FeralNostalgiaPack

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Feralidragon
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FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Feralidragon »

The topic EvilGrins started just reminded me that a long while I ago I managed to group most of the maps I ever made into a single pack and called it FeralNostalgiaPack, and posted it in the Epic forums, but I never managed to post it here.
This is a pack which comprises most of the maps I ever made, during almost 10 years, starting with my first maps and ending with some of my latest.

I am releasing this here too, because I think it serves as a good enough show that we all start in the same way, by doing absolutely terrible maps at first in every possible way, and then over the years slowly improving until they became reasonable at the very least. And I have very fond memories when I did each one of these maps, regardless of how awful most of them ended up being, especially when I look at them now.
They also serve as a good reminder to myself as from where I started, especially since I only started to meddle with code and modding after I did about half of these maps, and up until then I was just playing around with the existing actors such as triggers and other things without touching code at all.

You can download the pack here if you wish to take a peek:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/at0y3u3ku ... iaPack.zip

All of the maps come with a ReadMe to at least say which packages they depend on, given that many of them (especially the first ones) have dependencies towards other mods, mostly weapon mods.
Most of them do not have bot support, some are unfinished, some are rather broken, and many of them are just so awful that I cannot believe they were once the best thing I could do.
Some of them require mutators such as Strangelove or Rocket-X (the ones with the redeemers). Therefore, most of these are NOT the sort of maps you want to have in a server, or to have any expectations to have a good experience with.

And so that you can at least see what you're getting yourself into in case you decide to take a look, here are some screenshots (sorted by when they were created, more or less):
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There's also one other map, which isn't included in this pack, which was mostly an experiment into doing a merge between CTF and MH, and it can be downloaded separately here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/70q80kczt ... rWorld.zip
This one requires a fair number of dependencies, mostly concerning weapon mods, and while it's very far from what I envisioned, I still think it would be an interest concept to develop again someday.

And it looks like this:
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And if you wish to watch the playthrough that I made several years ago (such as watching a nali "fishing" among other things), you can watch it here:




And again, these are all very old maps, from as far back 10-year old maps all the way up to 4 years ago, and some of them garbage-tier even, and most of them are not to be hosted or to play real matches on, but mostly meant as a demonstration of my own route over the years, and which you may very well relate to from your own first days as mappers up until now. :mrgreen:


As for where I sit currently in terms of mapping skill, 10 years later, you can check my latest map thus far (the first map I made in almost 4 years of inactivity):
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12401
It ended up not being that great of a map, especially in terms of performance, but I had a lot of fun building it.
(and yes, if it wasn't clear for everyone by now, I was that nogardilaref bastard :lol: , a character I used to both test and stir the waters a bit first before diving back into UT99, for which I apologize)

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Last edited by Feralidragon on Fri Mar 23, 2018 2:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
darksonny
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by darksonny »

besides you were coder you were mapper!
thanks for the mappack!
Aldebaran
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Aldebaran »

Thank you for sharing! I tested some maps I did not knew.
DM-48SC-InversalLiandri has nice atmosphere and the smoothest warpzones I have ever played, absolutely no stuttering.
CTF-BattleForIceNFire has a nice atmosphere too for me but the sky has a strange buggy texture effect here. Perhaps it would be good to remove this planet texture, then I would set it up on a server...
CTF-Kosov][ crashed here after using the Gravity Zone.
CTF-SimpleSnow has a nice simple layout and well builtin train connection. The map is expandable because its look little bit empty in some areas.
CTF-LavaGiant2 can't be played here because of files missing. ChaosUT was not the problem but I did not find file FlakMine.

