de_ali (working name)

So !

I really like it

The 3 first round were a bit of "omg where am I" but after that it's realy cool. Good details, good flow. As you mentionned, the balcony on the left isreally powerfull for ct to cover the B side. The idea of the T balcony is for Moroes and me a good idea. A quick way to go in it is a ladder.

On te visual, I think sometime you should break your floors. they are very repetitive like in the cluttered stairs/corridor to A.

A lot of yourshouse corners are really sharp. maybe you should try to add some bricks on them or( for those which are not used in vis calculation) make them displacement so you can sculpt them a bit.

like 3Dnj said, the map is solid. the main problem i saw with the map was the balconies gave too much of an advantage to the counter terrorists. one way you could go about this would be to make the buildings around the balconies taller. this would probably save you some work and be the easiest solution, but you could also go ahead and restructure some of it, so you'd maybe have an overlook over bombsite A.

if you post an overview i can show you which buildings i'm talking about.

Yeah, great map Never played enough to give meaningful feedback, but it was really enjoyable. Small things like the stairs could do with clipping so that the player does not bounce up them, and there is a hay truck near one of the sites that has odd collision on it (catches the player from a bit too far out).

Really liked the height variation, fighting on different levels, fighting on rooftops and the angled stuff.

The content cannot be displayed because it is no longer available.

i marked 4 areas here. the green area is fine, the yellow areas are areas that could be worked on. to the left of the green area, the wall down gives the CTs a really strong flanking advantage that isn't mirrored elsewhere. it's not a bad idea to have something like that, but the time it takes for a CT to get there is about the same as for a T - which it definitely shouldn't be. something worth looking into for that would be some stacked crates, or just some way to let the Ts have a bit more breathing room. i would suggest a staircase, but it may change the flow too drastically to be viable.

the second part to the left are the buildings that should be made taller. this is most due to, again, the CTs being able to get on top of the balcony way sooner than they should be able to for such a vantage point. making the buildings taller also narrows down the space where CTs can jump/fall down, limiting any potential flanking associated with that.

the area on the right is mostly just to suggest that something could be done with that area on a balcony height, if the balcony area would suddenly seem less viable for some reason.

[Blocked Image: http://i47.tinypic.com/rk3ryw.jpg]

Adding more difference in heigt and placement of buildings surely decreases the blockyness feeling that I have when looking at the map.

On topleft; raise those transitions 1 unit or so, or use displacements there.

Topright: Not every building is perfectly aligned with the one next to it. Moving a wall back or forward gives the sense that they are unique buildings and so on.

Bottomleft: I've seen quite few of these roads irl; never seen one that flat. Adding displacements there will surely make it look nicer. Don't overdo it though.

Last tip... CS in Dutch?

One thing I noticed in the test is the tightness of the areas. It gives you very little space to dodge gunfire or grenades. Finding a good, strong, spot to snipe from was quite hard as well. There's a lot of great details in unenterable buildings that add life to the level, but are confusing when you are trying to check for enemies. Generally in CS maps if an area cannot be entered it is very obvious - it helps the general readability whether you've played the map a hundred times or just once.

It's a tough thing to say "widen everything" but I think it needs to happen - perhaps not everywhere but at least in a few places to make different tactics more viable.

There colours are quite clashing in places as well - it doesn't feel as cohesive as other standard levels. I am sure you already did, but returning to references and just getting a good feel for the colour schemes would help to unify areas. It'd be great to theme areas of the level (the lift and right sides should be drastically different for example - think of cs_italy, the market vs the long stairs).

There also seems to be a clash of the old-school village with the window models being used; some feel very old and decrepit, and some feel very new. I think a pass could be done to make sure you use as few models as possible, and stick to a theme based on references.

Also, try experimenting with some color correction and post fx, it could bring the map to life in a very subtle way and make it feel more warm, more sweaty and humid.

Overall it's coming along nicely

The left route to B is almost impossible to break through if someone is guarding it. CT can hold down the corridor and pick T off easily before they get into that little room in the middle, and if they do, another CT can easily pick them off from the balcony. I believe T only got 2 plants, so its way to CT sided atm.

You should definitely make the stone roads less flat by turning them into displacements and making them more irregular.

Like Rick I agree that the map is a bit tight overall. I'm unsure about the best way to "open it up" but I do however have some other layout tweaks I think the map needs.

[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/iOPIE.jpg]

The CT rooftop area has been nerfed in this layout, they can now only look from the middle. If they want to look to the left side of the map (from T's perspective), they will have to stand very close to the edge of the "balcony" (shown here as the blue line of sight) thus making them very vulnerable from the middle (the yellow line of sight). Still, it's a powerful position to have for CT and they can respond quickly to threats from different flanks. Another option is that the roof area also has line of sight to the left (to that small courtyard). But that should be it. They shouldn't be able to look down T's left flank.

Furthermore, I think the path around B should be brought closer in. I also think the crate on the left flank should be removed, it creates a really harsh and narrow choke point for T. I think the flow of battle is better without it.

I must say that this is some good work, the map just needs some tweaks and rebalancing.

cool models

I'd say it's fine overall. A doesn't need more paths in imho (i.e. 4 and 5). Sometimes it's nice to have a choke which requires some solid pushing. I think you should do changes 3 and 1 and playtest it again and see how things are!

i'm in the states, so it's tough to make it to the tests, but i downloaded the map and ran around in it.

it's quite nice, but the thing that really struck me was how close the sites were to one another. i counted like 5 to 7 seconds between them, which will require very little commitment from the cts to one site or the other and will allow for quick rotation. with some of the ct advantage that's been talked about already, this will likely add more.

certainly, i didn't play, so this is just a guess, but i think it's probably a good one given standard distances of around 15 seconds or so between sites, give or take a few.

if it turns out to be an issue, this could be a relatively easy fix by relocating the left site (from t spawn) somewhere outside the current bounds of the map and will allow you to open things up elsewhere (and in the new site) as has been suggested.

looking good. thanks for sharing.

add atleast one more route into the courtyard or further in, its a very tight bottleneck

forgot to add in my last post that this map was very fun to play

Quote from Squad

[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/gus/csgo_changes04.jpg]

When I saw the sketch-over in the previous pages I thought you were going to cover the exit with the archway, making it play a bit like the bridge in Dust (in the old setup).

I think it's good like this. On puddy's screen this would be to cluttered.

What?