[wip] Warbell (again new pics!)

(carnage) #41

back from playtest number 5 first one i have been to and i dont know what they were up to in the other four but this one was a very promising game. there wasnt one ocasion where the map seems to give one team a great advantage over the other and with pretty small walks to the action its fast and furious

also it seemed that teams who used suport weapons like the mobile mg could real benefit from them on asult of defence

after just one quick run though of the map the layout is pretty simple to traverse but the multiple overlaping routes though the castle make for some interesting taticas and allow skiled coverts to get some serious backstab kills if you make your way up to the roof

the only critasism regarding the layout/navigation is the very final stage in the castle that can be quite tricky as there isnt realy much to pick one area from another building more destinct features and each rooms and using differnt lighting in them as the yellow one seems pretty overbright and a bit washed out for underground

also the river at the very start seems to have benk that are just slightly too big to climb out witch was very anoying cos it looked like i should have been able to get out but couldnt. maby lower the water level just a few units so its look less like a climb out

haveing now critisised i would like to go into all the good points but you can all find them for yourslefes when you play and hopefuly that shouldnt be too long judging by how well this beta went

keep up the good work

(kamikazee) #42

The water edge is not a real problem if you’re axis, you can get out at the guardhouse.

The only “glitch” I found locally is that you can get on top of the monastery’s church. (The circle shaped roof, that is, not all the wood-textured roofs around it.)
It just needs 2 clip brushes to fix, or you could make a true camping spot out of it.

Apart from that I’ll need to play my demo to see what happened at what point in time. But I must say that the map played quite good. It never really “choked up”, neither went straight to an end.

Impressive work, I’ll post if I find things worth bothering.

(]UBC[ McNite) #43

About the bugs: we ll clip the roof, that was indeed not intended. Also we ll take care of interior decoration to make sure the rooms are unique and players can navigate easier. The river-exits are a point that we didn’t see so far, we ll make the exits clearly visible.

Kami, I m not sure you ll be able to watch your demos properly because your file is clientside only. You can’t host it, so maybe demos won’t work.

Thx for the testing, we ll try to get it done soon.

(kamikazee) #44

The demo works as it contains all events needed to show it.
But I know I can’t host the map without the missing file. This trick should be used more often for playtests, imo.

(psyco_mario) #45

What trick?

:stuck_out_tongue:

(Loffy) #46

Absolutely stunning screens. Well done guys.

(onu123) #47

beautyful!!! Super totally the best (maybe)

(FireFly) #48

I joined the Warbell playtest #5 last Saterday evening. I had a great time playing the map: It’s a fun map to play and well designed.

The map played really well: In my opinion it’s well balanced, there are no choke points whatsoever. I believe it was designed for 6v6 to 10v10 players, but I think that the map will also play great with even more players. The objectives are original and watching a player completing one of the final 3 objectives was great fun.

I had some trouble finding my way inside the Abbey, But I understand that you’re already working on it by giving the rooms in the Abbey different looks.

Inside the caves (great looking caves by the way) I accidentally felt in the water a few times… Once inside the water you’re stuck there. Perhaps a rope or ladder to get out on the same side where the wooden fence is: This way players cannot use the water as a shortcut towards the abbey, but still can manage to climb out.

The side entrance (the small iron gate that axis can destroy with satchel) often got ignored by both axis and allied players: I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing, just something I noticed. Playing Axis I often had no problem entering the Abbey this way.

fps / r_speeds: r_speeds are very, very good in the map. The max tris I got was around 22/24K, and that was only in one particular place within the map (Some of the ET stock maps have a max tris of 30 to even 40K!). Overall I got 11 to 13K tris. It clearly shows that the map was well planned /designed from scratch.

Again, The map was fun to play and reminded me of the ‘good old’ rtcw maps. I hope to play it again on public servers soon :smiley:

Good luck,

(]UBC[ McNite) #49

Thx for the feedback guys, its already incorporated! The gameplay is done… we r working hard on the final looks. Here are 3 more pics:

View over the yard of the Abbey to the graveyard (which needs more creepyness, we r working on it):

The final garden area:

A first peek of the main room of the Abbey… we r still working on the looks.

(SPU9) #50

very nice.

but other question: do you got stable fps with an average pc?

(CrazyGuy) #51

Are the areas (locations by grid) have names for them ?

(carnage) #52

granted my PC is a bit better then the average one but there was only one place i noticed any FPS drop bellow 90 and you have to be spectator to reach it. this is when running full settings and on some stock maps fps can drop to about 60 in some cases so you might even be looking at better perforamce then on the stock maps

in the first stage of the map though i expect fps will be determained mainly from the number of players since its a pretty small area (in ET gameplay terms) and the best part of both teams are in it so you could be drawing a lot more player models and artaily etc

(]UBC[ McNite) #53

Are the areas (locations by grid) have names for them ?

If you mean whether we ll have location names in the map, yes of course. If you don’t mean location names… plz explain your question.

Been hunting bugs n glitches the last days, and spending tons of time on adjusting the terrain to the alphablending.
Also I ve been improving the framerates in some of the “bad” places (that s below 120 for me doing test-run-throughs) with serious hinting by 10 to even 40 FPS, depending on the location. Thx for the hint carnage, I took care of improved VIS-blocking in the first stage too. SPU, you ll def. have stable FPS.
Got not much new to post expect for an almost final Abbey chapell room:

Pics in the Altar by Peter Paul Rubens btw… upper pic “Christ on the Cross between two Thieves” (1619) and lower pic is a part of “Last Supper” (1632). These 2 motives are a typical set of motives you can find in Altars here.

(psyco_mario) #54

… Wow …

Yeah, thats all i can say, looks amazing!

Whats the filesize like?

(]UBC[ McNite) #55

Here s another small update… the working over of the terrain that got necessary do implement the alphablending is almost done… here are 2 pics of the Guard House. That area is 99% final. Got to give the vegetation everywhere a last look, and then its only interiors, VOs, location names and 2 this-better-be-looking-good-areas no player will be able to go to but can look at until its done…

(D3C0Y) #56

hats of for the architecture on that abbey :eek:
very nice work

(psyco_mario) #57

:open_mouth:

Looks very nce, but (yeah, its that word again)

BUT,

you might want to change the shader on that smoke, doesnt seem to fit in right…

(Graham) #58

That looks propper good man.

(]UBC[ McNite) #59

Here s the mapped answer to the question: how can we make navigation easier in the Abbey. The Abbey has 2 levels of rooms, and they looked a bit similiar. I think that has changed now… ground level only has flags as decoration. First level features furniture and no flags at all. I hope this makes it easily and unmistakably clear where you are.

Ground floor… leading into the Chappel and the Main Chamber (where the fun of the last objectives happens):

First floor… where you have to go to actually ring the bell:

Artwork in first floor by ]UBC[ Kach–> (original is a watercolor pic).

(carnage) #60

looking nice if im not mistake then the top pic shows the entrance to the objectives room. perhaps if you removed the left flag and replaced it with something it could make navigation even easier since then the flags would always point to the direction of the objectives room. perhaps a little too ott but just a surgestion

keep up the good work