Posts by sven

As mentioned by TarrySruman in the playtest topic, when I played the map, it was not very clear where I should go, and more importantly, where the enemy might be (ironically, this is more or less the same feedback I got for de_holland ). Part of that is of course due to the fact that the map was very new for me. Map awareness will get better with experience, but you could try adding more signs to guide players.

The feeling of "death can come from anywhere" also comes from the fact that there are several long sight lines with cover that has small gaps (for example those boxed barrels). This means that a player hiding behind such a box can kill far away enemies that cannot see them. Example:

[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/U3THJOw.jpg]

The layout seems cool, but you might consider removing this "ear" off the main platform:

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

At first, I thought it was a bomb site! It's a dead end, without much reward (high ground and cover are quite plenty on the map). Some things you could consider doing:

• add more than one entrance point, so it flows better.
• make it inaccessible, for visuals only.
• replace it with some simpler cover on the main platform

I like the catwalks. They look cool, fit the theme, and add risk/reward options. Downside is that they add to the "death can come from everywhere" feeling. And one thing I noticed was that I was trying to kill an enemy who was walking right above me. I shot at him (not sure which weapon though), but my bullets didn't really seem to penetrate the catwalk. This is very anecdotal, but you could try testing the bullet penetration.

The gap(s?) in the middle where you could see the water is really cool. Really adds to the idea of being on a high oil platform!

Lastly, about the name; "oil rush" is the name of a pretty popular game and "black gold" is a bit cliche imho. I would personally go with something like "de_offshore", which to me sounds relevant but a bit more cool. But that's probably a minor point if the map looks cool enough .

Point taken guys, I made my opening post less scary by putting some fluff in spoiler tags . Part the reason for the wall of text, is because I usually like reading other mappers' thoughts, but I understand your complaints.

Quote from CompoSITe

That Geoff guy seems full of crap.

I re-read the whole thing to see if I could find sections where "Geoff" said something arrogant or something. Took me a while before I finally found out .

It's a bit hard to see how all the routes go, so I can't say much about the gameplay, but the theme and execution so far look awesome!

Yeah, I'll make sure you get a working version for next playtest. Wednesday or thursday would both be fine for me .

Played it with some bots. I think it's pretty cool, but it can be better . I posted some screenshots with feedback here: http://imgur.com/a/c9bbC

Some criticism:

There is no radar overview. Not that critical for a deathmatch map maybe, but you should really add it.

I like the snow displacements and the paths that run between areas, but there is absolutely no snow on the lower level! Some parts are covered by the upper level, but even areas that are being snowed on have no snow laying there.

You should playerclip the doors for the building close to the spawn building. You can walk on the stair railing, jump on the door and then jump on the roof. On the roof you can see enemies, while they cannot see you (through noclip).

Maybe add a bit more cover to give players an option against enemy snipers. I haven't extensively tested this, but I think that one or two players on one side with an awp or auto sniper can cover the whole map quite well, making it very difficult if the enemies only have shotguns, smgs, etc. Of course, this is partially avoided with the arsenal game type, since people cant make a dozen kills with the same sniper rifle.

Quote from garthbartin

Thanks.

What could I fill the open area with? I've got a lot of space and I'm not sure what to do with it. Any ideas?

Well, you could of course make the map smaller to begin with . If it is going to be a defuse map, you will need 2 bomb sites. For decoration, you could make a rock garden with a waterfall or something, or you can make it a martial arts training temple.

My map de_holland was supposed to be tested, but I had some last minute issues with pakrat (cubemaps, nav files, radar, etc.). I think I have figured it out now, so I hope we can playtest de_holland next time . OrnateBaboon, thanks for your time and effort, and I am sorry for making you crash .

My feedback:

cs_mass. Tunnels seemed more clear now, which is a good thing. The outside sniper position near T spawn (overlooking the alley) seemed a bit too powerful, but wasn't really an issue while playing. It might be a bitch for the CT's if they have a really good awp'er, but then again, CT's can go indoor or via tunnels.

There were several openings between walls and pillars etc. that might invite too much camping. Here is one near the CT entrance: http://i.imgur.com/RueLKFW.jpg . Leplubodeslapin has a screenshot of some other gaps, with some good feedback. Like he said, I think you should either cover it up, or make the gap a bit larger and more brightly lit, so that it isn't such a nasty camp spot.

