CS_Archimedes Beta

[Kanine01]

I've worked on this map for about a week or two. Originally it was in an ocean but I decided to change the 3d sky to a desert because it was easier.

WIP!

Download link for beta: http://filesmelt.com/dl/Archimedes.zip








(Just built for experimental reasons, not for gameplay reasons.)

Any constructive criticism?

[mookie]

(1) Filename. Almost universally a map with this entity setup would be prefixed with fy_ or less frequently aim_; very few maps for CSS have no prefix at all. Since this release is declared as a beta, it should probably have some kind of suffix to indicate a version number. The reason for this is that it's very difficult to deal with multiple BSPs with the same filename but different checksums.

(2) BSPZip (or Pakrat). Ideally, all the files other than NAV and TXT should be packed into the BSP. TXT probably should be packed in as well, since otherwise it's easy for a server admin to ignore it because it's not strictly necessary.

(3) The pottery is annoying, because the flag to ignore collisions with the player is not set. The chairs are also annoying because you bounce off them. Personally, I'd remove all the chairs, tables, and barbecue; they're not really doing that much for you, and the top platform is a fairly tight area.

(4) Eight spawns per team is really not enough. There's no downside to having a lot of spawns except for whatever amount of randomness it adds to where players spawn. I don't see a reason not to place 32 (or more) spawns per side. The CT spawns seem unnecessarily high off the ground. Fine for testing, but when it's time for a release they should be dropped much lower.

(5) Every map at this point should have an overview. If there's no overview, whatever markers were on the RADAR from the last map played will still be there (bombsites and rescue zones).

(6) The tunnel seems too tight, vertically. The ground doesn't need to rise up so much going under it. If anything, it should go down a bit. You can move the spawns into clusters on either side of the stairways to compensate. In general, the sand seems to be rising too much immediately around the structure. The rest of the sand around the playable area of the map could rise up and down much more. Dunes that roll up and down by 96 hammer or more could probably be used by players as cover.

(7) The perimeter of the map is invisible, with no markers of any kind. Given the nature of the map, an invisible wall is probably fine, but something as subtle as small stone boundary-markers would be good. Bounding the map with toolsskybox is really not good, you should use toolsplayerclip to block players in, and set the toolsskybox or toolsnodraw brushes much further out, ideally beyond the distance of a grenade throw.

(8) The textures of the building don't seem very good. The grey stone doesn't really fit the environment. You have some custom sand textures, you may as well try your hand at some other custom textures.

(9) You can easily jump onto the roof from one of the umbrellas. Not a problem, just a note in case you didn't intend this.

[Ashfall_2008]

Reminds me of Jabba's Sail Barge... in a good way!

[Ark11]

Looks good, but you shouldn't give it the prefix 'cs_' because that implies that it is a hostage rescue map. You haven't otherwise specified the maps game mode. From the looks of it, it looks like a fight yard map so give it the 'fy_' prefix.

[Performante]

I like the design, it could be a nice addition to another map...