any plans of doing d2dm1? :)
CU
d5
I'll try to justify it a little: when you play a game of team death match you must concentrate incredibly hard. You have to guard the area you are in while coordinating teammates and all the important item spawn times. You're watching the screen intensely for enemies, reading the team chat, listening to voice comms and remembering the items times all at once. Add to this your sound awareness of enemies footsteps and you REALLY don't need an 'atmospheric' sound effect to add to the information overload.
notice how even the load screen is same aswell?
When I tested this level, I had the impression the mapper intended to make a good map, not just a l33t CPM-only training ground with no look and athmosphere. And you know why I thought that? Because he used custom textures!
Why use custom textures when you play with picmip 8 anyway?
You're missing the problem Tig - you're a tiny minority.
It's even worse for ProModers: we have a "full" sound system that fixes the PVS bugs of VQ3, but as a side-effect means that even ambient sounds will then play (albeit faintly) through walls. (Though I'm planning on looking into what if anything can be done to remove ambients from that scheme just as soon as I get the time).
"We" play with headphones on, and "we" have the sound cranked up pretty damn high.
Try playing certain maps in that environment and you'll find that not only are plenty of "ambient" sounds nothing short of deafening, but they repeat at <10 second intervals.
If you're D on wcp15 (sorry JL) or midfield on wcp2, then the map simply isn't playable. It's like Chinese Water Torture, and 20 minutes of gongs going off CONSTANTLY just makes you want to kill people. And I don't mean in a game.
The Threewave maps are especially bad for this. However, they're also by far the best of the custom CTF levels, so scrapping them just because of the noise level is a waste. Some of them wouldn't get played at all if it wasn't for s_ambient (in fact, they're what prompted me to add it in the first place).
There are few enough well-architected maps as it is. To have that number reduced even further just because of some bad decisions on the part of the mappers, when I can do something about it, just seems daft.
-Octovus
This is not what I understood from arQon's post. I understood it as OSP/CPM having the option to switch off 'target_speakers', the game function that would often be used to produce evnironmental sounds within levels. So (if I understand correctly) if a mapper places a waterfall sound next to a waterfall then the waterfall sound could be switched off. This waterfall sound could have been placed for gameplay reasons (RA behind it, disadvantage going for it as you can not hear the other player(s)). However, if the player going for the RA has no waterfall sounds they are now given an advantage over the others (cheating in my books) as they can go for the RA without any concren about not hearing the other player(s).
Hope that clears up how I understood what arQon was saying about.
But ambient sounds, If moderated and well distributed, can be good for any kind of map.
As for arQ, well at least your qualifying it...makes a lot more sense now. However your response to my comment; I wasn't actually asking if you read it carefully, posing more of a rhetorical question (i.e. I knew the maps stood 0.01% chance of getting in there so mapping just for that purpose is a bit futile).
Finally, judging a mappers popularity by the number of servers its running on or the number of competitive players playing it (as you seem to be suggesting by your "popular mappers" theory) is only half the real deal. Certainly that's one community you want, but good luck getting both unless you're amazing. Us guys who just DM every once in a while for fun want the level to play well, but we couldn't care less whether the RG respawn is too slow or maybe its too easy to get the YA and then the MH - we'd rather have a cool theme or layout that makes us want to come back, so long as the IP isn't too bad. Mappers whining that they aren't like the "greats" are just being silly; I can guarantee you more people in the Q3 community would recognise the name Nunuk than x0r or Shib (at least, assuming they didn't know them from past games, certainly not a fair assumption, but we're only talking about q3 maps here).
-Octovus
The 'all or nothing' approach is only restricting mappers to an even smaller circle of tools and options. Personally I would like more options and learn how to use them successfully. If I place sound in a level its for a game play reason, not for the hell of it.
