dm_residential

reaper47:

Gah, I suppose.. it's just worrying that performance is worse than it should be whilst I'm generally doing as much as possible to optimize whilst I work (e.g. I can't just go on an optimization spree to fix performance; I might find a couple small things to tweak, but...). I don't feel quite so pressured now versus when I posted, I took some time off (yeah, a full, like, 1 hour) :smile: Still rather bothered about this, but certainly don't expect any abandonment. I'll just have to take it one step at a time...

I'm also quite tired. I'll have a good night's sleep soon and probably just map my way through tomorrow for the most part, frustration allowing. :wink:

Anyways, thanks for your words, reaper47.. we'll see where tomorrow brings us, eh? :smile:

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-- midkay

You should add fire escapes to some buildings, will look nice and will add another acpect to the flow-
You walk in a long alley but in the middle there is a fire escape or maybe on both buildings. This way the player can choose to go foward or climb up the ladder, and it's no longer just another tight corridor, but a crossroad with a spot you can be sniped on.

Edit:

In order to stop camping just don't place the guns and the ammo in the same area. I've been playing in a map where somebody just stood on a really tall building and kept killing everybody in the map. Maybe the crossbow and it's ammo wasn't clustered in one place but he could still find all he needs in pretty safe spots, since most of the action was in the streets. (after he got into position there was no danger at all in the roof tops)
Although I tried to kill him and made it up to the roof tops sevral times, I couldn't find him because I didn't know where he was.

In order to stop such beheivior the maker of that map needed to place the ammo for the crossbow only in lower and more dangerous areas.

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Elon Yariv

A few thoughts midk.

As per your performance worries, I'd say in general the best time to figure out what will work and what wont work performance wise would be in the planning stages, where you draw out your layout etc. But since you've done so much I think you have 2 choices now, either reshuffle the layout and make things less open and boxy, or just press on and hope that optimization can help as much as possible. Personally, I think you should press on, and even if the map chugs after a ton of optimization, I think it's been a valuable process of learning and mapping. If you personally want this map to be played a lot on DM servers then maybe you should reshuffle the layout to be more performance friendly, but otherwise I'd say just see this map through to the end to the best of your abilities. Maybe this performance worry will help you practice optimization skills.

Buildings are still boxy and repetative, and I especially don't like the huge ones serving as walls to your map. Like in Finger's drawovers, some height and texture variation would be awesome. I'm pretty sure the buildings I'm talking about aren't done, but I would love to see some changes (even with your performance worries). Instead of 2 big buildings bordering the alley corner, why not make 5 or so buildings that are connected and scrunched up together, but that are different heights and textured differently.

The ladder going over the windows seems kinda strange, but I think it can stay.

I don't really like the light model on the exterior of the building, but its more because I've never liked the way that propped looked (so heavy on top, with such a thin neck) so if you like it you should probably keep it.

I hope you don't abandon this map. I'd like to see you push yourself and work on this map to its fullest potential.

Hey, Morphine.

Two things to say about performance. I guess I'll say this first since it's shorter and simpler: performance isn't all-that-bad. It seems to almost improve with each build for some reason and I don't know why. 40FPS as of the latest build looking down the street. It used to be 20.

Second, longer thing, which applies less now that the performance seems to be going up: I honestly hadn't and wouldn't expect such performance issues from this map considering some of, for example, other 3rd party maps and even some of Valve's areas in HL2. Some problems include leaves stretching to the top skybox boundary of the map, which can "see" everything outside the map. I'll have to fix this with more careful skybox-brush placement or some really annoying hintbrushing. Dunno which yet. Vvis isn't so happy with 4 hours for the last compile. Still plenty to do about that though. I just .. it feels like I really aren't asking much, I haven't loaded the map with props or brushes I don't feel, my map doesn't seem out of the ordinary as far as detail.. just gotta start hintbrushing I guess. I learned a few techniques from dm_island17's VMF file (thanks for posting that, mazemaster) including areaportalwindows and fade distances which I can "resort" to later if I must.

Bottom line: Performance seems to be getting better (been doing some tweaking) and through a lot of hintbrushing I can probably squeeze a few more FPS out of this, so.. yay. :smile:

Buildings are not only boxy and repetitive, but about 2 minutes of work each. :smile: I wish I wasn't so ab.. what's the word.. absurd.. abYSMAL, yes; abysmal at architecture and design. I'd love to detail these, but I just suck at it. I'll try regardless. I like your 5-in-a-row idea (as a rough estimate).

