calculatedChaos Gaming

Ive decided to take a break on tfbidge for now since last Sunday's gametest day was less than satisfactory. The amount of optimization that I would have to do with the tree's is just the last thing I want thing on my mind. So im taking a break from the good' ol bridge and now working on a new project that will be a Badwater style PL map. This would be my first pl that ive done and I have already entered alpha for the 3rd time after 2 failed attempts on making my idea's come to life.

So anyways I don't want to reveal too much about this map since it's very different from current maps in terms of it's environment. I have dubbed this map PL_MAGMA. As the name may imply it takes place in a volcano or deep underground caverns that will be surrounded by RED technology. (Think Dr. Evil) . I haven't seen this done before and I think it's a fresh idea and style.

So naturally there is an explosion at every PL. But it tends to be something that should explode, for example Badwater and Goldrush have explosive barrels in the hole. But to fit with the TF style I need a doomsday device for RED team. I'm thinking of having a device hang over a large pit of lava. What that device is I do not know. I've come up with several ideas like a giant drill of doom, lasers of doom, missiles of doom etc. Im not sure how fancy I want to get either, another idea I had was have the bomb drop into the lava, cause an explosion and lava flows up from below killing everything.

So give me some input, what kind of weapon should be hanging over the lava or should I just stick with a bomb falling into the lava?

If you wanted to go with your doomsday missile device plan, maybe a stockpile of missiles with one or two ready to launch with a hole coming up from the cavern roof, and if BLU fails you could do the classic TF2 thing and have it launch right up through the whole, but if BLU wins, the bomb would destroy both the stockpile and the missile ready to launch.

I'm looking forward to see what you're gonna do with this, the map sounds fun already.

Perhaps you could make the payload go into something like the thing from Nucleus with RED computers in it, having it it open up after BLU capture the second to last point so RED has a chance to defend it. Also some kind of mine shaft this and rickety bridge would be cool. Just my ideas

Is a giant robot out of the question? Blue gets to the last point and it explodes and kills everyone. Blue looses and it launches out of the volcano.

hmm im liking some of the input here keep it coming, im not gonna work on that road until i get there, but differnt ideas are nice.

MrKerplunkers wrote:Perhaps you could make the payload go into something like the thing from Nucleus with RED computers in it, having it it open up after BLU capture the second to last point so RED has a chance to defend it. Also some kind of mine shaft this and rickety bridge would be cool. Just my ideas

Or just make the cart into the prop from Nucleus and have the Blu team push it into an actual payload cart.

alright thanks for the input guys, now i need input on somethign else.

because this entire map is based inside caves, cavern, volcano thing, naturally it should be dark and gloomy. Ive made a custom displacement with a lava crack texture and the regular valve wall forest wall texture stone thing but i made it darker. Ive made 2 versions of it, one that illuminates and another that doesnt.

I like both of them and thats the problem..here are some example screenshots of the two textures, i kinda like the darkerest one because despite it being dark, it makes sense if its inside a cave and the lava cracks come out really well. On the other hand the illuminated one looks really nice but it doesn't fit as well with the rest of the lighting. It also comes down to an idea of having a pl map that has semi normal lighting, or a map where the lighting is really dark and making playing a little more intresting.

The displacements look nice in the pics but I would rally like to see them in-game.

Okay, so it's a little dark and for the first two points it's way to easy to be an attacker. Also one aesthetic thing to fix is the tracks. You need to connect all the pieces. There was more but I forgot....

I like the lava cracks and it's a TAD too dark. like, I can barely see the cart tracks in the 3rd picture. (then again, I'm already half blind. ) And for the first part, maybe have the beginning of the map have like nucular missles primed for launch and when you get to the end it locks in the cordinates of Red's base and launch them at it? a bit unorthidox (fail spelling) but I thought it might be cool.

lol thanks for the input, tracks arent down because they are not final but i can see the concern of not knowing where the track goes.

Also these pics are very old it looks really different now and its a little brighter.

From its first play test I could see how easy it was, and so I plan on moving things and changing things soon.

No missiles sorry.

Thanks for the input you guys!

SiniStarR wrote:lol thanks for the input, tracks arent down because they are not final but i can see the concern of not knowing where the track goes.

Also these pics are very old it looks really different now and its a little brighter.

From its first play test I could see how easy it was, and so I plan on moving things and changing things soon.

No missiles sorry.

Thanks for the input you guys!

Aww. Well that's ok. Can I ask a question though? I have been searching everywhere for that thing in the top left corner of the screen on the third pic. What is it?

PhrozenFlame wrote:

SiniStarR wrote:lol thanks for the input, tracks arent down because they are not final but i can see the concern of not knowing where the track goes.

Also these pics are very old it looks really different now and its a little brighter.

From its first play test I could see how easy it was, and so I plan on moving things and changing things soon.

No missiles sorry.

Thanks for the input you guys!

Aww. Well that's ok. Can I ask a question though? I have been searching everywhere for that thing in the top left corner of the screen on the third pic. What is it?

You talking about the achievement tracker?

Riftoff wrote:

PhrozenFlame wrote:

SiniStarR wrote:lol thanks for the input, tracks arent down because they are not final but i can see the concern of not knowing where the track goes.

Also these pics are very old it looks really different now and its a little brighter.

From its first play test I could see how easy it was, and so I plan on moving things and changing things soon.

No missiles sorry.

Thanks for the input you guys!

Aww. Well that's ok. Can I ask a question though? I have been searching everywhere for that thing in the top left corner of the screen on the third pic. What is it?

You talking about the achievement tracker?

Apparently. MUST. USE. GOOGLE.

It's just an option in tf2 you check the box on the achievement.

/fail