[CSGO] de_subject (WIP)

(The contest started a month ago and nobody told me!!!!! ;A; )

de_subject will be the first map I ever finish beyond a gray box phase. The map will have a traditional layout (4 square layout) and will thematically be closest to de_season. The map itself is set in a laboratory like place that also features a very minimalist style. I'll post more info in the future because I literally just came up with this idea and have nooooooooooo clue on the bombsites or spawns or really anything, but I'll figure it out somehow. Laterz.

(I'll edit a link in here when I actually make the map .-.)

UPDATE: The theme is more finalized! The Terrorists are aiming to blow up a research facility that is situated above a waterfall on the mountain side. The scientists use the waterfall to power their facility and the Terrorists aim for areas that disable their power. The bombsites are a generator room (where the moving water is made into power) and an indoor waterfall. These areas make sense from a thematic standpoint and also are drastically different which will help player distinguish each site easily.

As for the game play side of the situation here is what I've decided. The map will have a little bit of vertical game play. Nothing on the scale of de_Gwalior, but the map will feature different elevations around the bombsites to make the game play more diverse, unique, and interesting. Mid will be large and vital for T's to hold. I want mid to be contested by both sides, but I want it so that T's will have an easier time getting and maintaining control of it. Mid will be very helpful in successful site takes as you can easily set up smokes from the mid area to the sites via windows that can be broken. (Kind of like Cache's B site/outdoors window but on a larger scale ;w;) Mid will be mostly outside with a entrance for the T team and the CT team. It's gonna be simple, useful, beautiful after I add a bunch of nature to it (but not to much because I want the map to have amazing readability), and fun! I am working on the first gray box version right now and I will hopefully have it out by Tuesday (I'm busy Sunday ;-; rip). Here's some other game play notes in bullet points

*A SITE

-Outdoors

-Large And Open

-Four Entrances

-Lots Of Nature To Make It Beautiful ;w; (I love nature too much ;-;)

*B SITE

-Indoors

-Small And Compact

-Favors SMG's And Shotguns

-More Mechanical Surrounding

*Easter Egg In The Map?

-A call out named Fizzy (I will make it work somehow! ;w;)

Thanks for reading this update and I can't wait to share it with you guys! Tbh it's my first ever competition and I usually have great ideas but I easily give up on them because they aren't working out well fast enough, but this competition somehow makes me work slower and more calmer. It's weird. But I like it. ALSO!!!! Does anyone want to play test the map with me Thursday at around 9:00 P.M? I kind of am low on friends that play CSGO, I aim for having at least 6 people (so it's a 3v3), but if I had 10 people it'd be awesome. ;w; Love ya guys and thanks for following this project. Laterz.

Wow am I great at meeting deadlines. The reason I wanted to get the greybox of this map done quickly was so that I would have made progress on it before my family went on vacation. So yeah, I'm currently at an airport flying to our next destination and I don't get back to my computer until August 8th. Then school starts back up for me the week after that. ;w; I'm not gonna give up, in my eyes it just adds to the number of things I need to overcome as a mapper in order to win/place in this contest. I kind of started over because my map was going nowhere. I had the largest creative block I have ever had and yesterday it ended. I was finally able to sketch a layout that was unique and original and felt like it would be fun to play. I'm gonna clean up the sketch and post a better version of it so that it's clear what's actually going on in the photo because rn... lets just say it's a mess. It makes sense to me though. Hopefuly I will make more progress in this map and I wish you all the best of luck. Aside I'm TOTALLY in this contest finally. It just took 3 weeks of me going Ughhh. So yeah, laterz.

About the spawns, I placed them on the page before I drew the actual pathways and focused on Ct more than t. That's why t spawn is so far away. It won't be that far out in the final version.

Kk now that I addressed my first reply (ty Roy ;w;) I am happy to report my most recent developments. First off I am unable to actually make the map for another week or so, so I can only give sketches of what I hope to achieve for now. Also I recently visited a port city, Mallaig and it was so pretty that I kind of wanted to change the theme to a city on the coast with a large lighthouse that can be seen all over the map. I still hope to add a waterfall (probs in the background now cause it's not really the focus of the map snymore) but I need to focus on gameplay rn. I've developed an altered layout, it takes inspiration from the first and it's much simpler in my opinion, my notebook isn't big enough to accurately represent the idea I have so I'm gonna buy some printer paper and draw it on there so that you can get a better picture of what I see. I don't want to just leave you with another text only update, but I don't have anything physical to show you rn. I'm on top of a mountain and it's raining hard and the fog is obstructing the view, so here's a pic of that. I still find it really pretty. (Rains my favorite weather) so that's my "update" for now, hope to post more soon. Laterz.

