de_sidewalk

kinda ironic cause of the map name, but your sidewalks are kinda a shitty texture pick. then again theres like only 1 sidewalk texture in hl2

Quote from curman

kinda ironic cause of the map name, but your sidewalks are kinda a shitty texture pick. then again theres like only 1 sidewalk texture in hl2

Exactly, I'd seriously consider changing it to something better.

Apart from that it looks fairly good, although the buildings look kinda weird :G

it looks too blocky, the buildings are made up of mostly 90 degree angles and are completely flat. i'd suggest adding awnings, balconies, flower pots, window frames etc to break it up. on top of that it always looks nicer if you add roof tops that extend a bit over the edges to wrap things up nicely.

it does look pretty nice though, i like the layout and the smoothness of the streets

Too flat buildings

It's good, but if that was your original plant than you really havn't much problem with stage 1. It's really hard to produce a map that really captures a real realistic level regarding streets and sidewalks. I mean to have everything like power-lines, phone booths, benches, bus stops, side markets, street lights takes a lot of effort to get right to make up a good map.

But yeah, you need a more pronounced definition of the building qualities. I guess suggesting more types of door-enterances is an idea, a lot of public buildings or apartments like you featured contain stoops. (Stairwells). Might want to try that.

My personal Opinion.

Here my ranking for a good map:

1. GamePlay/Layout and FPS are most important !!!

2. Sound. A Map without proper AmbientSounds is to sterile and lacks of Atmosphere.

3. Interactivity. Most Mappers make Maps, where you cannot interact with the Enviroment. I find this very boring. E.G: Ladders, which you cannot climb, weapons which you cannot pick up, etc....

4. Lighting. All the same level of Light is not natural and makes a Map too artificial.

5. Variety in texturing. Everywhere the same textures or no custom textures is not good for the Atmosphere, too.

.... to be continued

Sound? Dunno, for multiplayer experiences like CS:S and such I rarely think about sounds unless its footsteps. I would never consider it that insanely large of a scale from 1-5 of importance, only really if its a singleplayer mod. Scary music in a singleplayer experience really can set the game up to be great.

Good work, will add mirror at LanmaniaX

curman I disagree. I think sound is the most underestimated feature in cs:s. I believe the thing ist, that you recognize it on a rather unconscious way. If you step into an area and you get the right ambient sounds and some sounds from birds, generators etc. then the the whole scene is a lot better than a scene without sounds. You feel it, but you don't really know it

Of course it doesn't really matter if you are fighting with your biggest enemy, but the prettiest graphics don't matter either then

I see that you only got one or two rooftops with the nodraw texture on. Unless all of those others are really visible, then you should really consider to apply a nodraw texture.

Although the buildings look pretty flat the atmosphere and the theme are good imo. I like it.

Thx Magikus

In my opinion, the map De_Eternal_Darkness is a good example for how much a proper sound ambience can do for a map experience.

Check it out, it's worth it!

I talked to my sisters son the other day about the bots in css (I DONT HAVE INTERNET YET! (Also bots are humans too!)) and how they would react on a custom map.

Any way i was thinking of trying one out so i guess this will due.

Ill let you know what i think when im done.

Spellbinder.

i played this on a server last night and thought it was alot of fun.

Thinks I liked:

- Layout, i thought the different paths ans shortcuts were well thought out.

- Theme was consistant

- Lighting was natural and ambient light was up enough that people aren't totally dark even in shadows.

Things I did not like:

- Getting sniped from the roof top. Not a real big fan of roof tops. I feel it pulls too much away from gameplay as you allow the player 360 degrees of sniping action.

- A bit large. takes a bit to get the first encounter.

Kickass man! keep up the stellar work.