Posted by Orpheus on Sat Mar 24th 2007 at 8:09pm

For my part, if they would remove the concept of "Frag Yard" and put it back to Killbox, it wouldn't be so bad.

To alter the name, just to be more politically correct is poor sportsmanship.

What I cannot understand is, almost anyone can make an arena map. And they are accepted. Why not add just 10 walls or so and make a killbox an arena?

Anyway, this map got some good advice. AND it was pretty much unbiased.

Posted by reaper47 on Sat Mar 24th 2007 at 2:52pm

Well, dents would be decoration too...

I think this is and will always stay a fy_ map and you can't magically turn it into anything more complex. You could put in more stuff, but no matter how many props and details there are, they'll always look like they are staged in a square arena (because they are). So... I don't know. I think the main message of this thread is that the Snarkpit isn't a big fan of fy_ maps :/

Posted by Kasperg_JM on Sat Mar 24th 2007 at 4:18am

It's true.
I thought that even if it's simple and doesn't look too good at this point, the idea has a lot of potential. HL2 and CS:S are full of props made exactly for this type of setting.
What I still don't understand is why some mappers show more care in making the 3D credit letters and decorating the screenshots than on making the map itself pretty. A good looking map advertises itself with just a couple of screenshots.

Posted by Naklajat on Wed Mar 21st 2007 at 12:53pm

Classic CS is less about being able to aim and more about knowing where to stand and when to move. A bunch of noobs with good communication and a plan can beat a team of pubgod uberaimers who don't communicate.

@Bender

The same grass texture across all the terrain makes it look flat and lifeless, use a blend texture and alpha painting. It's pretty straightforward and easy, and it improves the visual quality by a lot.

The straight-down relatively dim white sunlight is boring, put a little yellow/orange-yellow in the sunlight (and gray-blue in the ambient), and put the brightness around 500-600 (100-200 for the ambient).

Add just a little bit of a tilt to the light_environment. The sun is only straight down two days out of the year, and only in the tropics. PLUS source generally looks ugly with a straight-down light_environment.

After adding some tilt, consider placing a few trees, they cast nice shadows, and shadows are something this map is starved for.

If you've got a 3D skybox, it's really hard to tell. Add some trees and man-made stuff to it, or make one if you haven't.

It looks better than most fy_ maps, but it still lacks a lot visually.

-Snickers

Posted by reaper47 on Wed Mar 21st 2007 at 10:38am

Well, it's OK. The map has vrad run and accaptable brushwork and texturing which puts it above the majority of fy_ maps.

Did you run cubemaps btw? Those reflections look a bit fullbright.

I'm also coming to a point where I don't really feel like "blaming" anyone, including the mappers, for the lack of tactical maps. I think that players simply got too good, learning the one most effective way of playing a given map (especially default ones) so the tactical aspect actually gets quite repetitive and only the quick reactions count. So this is all that experienced players really play for, if they want to win (which they do). fy_ maps may be good for training reactions.

I suppose that there's still a possible layout left that would force players to learn new tactics. But it's probably very difficult. With good reactions you don't really need to use tactics to win.

Sorry for being so pessimistic. If you spend some time on the Snarkpit you get very direct. Don't let that get you down