Hey all
Brief Summary about cp_obscure When i created the sketches for this map i figured it would need to be a fast paced map yet at the same time a 'slow-down' period on certain points (for example badlands getting to cp3 on the start of the round, to cp4 then when you attack cp5 your team halts (usually) and re-groups to decide which way to attack, sort of a fast-fast-slow paced structure).
I've also noticed that another reason why most clans/players like playing those 2 particular maps is because of the "battlefield" enclosed on cap point 3, it offers every class something to feast their eyes on, i.e. scouts canyon, demo spam/area seizing, soldier aggro/defensive, sniper hidden (canyon/house), spy hidden/ninja in canyon/house(s) and so on...
I have tried to mimic this concept but at the same time add a twist into how the team(s) will attack each cap point. Cap point 3 will be interesting when being tested as I'm eager to see what most clans will make of the layout.
I was tempted to call the map cp_risk as certain parts of the map require the team to make a committed risk and not back out (or they can suffer losing the attack) however I believe the idea i put was to make routes obscure from certain classes to solely own an entire team, hence called cp_obscure.
I'd greatly appreciate valid/useful feedback or criticism please for those who are willing to test this map.
Towards the end... Okay so um.... where does one start? lol... I am actually speechless as I really don't know what to say it's been a humongous effort by both parties to get this map tailored and basically liked by the public and professional community TF2 players...
This map originally started off with me wanting to create a map that didn't consist of just granary and badlands, I'm sure many of us would agree as good as those maps are it was getting to a stage where the community needed a fresh map. This was my motive originally when I started to design this, and for those who remember way back when I advertised asking for a good mapper to help me design a map! Mr Cocococococ Codcrille was the guy who pm'ed me one night on irc and asked to see the designs. Was comedy because it was very hard to describe my thoughts and imagination across to a swede :p
However none the less i spent day after day night after night with him til very late hours of the morning despite having work just working on it hard to get a 'foundation' built in mapping terms. Which was achieved in 2 weeks I believe. With the map advancing and interest being shown via the forums, I felt it was a good idea to set this project up properly making a irc room for pickups and doing private invitations to people who genuinely wanted to help. Eventually the room reached a peak of 90ppl!
Was totally overwhelming, so for all those guys that remember the nights we played 5/6 pickups in a row of cp_obscure_alpha or _b1/2/3/4/5 etc many thanks goes to you guys for your time and feedback. Runesky and Udie were full supporters of it as well as many others but i remember those two wanting to play it like for 3/4hours solid lol. So it was good to see must mean the map had potential... (Also major thanks to red_ned from [CiC] for helping me set the pickup bot without him i couldn't of done it also thanks to f2 despite his moan at me for stealing all the pug2 players at the time for my own room :>)
Anyway as the map had grown day by day codcrille had rl commitments which he could not alter and fair enough, thankfully he told me in advance so I had time to find someone willing to carry on. I can't actually remember how it began with larky, not sure if he pm'ed me or vice versa. I think initially he wanted to see the state of the map and see how far it had gone and most likely see if it had potential, well he will make a post with his sign off about the project too. So he can mention why he picked this map what he liked about it and didn't and so on etc ...
Since then the map has continued to grow even more, it started to get "serious" I must admit when people actually started to show their support and give feedback, all be it some was given in the incorrect manner but some people knew how to structure their feedback such that it would be useful for me to change a flaw. This feedback was coming from all directions, when i say 'directions' I mean because I publicly released the map members of the TF2 public community and Pro's started to post on this thread mainly with what they thought how it ran and so on.
Some even started to create their own map and join the band wagon of "omg i can make a better map" which I was really happy to see, I wanted to see good maps shine through to be honest just for the sake of this community lasting longer with more maps. People like Koeitje and NOT-HIM starting their own map. I had NOT-HIM asking me every few days for my opinion on the design of his map, was very inspiring to see. (Btw if anyone knows what's happened to NOT-HIM can they pm me as i haven't seen him online for ages and i miss the fella).
Anyway the map reached a stage where I believed it could be played in pickups and released for leagues. When it first hit the pickups, it was huge, as in it would outvote badlands. Then again that is to be expected as its fresh, new and something different than the usual granlands. With the Finns/Germans/French/Spanish/Scandi's/Multiplay Pickups and US Pickups taking it in and play testing it out, the majority of those mentioned loved it.
With it being accepted with open arms, alot had requested for a 1 day obscure cup. Which I solely hosted (with thanks from deneusbeer for telling the know hows of servers and the word press admin tools). Also there was a small prize for the winners ^_^, for those that don't remember it, it was cp_obscure_b3 idk? pink vs SHIFTplay. There was the mystery behind the door bugs, i.e. it would open and close by itself whenever it felt like it
Was very comical I must admit and my thanks goes to all who still had kind words to say about the map despite the raw bugs.
Then the _rcX's stages had arrived, where alot of criticism came my way, which had to be dealt with. Alot of people saying wow its at the _rc stage yet it doesn't even look close to being finished. Alot of hostile and unnecessary abuse from various people from the TF2 community, mainly other mappers making their own map, but was to be expected. With success always comes scrutiny and criticism. Controversy is good even if it's off people you didn't expect such abuse
Anyway after the differences within the "rc" stages of the map, alot had changed from rc1 to rc2 to rc3 to rc4 and finally to rc5. For those that still have cp_obscure_rc1 go check and compare and just notice the absolutely massive difference between rc1 and say rc5 or _final. Maybe I was wrong to do such changes to the map at this very late stage? Was I? Or was I right in doing so? Some would argue for and against, however one thing I do know is that the changes have made the map a worthy contention for many reasons. So yes I'm sure I made a very big mistake in going into rc stages early, however from what I was wisely told by someone at Valve, is that the hardest part of the map is actually the last 10% of it. You know what, he was 101% right, the rc stages and the final has been by the hardest time for myself and Larky. The amount time and effort Myself
AND Larky had to do was so much. With feedback coming back left, right and centre, it was very hard to adapt game play'ability' to a map which had most of its layout and design already fixed.
