dm_residential is a map centered around a 3-way intersection in a residential neighborhood, with a hill and seven accessible buildings in the vicinity. It takes place around early morning (or late evening); most of the lighting in the level comes from streetlights and building illumination. All of the accessible buildings have their own interiors and several ways of entry and exit, providing many potential routes around and throughout the map.
Beta 3 was released on August 8, 2007. The final version, assuming all goes well, should be released in a few weeks (almost surely before September) with only some minor tweaks to the beta 2 design.
You can check out some discussion and work-in-progress screenshots in the forum thread (see below). Thanks for looking!
I think that's a good idea too, starting fresh: I'll be trying to think out some ideas for a new map soon. (Likely the problem with residential was, I had no clear layout in mind at all... whatever I did have, well, it didn't end up looking like that at all anyways.) Still, as I spent a ton of time on residential itself... I'd like to do my best to fix it up as much as possible within a couple weeks and then just release it as it is. Nah, I guess I can't change the gameplay in large part, and maybe that's a big problem in the map, but there are probably a few modifications I could make to help out a little bit, and I'd be definitely interested in pursuing those, provided they could be done relatively quickly. I'm not going to keep the map perpetually "work in progress" as I did after beta 1: I truly intend to release a final version within a few weeks. I am a little tired of it and there's not much left to change. So might as well take advantage of those few weeks before I start anew.
Thanks again for your comments - surprisingly inspirational. :smile: If I do another, I'll certainly be thinking it out some more. Sounds like great fun!
-edit-
And reaper47:
Thanks for having a run-through. I appreciate your thoughts, thanks for the specifics - they're helpful. At the least, I like to know what stands out as good and what stands out as sucky. :smile: I guess it's pretty clear the layout leaves something to be desired, but oh well - good practice, right? :smile:
I must say that, to some point, I agree with Yak_Fighter. The buildings are just too separated. In the earlier versions I thought that the places where just a little big and it was the traveling time that bothered, but all of the buildings are connected solely via their street access and that becomes very obvious now. Also the 5-floor staircase in the destroyed building just gets horribly repetitive after the first floor and I miss the accessible roof on the opposite of the map (I love accessible roofs).
Hmmm...
I still love bits and pieces of the map.
Like in the destroyed building where you first think that the floor just consists of a single hole in the wall but then you walk around the little ledge on the outside and see a semi-secret room hidden behind it.
It's just... Yak is absolutely right, it's too linear. And it's too late to redo any part the way it would be necessary to refine this enough. Not with this VMF file. I suggest keeping this state, you can be very happy with the aspects of mapping that turned out really well. And for your next project, try starting with a clearer focus on classic layout structures.
Personally, I think it would be much more beneficial to move on with a fresh map.
You've learned from this map what most new mappers learn from 2 or 3 maps. Trust me, no matter how good, your first map will always be way less elegant that future maps. Just think of all the cool stuff yet to be built.
You could easily sit here spinning your wheels for months, trying to perfect something that is possibly innately flawed.
You get an A+ in my book based dedication, receiving feedback, enthusiasm.... I'm curious to see what you will do with a clean slate.
reaper47: Oh, cool, thanks for the tip on -novirtualmesh.. I'll try that, thanks.
I didn't mean to imply I had a lot left to change. I have a number of ideas on things I could change if necessary, but nothing major, and I think this map would be a total nightmare to rebuild (for me, since I always spend so much time getting things as perfect as I can). Nah, if I start any map from scratch it'll be a brand new one. :smile: But thank you. I'm looking forward to your thoughts!
The -novirtualmesh parameter for VBSP should get rid of the displacement problem.
I'll have a look at the map tonight. All I can say so far is that it's about time you get this finished. 1 year, that's a lot. If there's as much left to change as you mentioned, it might be better to tear the map apart and start from scratch. It might actually be faster to build (surprisingly fast) and you have complete control over even the most large scale layout issues.
