JamesL

A bunch of my ex colleagues are working on the PSP SH title and they are all very excited about how its turning out. Which is unusual for a game coming out of Climax studios I think Eurogamer gave it a rather good preview feature a few months back. I'll be checking it out for sure.

There's a typo in the gameinfo too Our server is borked at the moment I am trying to fix it.

Good idea. Post an IP and I'll join if I get home at a sensible time.

Excellent work Robert, good work on adding in all those navigation aids, it really helps the map's playability. /Votes for spotlight

Nice work Jake.

I don't know how many of you folks still play a bit of CS 1.6, but in case any of you do, my Clan has a regulars night on the first Thursday of each month where we play a few hours Clan versus the rest on our server. The reason I thought of posting it up here is because we play a lot of custom maps inc. many made by folks on here. From the top of my head, Halla, Eggfart, Afghan, Tundra, Plaka, Museum, Deadlock, Morningstar amongst others are on there and still get a good thrashing. So if any of you ever fancy joining us for a game please feel free to come along. Its not in the slightest bit serious and the play standard is pretty low since most of us are in the 25-50 yrs age range, i.e. no reactions anymore. The server is up on 217.146.89.34:27019 and PM me for the latest password as the server will be locked to keep out the general public. Probably a good idea to add the mapcore tag to your name so we know who you are. To reiterate: 1st Thursday of each month 8PM onwards GMT (UK server) IP: 217.146.89.34:27019 Pass: PM me

Warby pretty much hit it on the head. Nothing wrong with it just kinda ... empty. Kinda like your house is before you move in all your stuff and give it an identity. Good starting point, now add a personality to the space.

I've not played H3 yet but from the reviews, I am expecting it to be as good as Deus Ex, System Shock2, Company of Heroes, Zelda OOT etc. It got the same scores so its gotta be. Right? (I'm not actually being sarcastic here for a change either)

Damn you IO us vintage mappers need cyberbabes too!

The age entry thing doesnt work for me in FF or IE, just sits there dead :'(

Grats mate. May it be the first of many

Or more likely you'll get a hundred or so

Lacks detail and as stated above there is a lack of contrast in both the lighting and textures. As a first beta it looks solid enough though. Are you planing on a release to test the gameplay?

Discount copies available via Mapcore Mazy?

Not in the habit of posting eBay links but this is awesome. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130157439814#ebayphotohosting

Great subject for a model. What are the red resin looking renders created in?

Most excellent for a weeks work Vivi

As for names how about de_backcountry de_backwoods de_ranger de_arboreal de_canopy de_evergreen de_treeline

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. -------------------------------------------- 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. ------- 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. ------- 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. ------- 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. ------- 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

QFT. Who gives a fook about the genre, its valuable experience on offer here FOR PAY. Hell, I'd do it if I wasn't already employed. Are you speaking from experience Psycho, or is that just an opinion? I think its far more a reflection upon the quality and commitment levels of people contracted to work in semi-professional games dev and mod projects. I.e. there are a great many timewasters out there. Likewise 5 years of dev as a reflection upon the organisational ability of the team could just as easily be taken to, once again, show that there are a lot of twats out there who will make your project take nigh on forever to get to gold. I'm not trying to troll here but your point of view is very polarised. From my experience projects struggle as often from the reasons I describe as from those you assume. Give the guy a chance he's posting up a fantastic opportunity for those folks who want to break into games dev. Paid work based on your demonstrable skills, not on who you know or which studios and projects you have worked on previously.

Take the time to learn how to build a PC yourself mate. It's really not very hard and you will save a truckload of cash and get a better machine. You can pick up matched bundles; motherboard, ram & cpu from many good suppliers and simply add a power supply, case, HDD & gfx card of your choice to this. Et voila, kickass PC for considerably less cash.

I was doing lots of this last night. I haven't laughed out loud so much playing a multiplayer game for as long as I can remember. Even the purile "Huh huh huh you got pwnd" samples after dishing out bat to head action made me laugh, and I normally hate that leet BS. Great game. Worthy successor.

Bravias are soooo sexy

Looks like its shaping up to be a very nice mod. Keep up the good work

Just played for a couple of hours and it's really great fun. I can see a lot of my spare time being sunk into this game. love the cartoony gfx too, very much suits the style of game.