Late Again!
Somewhat of a useless post, since it is so damn late on Friday night. Nonetheless, I figured I needed to get something up to calm the masses, since I am playing, [SID]Slacker these days. Actually the real world has me running a bit ragged, as I am in the process of scoring a management job at the airlines which would more than DOUBLE my current pay. Being that is a priority, this site suffers. But, it will live on, more reviews and rants. Just get me through this coming week.
I think most will agree that WetWired holds the title of Best Level for Urban Terror in Ricochet. What are some of the tips he lives by? Here are some comments and tips for mapping from him.
I’m not really good at offering constructive criticism to budding mappers, being a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my own maps, when I see a boxy Q2 style map for UT, I look at it, and just cannot offer any good suggestions as to how to improve it, because they’re just that bad to start with.
I actually had BattleCow not liking me for a while for the negative feedback I gave him on his maps, but now as you can see he’s put in that extra effort and has a kick arse looking map on his hands. I’m ranting on so I’ll just outline some of the things that might help you map better:
– never be afraid to ditch something or redo particular areas of your map, I’ve been known to areas up to 5 or more times
– give your buildings depth, a flat box with a window and brick texture slapped on it simply doesn’t cut it these days, this is Q3 baby
– never finish your map at the skybox, it wreaks of dodginess
– good textures and texturing makes all the difference.
– never trust your friends/clanmates when looking for opinions on your map, even if it sucks they’ll still say they like it
– my philosophy for mapping is (although I broke it when I made nobeer and beer for AQ2), never repeat yourself, always try something new, never make a sequel, never copy anyone else’s work and constantly reinvent your own style.
– don’t repeat textures and building styles too much, always make each area of your map unique and make it interesting, so you can tell where you are in the map quickly and easily, and not get lost.
– never use prefabs (unless they’re your own) seeing a prefabbed lamp post or chair takes the player out of the game and make them think “hey that was in that other map too” always make your own so they suit the style and theme of your map.
Had a chance to finally play Armory2 by KronO tonight on the ISPGN server in TDM. The map needs some work. It almost feels like mapping with a reason. Hopefully KronO will look into redesign and updating these maps. I know Armory is a favorite of the community, but fix it already! Armory2 was just too hard to play, aside from being a very large level there was really no game flow present. It does look better than the first version. That is a plus.
Warhammer of ISPGN is putting out a call for services. “As we continue to expand here at ISPGN, it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to manage everything, so we have decided to put a call out for some volunteers. We’re looking for a couple of people from the community to help find and report news in the Urban Terror, Quake3 and online gaming communities in general” says Warhammer. So, if you want to get involved in the community, check this forum link or head over to ISPGN and check out what he and Big Brother do. Honestly, the site kicks ass. They have really added much in the way of rankings for the gamers and carry all the Urban Terror files, and run a few servers. It’s a good gig! Props to Warhammer, thanks for all the support!
I have seen some strange stuff while working on Urban Terror. It seems there are some at the Nickelodeon office who play Quake 3, recently getting into Urban Terror. Check out this comic submitted by Suicide 2.1. For the rest of the story, click here.
The Link of the Night goes to the little performance which was on LoveLine with Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew. A girl named “Shay” called up and wanted to know what “All your base are belong to us.” Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3. Pretty funny stuff. Wonder if I should drop that line in my interview this coming week.