Just my two cents...
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Feralidragon
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Feralidragon »

Just a quick reminder that some of these maps are not meant to be hosted in a server, and do indeed crash, or are broken, incomplete and so on.
They are more demonstrative of where I started and where I ended up on.
I also edited the first post to include a small extra in the end (I figured it was time to do so).
darksonny wrote:besides you were coder you were mapper!
I started out as a mapper, and only started doing actual mods afterwards. :)
So in the first maps you can see a lot of triggers and such being used, and then in later maps I used mods of mine instead, either visual mods (in the case of the last 2) or weapon/functional mods (in most of the others).
Aldebaran wrote:Thank you for sharing! I tested some maps I did not knew.
DM-48SC-InversalLiandri has nice atmosphere and the smoothest warpzones I have ever played, absolutely no stuttering.
The map has not much variety but thats normal for an arena map I think.
CTF-BattleForIceNFire has a nice atmosphere too for me but the sky has a strange buggy texture effect here. Perhaps it would be good to remove this planet texture, then I would set it up on a server...
CTF-Kosov][ crashed here after using the Gravity Zone.
CTF-SimpleSnow has a nice simple layout and well builtin train connection. The map is expandable because its look little bit empty in some areas.
CTF-LavaGiant2 can't be played here because of files missing. ChaosUT was not the problem but I did not find file FlakMine.
For any dependency that you're missing, please check the ReadMe files which come with each map, since they have links to download any missing dependency. :)
For instance, the CTF-LavaGiant2 ReadMe file reads as follows:

Code: Select all

Map: CTF-LavaGiant2

Author: Feralidragon

Dependencies:
* ChaosUT: http://www.moddb.com/mods/chaosut/downloads/chaosut-v11-full
* Apocalypse: http://www.moddb.com/mods/apocalypse-weapons/downloads/apocalypse-weapons-beta-9
* FlakMine.u: http://unrealtournament.99.free.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=2182

Description: Probably my very first map (attempt) ever.
Unfinished.
CTF-LavaGiant2 was my first attempt into making/editing a map for release, but then some of what followed were mostly experiments, such as CTF-Kosov][ and CTF-SimpleSnow, which may crash a lot, and in the case of the former I wasn't even able to build the lighting anymore over how screwed up the map was, so yeah, those sorts of issues are bound to happen. :lol2:
You may want to use either the translocator or ghost to see everything that was built in this map, it has a fair amount of hidden stuff there.

DM-48SC-InversalLiandri was my submission for a 48h speed mapping contest from around 4 years ago, and it was my last map before I left the scene. We had to do a map in 48h, and a simple arena was what I came up with, although I didn't deliver it on time due to the time it took me to develop the package that it uses for the visual effects.

CTF-BattleForIceNFire was the map that I ever got the worst criticism from. :)
It was the map that I submitted for the very first community mappack attempted here at ut99.org, and it was quite a disaster, and this map of mine was the worst map of the pack, by far. :lol2:
Aldebaran
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Aldebaran »

Oh sorry for overlooking the readme's - i was too fast...
And welcome back nogardilaref :lol:

Your LavaGiant version is worth playing, for a LavaGiant night this is a good candidate.
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EvilGrins
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by EvilGrins »

This forum has a good history of starting mini-projects to repair/fix maps, so maybe some of these will inspire some of that.

I'll post screenshots after I test some... whichever ones of these I can play.
http://unreal-games.livejournal.com/
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medor wrote:Replace Skaarj with EvilGrins :mrgreen:
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editor Dave
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by editor Dave »

Feralidragon wrote: CTF-BattleForIceNFire was the map that I ever got the worst criticism from. :)
It was the map that I submitted for the very first community mappack attempted here at ut99.org, and it was quite a disaster, and this map of mine was the worst map of the pack, by far. :lol2:
I feel responsible for that. :lol: In all fairness, probably the majority didnt know how to play it the proper way, and I never got around doing so either. :oops:
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10-Year Anniversary on Jun 08, 2019.
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Feralidragon
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Feralidragon »

No worries. :)
It was back during a time I was really into Strangelove and Rocket-X, so I made some maps for it, and none of them were that good, at all. :lol2:

I made more maps than this, but I lost most of them, most probably for good.
One that I would have liked to show you guys was CTF-Velocity: it was a long bridge with driveable hover cars with turbo/flames/nitro and everything.
The code was absolute crap and based on the original Jets mod, but I have fond memories of it, and spent a lot of time playing with them myself.
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Terraniux »

Nice, thanks for posting. :gj: :tu:
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Pileyrei »

Downloaded :gj: :tu:
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Red_Fist »

Going by the screenshots it looks like I can tell when UT2004 hit the scene, the Egypt looking ones, is that right ? just curious if I am right.
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by EvilGrins »

Still going over these, been kinda busy today, but noticed one surprise... technically two.

