Fort Noesis L4D Campaign

[Major Banter]

I was under the impression personally that it was beta, and therefore needed to be relatively simply designed to accommodate later modification.

Out of curiousity Mr Two, have you d/led and played the campaign? It's been said that the gameplay element is fine while visually it just needs work. It's not a crippling death dealer, the priority is to ensure maximum gameplay and visual elements and thus feedback is a neccessity.

[korge]

I'm not sure if this will perhaps calm the rageaholics down a bit, but looking again at their website, it does say that the campaign is going to be the basis for a beginner L4D tutorial, which may be why it's not a shining example of mapping excellence.

Just because a tutorial is designed to be entry level does not mean the end result has to suck on purpose.

I completely agree with MrTwo. This one should have stayed in the cooker for a bit longer before going into public beta.

And the "advanced" tag on their mapping dvd is a bad misnomer.

Again, if Noesis wasnt charging for their tutorials, this wouldnt be an issue but they fact they profit by making tutorials over a subject at which they do not excel seems like robbing the community. Especially when there are better tutorials on youtube and interlopers for no cost.

[Major Banter]

-snip-

[Zipfinator]

I was under the impression personally that it was beta, and therefore needed to be relatively simply designed to accommodate later modification.

Out of curiousity Mr Two, have you d/led and played the campaign? It's been said that the gameplay element is fine while visually it just needs work. It's not a crippling death dealer, the priority is to ensure maximum gameplay and visual elements and thus feedback is a neccessity.

Well it should say beta clearly on either the screenshots or in the name of the map. The only place I've seen beta was in one of Noesis' posts which was after everyone was flaming. It seems like they tried to cover up the fact it was crappy by saying it was a beta version.

Also from what I've read the gameplay is awful. Going through the comments in this thread I've heard that the nav mesh is awful (Special Infected get stuck behind rocks and just stand there until they despawn), there's no real layout to the maps (there are random paths that lead absolutely nowhere) and a witch spawns in front of the saferoom if you set off a car alarm (completely goes against the balanced gameplay in stock L4D maps). These are all terrible faults in a map made by a company that makes a living off of selling tutorials based off of these games.

[Major Banter]

I haven't played it myself either, and neither do I have the facility. Just trying to lend a balance to the argument, but I'll bow out; looks like it really is just plain shit.

[korge]

Well it should say beta clearly on either the screenshots or in the name of the map. The only place I've seen beta was in one of Noesis' posts which was after everyone was flaming. It seems like they tried to cover up the fact it was crappy by saying it was a beta version.

Today Noesis Interactive releases its custom L4D campaign "Fort Noesis". Released as an open beta, "Fort Noesis" is ready to download and play now. Upcoming tutorials from Noesis Interactive will show how "Fort Noesis" was created, and how to make your very own original L4D campaigns!

Source

[Zipfinator]

I was basing it off of the Interlopers post which makes it look like a final release which wasn't too smart, but it still seems bad as a beta. Beta maps should still have a somewhat thought out layout and this just sounds awful. I guess we should hold in our criticisms until the final version is released though.

[mrfranswa]

(face-palm)

[Megadude]

The only place I've seen beta was in one of Noesis' posts which was after everyone was flaming.

It says it's a beta in the instructions that are included in the download.

[Zipfinator]

The only place I've seen beta was in one of Noesis' posts which was after everyone was flaming.

It says it's a beta in the instructions that are included in the download.

Yes and I didn't download. As most of the other people in this thread are, I'm basing everything I say off of screenshots and other people's posts. I also said I only read the Interlopers post which never specified if it was a beta or a final version.

[stoopdapoop]

Hmm, I played it, It plays alright, there are a couple of nav problems but nothing like what I was expecting after reading through this thread.

I went through taking screen shots of stuff, I'll probably write a more detailed post and e-mail it to you guys later.

And I wouldn't be stoopdapoop if I didn't say that the maps weren't very optimized I saw prop fade distances on some trivial props, but it felt silly because there was so much extra world geometry being rendered.