Quote from Noodle King

16 hours ago, Noodle King said: Hopefully you can make something great in the months to come If you're thinking about a coastal setting with a lighthouse and such, catfood made an excellent map that fits that profile a few years back. I think it could be a good inspiration for you. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=179913770

This map is so pretty. Thank you for telling me about it Noodle King, kind of makes me realize that the theme I want isn't very original. But from an artists standpoint it's pretty alright cause like. Just imagine you are a T and or a CT and you just spawned into the round. You pause in the buytime and take a moment to turn around and see the ocean or the beach. It'd be so cool! I'm still working on a layout but I stumbled upon some interesting info. Since I joined CS:GO first I had zero idea previous cs games existed. It's cool to see how popularity in maps is kind of the same as it is now. Except for Aztec! It was incredibly popular in 1.6 and was almost as popular as dust2 at one point (From what I've read), and in my opinion Aztec has a cool layout that has a lot of flaws that make it more Ct sided than Nuke before it's rework. I'm gonna look into why they map was so loved by many before CS:GO and why it's fallen to one of the least played maps now. I'll post more about what I find later, but if I did make a map similar to Aztec's layout it wouldn't be too hard to mesh my theme with it. Well at least I don't think it would be. I alrealdy have loads of ideas of locals and places the teams will visit on their trip around the battlefield. That's it for "mapping" at least.

Btw I finally got a profile picture, it's a stuffed animal that looks like a fox. I took a picture of it real close because I didn't want the background to show. I'm pretty official now. -w- ye.

Also there are so many cool entries into the competition, it's kind of daunting because I'm new to mapping and just learned how to use sdk. Like Zelstorm is making studio and 3 people are making Avalanche. Another awesome one was Manor, it looks so amazing. Not much info on Pit but it looks interesting and I will totally keep up with it because I am hyped. All in all, there are some pretty great maps in this contest. That's from both a map design and aesthetic stance. So yeah, if I'm actually gonna win I have to try really hard. All these people are so professional to in how they present updates. Unlike me. -w- I still use emoticons so, it's not hard to be more professional than me. Sorry for not posting any new content about the map (again), hope you'll still read my posts anyways until I get back to my computer and can start mapping again. Laterz.

(For anyone I mentioned, you're p cool uwu)

((For anyone I didn't mention, you're also cool owo))

Quote from grapen

3 hours ago, grapen said: I don't mean to derail your topic, but since I played on the highest level in the Swedish 1.6 scene at one point, I can share what I recall on this topic.

Almost every pro and semi pro hated Aztec.

Rushing A was practically impossible since HE grenades were so powerful and they would rain on the single choke point at the start of every round. Rushing B was terrifying due to how exposed you were, and the fact that the CT holding bridge could tap lightly on crouch to get a lot of info from a safe position. Furthermore, the colt had 120 bullets so you could wallbang silently the entire round. If the teams were evenly skilled, you had to win pistol as T which was unlikely, in part due to the distances and the disparity in powerlevel of the USP vs Glock, but also since you could see through smokes in 1.6.

There were really no tactical options, you had to brute force the chokes and hope to get a lucky flash off, or double/triple peek the underpass, that was your best bet.

Aztec fell off from leagues and tournaments by the time we got new maps such as Strike (now known as Mirage), Mill and Fire.

Anyways, work hard and good luck with your map.

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Quote from blackdog

29 minutes ago, blackdog said: Aztec was definitely popular, both in 1.6 and CSS… at least on public servers.

I could never understand how, see @grapen analysis.

I guess was because was one of the first maps available.

I had a CSS clan with no aspirations of doing big things, but I can remember the horror of clan wars when opposite team would pick Aztec. You would just clinch you buttocks starting T and hoping it would end soon. I was surprisingly good with the scout and Deagle was op, so I fondly remember my early round picks on bridge or jumping out double doors, but most times was just awful.