The scaffolding inside and outside looks very inviting. Perhaps you can make it more clear that you cannot climb or enter it? Or make it climing of course .

I felt that the HDR was too strong, it was hard to see from outside to the inside. You can do several things to fix it. Change tonemap_ctrl settings, change env_sun settings (lower BrightnessScaleHDR), and/or put more/brighter lights indoors, especially at transitions from outside to inside.

de_venezia. Most areas looked pretty cool and interesting. The layout was a bit confusing at first, but I guess that is also part of playing it for the first time. I felt it was a bit awkward that at CT spawn, you spawn on a pretty high ledge. The most natural thing is to just jump down, but the height made it feel as though you might take falling damage. Turns out that you don't, but it feels a bit weird. You should add a bunch of player clips around the arches, there were several places where you could stand on the arches, allowing for weird camping and when I stood on one of the aches and jumped, I could see over the wall (didn't look intentional).

Hadn't played cs_siege before. Holy shit does that map look amazing. Bit dark in the tunnels and perhaps too big for 5v5, but wow.

Quote from Spherix

As for the water problems, making every single intersecting brush a displacement did seem to fix the problem; you do however have to keep in mind (although i don't think you'll have a problem with this) that if you have brushes on the edge of the map that 'seal' your map; displacements aren't going to seal it. I had it with a few mountains on my map, light started to leak trough the bottom and sides of the brushes that were converted to displacements but were also sealing the map.

I did a quick test, and I can confirm that simply converting to displacements works (plus sealing with world geometry afterwards) .

Quote from Spherix

You currently make it sound as if you chose the island layout cause you needed logical borders for the map, but there are so many things you could do with that; take a look at Naarden Vesting for example;

Yeah, I think I will go forward and develop the gameplay area first, and then decide what I want to do with the edges; bastion, farms, beach, or something else. I experimented with doing a fortress layout, and currently the east area (T spawn) is designed as such a bastion. I tried to make all edges fit that theme, but I found it to be a bit boring and felt that it restricted my options a bit.

Quote from Spherix

You mentioned that the map might be a bit small, and I think that both CT and T can reach eachother very quick based on the image of your layout (note: haven't seen this ingame, so could be wrong here). That still gives you the option to enlarge the area of conflict, perhaps a bit more around the windmill even if it is facing the other side.

I think that the effective gameplay area is about the size of de_nuke (excluding the nuke spawn areas, as they are quite far away. The minimal encounter times are quite quick, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I think that the shortest time is about as fast as both teams rushing mid on de_dust2 (double doors). There will be a playtest next Thursday, hopefully I will learn more about the gameplay then .

Quote from Spherix

One more thing regarding your layout looking at it again, is that to me it seems that the most top path isn't showing much value -> do players even use it?

Can't really say if other human players find it useful, but the main reason it is there, is because otherwise it would be too easy for the CTs to cover the church (bombsite A). That top route provides another way to A, as well as an option to basically circle around the CT's, perhaps a bit like the outside route on de_nuke .

Thursday 27th 21:00 GMT+1 would be good for me .

Well I just took a look at the official site and it doesn't look good. OG Planet, the North American publisher stopped supporting the game on June 10th due to low player activity. Supposedly the game is not officially dead yet, but if you look on the site of the developer, FIX Korea, you will see that the last updates there were announcements regarding some kind of Angry Birds exhibition in december 2012.

If there is place for another map, I'd love to playtest some time next week . Let me know when, and I'll send you the most up to date version!

Looks good to me. The text can be a bit bigger perhaps. And one thing you might add is a short introduction in the left hand column between your name and the Level Design and Photography sections. That makes it more clear what kind of website it is, and invites the user to click through to explore the other sections. Something like

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Jean Paul JarreauI am a level designer and photographer and I have experience working on blablabla with blabla tools in international/multidisciplinary teams. Click on the sections below to see more of my level design and photography work.

Level Design

-Lambda Core

-etc.

Quote from JeanPaul

Its almost scary how much the CS community fears change. My god.

/rant

Yeah, old school cs players may claim that Valve has ruined counter-strike, and that from 1.0 or 1.6 onward, things have only gotten worse with Source and GO. See for example this article. Notice how it was written after only the announcement of CS:GO, before even the very first beta or any gameplay footage... He basically says that Gooseman made CS brilliant, and as soon as Valve took over, things turned to shit. He blames Valve for not involving 1.6 pro players in the development of Source, and claims that Valve only talked to a team manager (and brief pro player) and a CS commentator. Interesting here is that the author, Duncan 'Thorin' Shields, never played competitive CS as far as I know, he is "merely" a journalist, so according to his own logic he should not really be qualified to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the different CS versions...