Probably the best community l4d campaign that I've played though. (minus the thing that dylan and mayhem were working on, but that wasn't released)

[YokaI]

Wow, this thread is ridiculous. I've lurked this thread long enough.

This map was ok for me. Pretty HL2 looking, but seeing as that's the engine it's on that isn't much a of a shocker anymore. Can't say l4d2's mapping gameplay wise was more thought through. I mean, witches spawn in some ridiculous places in l4d2, and you HAVE to fight em. But I mean, any intermediate player can down a witch in a second without a scratch anyway so it's not a huge deal. In the end of the day, good or bad, the game play is whatever the map maker wants it to be. If you find it frustrating, well, I guess the map just didn't fit your preferences.

Also, these people are important to the mapping community just as much as interlopers is. They teach people the basics to make maps, such as this one, which use the basic assets of valve hammer and allows you to create something that isn't a full bright box. This map is an example of what new mappers can do if they follow tutorials. That being said, I was never a huge fan of the noesis tutorials, only because valve hammer is such a simple tool that the program is nearly-self explanatory.

While they're a "business", that also doesn't mean they are to be subject of criticism that isn't at all constructive. The irony is that if companies got more constructive criticism instead of generic "it was good" "it was bad" replies, video games would be in a better state. The reason why I post my opinions and others do too on l4d2, tf2, ep1-3, etc, is because we all know valve, while a corporation, is also composed of human being and are not infallible. I'll shorten it because I've posted this a million times before (and been flamed for it), but companies make shitty products all the time, so what's the shocker in that Mr.Two? People always grope about things they don't like in a product, that's just the way it is. When you make something, you always expect there to be people who disagree with your choices, no matter your stature. The irony is that if this exact thing were happening to valve, most of the people would be on the supportive side rather than the offensive.

That being said, the map does deserve some criticism. A witch spawning in the ready room seems to eliminate the purpose of the room itself, but I guess cautious players don't really have to worry about it. But still, it's an element that is inconsistent with the l4d gameplay of "things can't spawn in the ready room." The mapping, while I said it looks like hl2, could still be a bit better. Someone touched up on this, but the light usage is probably the biggest aspect that's missing from the map. Nev meshes were fine I think, I don't really think I encountered anything that was shockingly broken. I guess that just comes with different experiences though.

Way I see it, this is a better custom map for l4d. Too bad nobody can play it because valve sucks at making addons accessible to the public in L4D/L4D2

[Major Banter]

I was lucky enough to get a chance to speak to the map dev himself.

Well it's already receiving pretty universal praise. I hate to say this, but interlopers is the ONLY site which has given it negative feedback. Ben (Interlopers PR guy) just really loves the company, and doesn't like experienced developers ripping on beginners due to their inexperience. It's just that sometimes people tend to forget the word "open beta" means it still has a few bugs in it. I was the only one who developed the whole thing outside of having a few helps with Ben, and I had a one month time frame. NI is a fairly small company and doesn't employ betatesters, so it was hard to play a full versus match at any given time. This is why we decided to release it as an open beta and release updates for it later. It's all about maturity I guess . Once people start calling people thieves we can only take their criticism with a grain of salt. The biggest request we've received so far is porting the sucker to L4D2, which is fantastic news.

Hope they don't mind that, but I think it's a perfectly fair piece of writing and slagging off Noesis is just petty now. Critique the map, not the developers please.

[Duke Nukem]

hm, interlopers creates better maps than noesis interactive... or at least it seems so looking at the screens

[joe_rogers_11155]

I think the confusion about Interlopers giving it such harsh criticism is that in Blink's OP, it sounds like a totally finished campaign instead of an "open beta". The OP doesn't mention the fact that it's an "open beta" submission, not even in the Noesis campaign quote sitting in the OP.

Therefore, Interlopers probably took it to be the finished product and berated it as such.

Perhaps the OP should be edited to mention that it's currently in "open beta" to avoid further misunderstanding.