Pirates, Vikings & Knights II Released

[von*ferret]

I have fun sometimes, and sometimes I dont. Problems I see are mostly level problems. Ammo is scarce when playing the Pirates. Thats an item placement issue. Its like you dont put sniper rifles in a CQB situation. So why put pistol ammo across the level between vikings and knights? On the chance you do get to it, you have an array of people chasing you ready to beat you down before you even have time to reload your weapon. The map where you get the chests is flawed. It simply takes too much time to get into areas. Then you have this huge bottle neck at the base of the room. Knights can sit up there and hit you with crossbows then immediately switch to their sword and stomp on you. On the off chance you blow them up with a barrel, they spawn so soon that they're at the door by the time you have a chest and get to the door. Lets reverse it. Say the pirates were successful and got all the chests. They won. Again with instantly spawning its impossible to kill a guy and run away. You have better chances NOT killing him and hoping he runs out of ammo and can't shoot you. Yeah it takes team work, but its simply too hard to get chests out of that scenario. The vikings have the most defensible location. Like we have said before, its hard to tell where chests are. Unless you look at the team scores and see whose number is counting down. Maybe a simple thing as much as "1/5" for 1 chests out of 5 are at the base. Its simple, player can see if all the chests are accounted for. If not, then they have to go find the new chest.

Player models are pretty nice. I like the style you guys are obtaining. However again the levels do not do it justice. The level with the tower in the middle is a haphazardly designed map. You have a 'central' area that isn't on the center. The spawn points are easily camped. The tower becomes a giant exploding thing of wtf. I have no sense as to why anyone is there in the first place. If each level gave an idea of why the player is there, even if its goofy, it would make the game more enjoyable. As it is, I'm seeing a lot of killboxes with different textures. The level where you steal the gold is pretty well designed and enjoyable. I know why the pirates are there. However the design could be improved upon. For instance as it stands its pirates and vikings picking away at the knights. If it was Vikings burning the pirate ship, pirates stealing the gold before their ship burns, and the knights retaking the docks then you have a more intricate and interesting gameplay. That means teams actualy have to work as teams and defend while attack, and cooridnate. Three teams is always hard to achieve because one team will get ganged up on. However if you give incentive to attack one team more then the other then you can help combat that. And given the context of the game you can give it a story line.

Overall I was pleased with the game and enjoyed it. I simply think that you could enhance it and make it more enjoyable.

[Skjalg]

As always, really awesome criticism from von*ferret, thanks

The map where you steal the chests is called pvk_island (by Gaz), and he has redesigned the knight area so that should take care of some problems, but the bottleneck will most likely still be there.

The map with the tower in the middle is called desertruin and is a port from the old hl1 mod. He just made it excactly like it was, and it seems to be popular.

You are right on the killboxes though, its something thats really hard to implement. if you take dod or cs for example, you have the situation already there because its "realistic". Our mod isnt, theres really no believable scenarios when dealing with three cliche-archetypes from three different periodes of time (and place).

Overall, the first beta has been a decent success, but we've had our fair share of shortcomings (especially on the level design). But we've taken the good with the bad and tried to our best to improve the maps. There will be an update soon, at most of the big issues will be dealt with.

Glad to hear you had fun though, even if it was just sometimes

[PhilE]

This mod was mentioned at the end of todays GFW podcast over at 1up. He complemented the art team and talked about it for a minute or so.

http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/Podcasts/CGW/011207.mp3

Just though I'd let you guys know. Great mod btw!

[Gaz]

Awesome, Thanks for the Link