I haven't seen the displacement problem. All the items stay where they should be for me, and it all must work fine for the guy I playtest with all the time as well, because he always gets me with the RPG and slams. :smile:
Thanks for your positive comments, and the negative ones as well. I hadn't considered gameplay to be so poor, but as you said, there's not much of way to change things in a larger sense anyways. I feel that if there is some gameplay trouble, there are some things I can try to help resolve it; namely, some more ideas for movement into, through, and out of buildings. I'm actually not very happy with the destroyed building, as far as the way it involves itself in the gameplay, look for some changes to that as well. (Although, by the way, you mentioned there's only one way in to that destroyed building - there's actually two, through the front doors and up the debris-ramp in the front.)
If you have any particular specifics about the gameplay that you might consider to be fixable (even if it's not such a simple fix) I'd much appreciate hearing about them. :smile:
You mentioned some aspects I hadn't really considered when I did a lot of layout work, and they're ones I'll definitely have to think about before I ever decide to release a final version. :smile: Thanks again, I appreciate it.
Posted by Yak_Fighter on
Fri Jul 6th 2007 at 8:58am
First off, there's some sort of error with the displacements in the middle of the map, as the RPG falls through that sandbox and SLAMs fall through the world. I dunno what is up with that or how to fix it.
It's clear that you have spent a great deal of time on this map. There's good architecture, good use of props/entities, good custom textures, no noticable errors, very nice lighting, and it even ran rather well for a map of its open nature and size.
However...
The layout leaves much to desire. It sucks, plain as day. All the enterable buildings are linear with only one or two ways through them. The under construction building and the bombed out one with fire are even worse in that there's one way in and they deadend at the top, forcing you to jump off to move on. This leads to predictable and shallow gameplay that will not hold anyone's attention after multiple playthroughs. There's no flow, no chance to evade your enemies, and very little vertical play.
It's really unfortunate that you have put a years+ work into this, because you've basically been polishing up a very poorly laid out and weakly designed map. The worst part is I can't really see a way to salvage the layout, with all the buildings being so spread out and the big open field in the middle. :sad:
dm_residential_b2 has been released! See the map profile for a download link, and there's also a more info link which'll take you to a page with at least one more screenshot, where I'll be adding a bit more of information and images to.
A friend of mine will be hosting a server for about an hour (or more, depending on if people show up) after this is posted. At the very least, he and I will be there for that hour. We'll be playing dm_residential_b2 only. Stop on by!
Last night, the dm_residential_b2 compile went fine. Everything's looking good with it, so plans are still on for a release tonight.
I've put up new screenshots for the map release, as well as a rewritten description - both on the map profile right here at Snarkpit. (Go have a look!)
Lastly, I didn't really plan this out too well in advance, but I'm expecting to have a little game tonight right after I put up the map and post the download link, so anyone can come by. Here are how I expect things to go down:
Approximately 5 1/2 hours from now (10:30-10:45PM PST), I'll post the download link to dm_residential_b2 here, and post some server details along with it (IP address; no password, public server) and get into that server with a friend, so at least two players will be there. I expect that game to go on for at least an hour, regardless of whether anyone else comes by, so it'd be awesome if anyone from here or anywhere else wants to join in. The more the merrier!
So have a look for the download link and server information right here in about 5 1/2 hours.
Boy, it's been a while. School's out now - been out for almost two weeks. And dm_residential's first anniversary passed as well - it's now been in-the-works for a couple weeks over a year.
That's why I've decided it's about time to finish it up. :smile:
Assuming there are no unexpected errors or crashes whilst I compile dm_residential tonight, I'll be releasing a beta 2 tomorrow. I've been doing quite some work the past few days in order to prepare for this. I'm nearly satisfied with everything, and so as I'm really close to calling it "finished" I'd like to give a beta 2 a couple weeks so I can get any and all feedback in to the map before I put out a final version.
Side note: I had a little laugh yesterday when I read the dm_residential_b1 readme, in which I said, "This is a beta release. Most of the layout is finished. Most of the details are not." In retrospect, dm_residential_b2 couldn't look and play more different from b1. It's hardly recognizable, except for the evening-lighting style.
I'll probably end up putting up some b2 screenshots tonight, or otherwise, tomorrow shortly before or when the b2 version is released.
