MLB map pack - 8 maps soon ready :)

(Marko) #1

After 4 months without releasing maps, Lowlife, Bob le Roux and I decided to team up to remake old maps from ET I’d already released but also create new ones and put them all in a large map pack. The MLB map pack comprizes 8 maps:

  • mlb_beach, a remake of fun beach by day
  • mlb_daybreak, a new version of daybreak with bugs fixed and improvements
  • mlb_carnage, a completely remade version of carnage canyon
  • mlb_d_day, a conversion from my RTCW map known as D Day
  • mlb_hocthkiss, a fixed version of hotchkiss factory with new features
  • mlb_temple, yet another version of the Desert Temple map, but with new features, terrain and bugs fixed

There are 2 new maps in the map pack:

  • mlb_bayraid, the final release of lowlife’s beta version of bayraid
  • mlb_egypt, a new map started from scratch in egypt

Screenshots of the maps and a extra information can be found on http://www.gamedesign-online.com/

We’re close to releasing the map pack now. In order to avoid problems, each map will be downloadable seperately, and a campaign file will be provided but not included in the map pack so as to avoid problrems for server admins

Feel free to take any screenshots from the pages if you want to put the info up on your site

Best Regards,

:smiley: Marko :smiley:

(Shazam) #2

:clap:
When can we dl it ? or test it ? rhhhaaaaaaaa, the new Desert Temple !!

(Marko) #3

I’m not really sure concerning the delays… but I think a week or 2 will be needed to polish the maps off, finalise objective stuff and have a last run around for bug testing…
I’ll drop a note here anyways as soon as we’re ready :bump:

(M8DNephelim) #4

cheers m8! i´ll be waiting… :slight_smile:

(]UBC[ McNite) #5

Marko, how many version of temple are out by now? 5?

Don’t u think that s a bit too much?

(Marko) #6

Don’t u think that s a bit too much?

ermmm well I very rarely release public beta versions… coz the map is 99.9999% finished each time and there is a chance of it playing well on servers, therefore not a beta… I think many maps have had more than 5 public releases… Also, this temple has major changes :beer: :banana:

(fattakin) #7

Hey Marko this is a really good idea and i hope servers out there support the effort and run a campaign of all the maps, since we are unlikey to ever see an official map pack people should support efforts like this - looks promising!!!

Would be nice to offer 1 big d/load tho… id prefer that than having to install 8 seperate maps

(S.S.Heirpie) #8

Can never have enough temples…:slight_smile: temple/temple2/temple3/temple_final/MLB_Temple

:clap: :clap:

I even suggested a turn around temple (allies defending)…:wink: night time…

(Marko) #9

hehe no worries fattakin, we already planned a huge zip with all 8 maps but also seperate downloads if needed :):wink:

(G0-Gerbil) #10

I actually look forward to this to see what you’ve learned :slight_smile:

(G0-Gerbil) #11

ermmm well I very rarely release public beta versions… coz the map is 99.9999% finished each time and there is a chance of it playing well on servers, therefore not a beta… I think many maps have had more than 5 public releases…

I think the problem here is in the labelling.
If you have 5 ‘finals’ out, then what happens to someone who stumbles across the first one and thinks it’s final but it’s actually bug-ridden?
NOTHING should be final until it’s been out, tested and you know it’s bug-free (as is humanly possible). Misnaming files in the hope they will not have bugs in them helps no-one.

So, consider a rethink - rather than pushing everything as ‘final’ 1, 2 etc and hoping for the best (and ultimately ending up confusing the hell out of people and making yourself look a bit silly) call them betas. Once you’ve got a rock-solid beta, either leave it at that, or simply re-release it as ‘final’. Trust me, you’ll have a lot less problems doing it that way, and looking more professional into the bargain.

Never EVER make gameplay changes and release straight to final - this is a kiss of death for any map.

