Screenshots

[Pikko]

[Mr Stranger]

Hello all, I'm working on set of singleplayer maps I intend to release around December-February, depending on feedback and how often life gets in the way.

I've got seven screenshots of the first level which desperately needs feedback. I also have yet to align certain textures and remove the prefabs (movers and helicopters); I've made maps before, but they weren't the best and were reserved for friend/family use only. I want to make better levels and I really want to make this singleplayer pack.

The overall story for this pack is that you're a NEG trooper and your second-rate unit has been sent to a planet in the furthest regions of NEG-controlled space to help the local colonists with an illegal Tarydium mining operation. Your squad of 12, plus another helicopter carrying another squad were both shot down by unexpected Mercenary AA - Chopper One had no survivors, while Chopper Two (your heli) has a total of six by the time you wake up.

Upon waking up, you gather your bearings and head for the only exit out of the canyon - the Merc's nearby Outpost that shot you down. After rallying any survivors you encounter, you proceed to the Tarydium Plant and signal your location for NEG reinforcements, resulting in a D-Day-like battle as you exit the underground section of the Plant. Once the area is secure, you will proceed (with NEG support) to the "Oil Rig" (Tarydium Rig? Off-shore Processing Facility? I'll figure it out later) and confront the last Mercenary forces in the area.

Please give me as much feedback on this idea and the first level, because I'll need it if I am to improve.

Side-note: I want this pack to look like it was made around 1999-2002, so no absurdly high quality mapping... yet. That's for the next pack once I know what I'm doing with UnrealEd.

Side-note 2: I'm sure others made this mistake too; my screenshots uploaded with the last one up top and the first one down the bottom. I can't fix it for now, but my future posts will have this error corrected.

[OjitroC]

Please give me as much feedback on this idea and the first level, because I'll need it if I am to improve.

The overall idea sounds OK.

The concept of a surviving squad of 6 is a nice one but it could well be difficult to achieve in practice. First, there is the danger that, for the player, with so many other 'allies' the experience becomes more Monster Hunt than Single Player. Second, the player has to be in total control of the other squad members and I am not sure of the extent to which this possible with NPCs (it's difficult enough to achieve with bots in Team Death Match let alone in Single Player). Third, it may be difficult to get the right balance with the number and strength of opponents (as well as with pickups - weapons, health, etc). It might be better to just go with one (or two at the most) other survivors and design everything on the basis that they are, essentially, expendable (or perhaps seek to encourage the player to form a bond with one survivor and to try to help them get out of the whole mess alive - this somewhat alters your overall storyline but it might be an engaging and gripping one for the Player?).

On the screenshots, it's difficult to comment much really without actually seeing the map as so much depends on the overall atmosphere that is created and how it feels to move through the various spaces. One thing though that strikes me (pedant that I am) and this is the presence of vertical joints in the concrete (cement) block walls

04 Storage.JPG

These are inherently unstable - any settlement or movement and the roof and sections of the wall will collapse. I know this is a map in a game but ...

Having said all that, it would be good if you could achieve all that as it would be a slightly different SP experience to the norm. So, yeah, good luck - look forward to more progress reports and possibly a beta version of the first map at some stage. Don't foget to consider, as you move forward, whether you are creating an interesting and immersive environment and experience for the Player; are there things of interest or challenge for the player to do (look at, hear, explore) beyond the combat?

[Mr Stranger]

Thanks for the quick feedback OjitroC.

My thinking with the survivors always was that they'd be expendable, but your idea of the player forming a bond with one or two sounds cool. That's actually kinda like one of my original ideas for a very different version of this pack. I'll probably focus on learning how to make maps that play and look good before I mess with making characters the player will care about in some way; in other words, I'll save that for a future (improved) set of levels.

Also, when I said six people survived, two of them (likely) ended up dying in this level (unless I decide to change that and give the player allies for the first level or two). The rest either die off screen or the player catches up to them during a fight.

One of the big issues I noticed with this was that Unreal Tournament has a much more powerful arsenal than Unreal; even a single Enforcer with 50 bullets is more than enough to take out the first three Mercs. Further, the fact that there's only one type of Mercenary (with the Elite only being tougher and slightly smarter IIRC) means that I either need to make new Mercenaries (which I can't) or use human bots as tougher opponents (and I don't know how well this would work, especially since there's human bots on the player's side too).

At any rate, thank you for pointing those lines out in the storage room, there's just something about that room that never seemed right, but I'll wait for more people to talk about it before I change it.

As for a beta release, I'm more than happy to provide that at some point, probably once I align the textures outside and fix that room.

I'll post an update after some more people provide feedback and I have time to implement it. Cheers!

[OjitroC]

One of the big issues I noticed with this was that Unreal Tournament has a much more powerful arsenal than Unreal; even a single Enforcer with 50 bullets is more than enough to take out the first three Mercs. Further, the fact that there's only one type of Mercenary (with the Elite only being tougher and slightly smarter IIRC) means that I either need to make new Mercenaries (which I can't) or use human bots as tougher opponents (and I don't know how well this would work, especially since there's human bots on the player's side too).