I was quite surprised when I read some comments by Gooseman on reddit. Basically, he couldn't really add things after the first beta's got so very popular, because the community could be very opposed to any changes or additions. Initially CS wasn't mean to be this super balanced hardcore competitive game, it was more meant to be a modern action/cinematic shooter, like Action Quake I think. In his new game (Tactical Intervention) he has added things like riot shields, attack dogs, rappelling, vehicle-based assassinate (VIP) maps, healing team members, etc.

In this interview, Gooseman literally says that if anything, he wanted to make more drastic changes to CS, but that Valve was too afraid to anger off the community so they were quick to revert changes when they got negative feedback.

Quote

Valve acquired the rights to Counter-Strike in 2000.After it became a sellable product, the development of Counter-Strike was forced to change. "I did kind of get that feeling where after it became an official product and it became more professional, it became a bit harder to innovate with newer features. We were kind of pandering to the community a bit too much, in my opinion. We reacted a bit too much to people's negative feedback, which in my experience when I was developing the betas, I had so much negative feedback.

"I was actually kind of surprised it became so popular because, I was constantly reading the forums and people were bitching and that kind of thing. It's hard to get a feel for 'Is this game doing well?' because look at all these whiners," Le jokes.

And from the reddit AMA:

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I left the CS franchise so I could explore new game mechanics a bit easier without having to restrict myself to the CS fan base. I think as the CS community matured they grew accustomed to certain game mechanics and as the leagues formed, it was hard to introduce new changes to CS. When I worked on TI, I didn't have that environment so it was a bit more relaxed in terms of what I could experiment with gameplay wise

He also says there that the he once complained to David Johnston that de_dust was too yellow, while now people are complaining that the new dust maps are not yellow enough...

Just goes to show that CS players are very hard to please and that they will rant at whomever they feel is to blame (Valve, casual players, or even worse; console gamers). Some hate new additions/changes to gameplay, others dislike Source and GO for abandoning vehicles and VIP missions, etc.

I find it very interesting that the reception of Dota 2, at least so far, has been very positive. As far as I know there is hardly any significant split between the Dota 1 and 2 communities, apart from places like LAN cafe's in Vietnam that simply lack the infrastructure (internet, hardware, steam accounts, etc.) to host Dota 2.

Thanks for your comments!

Quote from Spherix

As a fellow Dutchman I'll have to watch the progress of this map now.. Based on your story and the screenshots I do have several questions though.

Layout wise the map might be fun, but the way you filled it in doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The side the windmill is currently placed to (a non-rotating windmill at the moment I noticed), it's not going to work -> it's not a logical place to direct a windmill to since the buildings/lighthouse seem to block the incoming wind. Since you mentioned you love historical city centers, I think you should pay a bit more attention to what's logical and what's not.

You are certainly correct that the layout is not very realistic. I put the windmill facing the map, because that is the most interesting visually. It also faces the sun in this way, which gives some nice shadows in and around the mill from the moving (look closer ) sails. I think I can do three things: 1, leave it as is. 2, rotate the mill 180 degrees so it faces the water. 3, change the windmill to a type that better fits the non-rural setting, something higher, like this:

[Blocked Image: http://www.schiedam.nl/images/gemeente/trouwlocaties/molen-overzichtsfoto-HanDijkstra.jpg]

