L4D Map 'Dam It' Released

[MayheM]

So nice to see something other than a SV map. No offense to anyone making them, but it is just takes a bit more to make something like this. I will give this one a try for sure. It looks great!

[joe_rogers_11155]

Ad_hominem, I can't remember the last time the Map Spotlight on the home page changed. It feels like it's been the TF2 lighthouse map for more than a month. Wouldn't this L4D map have been a good candidate for the Map Spotlight?

[ad_hominem]

I don't control the map spotlight, I just do the news. Send it to Blink if you feel it's worthy of the Map Spotlight.

[tombaldry]

Sorry I caused so much trouble. I just wanted to pimp my map and hope to possibly raise the bar a tiny bit when it comes to L4D maps. I wanted to show people you could distribute a lone BSP and not force people to overwrite stock game files whilst still retaining functionality

Last map I made was in 2003 for RTCW under GTK Radiant. The Source engine with it's HDR and physics, Hammer (WC;), simple custom models in XSI and writing custom scripts (like the details.vbsp) without an SDK, Official docs, or very much at all was a fun learning curve. The map you see is the finished product but it is not the whole map, I toyed with a bunch of options and the original was much larger outside. If I were to do it all again it'd take me half the time with what I know now, but because it took me so long to get to grips with it all I felt it was worth pimping it rather than letting it fall into obscurity.

For all it's failings and my egotistical pimps I hope you still find it fun.



. <-Worlds smallest violin.

[Blink]

Just played it. The dam part looked really cool from down below but I found the whole map frustrating. It's way, way too dark and it's also very maze like so you end up hunting around rooms in the dark for a way out and I got a bit fed up to be fair.

Good effort though and I'd like to see more released from you.

[Mess]

kudos for being pretty much the only mapper on here with the dedication to start a campaign instead of some funyard survival map.

[tombaldry]

Blink: a very small percentage of people have said it's too dark, I was trying to leverage atmosphere and invoke fear by forcing the player to use the torch.


With regards to the maze-ness the reason is two-fold.

A: Intellectual challenge to get special infected spawning correctly along a reasonably complicated flow. Stock L4D maps are pretty linear and I understand why now.

B: With it being a single map campaign, I wanted to make at least the first run through complicated for the user. I felt a large industrial complex would be if someone were not familiar with it. Look for the green exit signs along the way.


I fully take what you're saying on board and I appreciate your input. I can understand that maze-ness combined with darkness must have been frustrating.

[Valar]

ok here's me.
this is by far the best custom L4D map i've played to date.
i love things out of the ordinary and i think L4D maps should indeed be harder to navigate through than Valve's.
having said that, i also realize fully why Valve's made their maps easier to find your way in. it's finding the common ground that leads you to making levels easier to handle.
so, i think you should find a way to sort of cater for both audiences. give just a tad more light in the utter dark area. like in spots here and there. not brighten the map up because that would not only make it bland but also kill the gameplay. the map is great as is. just a few touchups would make it more playable for many other people.
another thing is the Entrance to the Dam Compound slide door, once opened you look at the panes and you don't see WHERE it slip TO lol. i'd use some metal rail texture there for the sake of realism.
Another thing is the looping mayday sound when you get to the finale. it didn't stop when you press the radio button and it should.
last thing is..on the heli pad you've used Obscured navs and so the infected pop out of thin air as you fly off you see that and it being funny took a bit of the edge off the "OMG i've made it out and shat my pants during" lmao.

I absolutely love how it's built as a maze. i love how it's only one map. i love your work and your style. you've very talented. great job.

val

[tombaldry]

Cheers for the comments I am working on a slightly brighter version. The sound thing did it happen just the once or does it happen everytime for you? I experienced it a few times but thought I'd nailed it. Noone had mentioned it so I figured I truly had succeeded. You've made me sad lol :[

Valar I'm irate from l4dmaps.com forums. Can you post there today it's b0rked for me?

[Valar]

ive played it only once so...but it's doable i'm sure you can sus it.
good to see you here irate. ill post this on there as well. gj

[tombaldry]

http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=896
http://l4dmapdb.com/local--files/map:da ... it_vpk.zip


You need to select the second map in the campaign GUI for things to work properly.

If you load the first map in the campaign (like when voting to restart the campaign) things do work just fine, but you load up a tiny map that just auto finishes and then loads to the main map. The first and only time you spawn in the main map when loaded this way you will drop to floor and die before respawning at the beginning of the main map ready to play. This is to preserve the fly-in-intro and enable tanks/witches on a single map campaign. It is perfectly normal and the best I can do for now.

This is a bit of poor way of doing things I know, but it works I hope, any issues let me know thanks!

[joe_rogers_11155]

A: Intellectual challenge to get special infected spawning correctly along a reasonably complicated flow. Stock L4D maps are pretty linear and I understand why now.

How linear exactly does a L4D campaign map have to be? Let me illustrate this idea I've had, and tell me how the nav might work...

So let's say I make a map where the survivors can see their next checkpoint (safe room) from the start of the map, but there's a big gate blocking the way that needs power...and they have to head through a small power plant to activate a generator, then run back through the place to open the gate?

The power plant has two or three small panic events where the survivors flip switches on each of three floors, and the place is laid out without a specific line of hallways and corridors. So it calls for the survivors to run across the same territory twice or three times...how does that screw up the nav?

[Valar]

might be a tad problematic. the game will basically look for a nav flow and sort out one of many which is the shortest. human players will be able to work with it but bots won't and will most proly go stand near the gate once they reach it and won't move until it's opened.
the game nav idea work like this:
goal (start checkpoint) - to goal (end checkpoint)
so no "stations" or "secondary routes" possible in between these two goals.

the only way for you to workaround this is by actually partitioning somehow that "same territory" as you put it. meaning, for example : the "same territory" being a yard. they arrive at a certain part of the yard in the first round. then second round they will arrive at another part of the same yard only that is inaccessible now. and so on so forth.
hope it made some sense

[tombaldry]

It's much as Valar says.

It would be very problematic. The director attempts to spawn special infected along the flow and as valar said the flow will be the shortest route. I had all sort of fun with this as can be read about here with dual routing:

http://forum.l4dmaps.com/viewtopic.php? ... 5&start=40

You will experience issues with safe rooms and with special infected. Your alternative is to make the gate static indefinatly and to make the player enter that blocked off part through a different door that's off the start area route altogether. Make it blatantly obvious, a feature if you will; that they're back where they started but force the flow to go all around your map by making that gate properly static.

[JediPhreaK]

you could make an area visible but not get to able except by taking a path all the way around and through the plant etc. but you cannot have any valid path to it other than all the way around through the main path.