The Infamous Custom Map Week w/c 12th July.

[Kendle]

That would make my day, just to be on the same server as IRONMAN

If you guys want to organise a SD forum game and put a password on the server, I’m sure that can be arranged, or if not just agree a date and a time to be there.

[BondyBoy007]

I’ll be there for both of the saturdays (barring any last min piss ups)

[eRRoLfLyNN]

Can I come and get pwned? Go on, I’ll be easy XP?!

[evilsock]

everyones welcome and it’s gunna be mint

[CM_Punk]

I checked out the maps locally, and I’m really impressed with the first 2 maps, will definitely remember this for next week.

Only loaded up the ones from the first rotation: 2hide_cal_r1, armada_b2, pitchblack, uboot, vengeance_final

It seemed like they’re in order of greatness. 2hide_cal looked the best, armada looks really good but there’s some small ugly graphics problems, pitchblack was average, and the last two I didn’t think much of. That uboot one looks like a maze of gray walls, not looking forward to getting lost in that, felt very clastraphobic too.

2hide_cal though I really can’t wait for. The only thing I don’t like about it is how complicated the objectives are. A new map should be as simple as possible. Anyone remember ‘password’? God that was just horrible. A nice map ruined by having a ridiculous objective, newcomers had ZERO hope of learning what to do. 2hide_cal is slightly too complicated, I think you should be able to spawn as an Allied Engineer and do the map within 30 mins without getting stuck and having to go read the objectives from limbo mode, but the map itself looks so detailed it makes up for it. armada_b2 was nice and simple, just run to the dynamite icon and blow things up. Vengeance was too hard to follow too, the objectives don’t even show up on the map until you’ve ‘unlocked’ them! I can imagine if this was used on pubs then most ppl would be running round like headless chickens not having a clue what to do.

Anyway will check out the other 5 later.

[blushing_bride]

I can imagine if this was used on pubs then most ppl would be running round like headless chickens not having a clue what to do.

i ran around like a headless chicken on all offical maps for quite some time until i learnt what to do. not being able to suss out a map in the first five minutes is not a negative point. i must have spent at least a week or two thinking the primary objective on railgun at the start was to blow up the railgun controls. i spent hours wondering around the wrong half of fuel dump wondering where everyone was as well. once youve played these custom maps a few times im sure it will all become clear and second nature

[CM_Punk]

Yeh I see your point. But the official maps had the advantage that people had to learn them, they’re on almost every server, where-as with custom ones it’s hard enough to get people to play them in the first place, and they’re on only a fraction of servers. I think they could run the risk of scaring people away. Those who stay for a few weeks would learn them for sure, or if the maps started getting used on lots more servers then people would surely learn. The thing Kendle is doing is a great way to spend a week learning these ones at least.

[G0-Gerbil]

While I must applaud Kendle (and also have a little sniff as tI disbands - surely not the end for you Kendle??) in his efforts, the choice here goes to show what a poor selection he has to choose from. Most of them are god-awful IMO.
I’ve not played TE Venice, but have high hopes for it generally, and Supply Depot is a good playing map although it looks awful.
Two maps so far… not good going eh? I hope something comes of this then - maps need playing LOTS before they can be incorporated into a competition.

fingers crossed

[SwordOfDamocles]

Sound. I’ll be there

[BlackDeath]

That would make my day, just to be on the same server as IRONMAN

Actually, he happened to stop by locked box a few days ago while I was on. Twas quite amusing…

[Sauron_EFG]

Please tell me that you have demos of him!

[BlackDeath]

No, I dont, I was recording for a potential wallhack at the same time ;(

But here is a snippit of a time when we were playing oasis

IRONMAN had renamed himself to ETSucksMyCock, so here we go:

ETSucksMyCock was killed by Black_Death’s Thompson

ETSucksMYCock says: …

ETSucksMYCock says: OMFG

ETSucksMYCock says: /uninstall

Random Pubbers: Yes/affirmative!

And another time

EtSucksMyCock was killed by ETPlayers thompson

ETSucksMYCock says: OMG I had you

Non-stop bitching the entire time

Oh, btw, he lost the two rounds he played in, my team won :chef:

EtSucksMyCock disconnected

[Ifurita]

FWIW, I’ll address CM.Punk’s comments re: Vengeance.