Having the ability to remove the sounds placed in a level is borderline to cheating in my books. Music is a players choice, environmental sounds have a purpose.
must have some tasteful jumps.. how old is this one.. how longs it been public?
arQon: I know where you stand on this, and your most recent comment helps clarify a little bit more to those who don't. But still, you're rather, hmmm, vocal about it. :) I can understand why you're so annoyed though.
on sounds: I think, if the mapper is trying to make the level both competetive AND decent-looking, he should probably add in some minimal sounds. It sounds (pun intended) to me like you just don't want any kind of repeating sounds i.e-ones that would get annoying after awhile and screw your focus. But I really don't see a problem w/ a few soft ambient sounds to add atmosphere for the eye-candy players. But then, if one is like x0r, and is going the pure gameplay approach, forget about the sounds.
I might be wrong, but I think/hope that perhaps your experiences with mappers have been colored by an obnoxious-and-vocal minority, as I've met quite a few who take feedback quite well.
Besides, it's not just mappers.
Ya gotta remember that the average [insert any group of humans here] can be sort of obnoxious, and half of 'em are more annoying then that. :)
Bugger. There as a "usually" that was supposed to be in there.
I'm not bothered by people who map for "general fun" or whatever. However, I think they have NO justification for the constant "no-one plays my maps" whines in that case. Moreover, I find their petty jealousy of mappers who ARE "successful" absolutely disgusting. So yes, I have an extremely low opinion of the vast majority of mappers. Oddly enough, I DIDN'T feel that way about them as a group until I actually saw how they behaved on Q3W's LE etc.
As always, there are exceptions to the rule. Those people, I'm more than happy to help out and talk to civilly, and take the time to qualify/explain the generalisations to.
BTW JL - the problem sounds were targeted speakers rather than "real" speakers. Fixed those too now.
"Until you mappers stop making the same mistakes OVER and OVER again in the face of CONSTANTLY being told by players what it is they don't like about your maps, you really can't expect us to adopt them." Here again.
"You mappers". Hey dammit, I'm a mapper! I listened to feedback and got a lot out of it. And I can promise you that there are quite a few mappers out there who would not only listen but be very thankful for the feedback if they decided they were interested in making a map for hardcore players. That's exactly the reason I showed up on the CPM forums. But up until then I didn't particularly care. Did that make me a clueless retard mapper up until then? No, it made me a mapper who mapped for general fun with a healthy dose of eye-candy (and ear-candy :p), rather then a mapper who mapped for that small proportion of Q3 players who are hardcore about it and/or play CPM.
The stereotype of clueless stupid mappers that you use like a big club is, IMO, a destructive way to approach things. You (and others on the CPM forum) went out of your way to help me when I showed up there, and, IMO, that experience is totally at odds with the impression that you're making here.
Example:
"This is why talking to mappers is a waste of time."
Funny. I spent a lot of time on the CPM forum with my beta, and I got a lot out of it. I'm sorry you thought it was a waste of time. It wasn't a waste of my time.
Yes, I know you weren't talking about me, but even knowing that you weren't, I read that statement and got pissed off for a second. Unfortunately most mappers who read it are going to think, "Oh well, arQon and those other guys are obviously a bunch of assholes", and there's a bunch of potential talented folks who may never even consider playing CPM, let alone mapping for it. Their loss, but yours too, IMO.
Mapper asks question.
Mapper gets answer.
Mapper doesn't LIKE answer, so mapper says "NO YUO AR WRONG!!1! FAGET".
Other mappers support original mapper.
Mapping community remains predominantly clueless.
(Ironically, JL is one the few who DOESN'T fit into that crowd. He's still wrong about the sounds, but at least he listens and thinks and THEN forms his opinion).
Admittedly, the question is usually "why doesn't anyone play my maps?", but the principle's the same.
Octovus: "what is a map's changes of getting there anyways?"
Practically nil. See above. Until you mappers stop making the same mistakes OVER and OVER again in the face of CONSTANTLY being told by players what it is they don't like about your maps, you really can't expect us to adopt them. FS, you'd have thought the penny would have dropped by now...
Tetz asked "NO ENVIRONMENT SOUNDS :( Why?". His emphasis.
I told him why: because players (a group that happens to include this maps author) uniformly think they suck. Only mappers and newbies go "ooh, map sounds! kewl!"
