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Yes!
Get a load of the looks on my first-ever CTF map! Lots of
detail, nice lighting effects in the bases and more! Once
again I suppose I should talk about looks first, since I'm
already way ahead of myself here. This is by far the best
looking of any of the maps I have made so far. The arched
doorways are somewhat advanced, with the caps being textured
differently from the main curve. Walkways over the lava
in the bases have nice curves and curved borders. The long,
curved hallways have nicely curved lights going through
the top, and there are many other curved as well as angular
brushes that make the map look nice. As you can kind of
tell, I am big on the usage of curves contributing to the
looks of a map, but I also appreciate the angular feel as
well. For example, my sykotrny2 level is strictly angular,
and besides the jaggies because of the angular brushwork,
it came out very well. This level is my highest scorer yet
on looks. As you can tell, it is gothic-themed, but as for
the style...... I would say that it is just an indoor base-type
level, since it isnt really an outdoor level, but doesnt
have that gothic castle feel either. The aesthetics are
fairly good too. It consists of two long but skinny bases
and a connecting room in the middle. It's ur classic CTF
map. It has two levels, but the second level is very small,
consisting of small catwalks in the flag room and a plasma
gun room in the bases. Each base has two rocket launchers,
two shotguns, a grenade launcher, and a plasma gun. The
railgun is in the connecting room on one of the high ledges.
The bases consist of four, (too) long, curved hallways,
splitting near the entrance of the base and coming back
together at the flag room. Where the hallways are farthest
apart, a straight hallway goes between them, and from that
hallway you can access the plasma gun upper level room,
which dumps you back out right near the flag room. The flag
room is a large, open room, but its filled with a deep lava
pool at the bottom. Oh, and how unfortunate that all you
have to walk on are these skinny catwalks. =) Hehehe. Normally,
that would make for a lot of deaths in the brouhahas (sorry,
i have no definition page for that, lol) that occur in the
flag room. Well, soon you will find out why few brouhahas
occur in the flagroom and few deaths happen there. Lets
talk playability, shall we? The map plays fine, and easily
supports teams of up to 5 people, possibly 6. It is actually
a large map; it is the LARGEST POSSIBLE size (lengthwize,
8192 units) that a quake map can be. It would surprise me
if you found yourself lost in it. It is well lit, and you
wont find yourself wandering aimlessly, and completely blind
at that, All paths lead to the flag, which is probably not
the best thing to do for a CTF map, but it was my first,
so..... The only reason I would take off of playability
points is because of the fact that sometimes the map runs
slowly, especially while looking at the flag for some reason,
and while in the plasma gun room. I think this is probably
due to a lack of caulk behind my curves. Thats pretty much
all for playability. I'll talk about *shudder* the.. BOTS
playing right now in the Fun Factor aspect. Even I, the
creator of this map have to admit that its not fun at all.
Why? Because of the bots. They dont even try to make a feeble
attempt to take your flag! They all sit on their damn asses
and camp in the base. This totally eliminates team play
on your side. While you're computer controlled team mates
are waiting for the enemy that never comes, you can storm
the enemy base alone. Only to find 5 or 6 bots, each armed
with an RL or SG, waiting to take you out. If the bots are
anything higher than level 2, you will have a mighty hard
time getting past them at all, let alone up to the flag
and out of the base. Now do you understand why there arent
any "brouhahas" (which, by the way, just means
like a fracas or a quarrel) in the flag room? Oh well. That's
the tough life of a mapmaker. =) I always could have added
something to fix that, but it would just keep the other
team in its base then. I just couldn't win with this map.
The only reason I gave it any fun factor points was because
when you play it with some HUMAN people, it really isnt
so bad. Thats all for this map. I am very pleased with its
visual and aesthetic outcome, but not the fun aspect. And
the game is all about fun, isnt it? What good is a map that
sux to play in cause its no fun?
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