I was coming up with new ideas and additional things to change and poor Larky had to do them, he couldn't really argue with them because he knew it made sense and or would improve the map even more. So my thanks goes to Larky for his patience in that respect. With alot of pressure form the community whining about "how many more rc versions byte? cp_obscure_rc4235" I had to start coming to an end, incidentally there are other maps out there without mentioning that reached to rc 11/rc12 and none of the community mentioned anything, is interesting to see how someone does a good thing yet people like to troll
Thus reaching to
cp_obscure_finalRight so now onto the credits list? lol Where do I start...
.::. General Thanks for their efforts and time goes to .::.Codcrille - Taking on the task of this map with me and keeping up with my demands!
NOT-HIM - Showing his general support and ideas along with instant feedback
Mangycarface - For producing a document of feedback
.::. Resources Thanks .::. Arie & Exfane (and Jonni at the time) - Providing ftp/server access to play test obscure for pickups along with showing their support. So many thanks to Fakkelbrigade for all their help and hospitality.
[CiC]red_ned - For helping me with a private pickup bot and setting it up, along with his time.
.::. Debugging Thanks .::. Honeymustard - Full respect to this guy, one of the very few TF2 mappers out there that aren't up their own ass and are willing to provide constructive feedback along with criticism. Genuinely wanted to help, so a personal thanks to you mate
Baerbal - Legend showed soo much support since the VERY BEGINNING has always offered to debug and test for errors and generally help with anything to make it easier for me, as he knew how demanding it was to make a successful map.
Anderson - Another legend showed alot of support and has been there almost since the very beginning too. <3 Dan.
Runesky - Runesky showed alot of support for this map at the beginning then disappeared off the TF2 scene, is a shame but deserves full credit for all his patience and support he showed me.
Wildcard - Would always offer to help debug different versions of obscure and my thanks goes to him for his efforts.
Torden - Gave alot of useful and actually very insightful feedback towards the latter stages so many thanks goes to you Sivert
TCM-Gaming Staff - Xman , M2R and Walkah :X no thanks goes to the TF2 TCM team for showing no support what so ever
Stray (new addition!) - What can i say about this guy...is a total machine. He must have a hawk's eye or something. He literally spent like 24hours+ debugging the map out of his own free will and took the time to show them in a structured feedback folder format with screenshots and txt files. The amount of effort is too much for anyone I must admit, as a reward, if anything does come by for this map Stray, I personally will reward you with something mate. I can't thank you more really, if any mappers out there need a good debugger, you can sod off he's mine ^_^.
There are others I'm sure who took time out just to debug the map for me, such as d0tfloat, Blackout and some of [CiC] members and MANY MANY more, my thanks goes to ALL of you, you know who you are I'm sorry I can't mention you all.
.::. Web Design Thanks .::. Absolute - Personal thanks to this guy for setting up my portfolio along with coming up with some comical quotes, wasn't hard for him to set up however him offering himself to set it up was more than considerate. Many thanks dude. (by the way the portfolio will be updated shortly along with the clips)
.::. Multimedia Design/Video Editing .::.decap - Very talented guy, was very impressed by his video editing and design skills along with offering to help doing the time lapse clips and walk through I again can't thank him enough. Those clips will be up shortly.
.::. Publicity & Promotion .::. ETF2L - For allowing me to run a 1day obscure cup and going successfully well.
Multiplay - Thanks goes to Parva, liv3d and F2 for all their efforts and resources, Parva for having my own MP public server with obscure on!
, liv3d for uploading my maps to the pool list and f2 for updating all the pickup bots
Many thanks guys.
A special personal thanks to Cinq from the NA scene for trying to get this map seen all over the US. Also Lestyan for her support in the Spanish pickups <3.
I'm sure there are plenty others out there i have forgotten to mention and if I have then feel free to private message me on irc or steam and I will edit the post asap.
Of course the last but by far not the least person I have to thank is the mapper... Mr Larky. Without this guy the map wouldn't of probably continued with the same professionalism and success that it's had. Some out there would disagree however this may be being biased but it's true obscure is BY FAR the prettiest map in comparison to what's out there. Disagree or agree I couldn't give a flying fudge
I can't really thank him this man more really, the guy is a professional chef and owns his own pub, yet in his very little spare time had to put up with all my changes, pressure off me and so on... Considering the time limitation I'd say obscure is way over the time target. I owe this guy a pint altho he probably gets his beer for free so that idea is flawed D:
C u @ i40 Pete
for a MAN HUG thats right sorry Dave and CommanderX
Larky will do his own post soon with a sending off of how he thinks the entire project has gone.
Portfolio of cp_obscure so far... *THIS SITE WILL BE UPDATED VERY SOON*
http://macfadyen.org/obscure/ - Please note the time lapse clips are incomplete (by about 10/15seconds) due to the map being at rc1 stage
.::. Download cp_obscure_final .::. http://fakkelbrigade.eu/byte/cp_obscure_final.rar .::. Download cp_obscure_b2 .::. (ignore the name b2 it doesn't mean beta 2 jus a random letter this was one of the very first versions of obscure.)
http://fakkelbrigade.eu/byte/cp_obscure_b2.rar .::. Youtube Walkthrough cp_obscure_final .::. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0QSnrIu0YYAll leagues and LAN's should use this version cp_obscure_final.
Quite a long posted but obviously was necessary sorry for the long read.
Any questions, queries speak to me on irc.
Cheers
Byte
*breathes out*