The ladder.. hm.. we'll see. This all is just getting laid out. I'll definitely go back and scout out little things like this to see if I can do anything about them (move it over or something, or replace it with like.. fire escapes..).

Light model. Hm. Dunno about this. Just a way for me to get lighting into this area ATM ("at the moment", not "addicted to morphine" :biggrin: ) - if these weren't here I'd get "where's all the light coming from?", if there was no light I'd get "why is it so dark down there?"... and so on.. vicious cycle. :biggrin: Maybe as soon as I finish the current modeling competition entry I'll try modeling some lights for this area, or come up with something else.

Don't worry about abandonment.. I'm not nearly to that point yet. :smile: Just semi-frustrated... I guess like a midlife crisis... mid-map crisis? :smile:

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-- midkay

Any chance you might get a download of the map soon, so we can check it out ingame?

Yeah, in all probability sometime before the map comes out, and probably soonish; I just want some more time to try to get a bit more performance as well as get the layout finished (nearly there now), and some of the buildings looking nicer, etc.. just some general "work".

As I'm nearing the point where I'm ready to release a beta, I'll let everyone know.. I think it'd be nice to schedule a gameplay date where I could round up some members from here if possible as well as some friends, etc.. as well as open up the server for anyone else to join in, and give the map a nice playtest with a lot of people to see how it holds up. I know probably a lot of people don't read this thread or this section of the forums, so maybe I'll make a news post if that's still sounding good when the beta's nearly out, but for anyone who's reading this, does it sound interesting (a large playtest)?

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-- midkay

Yeah, I'd like to playtest it, and I think it would warrant a frontpage newspost. It'd have to be after August 15th though, otherwise I'm still in China and can't participate.

You return August 15th? Hmm.. sounds good.. I expected later. :biggrin:

Yeah, I think a "beta release" or "playtest event" might not warrant a news post seperately, but combined perhaps :smile:

Just created a hole from the corner building interior to the alleyway, and redid plenty of destruction in the destroyed building as well as threw out (well, "hid") all those props that you mentioned looked quite weird lightingwise and replaced it with a displacement textured with rubble which also allows you to walk around a bit, a bit more flow (not cut off by the debris props anymore). Small things...

I do think replacing the debris props will help towards performance though. I had just a ton of debris props all kind of jumbled together to create this mound of debris, and considering the holes in every side of the building these were pretty much always drawn.. replacing it with a simple displacement should really help. Also I have a lot of destruction props in there in random places and I was thinking about using the "fade scale" for these since although technically they're usually visible from outside, you can't see them at all unless you're really in there.

Some things to remember in case I need to resort to prop fading (seeming less likely as time goes on). :biggrin:

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-- midkay

Sigh, so after seven hours of sleep I wake up, excited to test the compile I did overnight for the first time in a while with some larger changes and performance improvements, and I wake up to find that... vvis is still going.

Now vrad has started, I'm going to end-process it (that just cancels that portion of the compile, vvis' progress will still be there and well) and then have a look at why it went so slow. Maybe I forgot to func_detail some wreckage, or... shrugs and sighs.

This leads me to ask the question I've wanted to in a while.. anyone reading this thread, can you tell me as best you can remember how long vvis took on your final compile of your map called ______? Does 4 hours (last compile's time) seem right for this map? 2 hours? 7 hours?

I really don't think it should be this high... I'd like a second or third opinion. :smile: Thanks!

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-- midkay

vvis above half an hour is critical. 1 hour if it's a really big map. 2 hours if it's a 1:1 model of Manhattan. Forgetting to make some stairs a func detail or having other, complex, no-func_detail brush geometry can double or tripple compile times easily.

Do you know this optimisation tutorial?:

http://www.student.kun.nl/rvanhoorn/Optimization.htm

It covers pretty much everything.

Wow.. :eek:

Yeah, I've seen that page before (it's been a while though). I'll run through it again soon, thanks for the link.

I'm always extremely func_detail happy and so this comes as a surprise to me.. I really bet it has something to do with the hill and how I've put a large nodraw brush under it and func_detailed it.

I let vrad finish (final compile time: vvis 7h, vrad 30m) so I'm gonna go test it now... brb. Something is definitely askew..

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-- midkay

Just tested it in-game, it runs quite well in fact (45-50FPS looking down the street), basically nothing below 40 as far as I saw.

