Speaking of HL1 maps

Based on a recent topic in the maps forums, I began to remember with fondness the many hundreds of HL1 maps I had on my hard drive. The question is this. Which one was the map that , at the time, made your jaw drop?. I can hardly remember the names any more but Mazemasters "Megalith" comes to mind. Also "Unearthed" by bedwettingtype is one I remember as a technical masterpiece.

And lets not forget dm_hamlet. That one brought a tear to my eye.

which were your faves?

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Quote from Nietzsche....God is dead
Quote from God....Nietzsche is dead

i didn't play much multi player hl1

but on of the more fun maps i played was "turkeyburgers"

being the size of a mouse was a novel approach

I remember coming across Peter Manson's work like Eden and Plateau and being utterly blown away to see such open and organic environments; even if some of the later maps that emulated the same style did it with more success, these were the maps that showed me the HL engine could do more than labs and warehouses, and for that they earnt my eternal resepect.

Rustmill remains one of my favourite levels from any game ever for many reasons - it felt like a place rather than a set of connected rooms, it played well, it offered lots of vertical play, it rewarded frequent players with so many potential routes and tricks without alienating or disadvantaging new players too strongly, it looked glorious compared to almost everything else around at the time, and despite using stock textures it felt really far removed from the HL world.

Very few maps I've come across offer as much potential for those epic chasing battles that span the whole map as Boot Camp, which may have looked as bland as you like, but played wonderfully for those who like playing HLDM the way it was probably never meant to be played - around the gauss jump.

CJ's "Persia" and Ferret's "Fairytale" were late maps in HL's life that proved just how far HL mapping had come from the early days. Imaginative and unique themes for the engine, carried out with such grandeur and polish (well, except a few niggles eh guys :wink: ) that any mapper couldn't help but be impressed.

Gollum's GMDM2 with that boulder showed that the environment doesn't need to be a static route planner, but can be a veritable toy box to use and abuse. While far from the most jaw dropping map in terms of visuals, its level of interaction was mind bogglingly cool.

Scary_one cracked out some awesome levels that belonged in anybodies collection. Beautiful examples of that quake-esque fragitechture visual style, with plenty of emphasis on vertical play and weapon layouts that encouraged varied tactics.

Lost Village 2 had a love it or hate it visual style, but for me it just stood out from the crowd by such a margin that it got my thumbs up. Style over realism wins me over more often than not! I loved the layout too; worked great for 1 on 1s and small team games alike.

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Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Sulsa's Chaocity3 is probably my favorite HL1DM map. It showed that you could make a gigantic map that plays really really well, and also that its possible to create excellent visuals and theme just with the stock textures. At a time when all the best custom maps were tightly knit fast maps with quake-like architecture, chaocity came out as a huge expansive complex with huge wide-open areas and intentionally slow gameplay.

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http://maze5.net

There was this map called Mountain Hamlet that got all the raving reviews (at least it was PHL's map of the week and they called it "best map ever"). I liked it a lot, too. Made you feel warm and cozy.

yeah, mountain hamlet was pretty amazing. in the long run, though, I'm not so sure the gameplay was the best. too many cramped areas inside houses.

Anyone remember redemption and drugbarons? Drugbarons was one of the
very first HL1SP map packs I ever played and was one of the reasons I
took-up mapping.

Also worth mentioning are Two Smoking Barrels, Half life Chronicles and
The Bridge. They are now crusty antiques but my fond memories of them
will sooner or later determine me to play them once more.

Depends really.

If I were going on looks alone, it would have to be Fingers "Broken Palace"
If I were going on fun factor, it would be Snarkpit or Frenzy.
If I were going on personal involvement, it would be Apex.
If I were for personal achievement, it would be No Patience.
If I were going for most memorable, it would be Undertow.
If I were going on transformation through its creation, it would be Klingon DM

There are just to many reasons to narrow it to a "Best"

I have literally been a part of 1,000's of maps. All hold something dear for me. It would be quite literally impossible to pick only one.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Undertow was easily my favorite default HLDM map. Just so damn fun, and I loved all the fun with water bwaha.

If I were going on fun factor, it would be Snarkpit or Frenzy.

Which reminds me. I came here long after discovering the joys of
playing on snarkpit, so basically this is my excuse for the following
dumb question: is the map named after this site, or the site after this
map (or neither?)?

