Custom maps can be frustrating

(Ifurita) #1

I realize this should probably go into the Rules Mappers Should Follow … but this is more a rant, so I didn’t want to take away from it. A couple of points, a couple that have been raised before:

  1. Postage sized command maps are unacceptable. It helps no one, when you have to look thru a magnifying glass to read the command map … which does no good since the player icons get jumbled up into one large red or blue mass

  2. Frame rates that consistantly stay in the high 20’s - low 30’s are not acceptable, especially when i’m alone, in the cellars

  3. Spawn points into which panzers can directly shoot that require the new respawn to drop thru a small hole in the floor are plain stupid. Every try to get thru one of those when 10 other people are trying to do the same thing?

  4. Spawn points which require the new spawn to climb a ladder and exit into a small, crowded room, via a small trap door are even more stupid. This is only eclipsed by the fact that the upstairs room only has the single door as an exit.

OK … I feel better now

(duke'ku) #2

  • Command maps shouldn’t contain your name, they’re not a space to advertise. Also, please don’t apply a bunch of filters to your map, e.g. a lens flare.

  • Don’t make your terrain blocky. Terrain doesn’t jolt up immediately - the terrain in your map shouldn’t either. Make it smooth, use clip brushes to block off access to certain areas. Put time into your terrain.

  • Make sure your textures work. Black and orange boxes are NOT good, neither are odd black spots in the middle of terrain that shows a mistextured polygon.

  • Always make sure your scripts work - when people are playing a map, they shouldn’t have to hear “We’ve constructed a command post!” five times in a row.

  • Check where your brushes go - did you want the terrain to go into that building? I don’t think you did, so you might not really want it to be that way.

  • Spend time on vehicles. Don’t have your tank float in the air or go halfway underground; tanks and trucks don’t defy the laws of physics.

(Mean Mr. Mustard) #3

Some degree of this is necessary. It’s extremely difficult to get a truck to realistically follow the terrain everywhere in the map (ie. hills). That said, every effort should be made to minimize such transgressions of the laws of physics :smiley:

(duke'ku) #4

Of course, and any bit of a problem is perfectly reasonable; but I find it a little irritating to go on a map and find a tank driving halfway through the ground, only to float several feet above it around the corner.

Also:

  • Don’t release your map before you add in objective cameras for god’s sake