The Half-Life (1 and 2) Mapping Styles

Whats your favourite mapping style?

Note that you can make a sort "Virtual Reality" or "Training level" by using the Dev textures

EDIT: Sorry, one of the options is just "The " and I can't remember what it was

I like big city maps, true, but I'm afraid that in no time at
all, we're going to have thousands of city17 style maps.

Voted for no. 6.

I'm not a big fan of city maps, it's very often people making a killbox
and throwing in 500 building props that come with the game, but oh noes
it doesnt stop there ! they go ahead and throw in 500 other city
related props!

Honestly, i like either stuff where the whole map is based on a
building and it's outside area (in a city.. in the middle of nowhere?
on the beach!) or about all team deathmatch bases that arent fullbright
boxes.

I kinda agree with CJ in that I like making maps that aren't real life places but are just damn cool anyway. I plan on doing some more mapping like that for HL2 once I get around to getting Echo out of the way. Perhaps some more flatshaded work or something is on the cards :smile:

Lockdown and Overwatch, in terms of architecture and lighting, are very realistic and minimalistic. To make a good looking HL1 map, you had to exaggerate everything.

In all honesty, the maps that have excited me most, recently, are CS Source maps. Just played De_Prodigy yesterday, and was quite thrilled with it.

I like the mapping style in number 6. Not really realistic but damn the maps that were really good were not only fun but detailed as hell. I like big city maps too but most people screw them up when they make them. Xen style if fun too but I think it might've reached the end of its life.

i prefer the hl1 maps...nothing to say about the hl2 style...it's cool but in the hl1 maps i remember a claustrofobic/terrible (scary) feeling that hl2 can't give to me.....and i love the old maps where i saw barney and the scientists in some incredibles situoations!!!!

Overwatch? Pleaseeeee, it's one of the lamest maps in terms of gameplay
i've ever seen! All you do is just run around that bloody building and
occasionaly get snatched by the god wielding the RPG. Oh, yeees, once
you make it to the RPG, you're unstoppable! You just camp on that
building for the rest of the game, taking out anyone who tries to come
out of hiding or go after you. I may sound like a jerk, but I can't understand why this map is so popular.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Nanni</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>...it's cool but in the hl1 maps i remember a claustrofobic/terrible (scary) feeling that hl2 can't give to me.....</DIV></DIV>

If you want claustrofobic/scary play Doom3 instead of HL if you havent already.

My choice of maps are : futuristic + detailed + atmospheric

Doom 3 is not Claustrophobic/Scary its poorly designed/dark completely different things :razz:

Err Reno, how did you agree with me when I haven't posted in this
thread yet? :biggrin: Bah. Well I have pretty much the same outlook as Reno
pointed out anyway. If I want realism, I go outside - it seems
redundant to reconstruct something like that in a game. Just something "cool" is the only criteria I have. :wink:

While I was tempted to vote number 3 "The" I decided on big outdoor cities. While I don't really necessarily like cities, as most of the time city maps end up just being corridorry and pretty much the same as an indoor level, I do love being outside in video games. Beautiful sunsets, walks along the polygonal beach, picturesque tahiti escapes are much more fun for me than indoors. Of course HL1 nor 2 do this very well, but there are some levels in HL2 that are reasonably open and airy.

For HL1DM I enjoyed large open maps, because the gameplay promoted such spaces. The tau, rpg, and insta-hit crossbow lent to some really good long distance fighting and covering long distances fairly quickly.

Ironically, HL2DM is alot slower and I find myself enjoying smaller corridor based maps much more than open maps. Right now, Lockdown is my favorite map. Lockdown seems to have a very good balance of tight spaces vs open spaces and pockets of health/weapons to move between. In Lockdown, I very quickly developed a pattern of item gathering and movement; where I was often 'barely' getting to my next stash. The pacing seems just right.

I hated Overwatch at first. It's still not my favorite, but one thing it HAS done, is really push me to use the hand grenades, and Gravity Gun together. The fun I find in that map, is trying to knock down RPG campers, from the street.

I actually like wide open HL2DM maps quite a bit - you can see people, but not kill them easily. The new crossbow is very nice IMO. 1 hit kill, but you have to predict where the enemy will be. Just like playing Quake on a 14.4k modem (-:

Because I'm a big-time camper in DM, I like Overwatch for the rocket ownage. It's quite fun in Teamplay getting your team up the roof and guarding the stairwell. Now that I think about it, the layout of that map is ingenius. Each area, except for the street (worst part of the map), has its own weapon set: the basement is physics and Overwatch rifles, the middle floor shotguns, sub-machine guns and some physics, the top floor grenades and of course, rockets. There are many, many tense and active areas, but no effectively campable chokes. That the rocket position is so vulnerable is also a cool thing: the player with the rocket dominates for a time, but as soon as he runs out of ammo or somebody with a grenade-equipped sub-machine gun or magnum approaches him, he's done. The fact that the hotel in the center can be approached from any angle is also pretty innovative, though the gameplay in the street and the placement of the magnum are unfortunate.

I <3 Overwatch.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting diablobasher</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Doom 3 is not Claustrophobic/Scary its poorly designed/dark completely different things :razz: </DIV></DIV>

opinions !
To me, D3 was more claustrofobic and scary (yes, mainly due to darkness, but also sounds) than HL, but if you think its the other way around...

d3 sounds were scary. Sometimes the baby-demons tell me to do bad things too. They don't stop crying until I set the fires. I like my own innovative style of maps. Which include Castles and movie sets.