Since the map came out first, I am nearly positive in which order they were named.

I have a truly hard time believing Valve naming a map after an ugly white and blue review site. If I remember my Snarkpit lore, Snarkpit began as a strictly map review site and broadened to editing.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Don't know why but I was convinced it was a custom map, especially since it doesn't seem to ship with certain versions of HL.

My favorite HLDM map is crossfire, though, mainly because of the intense battles fought in that inner-yard.

Andrei said:
Don't know why but I was convinced it was a custom map, especially since it doesn't seem to ship with certain versions of HL.

Really? Thats interesting. Perhaps it was included in one of their mapping promotions. There ended up several maps that way.

Snarkpit the map is so old I really cannot remember when I played it the first time. I do know that its full of bugs. No, not the ones that eat you. Compile bugs.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I can't believe no-ones mentioned gasworks? Fast, open, vertical - most
importantly, it never got boring (to me at least). I used to be a
regular face on gasworks 24/7 server :smile: Aside from that, i'd nod toward
boot_camp, too - always made for great games.

Undertow was cool, too.

I was on 56k the majority of my fragging days for HL1 and I grew to hate gasworks. It was a decidedly low ping map. Anyone on 56k couldn't play it well. Well, I couldn't.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

So was I, only got broadband after I finished 4/5 years of solid TFC
clan play :sad: True though, it does favour the LPB's. At least it didn't
have trains and stacks of hornetguns...

They Hunger.

Yes, that opening car ride was most memorable :smile:

I never played much HLDM, and instead played years of TFC and CounterStrike.

When I first started mapping it was for CS and I spent a lot of time
at the Counter-Map forums. They had some really good custom
maps running on the server, and one of the most memorable maps we
played was fy_rambohulk by PIT and RD.

It had a solid idea combined with great entity work and a good looking location.

Basically, it was set up like a typical fy map (ie. weapons on the
ground) and the CTs and Ts would have to rush to the middle where there
was a stone that would transform you into rambohulk after 10
seconds. During those 10 seconds you were vulnerable, so your
teammates had to cover you. Obviously, it wasn't very often that
someone survived long enough to become the rambohulk, but when he did
he had health in the thousands but could only use his knife. It
was amazing fun to knife entire teams, and it was amazing fun to have
your team work together to finally bring down the rambohulk.

If you've never played it check out this promotional movie (17mb):
http://www.radioactivelego.com/downloads/vids/rambohulk_trailer_divx.zip

That sounds cool Morphine. I think there's alot to be learned from all of these 'alternate gameplay' maps you find out there. The other day, I played some map for HL2DM that was basically football. There was a glowing green purse model, that you had to grab and run into the other team 'inzone' to score. It was super fun.... made me want to come up with something crazy. I'm tired of normal DM mapping at the moment - I guess I've hit a point where I want more challenge. (not saying there's no challenge in DM mapping... I just want different puzzles to solve). This is why I've been playing with singleplayer mapping. I'm having a ball with that.

Ok, favorite HL1 maps.

Well, I'm going to include OP4 in this as well. OP4_Park, was my alltime favorite large map. This map had great visual appeal, great layout, lots of gameplay depth, and a cool gimick with the train. Truly Awesome.

I have to vote for Gasworks, aslo. I played that map almost exclusively for a year.

The map that inspired me to really start mapping, was Powercore. God, I remember that map having so much personality and was so intricately crafted. That was the first map I decompiled and inspected. I was blown away by how precise and cleanly built everything was.

Anyway.... can't really pick a king. So many good maps out there.

Yeah Finger -- gameplay variety and entity innovation deserves large amounts of credit in my book.

The map that inspired me to really start maping was
de_arboretum_v4 by [DNv]Cross (http://www.snarkpit.net/users.php?name=[DNv]Cross]).

It wasn't something truly outstanding as far as custom maps go, but I
remember randomly joining the server and playing round after round with
Cross. He made me realize it was possible to create something
that other people would play. He set me up with where to get
zoner's tools and VHE... to this day I feel indebted to him for that,
it surely has changed my life in subtle ways.