JL - you know I love you man :P but Industrial Revolution is a prime example of a great map ruined by noise.
You have what sounds like a macaw going off every 3 seconds in the flag rooms, along with a ?camera wind-on?
I wouldn't describe those as "atmospheric" sounds at all; but rather as "out of place, absurdly repetitive; annoying-as-fuck" sounds.
Just shows how different people look at things in different ways. :)
(BTW - thanks for the reminder: IR's noise ISN'T fixed by s_ambient 0 for some reason, so I need to look into that).
Id just like to say Im no mapper,heh
I spend 40 hours max on a map usually over 3 to 4 days.
Nothing leet visually cos i dont give a shit:)
I play in picmip 8 like prolly 40% of other people do(3 or 5),you think i care what my maps look like?
Just slap a texture here and there and add 2 on the same wall(like lower tele at ga) to give you a visual clue on were u are.use diff floor texture on each level:p
Deco and lighting are the last things i care about in a map,
Ive said this b4,Im no leet " Put 24 brushes to make a pillar" kinda guy,ill leave that for ffa mappers:p
end.
so i believe that the visuals and lighting are actually fine, as promode is about the gameplay.... if x0r was aiming to please the quake3world community, that'd be an entirely different matter.. but he isn't.
i agree with arQ in saying that ambient sounds aren't needed in promode maps.
ooOOOoo... i knew this map would spark a big discussion/argument when i was beta testing it ;)
i thought the beta testing and visuals were temporary in the beta.... looks like they made it through to the final version..hmmm
with all due to respect sir...
how about trying to leave this "arrogant hardcore player tone" out of the forums..? I think there are better ways to criticise things in a more constructive way. Johnny Law just showed a better way and said much more than a "period" is able to. I know you are actually able to do so... so I am looking forward to hear a bit more than a silly "period" next time... ;0) amen. <- period
As sort of a side note, I also don't believe that every map made has to be completely targetted on competitive players to the exclusion of all others, although that's not an excuse to make a poor-playing map.
Eh... I've probably taken up enough space on this thread for someone who hasn't even seen this map yet; I better check it out now so I don't feel guilty. Just had to pitch in on one of the standing disagreements between me and arQ.
To Tetzlaff, while I agree remakes can be great - and you get more flak if they aren't - I certainly don't agree that they are harder to make than an original map. I mean, of course anyone can make a crappy new map really easy, but getting a nice layout, nice theme, nice IP all from your brain is much harder than taking the layout and IP from some other game (with a few tweaks because of non-existent items cross game) and slapping a new look on it.
-Octovus
P.S. I'm not saying it's not hard to do a remake, just...really different
Most people enjoy the presentation of the environment while they play, and since no real environment is ever lacking ambient sound, ambient sound is a big part of making a virtual environment not feel artificial and dead. Leaving sound out of a map is almost as significant a mistake as bad lighting or texturing.
Even from the pure gameplay perspective, sounds help differentiate areas of the map, and whether players consciously realize this or not, this helps players learn the map, navigate, and orient themselves quickly after respawn. Though of course, that's not as big a deal in a small duel map as it is in team maps.
Any ultra-competitive player should certainly have good ears and a sound card and headset of enough quality to prevent ambient sounds from confusing them or obscuring other sounds. However, if they don't, they can turn ambient sounds off with the appropriate console command (because of course, any ultra-competitive player would be using OSP or CPMA, right?) and everyone can be happy.
Erm... because "environment sounds" @#$%ing SUCK, maybe?
They don't belong in serious maps, period.
new item placement is maybe a good reason for a remake but it is worth to download for me...
6
The scaling is a bit to cramped though (try Powzers dm4 remake, it has better scaling).
But NO ENVIRONMENT SOUNDS :( Why? It feels so dead and unreal without any sounds...
Also the lighting could have been a bit better, to many small irritating lights, and an aprubt change between wall and lava etc.
Nanospawn: Remakes aren´t un-original just because they are based on existing maps. Originality can be introduced in the way HOW you do a remake (sorry can´t explain that properly in English...) It´s much harder to create a succesful remake than building a completely new map. And there a 95% completely new maps released every update, so there´s nothing wrong with a remake once in a while.
boring... and lacks atmosphere.