Generally though, I think realism should not be overrated in a non-simulation shooter, as long as it does not break the suspension of disbelief too much. Many CS maps can be quite unrealistic. From the top of my head: cs_office: why is there graffiti on the inside of a private, closed office parking garage? Why are there two huge container obstructing the garage, even the parking spot for disabled persons. Hell, why is there even such a special parking space, when all entrances to the actual office require stairs, surely that is a violation of accessibility requirements! Why are there no cars in the garage when there are obviously hostages at the office? Why are there file cabinets in the middle of the hallways? If they were placed there by the terrorists as barricades against the CT's, surely they could have put up better blockades at the doors! Why are the hostages dressed in orange jumpsuits, did the terrorists bring them, or where the office employees escaped prison inmates? How do the goods get delivered to the market in Italy, when there are only narrow alleys that open up to that square? There are zero scooters or bikes or cars or parking spaces in cs_italy. Why are there huge bales of hay in the middle of the the village of de_inferno, without a farm in sight? There are some car wrecks and even two trucks in inferno, but there is no route that those cars could possibly have taken. Why are the british SAS fighting on German territory in de_nuke? Wouldn't that would spark an diplomatic crisis. Would counter-terrorists really use incendiary grenades in a hostage situation in an office? Why can't that helicopter scout the map from above in aztec and Vertigo? I could go on and on . Does it make CS GO a bad game? Does it make those maps less fun? Does it bother players when playing? Not really I think. So I will see what I can do make the map look as realistic as is necessary/desired, but fun comes first IMHO. Rotating the windmill late in the should be a relatively painless process. I need to remake the whole thing anyway, it is now just a squarish placeholder.

Quote from Spherix

Furthermore you mention that the current state is a heavy WiP and things are subject to change. I wonder then why you went through the process of texturing and detailing some spots already, if you wanted to test the initial layout, I'd either go for the grey/orange dev textures, or use a few textures and not add detail such as plants.

I did a crude dev_texture version before, but I felt that realistic textures and some basic props help me to get a better sense of scale and feel of the the map.

As for the bombsite in the church, yeah, I'll try to avoid major controversy. But as far as I know religious things have (perhaps surprisingly) never been a big problem in other maps. The only thing I can think of is of kids getting in trouble for recreating their high school to enact virtual school shootings.

Quote from Spherix

As for the general references in your map, I advise you not to cram every 'trademark' of The Netherlands in one small island map.

Yeah, that might be the most difficult balancing act for me. When I made that list of all the elements I wanted in there, I thought: "damn, this is way too much!" But on the other hand, the map needs a border, so why not make it a beach? The map needs some buildings, so why not make it a church? I need some cover, so why not make it some cargo containers? Of course, if it proves to be too much, I might scrap, unify, or harmonize things.

You made some good points about the lighthouse. It can be outside the game area and still be a good visual element. There is no snipers nest in the top of the lighthouse or something, but the current layout does need some form of building in that place. I might put the lighthouse further away, and put a different building its current place.

Your Texel island reference indeed shows the lighthouse to be away from a village area, but on the other hand, Terschelling (a smaller island, so maybe more similar to what I'm aiming for), has a lighthouse surrounded by houses: [Blocked Image: http://www.kustwacht.nl/sites/default/files/vuurtoren-terschelling-orig.jpg]

Also see this picture of Goedereede which has a lighthouse and a mill close to village houses:

[Blocked Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Netherlands-Goedereede-toren-molen-1910.jpg/640px-Netherlands-Goedereede-toren-molen-1910.jpg]

Quote from Spherix

As for water in maps, I might be the only one that is bothered by it, but I noticed your map features the same 'bug' as I encountered the past days in this topic.

Yeah, I certainly noticed that too. I read somewhere else that it might have something to do with the geometry and textures behind the water brushes. So it bothers me too, but I'm not focusing on water optimization at this stage. I would be happy to test some things out if you make new discoveries .

All in all, thanks a lot for your comments! I will of course update this thread as I make new iterations .

I edited this post to put some non-essential language in spoiler tags, to prevent killing readers with a wall of text .

Hi everyone,

Sven here, I'm new here on mapcore. I'm working on a map for CS:GO, and people on this forum seem to have a lot of experience and insight in (multiplayer) mapping, so I figured I should join this forum to benefit from your insights .

I started experimenting with level design with the scenario editor for Age of Empires 2 and with SWAT 3, which used Worldcraft. I never really got far with that, probably because I was a bit too young and didn't yet speak english good enough to make sense of the interface and documentation.

I played the original counter-strike occasionally, but I prefered Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat. When HL2 came out, I toyed around with mapping, but never did very substantive things.

With CS GO being my go-to FPS nowadays, I felt inspired to try and make a map.

Quote

While I love a good match on Dust2 or Nuke, it can get a bit tiring to only play "middle east" or "bland facility" maps. I decided to make a map set in the Netherlands, where I live. I love dutch historical city centers and I think it would make for a good variation on South European village settings of Inferno, Italy, etc. The tentative title is be de_holland. As far as I know, there have been no similar maps. There was a de_rotterdam, but that was set in a harbor, so it has more of a facility/industral setting.