So I decided I should set up glview to see what the hell's going on.. and I got this.

I don't know how it should look, but that.. looks.. bad.

Gonna have a look at what Valve did for func_detail etc in some of their sdk VMF files (d1_trainstation_02 namely) and try glview there as well to see how many leaves they have.

Thanks for the heads up, reaper47.

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-- midkay

Alright, so "jesus!" (in a very deep loud "goddammit" voice), I found what caused the longass compile time..

There are two sets of stairs in the hotel which were set to block visibility up until last night. I decided to set them up to be func_detail and just seal around them with NODRAW so it would be a quicker compile and less leaves to deal with. Long story short, I didn't seal one off properly, and so you could see through it into this awful network of just.. leaves galore in this abyss inside the hollow hotel.

Fixed it even better than it should have worked the way I did it last night. I also basically completely remodeled the corner building interior to be uber-efficient as well as tweaked some leaves on the roof... and I also sealed off some building areas.. basically this next compile should compile quick and the ingame performance should be beyond what it's been in a long while.

Thank god for glview. :biggrin:

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-- midkay

Alright... for my fourth post in a row, I'd just like to mention that I've just done a test vvis-only compile and the verdict is 55 minutes and 1 second.

I'm just getting started... :biggrin: Excellent.

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-- midkay

I'm glad it helped. Looking at the screen I think one giant hintbrush in the top (sky area) of the map that touches the roofs exactly should help a lot. Not only for compile times but also fps load. Right now the vis leafs of each street can see each other.

Yeah, reaper47 - I did put one across the map as low as possible (touching the roof of the hotel).

I also need to put some along the street maybe around 128 units high so that people on the street won't be considered able to see behind all the buildings and stuff.

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-- midkay

It's been a while, so here's a brief update.

Been working plenty on optimization lately, vacuum-sealing empty buildings, etc. Doing well enough now that I'll worry about it more later and start back on map design.

Replaced the ladder to the sniper spot in the destroyed building with a fire escape system. Here is a picture of what I've got.

Created some damage in the parking lot (a crater). Can't find a screenshot of it and I guess it's for the best since I don't really care for how it looks now.

In fact I'd like to come up with some way to integrate an underground parking garage area - a small one-level one - basically just the same size as the parking lot, underground, that people could go through. It'd be nice if I could tie something like that in with the corner building so you could go directly into the garage from the building, from the garage to the parking lot, etc. I just need to kind of come up with a way to integrate it (how do cars get in there? a ramp down from the parking lot maybe). Thoughts?

That's about all for now. :smile:

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-- midkay

A small ramp down to a large bay door type set up, with a little gaurdhouse/ticket booth type thing.

The fire escape looks pretty good. Not having railings on the sides is kinda weird, but I think with gameplay in mind omitting them was a good choice.

Ah, I forgot/didn't consider railings. I didn't remember seeing them in the reference picture I used, but looking back, they are there. Hmm. I'll see how they fit in, maybe; thanks for noticing.

@ parking garage: Yeah, something like this. I started roughing it out a bit earlier. A ramp down to an underground lot, and I'd like to connect it so that:

• Players can access the underground area through the corner building.
• Players can access the underground area through a hole/crater in the exterior parking lot.
• Players can go between underground and above-ground via the ramp.
• Players can go between underground and above-ground via stairs on one side or the other; maybe both.

Just an initial idea, I think it would be cool if you could have several ways of entering or exiting the area and using it to your advantage.

I've also got some techniques in mind for sprucing up some buildings, so prepare for possibly some screenshots of buildings with details soon. :smile:

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-- midkay

Hmm, so I'm actually kind of pressed for space to put the ramp yet leave room for cars to move around well. This kind of left me with the idea of creating a parking garage (like a several-stories-tall concrete structure)... Hmm.

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-- midkay

Alright, here's what I'm going to do. I'll have a crater in the parking lot that leads to this underground lot whose entrance is in an unreachable part of the map (so like it's an underground lot that happens to stretch over to under the map's parking lot, and you get in from the other side along some other street). I also think I'll tie this in with the corner building - so like somebody would come along the far-off street, drive in, and park their car underground, get out and walk to the door that leads into the corner building; and the reverse if he wants to leave. There'll be a rubble pile that will let you get in and out of the area from the parking lot as well, and maybe I'll place a weapon and/or ammo and/or health in here for some more incentive for players to come on down.