On the first point, people will (should) play SP maps in UT with Oldskool Amp'd - any Unreal weapons (and other stuff) won't get swapped to UT weapons unless Oldskool is specifically configured to do so (or people use other weapons mutators, which defeats the purpose of Single Player).

Since the Mercs are placed in the map (presumably? rather than being spawned from a factory), you can alter their default properties and give them more health or make their invulnerability shields last longer (or alter other things like making them move quicker or increase their rate of fire). So there are various things you can do to increase their degree of challenge - if you have groups of four or five Mercs, say, you can alter the default properties of a couple - it won't be obvious to the Player that some are 'stronger' than others until engaging them, hence adding an element of surprise and upping the challenge.

[EvilGrins]

One of the big issues I noticed with this was that Unreal Tournament has a much more powerful arsenal than Unreal; even a single Enforcer with 50 bullets is more than enough to take out the first three Mercs.

Some of us are worse about that. I play SP with an emulator that makes it a gametype in UT... which means I can use a number of the special weapons mutators in SP games.

You think a 50 bullets enforcer is bad, I drag NaliWeapons into SP!

[papercoffee]

...

Please refrain from showing swastikas from a game that is forbidden in Germany because of the use of those graphics.
The owner of the forum is German and might get into trouble because of this.

Please be mindful with these things.

[EvilGrins]

The owner of the forum is German and might get into trouble because of this.

My bad, I'm aware of this but I goofed.

[OjitroC]

I'll post an update after some more people provide feedback and I have time to implement it. Cheers!

It might be an idea to open a specific WIP thread for your project in order to get more feedback as it is rather 'lost' at the moment in this more general thread - possibly more people would read a specific thread?

[Rikia]

[EvilGrins]

I've been working a map edit, variation of a larger variant of the LavaGiant maps, and it would've been done already expect for one annoying issue.

Overall it's a much larger playing area with symmetrical bases even though the 2 sides aren't exactly the same...

...and there's a very chatty Titan/UTDMT who is completely removed from the field of battle, and he's terminally lonely.

Map had no pathing and lacked some items, I've worked that up and got someone to path it. As far as that all goes, it's covered.

But to the extreme left (or right depending on which way you're facing) there's a floating island on each side...

...and there's nothing on it, and I dont know why the original mapper placed them there but it bothered me they're pointlessly there.

I mean, felt compelled to do something with them.

Tried auto-cannons, but they can't handle the range, thought about using the weird little mobile cannon in the Sentry.u but passed as it's not practical for this...

...finally settled on Warlords/UTDMW.

But even that causes problems. See, the ocean kills what falls in it, but unless you're a bot or player... it prevents the UTDM-monsters from respawning.

Which is problematic.

Problem is currently being worked on, but I'm open to ideas or alternatives for what to do with those islands.

[OjitroC]

But to the extreme left (or right depending on which way you're facing) there's a floating island on each side...

...and there's nothing on it, and I dont know why the original mapper placed them there but it bothered me they're pointlessly there.

Problem is currently being worked on, but I'm open to ideas or alternatives for what to do with those islands.

Hard to tell without seeing the map (what's it called? got a link?) - the island in the screenshot seems to be a long way from anywhere - how would Players get there and why would they go there?

Do the islands have to have a point? Maybe they are there just to break the otherwise monotonous views to the horizons on the edges of the map? You could stick some interesting vegetation on them and continue it on the main land mass just to break it up a bit and add visual interest as there appears to be a broad expanse of open, flat land with just a small clump of trees - mind you, the architecture of the 'castle' base looks interesting.

[EvilGrins]

got a link?

Do I have a link?

DO I HAVE A LINK??

(do i have a link?!?)

Here:
https://unrealarchive.org/maps/unreal-t ... d58e8.html

the island in the screenshot seems to be a long way from anywhere - how would Players get there and why would they go there?

Location of the flag and other elements make the map ideal for RX or SLV... but if you were using flying vehicles that makes the islands accessible.

Only WaterZone5 controls the ocean, other WaterZones are for different bodies of water.

As to why? I can't really think of a reason but this isn't something in an unreachable skybox... it's in the playable areas of the map, so I wanna explore options before arbitrarily deleting them.

[OjitroC]

As to why? I can't really think of a reason but this isn't something in an unreachable skybox... it's in the playable areas of the map, so I wanna explore options before arbitrarily deleting them.

It's up to you (obviously) but I would just ignore them (not delete them) - they are small, distant and not that noticeable particularly when engaged in combat or trying to capture or defend the flag. They're are mainly seen against the darkish sky as well.

I can't think of a use that can be made of them - though if the map is for SLV you could put some goodies on them (but would it be worth people's while to fly over to them and leave the battle on the main land mass?).

There's an area of water on the land mass - this water has some armor (not sure what in default UT as I was using StuffSwapper and so swapped the armor to something else). Anyway there is no way to get out of the water as far as I could see.

[EvilGrins]

There's an area of water on the land mass

There's 3 areas of water on the landmass:
· 2 just left of the castle, 1 per base, on both sides.
· 1 on the top of the mountain range.

Those 3 have no problems, it's the ocean which is the problem.