The setting is not based on any one actual location, but combines several elements (a windmill, a lighthouse, an old townhouse, a small church, etc.) into an archetype island village.

When I read the loading screen tip that says something along the lines of "avoid wading through water, you will walk more slowly and make a lot of noise!", I saw the opportunity to implement water as a gameplay element in the map, since my typically dutch village of course had to have some canals! I always loved the role of (water) noise in FPS games (even in arena shooters such as UT2K4). There is a canal that separates the A and B sides of the map. You can use the canal as a shortcut to some places, but at a bit of risk: you are at an exposed position, you move slower, and make noise. The same risk/reward applies to the 3 tunnels, which are a bit like the cs_militia (or dod_kalt, etc.) tunnels in the sense that there are several routes (entrances and exits) you can take.

I started with sketches, then made some very, very rough brush layouts, then I did some testing with bots and made modifications. After I was convinced the gameplay could work, I started from scratch with that layout in mind. Currently, I am satisfied with the general layout. All texturing, lighting, props, details, displacements, etc. are basically just placeholders, so try not to pay too much attention to those things .

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Currently, I think the map feels more like a Day of Defeat map than a CS GO map. This might be explained by the fact that I love maps like Anzio and Avalanche, and by the fact that the "village" setting might lend itself more for a more open map. Hopefully playtesting will show if the general style of the map works well for CS GO. Playtesting with bots is very fun so far, though the bots aren't the most intelligent players in the world. Some problems with the map may not be evident when playing against bots, so I hope to do a real playtest some time soon (I played with some of you on playtest evenings before, and it was a lot of fun!).

Potential problems: Might be too open, too many lines of sight. Perhaps there are too many interconnected paths, not enough "CS-style" choke points. The rotate times bombsites maybe too quick, so T's cannot always hide well enough before CT's come for the defuse. Water may be gimmicky. Encounter times may be too quick.

Potential positive points: Open nature of the map provides many views of natural reference points (you can see the lighthouse, windmill, crane, and/or church from most places in the map). The map might be quite small, so though the paths may be intricate, the general layout shouldn't be too confusing. Additionally, both CT and T spawns are viable combat areas, as opposed to say Nuke spawns or Aztec T-spawn. Map hopefully doesn't get boring quickly, because there are always several assault/defense options. I sometimes dislike being more or less forced to take over a bombsite like Dust2 A or B when it is me vs 3 enemies or something. In my map, there are often multiple entry points and routes, so you might not get stuck in a corner like a rat in a cage too often. Ofcourse, your offensive routes are also opportunities for the other team to flank you, so I think it should still be balanced. An advantage of the short rotate times is that T's can easily change their minds if opposition proves to difficult. Also, faking maybe more viable, since you can fake going to A, and then quickly go to B.

Apart from the gameplay, I think the most difficult part for me will be to blend all the elements together in a coherent map. Also, I hope that I can use enough of the included props and textures to make things believable, without them looking out of place in a non-Inferno/Italy type map.

I will try to give every building a bit of a unique style and look so that it is instinctively clear where in the map you are, and also because I want to add as much "feeling" or authenticity to the map as possible.

The elements will be: a windmill, a farm, a shed, a lighthouse, a small school, a dock area with some containers and a crane, a city council building, a chuch, an old bunker building, on observatory, a group of dutch townhouses, and a beach. Of course, not every building will be completely open or explorable.

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Some inspirational images to give you an idea of what i am aiming for: http://imgur.com/a/v9ScI

Some screenshots. Keep in mind that everything is very WIP: http://imgur.com/a/aOGUh

Well, that was a long story... All comments, questions, criticisms, etc. are most welcome, and I hope I'll see you on a playtest some time .

I never played the old Mirage or the non-Valve remake very much, but this version seems to play quite nicely. Haven't played this map in matchmaking mode yet though. One thing that bothers me: the fake light shining through fake window blinds. See these screenshots .

In the screenshots, it doesn't even look that bad, i think it is worse in game, because you can see how static it is. Also, the light seems to leak around the frame of the window:

[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/1C7wNSJh.jpg]

So my gripes are: the effect doesn't really look good to begin with, it looks out of place with the rest of the lighting in the map, and lastly, it doesn't really make sense, considering the lighting on the other side of those windows: there is no direct sunlight shining on them.

Apart from that, the map looks really nice. One legitimate gameplay complaint I've heard from