I only really need a way to kind of block off the underground area so it's not needlessly large as it would be in real life.. I was/am doing a very wide pile of cars but that is of course very unrealistic.. any ideas? I dunno about a pile of rubble, that seems too cliche...

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-- midkay

Make it a small, private parking lot for only 6 cars or so. SImple ideas work best, mostly :wink:

Haha, agreed - but the "mostly" part is important. :smile: Is this a joke?! :biggrin:

If not - how do you justify building an underground lot for six cars? Hell, the entrance would take up more room than the lot itself. :biggrin:

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-- midkay

Ok, simple idea version 2: 90% of the parking lot are cut of by a fence.

I just really think that a whole parking lot could become too empty if it's too big.

Yeah, I'll have to come up with something.. it is quite large and I certainly don't want players running all over. Hrm-ness. I'll keep thinking about it while I construct it...

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-- midkay

Just a quick update to let you guys know how I'm feeling about residential right now...

I was just a few minutes ago thinking about it, and I've realized something major: I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to consider the layout done. Still a few things left to do in that aspect but I see a beta coming in the near future. A lot of details to work on, but I feel like maybe 90% of the flow/design is there.

Quick to-do list for the playability aspect:

• Slightly reduce map size. Cut off a bit of unused area around a couple buildings, maybe even cut off one building entirely.
• One more interior (?) - connected to the newer crossbow spot near the hotel.
• maybe a bit more interior to the hotel, connecting it to another building or something.
• Flesh out the corner building.

Really not much. I can't think of anything else at the moment, just little tweaks probably. Speaking of little tweaks:

• Some architectural work on the corner building. Doors are on the top of the list. Doorframes. Decals. Details.
• More realistic destruction all over (rough edges are there, mostly just need some debris props/chunks).
• Some more plausibility tweaks, like the destroyed building's interior.

Honestly, I'm running out of things to worry about. That's reassuring. :smile:

I have the next few days or so free to do all the work I want, I'll map like hell and - don't hold me to this - I'd really like to maybe release a beta by then and potentially hold a large-ish playtest event with anyone around who could join. I'd come up with more details soon and probably a news post, but just a quick ask: anyone available for such an event in the next few days, were I to be ready for it?

Thanks for reading. More screens very soon.

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-- midkay

I'd be available. I'm home now, but won't be for too long. I'm leaving for Bermuda in about a week. So if you can get a betatest together before then, I'd be happy to play it with you and some others.

Coolness.

Things are moving along well. I'll get around to the new interior or two I'll need to do today. Vvis was just cut down another 10-15 minutes by some more vacuum-packing of buildings (rather than boxes on the street, stretching the walls down to the under-the-hill NODRAW brush so no leaves are created in that inaccessible space around the interior).

Time to test it...

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-- midkay

Alright, so the beta release didn't happen as I hoped it would - stuff incredibly just keeps piling up. I'm planning on creating a thorough to-do list with a priority on everything that I can keep updating so you guys know quite literally how close I am..

In the meantime it's time for a screenshot update.

Screen 1, a look at the hallway of the corner residential building - now there's a mysterious path leading downwards. :smile:
Screen 2, at the bottom of that mysterious path's steps.
Screen 3, opposite end of the walkway in screenshot 2, looking into...:
Screen 4, the underground parking lot. I thought I had a screenshot of this but I guess it's for the best that you don't see it very well, it's very unfinished.
Screen 5, pulling back a bit, some scaffolding I'm working on :wink: Also unfinished but nearly done.
Screen 6, moving on to a different area. Last night I did all of this, I began to work away from basement-ish walls in here and I'm going towards making this look like it was at one point an apartment building of some sort.
Screen 7, looking in from the corner hole.
Screen 8, looking down from the very top level (which is still dark-walled and attic-y - not sure where I'll go with that area.

There you guys go, tear it apart with your critique please. Be gentle though :wink:

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-- midkay

Screen 1: It looks like that magnum ammo might be hard to pick up without running into the bike or the door. Why not put it more in the middle of the hallway, or against the far wall? If your item placement is very WIP, then sorry to mention it :smile:

Screen 6: I like the new color to the walls, gives the area a fresher and more appealing look.

Screen 8: I like the potential for z-axis stuff.

Sorry, I don't have more for you. Maybe someone else can step in with some more aggressive critiquing.