In no specific order:<br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;">Eden - Peter Manson<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Odin's Guard (sweet warps) - KungFuSquirrel<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Merlin (f**king big and amazing) - Peter Manson<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Omni-Arena (cool concept) - Biological Component<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Davroplex (set in and around a theatre) - Davros<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Drive-In (drive in theatre :razz: ) - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Monkey-Isle 2 (great atmosphere set in a cartoony jungle) - DocRock<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Quadrant XXVII - Biological Component<br style="font-family: Verdana;">KitKat Urban - DocRock<br style="font-family: Verdana;">KitKat Express (cool concept) - DocRock<br style="font-family: Verdana;">MarioLand (best Mario map) - DocRock<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Fling - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Brown (hey I like it) - myself :razz: <br style="font-family: Verdana;">Olividata Muerte (great lil spanish villa) - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Megalith2 (wow) - Mazemaster<br style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Mist (big ship with another big disconnected area) - Mr. P<span style="color: rgb(175, 56, 254);"> (thanks CP)</span></span><br style="font-family: Verdana;">Ruin (A floating island with big air fans) - Global Assault<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Datacore - VALVe<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Gosu - Kampy<br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;">Special Recognition:<br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;">Gonad (first map I saw with full female anatomy :razz: ) - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Black N' White - DocRock<br style="font-family: Verdana;">No Patience (great gameplay with numerous custom tex's) - Orpheus<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Castle Overload (Most Secrets I've seen in a map) - Different mappers.<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Apollo (s**ttiest map ever?) - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Mr T (fun) - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Pacman (Coolness) - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Farmland (1, 2, & 3) - DocRock<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Squidsville (Cool map..not the best, but good) - DocRock<br style="font-family: Verdana;">Dragon (One of the best layouts and hallway structures.) - ?<br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;">Two other maps of the names I cannot recall:<br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">1.
a map set on a spaceship, where there was a room that sucked you out
into space (and you die) If someone in a certain room pressed a button
to open the gates in that room. Figured it out...it's SpaceFrag.</span><br style="font-family: Verdana;"><br style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">2.
A dark castle map with an underground dungeon with traps and cells and
skeletons. A big top area too, with an area with a long watery pond
area.

If any of you want the maps in question, I have them. :smile: Eden, Merlin, and SpaceFrag were hard ones to find.
</span>

Also, Iceworld. Mind you, I don't list it as one of the best based on
any accepted criteria for solid mapping. I list it because it is a
map pared down to the bare essentials of a map: it consists of no more
and no less than what it absolutely needed to function in the way the
author intended. That principle inspired some of my later, purely
geometric maps (see Ribcage for an early example).

I always thought my own Fools' Paradise would have been the foremost
terrain-focused map for HL1 had it not melted in my old computer. I
used a mix of DaveJ/3D-Mike inspired complex terrain and triangle
terrain ( http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/cassius/blargo.jpg ). I still
wish I could have finished that one.

Dark Tree said:
<BR style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><BR style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Two other maps of the names I cannot recall:<BR style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><BR style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">1. a map set on a spaceship, where there was a room that sucked you out into space (and you die) If someone in a certain room pressed a button to open the gates in that room.<BR style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><BR style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">

[DRS]Doomdog has a map I helped him with called "Galileo" with that theme.

Not an original concept but it could be his.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The old version of Battleschool had a room like that, but I removed it from the final version for various technical reasons. Battleschool got TONS of downloads, I'm not sure who was playing it where, though. It was a big space station with an anti-grav chamber in the middle and a display that showed where you and the enemies were located.

<span style="color: silver;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Thank
you Orpheus and Jinx, but no dice. I went to the [DRS] website, DLed
it....wasn't it......went to your profile Jinx, DLed
BattleSchool....definately wasn't it.

It was very big.....a long
ladder that led to different levels....a big open bay with crates and a
bay door that opened and sucked everyone out. It had an organic room
that assimilated a sort of greenhouse with plants.....it had a lab with
a warp to a strange sliding space area...then you could warp back and
slide the other way. There was a tram ride that took you about 300
yards really fast (dont wanna be in its way). It was a pretty expansive
map.
<br style="color: yellow;">EDIT: I have since found the map. The map is called SpaceFrag. After trying various Google searches the search term that finally landed me at my destination was:

"sucked into space" deathmatch

Google rules.
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Mist was by MrP, I believe - the same author as Tear. I remember loving both maps dearly. Now I barely remember anything about them.

all these great maps and killbox is the most played outta all of these, quite friggin sad...

yep.