I think would be interesting if Valve remade Aztec, balancing it out. Setting is great/unique in today's landscape. There's Ruins(?) by a mapcore member that brings that back a bit.

Thank you guys for commenting so quickly on what I said. It's cool to see the same thing from different perspectives, especially a 1.6 pros perspective. (Thank you grapen!!!) Also from a more casual perspective. (Thank you blackdog!) In my case I was the outsider's perspective. I've only played the map a handful of times and I am only silver 2 (rip ;A;), so strategy and high level play wasn't too present. In fact, in my experiences the map was also CT sided, but much more even than 15-0 halves. From what I remember one of my favorite games was on Aztec! I hadn't learned what maps were competitive and I hadn't learned any and my friends (who had played the game for years now) wanted me to play every map once so I had a basic understanding of each map's layout. Eventually we got Aztec and I remember having some fun moments just because of how the map was set up. Due to the layout we rushed every round, I had just begun to understand the cyka blyat rush b strat, it was incredibly fun. My most fondest memory was a 1v2 clutch I did on the bridge. Mainly because it was a knife fight, and also because I won because I jumped down and the one guy died of fall damage and I backstabbed the other mid air. I felt so cool. -w- Anyways! The map is hugely ct sided at a competitive level. T's have a hard time rotating from A to B, the chokepoints all favor CT's, A site is impossible to breach, B site is too open for T's to push safely, but the map has some cool features. Like the drawbridge and water. Those are my two favorite areas from just how cool they look and feel when you play. The feeling of jumping off to avoid dying to a guarding CT is awesome... until you have to get back up to the bridge which takes a while. In practice it's not that great, but the feeling is still there! I am trying super hard to design an inspired layout from Aztec's. One that borrows what is clever and fixes the rest. Aztec is heavily flawed. Many found it worse than Nuke before it's remake! (That's really saying something) I still have a special place in my heart for the map, it's part of CS's history. And since remakes aren't allowed in the contest (and also because a ton of great remakes have already been done, I'll make a new layout. In fact I already have! (Have a sneak peek at the blueprints because that's the whole point of this forum).

(Also thank you guys for the kind words, it means a lot that I'm actually getting support on my map despite being so unprofessional in how I'm making and presenting it.)

((It took me 3 hours to write this and finish the layout. ;-;))

Quote from Noodle King

1 hour ago, Noodle King said: Yeah It's really quite difficult to find an original idea for a map that hasn't been taken, especially since maps still have to confine to certain principles. Ya don't have to make a carbon copy of reef, but it's totally fine to take inspiration from it. I don't think anyone would be filing for copyright if ya put a lighthouse in your level :P. Hell my first csgo map had a lighthouse! But anyways, just try and make the theme your own thing, the more clear that everything is in your head, the better it'l come out when you make it.

(You responded while I responded so I didn't see the response you responded before posting my response I responded with. ;A;)

I had seriously struggled with being original for a while until I read David Johnston's blog about the making of Dust2 and he even said himself that a lot of copying goes on in map making. He started with ideas from other maps and made them into a reality. Some of the ideas came from his previous projects! Also I'm not gonna make a copy of reef theme or gameplay wise. It's a pretty cool map to look at but I personally haven't played a game on it. Plus it doesn't really have the layout I'm thinking of so for now it's just gonna be used for inspiration for the art style of my map. Thanks for responding again Noodle King, you're still awesome. uwu

So it's been a while, I got a new profile pic, had tons of time to think about where in going with this project, and I've learned a lot more about sdk. I'm kind of abandoning the idea of a defuse map because there are already great defuse maps from both the community and valve, but hostage maps. They suck but they have so much potential. I can't post much rn because I'm at school, but I'm working on a hostage rescue map set in a club. I think it's got tons of potential. Hopefully when I post pics you will to.

So I still don't have a greybox done, tbh I don't think I will finish this map in time. I've bounced around between so many ideas that it's actually ridiculous to think my original idea was a defuse map set in a research lab that was near a waterfall. Now I'm working on a hostage map set in Manarola Italy that features an original layout unlike anything seen before (or at least I've seen before), hopefully I finish a greybox within a few days, even if it's just one area I will still share it with you. This city has given me so much inspiration from the pictures alone so this might not be much, but I hope you get inspired to. Updates coming soon, laterz.