Thanks morph:

Screen 1: You're right. I used to have that ammo in the corner behind the door, and so when I added the door initially I had to move it out from behind where the door went. I never really thought about it, just absentmindedly moved it over a bit.. thanks for pointing that out. :smile:

Screen 6: Thanks, I feel the same - it makes more sense and looks nicer, IMO. :smile:

Screen 8: Right, there are quite a few possibilities this opens up, a major one of which is the potential for hiding on a mid-level in the back sniping or just hiding around, etc..

Not much else to say, hmm? :biggrin: Guess things are shaping up then! More soon. :smile:

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-- midkay

Alright guys,

So after the last "missed" beta that I hoped to release that passed without mention, I decided that I'd do what I had been wanting to for several weeks.

Lay out a plan of everything I have left to do, prioritize and above all make sure I don't miss even a casual "I hope to release a beta on so and so" date. I'd like to apologize for that, because I hate missing deadlines, however casual they may be. The next time you hear about a potential beta, it won't be for nothing.

So here's what I've got so far. I'll probably periodically update this and/or copy it over to new posts I make with some things removed/added/changed.

High-priority tasks

• New interiors. One connecting to the apartment building (with the extrusions) and one in the hotel, and connect the two new ones.
• More destruction realism. Chunks of debris, decals.
• Optimization. Map's performance, while not bad, could use some work, and there's plenty left to do.

Low(er)-priority tasks

• More decals all over. More debris littering the streets.
• Tweak spawn/weapon/health/battery spawn placement.
• More little details (brushwork-ish stuff) - signs, doors...

Very preliminary list.. I'll update it tomorrow, I need to head to bed now. :smile:

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-- midkay

I took some "polished" screenshots today of the latest build, just to have some to show off a "nearly complete" build of the map (to place in the Snarkpit profile, etc). These screenshots show out more of the layout of the map as opposed to all the screenshots I've posted in the past month or so showing specific features I'd worked on recently:

Screen 1
Screen 2
Screen 3
Screen 4
Screen 5
Screen 6

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-- midkay

First, like I said before, I love the lighting in the map. You could probably tweak the sunlight a bit to cover more of the background buildings.

The park and parking areas still look a bit too open.

Someday you should try to change the facades of the buildings to make the repeating window textures less salient. They are very prominent in the background.

The destroyed building in the last screen has some nice detail.

Too clean! Here is another map from the same style. It's everything but clean so it might help you in that area.

---

Elon Yariv

reaper47:

Thank you. :smile: I'm not sure what to do about openness in the pointed-out areas, do you have any suggestions? Fences or something?

The buildings really do need detailing.. I keep putting that off.

Elon Yariv:

That looks great, I'm just about to try it in HL2 as soon as I submit this. Thanks. :smile: submit launch HL2 ...

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-- midkay

I'm not sure what to do about openness in the pointed-out areas, do you have any suggestions? Fences or something?

In the end I think all you can do is blocking off the areas by additional buildings. Half or a third of the parking lot, one ramp of the park. A high wall could also do the job. Please don't forget I never played the map. Just from looking at the screenshot I get the impression that these areas could create a sense of agoraphobia.

I just noticed that all the roofs look the same. Is there any way you could change a couple of them?

reaper47: I'm not sure what you mean - reducing the size of the parking lot by half or a third? And what do you mean by "ramp" of the park? The sidewalkish-area leading up and around the park?

I'll have to think about this.

Morph: Yep. I kind of want to detail the buildings first so I can conform whatever roofs I decide to make correctly to the buildings. I'm actually doing some detailing now, or trying.. it's so frustrating, I have some ideas for buildings but the problem is that the ones I've already got are kind of limited since they're pretty much.. done.. I mean like the destroyed one is limited because of the holes all over, the corner one is limited in its own way with the scaffolding/combine tower.. and yet the buildings in the distance can't be too detailed, that's performance problematic. Sigh.. remember next time, kids: detail first. :smile:

Irregardless (I like that word) - I'll just mess around and try my best to come up with something.

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-- midkay

reaper47: I'm not sure what you mean - reducing the size of the parking lot by half or a third? And what do you mean by "ramp" of the park? The sidewalkish-area leading up and around the park?

yes and yes. Don't forget what I said about never having played your map also. Maybe the dimenstions are fine and there is no need to make these areas smaller.

Woohoo for good timing. :smile: I see what you mean, I'll certainly think about it.

