The human invasion of Xen went all according to plan. The Nihilanth is dead, thanks to Gordon Freeman, and the Xen forces are in disarray. In order to control the border world the military built multiple bases in strategic locations and began hunting down the remnants of the Xenian forces. The G-Man, with both Xen and Freeman in his control, is confident that he has accomplished his mission.
That is, until contact with one of the bases was lost. Recon teams were sent in, but none returned. Now you've been sent in to see what has caused this mess. Hope you have better luck than those who entered before you...
This is my competition entry. I know it's got some problems, but I wanted to enter anyways :P. Depending on people's reactions to it I may fix up any problems and redo the lighting.
As i told dave, i have been remiss, i forgot to come and score your maps after the competition.. i will rectify that oversight now
Posted by Agent Smith on
Sat Aug 14th 2004 at 2:55pm
This is definately a real gem of a map, with the screens doing the map little justice. The map layout and style of play reminded me of the golden age of HLDM, when it was the funnest game around, and maps like this one ruled the servers. Fun, well constructed and polished, excellent weapon placement and great to look at, this map is definatly an underated contender in the competition. Very nice work Yak.
In my limited time running around it (20 maps to check out, time was limited!) I found the layout to be confusing, but had no doubts it would be great once learnt with a wealth of route options open from any give area. Weapon placement seemed good, in particular the gauss placement, which was in exactly the same sort of trough location I was going to give it in Angelic. To top it off, it looked lovely, which was especially impressive given the overall low r_speeds and the feeling of integration that the layout suggested.
Despite these positive points, the map wasn't flawless. The theme was a good one but under-developed, with only certain limited areas feeling particularly over run or even touched by Xen infestation. While this wouldn't be counted as an outstandingly negative point in normal circumstances, given the theme of the contest it became more important. Lighting was, in my opinion, overly dark from a playability point of view, and even from a visual standpoint.
Despite these failings, Reclamation felt like the map most reminiscent of the great HLDM maps, and I've no doubt that it will be one of the under-rated gems of the contest that those whom give a chance and actually play, will be pleasantly surprised with.
Posted by 7dk2h4md720ih on
Tue Aug 10th 2004 at 12:16pm
Sounds vey intriguing. Maybe I'll finally get to see a well done xen map. Give me a shout whenever you have a beta up.
Posted by 7dk2h4md720ih on
Tue Aug 10th 2004 at 12:16pm
Sounds vey intriguing. Maybe I'll finally get to see a well done xen map. Give me a shout whenever you have a beta up.
Posted by 7dk2h4md720ih on
Mon Aug 9th 2004 at 7:59pm
Posted by Yak_Fighter on
Mon Aug 9th 2004 at 5:29pm
[Author]
It's done. sorta. The lighting is probably still too dark, and if I bother with a revision that'll be what needs fixing the most. The weapon placement is probably horrible, since I did it in about an hour without any testing. But other than that... I am proud to say that the r_speeds do not go above 910 anywhere in the map, and that's even when looking from corners and such. The area in the bottom pic is less than 900, which is awesome for how much I crammed in there.
Posted by Yak_Fighter on
Thu Aug 5th 2004 at 2:35am
[Author]
Well I'd gladly change the crumble textures, but I haven't figured out a way to break open the GCF files as the program on the pit gives me errors. I should get more lighting contrast as it's a bit flat. It's not too dark in my opinion, but then again I used to play HLDM with an old monitor that made everything dark :biggrin: . If I have the time I will look into brightening up some areas of some rooms, but I am trying to make the map somewhat dark, as this is supposed to be a spooky and destroyed human base or something. And yes, the dead grunts do show up in mp, as do the dead hevsuits, barneys, and scientists.
Nice idea with the missile launcher thing. Really like Screen 4 too. But the rubble/crumble
texture is still so blurry and stuff. Concerning lighting - this map
has the same problem as Thanto does, I think. So many light fixtures
but not that much light. They just end up kind of looking like little
trim lights. Nice broad spotlights focused on certain parts of the
rooms could do wonders and bring some more shadows/contrast into play.
But then is the map too dark already?
Oh, and do the dead grunts show up in multiplayer? I assume you're using monster_dead_hgrunt or something, right?
