De_Forest

He needs to host bots-less server. I joined just after he posted it, i don't know how it is now.

I leave a few bots (4) on the server, thus if anybody want to test the map and there is nobody on the server at this time, he could play and enjoy your gameplay's map.

The serve is now available. 82.67.58.97:27016

indeed the name is a bit limited, it doesn't nearly attract me as much as the map! lovely visuals there man, i the gameplay works it'll be such an awsome map to run around in.

maybe something like de_flora or de_jungle is more interesting not having checked any of the mare taken.

I had a run about on the map at lunch hour today with some colleagues and got the following impressions.

First off, the map is obviously a skilled piece of work so I won't bother giving you nice to hear but ultimately worthless praise, rather I will concentrate on the things that I think need attention.

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In no particular order and likely half of this is covered previously in this thread...

The map is overly large. Takes too long to get around and I had no idea where I was most of the time. You need stronger telegraphing of position to the player, communication of where the bomb sites are, and how far it is too them from where ever the player is currently stood. This is something that is probably going to be extremely difficult to fix at an RC stage since it needs designing in at the early layout stages of mapping. However some kind of prop or colour based signifiers could still potentially be added guiding the player to and from each site.

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The map is very campy. It's pretty easy to hide just off one of the tracks and catch people unawares as they run past you. This compounds the problem of the map being very large, since players are already forced to sprint between sites, and to have to worry about every nook and cranny along the way whilst covering a large distance will likely conspire to make Gameplay predictable. Once a bomb is planted I expect that most of the time a defuse will be extremely difficult, resulting in the map generally being played as a straight CT bombsite camp, since otherwise they will likely lose.

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This has definitely been mentioned previously, and is part of my first point. The map requires more landmarks. Not just large visible from a distance type ones, but also small scattered along the route kinds of thing. I would suggest taking an overview of the map, drawing a grid over the top of it, and making each square of the grid themed in some way to give it a unique identity.

• A small clearing with a burnt out campfire and tent.
  A grove with tree stumps and some logging equipment scattered about
  A widening of the path flanked by brightly coloured flowers.
  Et cetera

All these will help players orientate themselves relative to the other areas and routes in the map and create a more navigable environment.

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Another point that has been raised already, is that as you mention, bots can see through the alpha’d foliage. This is a particular sore point for me as all the servers I run have bots on them, which effectively stops me being able to run this map. Perhaps it would be an option to model up some wooden fences to tighten the routes, adding player clips to prevent players, and particularly bots from accessing them. I don’t think this style of map is ever going to be especially bot friendly, but it could certainly be improved.

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A trivial point, but one that struck me the moment I loaded up the map, was that the overall colour pallet being used for the greenery was rather monochromatic. The detail props (the stuff that grows randomly up out of displacements) was very much all one shade of green. A forest floor generally has a range of greens and browns that seems to be missing here. Its probably just me but this really stuck out throughout the time I was running about the map.

I'll stop there as you are probably already calling me a cnut

As for names how about

de_backcountry

de_backwoods

de_ranger

de_arboreal

de_canopy

de_evergreen

de_treeline

de_phyton

de_wilderness

de_raoni

de_tapio

de_virbius

de_sucellos

de_briscoefalls

de_campsite

Pinemountain sounds good. Pinebarren makes it sound like it's a vast flat patch of pine trees, which it isn't.

Didn't play the map but the screenshots are lovely.

de_mounty?

de_waldsterben (Works in French too, i guess ).

Once again: Brilliant looking and feeling map! (From screens)

Give it a French name FCOL.

de_sylve

For another land mark, some kind of wildlife spying setup, some kind of birdwatch shed / tower could work really well in this setting, in the same way the forestfire watchtower does i guess

Maybe a 'big old oak' that's like 3 or 4 times as huge as the otheres would work too, but that would probarbly mean that the skybox would need to be higher, not sure how that works in source might get horrible laggy.

Anyways, i'm at work now tryin to get the ports open for steam so i can update my css and have a run around here in it with a few colleagues, i'll post back how it goes, it'll be like a 2v2 match

de_evergreen (cheesy as hell! as it's mostly autnum colours)

de_autnum

de_wildlife

de_outcast

de_survival (but it reminds people of that snowy awesome map i guess!)

de_forestfire (t's want to blow up flamable shti to start a fire? ct's start around the forestfire watchtower?)

de_nature

de_outlands

Or ofcourse you could pick a name of a forest wit ha similar setting that you know of in real life

anyways there's some names, haven't checked availibility or anything but you might get ideas from them if you haven't decided on a name yet.

Yeah me too.

de_flora

de_pine

simple and easy to remember.

de_grove

de_orchard

de_thicket

de_timber

de_wilderness

de_wood

de_woodland

de_woods

de_roots

de_dust