L4d2 Collab campaign idea

[Smurftyours]

Too shallow, I have been to Venice and mostly everywhere the water is above head height. Maybe you guys should contemplate not letting the players go into the canals? I know it takes the fun out but their is no logical reason why you'd be able to wade in Venice.

[trcc]

Too shallow, I have been to Venice and mostly everywhere the water is above head height. Maybe you guys should contemplate not letting the players go into the canals? I know it takes the fun out but their is no logical reason why you'd be able to wade in Venice.

I think the last picture is the best. Looks how the head of the paddle is sticking almost out of the water. This is extreme low tides but hey, it means it is possible. With nice dirty green textures on the buildings

Imagine some zombies jumping down one of these windows (last picture) And a charger coming right at you! haha

[Smurftyours]

Terr in the first and second picture that isn't the ground, thats skimpily thick mud. That is a main canal and it is very deep.

[trcc]

I never mentioned wading in the main canals,main canals have boats, docks, sidewalks, bridges and maybe even floating debris. Anyway why are we debating this? I think I made my point. This is realistic to have survivors going into small canals in Venice. The pictures were to support my argument of low/high tide if we also want to create some kind of "dynamic weather conditions" or whatever you call it.



the pictures with mud are from the "Grand Canal" which is the only canal with those dimensions.

[Text_Fish]

Personally I think you guys should throw the birds-eye view of Venice away and stop getting hung up on realism and technicalities. Hone in on the excellent gameplay possibilities offered by Venice (or a Venice-like city):

Changing tides.
Balcony jumping.
Roof sections.
Bridges (broken, breaking and intact).
Tall buildings.
Crumbling buildings.
Water.
Etc.

I'd say allow people to get in the water, but depending on the tide, only offer them a way out at regular intervals with ladders, steps and low ledges. Players aren't looking for perfectly authentic recreations of cities -- the official L4D(2) maps would be incredibly boring if that were the case. When you come to the detailing stage way down the line you can make it look enough like Venice for people to instantly identify it. Nobody's going to care that they can't jump in the canal and swim out to sea if you distract them with good enough gameplay.

[magoc]

Been working on a layout. Here it is. Use it, leave it, love it, hate it...


1px = 4units

There probably should be rooms in the building on the lower left too so a smoker can try to grab the last survivor going down. I have the upper half almost done as a style practice, however it still won't compile so I don't have screens of that yet.

[Hollow]

i think you should the layout designer
that is pretty sweet actually!

[Major Banter]

Well that's clearly not paint; is it a program?

[magoc]

Did it in Photoshop. Finally got the compile working so I'll post some screenshots when I'm back from walking the dog.




lighting is very very WIP.

[dewkl]

I'm guessing it's Inkscape. Edit: seems it's not.

Changing tides could be cool if changes the danger zones for falling into water. I haven't checked if this has been mentioned yet, but acqua alta could be a very cool feature for the map.

I hope this map will be fun for chargers

[projectleet]

As said before I like the concept of avoiding the water period. Just sticking towards a not so realistic variant of Venice. Same building and art style, but avoiding water.

We could have you start out near the water, and any epic fights start NEAR water (but boarded up) to show that it's similar to venice.

Text_fish is on a good idea

[jgoodroad]

the water should be a big part of this, fighting in and around the canals is what will add the flavor, I wouldn't like hard rain (as much)if there was no rain.

somewhat related note:
that layout reminds me of pacman...think about it, pacman in l4d2...

[trcc]

Ok I'm really bad in photoshop but I was bored.

[no00dylan]

OH NOESES

ok, lets get down to business.

How long do you guys and gals want this campaign? 1,2,3 maps maybe? I think it's best if the number of maps matches the numbers of level designers working on the project. Think its about time we started real production on this.

[Hollow]

How many people are working on this then Dylan?
Yeah one mapper focus on 1 map makes sense.

Magoc nice work there!

And for everyone, i acquired some photos from my parents who went to Venice a few years back, so you can all use these as references if you like

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3689445/Venice.rar

About 27 images in there
Enjoy!