Right now I'm adding on to the apartment buildings with the extrusions... and kind of extending the environment out realistically in one direction (down in the direction of the debris that cuts off the street).

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-- midkay

Irregardless (I like that word) - I'll just mess around and try my best to come up with something.

That isn't a word :wink:

So when are we going to get a download link?

Irregardless (I like that word) - I'll just mess around and try my best to come up with something.

That isn't a word :wink:

So when are we going to get a download link?

This little explanation for the word I found via google made me laugh:

"USAGE NOTE Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir? prefix and ?less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so."

Sorry to hijack the thread. So when's ze download?

Oh, interesting.. I recently took up an interest with it, since I thought it wasn't a word. I looked it up by Googling it and it had a "Definition" link, so I assumed it was a word.. irregardless, I'll continue to use it. I love it. :biggrin:

I didn't get as much done last night as I wanted - okay, honestly, I didn't really do anything. :o

I did a lot of thinking though, and I've got down what I want to do and starting now I've got like 6 hours of time to do it. So... yeah.

I also really need to finish off interiors. As soon as that's done, I'll post a beta - I really mostly want the flow to be there. The beta should be "here's the layout, now I just need to add detailing and tweaking and performance improvement".

Don't quote me on this - two days? Three? :smile:

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-- midkay

I leave for vacation on Sunday --- so if its done sooner the better :smile: So I can play.

honestly, if you want to do yourself justice, you should try to get a playable version with just the basic layout and none of the polish much sooner. I've found that if I can bang out a solid layout that I know works, all of the detailing falls right into place. Good tip for the next map - get the basic flow and structures in; let some people test it out; let other mappers look for potential performance issues, then start working towards a true beta. The sad truth is, if the map fails to play well, it fails in a much bigger way than if it just looked bad.... this is why killbox maps are popular even though they look like ass.

Can't wait to check it out.

Alright, so.. the beta must come out by Sunday. :smile:

Finger:
You're right. I wish I were more of a playability whore, I have a rather poor sense of what works exactly.. I play it all the time, I just don't really have this sense of what to look for. There's plenty of variation in height/range gameplay (close-quarters inside a number of areas, sniping across the map, fights spanning from a rooftop across the map down to the ground...). I enjoy it but I hope I can get some feedback from everyone else.

I have tomorrow off work, I'll map my ass off.. with the last four hours tonight and tomorrow, I must finish the interiors and cutting down the gameplay area.

Morphine and Finger: are you guys available for a playtest on, say.. friday, or maybe saturday if it came down to that? Three coming potentialities: Friday at like noon PDT; Friday at like midnight PDT; Saturday at like midnight PDT. I'd like both of you guys in particular to be at any kind of playtest I hold, as well as anybody browsing around here.

Please let me know. :smile: Thanks.

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-- midkay

this is why killbox maps are popular even though they look like ass.

Killboxes have the worst gameplay I can think of. God knows why they are popular. They look better than they play.

Killboxes have little to no room for map specific strategy, other than sniping from afar or ducking between one of the few obstacles. My point is players are much more likely to play adopt a custom map that is accessible and easy to understand. Sometimes we have a tendancy to create overly complex maps and although these designs are impressive and may offer the most gameplay potential for people who actually stick with the map and learn it, there is alot to be garnered from really observing the killbox phenomena. Making beautiful, yet highly accessible maps with fairly simple layouts is a much better approach if you really want your maps played by the community. I adopted this principle with a couple of my halflife 1 maps and they are the ones that stuck with the community. Same thing with my map Swamplight. The first iteration was a f**king beast of a map and way too complex. I chopped it in half and created something much easier to learn. These kinds of problems should be addressed before the detailing process starts - this way you don't find yourself wanting to make large scale changes on all of this near finished art. It could be painful.

The whole killbox discusssion in an interesting one. I personally understand why so many people (mappers and hardcore players) despise them. I aslo understand why so many players like them. Either way, you can't deny that they are popular for a reason, and we are better off trying to understand that then just turning our nose to them. That is, of course, if we are really trying to create playable maps. If you just want to make pretty art - honestly, who cares about gameplay.

That's a wise thought and it is something every mapper should consider.

I played a few killboxes just to see why they are so popular. I think the reason is that they're so big and you always see something happening. If someone explodes anywhere in the map you see it. It gets that party feeling right with an extremely populated centerpoint... and nothing else. I'm not sure how much this has to do with accessibility except for the fact that you never have to search for players.