And indeed, many maps have had more than 5 public releases, there’s no golden rule on how many are fine, although obviously a general rule of thumb is ‘the less the better’, but I’d extend that a bit to ‘as few as possible to ensure the final is bug free’. There should only ever be 1 final, there’s no excuses for anything else. Those that have had lots of releases generally fall into 2 camps:

  1. those with lots of betas and a final
  2. those with lots of finals

Now which makes more sense to be in? Even if it’s ‘only’ a naming convention it still helps.

Seems to me there’s two trains of thought in mapping - those who want a final as early as possible (usually prematurely so) and those who’ve gone the other way - witness the birth of the _FP versions of maps - maps so unbelievably unfinished but released! This is, IMO, the way to go, and in fact we started doing these as a direct result of people from SD saying that’s how their internal system worked. Now I may think I know a bit about mapping, but I’m still willing to pay attention to a company with a proven track record :slight_smile:

Where there are bugs in ‘finals’ (and indeed there’s some in my own map - eg church) you simply have to make a judgement call of whether it’s sufficient to warrant a new release. Virtually anything is better than multiple finals.

In this case it’s almost a moot point though - since all the maps are being released under a new naming scheme, they are in effect a ‘new batch’. Just don’t end up releasing multiple finals of these too, thassall.

(Oxygen - o2) #12

gerbil u got a point there, marko, if the maps are good anyway, we will forgive you

(M8DNephelim) #13

true, and if they pwn M8D will dedicate a server to the MLB Map Pack… :wink:

(Marko) #14

hehe I agree with you Gerbil but if you take a map like fun beach, you won’t find a single mapping bug in it… It’s just that with players getting used to the maps, you have to adapt it because after several months, they set up a strategy and unbalance the entire map :slight_smile:

(]UBC[ McNite) #15

This sounds like a weird concept to me, that a map becomes unbalanced after some months of playing. Tbh it was unbalanced from the very beginning then, its just that players didn’t see the opportunity. That counts as a major mapping bug to me.
So shouldn’t you think of balance when planning the gameplay and layout of a map in the first place? But that s the difficulty with RtCW conversions… (I know what I m talking about having trouble with TheRiver right now due to the feeling I get while we do a lot of playtesting)

(fattakin) #16

Hey Marko you considered having the 8 maps turn from morning to day as they are played, would be sweet playing them through into the ‘night’ with the last one being really dark… spooky!

(G0-Gerbil) #17

Major problem with day to night is you can rest assured server admins will screw around with the order, or remove / add maps as they see fit - meaning your campaign layout soon disappears.

As for balance, there’s few maps that remain balanced in the overall scheme of things, and balancing a map for teams ranging from 6 to 32 a side is quite a challange (if indeed it’s possible, you can only really go for the number you hope will play it mostly). Then there can be other factors (eg silicon slick runs the most popular dedicated helmsdeep server, and he disables covert ops when there are less than 20 players with 100 mines limit! This means it’s really hard for me to get ‘balancing’ info because it’s not very ‘standard’). But the same is true of normal maps that get played on shrub etc, even things like medics dropping health packs or skills retaining between classes affect the balance.

I would agree though that if the map ends up unbalanced, it started unbalanced but no-one realised. But that’s always going to be a problem - it IS one good reason not to rush out one version after another because these things take time to find. Again, Helmsdeep has been around in one form or another for over a year - as a result, issues like this cropped up ‘in time’ and I’m hoping to fix it all before final. Of course, I’m perfectly happy to admit that virtually no-one maps as slowly as me (except maybe bxpress and remagen!), so the possibility to trap this kind of thing is quite remote.

(cementoske) #18

wech Marko nice work !! :smiley: you realy are a famous map builder man !

(Oxygen - o2) #19

what he said :smiley: ^

(NazzcaPro) #20

<<TOPIC REVIVED>>

This is a lil’ off-topic but…

Awhile ago I put !news temple_final and music played. Anyone know where I can get that wav file? I’ve looked everywhere for it.

Thanks,
Nazz