Well, this thing is a remake, not that im any friend of them... =/, a decent one, indeed, but i feel like dm4 in any form sucks in Q3A.
Ripped from readme.txt:
Title - xdm4
Author - Tim "Imric" Bourne
Email Address -x0r@quakeshit.com
Home Page - <a href="shib.quakeshit.com/" target="_blank">shib.quakeshit.com/</a>
You better make sure the txt are always alright (betatest'em? =P).Maybe you got some Imric's map, and reused the txt forgetting to change your nick, hence the confussion.
Gets a 6 from me, it's a good conversion, fairly decent one, yeha, but we dont need conversions, we need some new and original maps. The more freshness a map has, the better, obviously, without forgetting about playability
Didn't know that; thanks for the clarification . . . yeah, clipping the box face flush is all I was suggesting. I know it's nit-picky, but I find tiny edges that snag you annoying (tiny = < 16 units or so).
People who get snagged on those things haven't learnt the map. :)
Having the box face clipped flat is acceptable. Clipping the BOX and the WALL into a single unit is absolutely not.
The map has no chance of ever showing up in a CPM pack. We don't put remakes or remixes in them, regardless of quality (CPM1A is obviously something of a special case).
wviperw - RA spawns are a GOOD thing, usually, since only the down player can get them and it helps tilt the balance a little if the up player isn't controlling the map well.
PI: GL hasn't been 600 for about 16 months. It was changed to 700 shortly after the CPM1.0 release.
x0r: Imric did milktdm, IIRC - one of the very few good TDM maps.
But if its possible can u change the name to either Shib or x0r?
This map is by me X0r:p
WT:)
who is imric?
'good' should be 'well' :P
Be back with better feedback in a bit
As for the remake, it's done quite well. There are some noticeable zebras, unfortunately, and pjw's comments are valid enough (though the banging into boxes one is uber-picky imho). Definitely the map is full of weapons and items but it's intended that way, meant for the number of players to match. Fast and furious fragfests were the order of the day back then, and they can still be tons of fun now :-)
However, it doesn't play very nicely in tourney with the RA in such a dead end and a RL right next door. Something about this remake - probably the GL in q3 versus the GL in Quake - makes the grenade launcher next to useless...oh well. Other weapons were spread fairly evenly, with the RL getting it's usual preference in part because bouncing people into lava is always fun. The teleporters keep things moving. In one case, I was spamming the main lava pit with the GL and then backed into a tele...tripped on my own grenades upon teleporting. Ah well.
A very nice remake, so it gets a 9, but it is just a remake...some people seem to be going a bit gaga.
-Octovus
-completely agree w/ that. Though, I still think its a bit too tight in a few areas. And the ceilings are low in a lot of areas. It makes for good rocketsplash, but its not fun bonking your head.
Never got to play the original dm4 (crowd boo's), but I do know the basic gist of it from playing match1 in q2, and playing other dm4 remakes in q3. This seemed to be a pretty nice conversion, though I like match1's scale much better. Quite a learning curve though, due to all the tele's that abound. Seemed like there was too much armor in the map. For starters, its a pretty small map as it is, and then when you have RA+MH+YA+GA+GA, it seems like a bit of an overklil. Although thats more in theory, gameplay didn't reflect it quite as much. Players can make the sweep from the MH->RA really quick, so that may be a problem. And the spawn next to the RA is questionable.
If a crappy map had little problems, I wouldn't bother to mention it . . . :)
I'll shut up now.
<a href="www.planetquake.co...nshots/xss2.jpg" target="_blank">www.planetquake.co...nshots/xss2.jpg</a>
<a href="www.planetquake.co...nshots/xss3.jpg" target="_blank">www.planetquake.co...nshots/xss3.jpg</a>
I like this map a bunch-- although it's a bit plain and monochromatic, the layout and gameplay rule--but there's some weird clipping inviso-bits and problems in spots--I'll try to post some links to screenies later on today.