1. The objectives don’t show until you blow the doors by design, since they spawn randomly on one of 3 bunkers. Having the icons show prior to that would be somewhat silly.
2. As is, the map is still biased towards the attackers - the majority of the time I play, the Axis (attackers) ultimately win
3. It does take a while to learn the map - but that’s how I design maps. I wanted something more than simply run and blow shit up
4. The two TE_test.pk3 files that you need to DL with the main map are tweaks specifically geared towards comp play. E.g. no random obj spawning, side door removed (i.e., always open), icons always show, and 5 sec axis respawn advantage when the CP is built)

That will be all.

[DG1]

btw infurita what about rommel? that getting anywhere near beta version?

[Ifurita]

@DG Yes, we are/were hoping for a _fp version in a week or so, but are trying to reduce r_speeds in a couple of key areas first.

[Kendle]

It seemed like they’re in order of greatness

They’re in vague order of my preference only, with rotation1 being the ones I like the most, and rotation2 being “the rest”, and then sorted into alphabetical order.

My personal favourite out of all of them is vengeance, with 2hide_cal_r1 a close 2nd. Armada_b2 looks like it could play well but the Tanks are pretty naff. Pitchblack looks good as well, but might be a bit too “off the wall” for comps.

However, I know I’m not the best person to judge maps and these were the only ones I could find that weren’t massive, unbalanced, multi-player epics.

@Iffy, we’ll be using your te_test2 script for Vengeance. It’s also on another UK public server now, 82.136.22.92:27960, run by a Clan called Barmy Army, who’s CL I know pretty well and who are generally very nice people.

[seven_dc]

While I must applaud Kendle (and also have a little sniff as tI disbands - surely not the end for you Kendle??) in his efforts, the choice here goes to show what a poor selection he has to choose from. Most of them are god-awful IMO.
I’ve not played TE Venice, but have high hopes for it generally, and Supply Depot is a good playing map although it looks awful.
Two maps so far… not good going eh? I hope something comes of this then - maps need playing LOTS before they can be incorporated into a competition.

fingers crossed

/me is sad because Gerbil doesn’t like vengeance. But GJ kendle. I might pop in if I have spare time. I just have to member this in next week.

---

Synthetic Weed

[Ifurita]

:bump:

[KingJackaL]

Are you REALLY testing for competition play? Come on, seriously now …cos several of those maps would bite for tourney play.

Steelplant2 is cute and all ( I use it on small maps servers ), but it’s no tourney map. Pitch Black is obviously a pub map, and while that doesn’t immediately disclude it from being good in tourney play, why bother stretching pub maps into a league when there’s better choices out there? Hotchkiss is just too… fecking… long. There’s a massive number of objectives in that map, and some of them (the detonator?) taking minutes just to finish is a joke if you want fast-paced intense play.

2Hide CAL is a CAL map, sure - but IMO 2Hide bites for clan play - you have run a few miles between each objective. ( sure they’ve cleaned it up for clan play etc, but why bother? Use maps that have been built from the ground-up for clan play, don’t hash together pub-maps )

Obviously, as the league admin for a league that last season was ALL custom maps ( except for the final which was on Radar ) I have a pretty biased opinion, but it’s given me the chance to try and come to grips with a lot of the maps out there.

Some of the maps we’re likely to be pushing into our next season:
Frostbite
Supply Depot
V2 Base TE
TC Venice
Stalingrad
ET_Ice

…and some of the other maps we’re considering:
Operation Arrow (mp_bergen_somethingarather)
Battery (etpro3 version)
Radar
ET Beach Invasion
Stalingrad

/me shrugs

[Kendle]

Thanks for the feedback KingJackal, having not played most of the maps on offer I can only take your word for it that they play as you say. But then that’s the whole point of this exercise, to find these things out. You’re the first person to have ever given an opinion on some of these maps.

As for your suggestions:-

FrostBite: Plays well in RTCW and we considered it for a tournament I was recently involved in organising, but felt it too RTCW-ish and not enough ET-ish. But definately worth further consideration.

SupplyDepot: Already established comp map over here, no need to include it in this exercise.

V2BaseTE: Did use this in our tournament and was not well received. The Flag is too important. Games were either over in a few minutes or full holds, nothing in-between.

TC_Venice: Same as SupplyDepot, though to a slightly lesser extent, no need to include it here.

Stalingrad: Haven’t seen it. Got a link?

ET_Ice: If you mean the ET conversion of RTCW’s mp_ice, there’s already pressure in Euro-land to use RTCW conversion, I don’t think they need any help, and I’d rather concentrate on finding good new maps made specifically for ET.

As for the others, Battery (etpro3 version) is already being played over here, and I’ve not heard of Operation Arrow either. Got a link for that one as well?