CTF-Mysis & CTF-Mysis[RX] I already had, I even made an edit of one a couple years back with UTDMT.

Added: Had to delete CTF-LavaGiant2 because it kept crashing UT. Just going to the selection window killed it, which is a pity because the screenshots you posted looked great!
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medor wrote:Replace Skaarj with EvilGrins :mrgreen:
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Feralidragon
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by Feralidragon »

Red_Fist wrote:Going by the screenshots it looks like I can tell when UT2004 hit the scene, the Egypt looking ones, is that right ? just curious if I am right.
When UT2004 was released, I wasn't even remotely aware of UT99 or any other from the UT series.
I only knew about UT99 perhaps around 2006 or 2007 (not quite sure), and UT2004 another year afterwards, and only at the end of 2007 or start of 2008 I started to do my first maps for it.

What I can say though, is that in the case of the maps using UT2004 textures and other resources, it was when I started playing UT2004 and also when I saw other maps using them (namely Creavion's maps).
Also I came to realize that technically, unlike most mappers think, it's illegal to use UT2004 textures in UT99, as it's only legal to use UT99 resources in UT2004 (it's only legal to use resources from "prior" Unreal and UT games), but I guess this is one of those cases Epic doesn't really care much as long as the resources were kept within the UT series as free open maps and mods.
EvilGrins wrote: Added: Had to delete CTF-LavaGiant2 because it kept crashing UT. Just going to the selection window killed it, which is a pity because the screenshots you posted looked great!
I don't remember ever seeing that error in that specific map.
Certainly, my first maps and any experimental map has high odds of crashing, but this one never stood out as of being one of those. I even remember playing in it online with my friends back in the day, and none of them had any issues.

But oh well, you're not loosing much either.
What differentiates this map from most is that it has mechanisms for each team to screw over the other from the middle, but each one of these mechanisms only work once in every map, so from there become only central areas to camp from, to refill with weapons or reach the other base quicker.
It also has traps in the right side of each base, but they are very obvious. :lol2:

Maps of this kind always interested me, specially after seeing DM-Pressure, but I stopped doing them a long time ago, and when I did them I was only using the stuff the game already provided (triggers, spawn points, movers, etc), although maybe one day I might do a similar kind of map with traps and whatnot, but a much better one of course.
I actually had an idea for a brand new CTF map yesterday, something which could actually be really fun and look good very easily, but despite the impulse I felt in just going ahead and do it, since I have other more important things to work on first, this one will be postponed for some other time.
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by OjitroC »

EvilGrins wrote:Had to delete CTF-LavaGiant2 because it kept crashing UT. Just going to the selection window killed it, which is a pity because the screenshots you posted looked great!
There isn't an intrinsic problem with this map - I have played it a number of times without any issues, as has Aldebaran (judging by a previous post in this thread). I think it is a renderer problem - have you tried it with a different renderer? Are you still using the original D3D render device (I used to get crashes on certain maps similar to the one you had until I updated my renderers)?

EDIT - if I use the D3D renderer it certainly crashes but with a different error - "Critical: D3D Driver: Encountered oversize texture without sufficient mipmaps".
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Re: FeralNostalgiaPack

Post by EvilGrins »

CTF-InversalStation is beautiful but has no bot pathing, obviously mainly for RX. Parts of the main path reminded me of Nuclear Races.

Same with CTF-BattleForIceNFire, though even with bot pathing I'm not 100% sure that would work. Snipers would have a field day as there's not much cover.

CTF-SimpleSnow might've reacted better if I hadn't had UltraGore on, but that river of gore really didn't react well with that mutator.

Also, apparently there's only 1 active spawnpoint on the entire map.
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medor wrote:Replace Skaarj with EvilGrins :mrgreen:
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