FF Epicenter (Beta 2 DL)

[o_loader]

I think it was fine..

The textures that Circuitous was talking about I had no idea they were there..

Most of the errors found were complete nit picking ones. I was just amazed at how the map looked/felt.

All in all a great map.. Just watch those stairs

[Circuitous]

The radius on the fire is quite large though.

Also there are some more texture errors in the broken ceiling of the respawns that I didn't bother to take shots of.

I ran the map in garry's mod and added like 60 combine and 60 rebels and gave them all shotguns and let them go at it while I threw grenades and SLAMs. Assuming the FF ragdoll won't be quite as intense as HL2's it should run fantastically, at least on my config.

[o_ginger lord]

Thats good to know, seeing as I havn't started optimising it yet.

[o_d3pth charge]

why the ladder hate? ladders worked fine imo, seems kind of off to make stairs instead :S

[o_ginger lord]

1) Ladders are ugly, ugly things
2) In a city, who places ladders to get between floors? No one.
3) They are ugly
4) I hate how fast you go up them, they are prone to all sorts of bugs
5) From the 3rd person, it looks stupid having people float up ladders
6) They leave you vunerable to attack or any movemend besides up or down, with stairs at least you can look around, move and shoot at the same time. It keeps the gameplay flowing.

[o_d3pth charge]

the cities are supposed to be retrofitted for war, last minute modifications like the bunkers and ladders would make sense. they stapled them to the wall to get from one floor to another.

i dont see how they are ugly.... they are just... ladders?

FF team could make ladder animation and debug ladders so they dont glitch, so tahts kind of a void reason.

yes they leave you vunerable but thats kind of the point, you can conc or gren/rjump up the ledge if you dont want to go up the ladder.


sounds like you are basing the cons on TFC which is kind of unfair since this is a whole new game. things like bugs and stuff are kind of a dumb reason to get rid of them, when they are being remade anyway.

I just think its kind of weird for gameplay... plus its not like they can be completely removed from the game. How would congestus work with stairs? or openfire, etc?

see what i mean?

[o_drtom]

openfire works juist fine with all its stairs buddy !

-but i agree

[o_zsleek7]

Theres a crevice that I found that could become quite annoying in certain circumstances - if you go out the top respawn and take a left and stop at the ramp you will be facing a diagonal wall. If you jump over this you can get stuck. Its hard to do in hldm but in FF it should be pretty easy to get stuck. You can kinda see the wall in this picture (its on the very very left side of the screen, you can barely see it).
http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?im...rb100026lu.jpg

Edit : yes circ
Also I also feel the capping area is cramped, but maybe its an illusion

[Circuitous]

You mean the diagonal wall ALLLLLLL the way on the very left of the picture, just barely shown, immediately right of the ramp if you're looking at it from the center?

The one shown on the left of this picture and center-top on this one?

[o_bokko]

JIggles could you please replace your images with URLs or thumbnails, some crazy scrolling shit going on when you try to read this page while its loading. Oh and ramps and ladders > stairs any day, mostly in terms of gameplay but also in visuals if designed right!

[Jiggles]

Ladders are ugly because there's no 3rd person animation for climbing/shooting/anything. I doubt the dev team is going to come up with a set of animations for ladders, since it would be even more work than the "throwing gren" animations, which they aren't doing either. A simple climbing animation would only work if the game disallowed aiming/firing from a ladder, which would suck gameplay-wise (for such a fast-paced game).

[mervaka]

ooo more inside information :D

[o_jaunty]

Also, ladders are slow and ugly.

[o_darknight]

Ladders are fast. If you know how to.

[o_ginger lord]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Ladders are ugly because there's no 3rd person animation for climbing/shooting/anything. I doubt the dev team is going to come up with a set of animations for ladders, since it would be even more work than the "throwing gren" animations, which they aren't doing either. A simple climbing animation would only work if the game disallowed aiming/firing from a ladder, which would suck gameplay-wise (for such a fast-paced game).

The lack of 3rd person animation is the main problem in my view. if it was a simple thing to add, why do no mods have it? Even Counter-Strike that has had millions of dollars thrown at it still does not have it.

[o_etzell]

It's not a simple thing to add. Just think about how easy that would be to get wrong. What if I jump onto a ladder and my hands are between rungs? That'll make the climbing look off. Also, what about if I turn to shoot? That'll mess the whole animation up as well. Where do guns go?

All of these things make an animation for climing a ladder not feasible.

[o_virus]

Great work I love the remake excelent job. There's a few bugs to be fixed still, I'll get around to geting a few screen shots since I haven't seen anyone post some of the other small bugs yet. I love it to death though.

[o_imbrifer]

Ladders have worked fine in most games I've played before. Sure, the 3rd person animation looks off, but you go up them in a second.

As for this map specifically, I'm saddened that you decided not to use ladders. You said something like 'who puts ladders between levels in a city', but most of the ladders are between outside levels/crevices (a la fire escapes) which makes perfect sense to me.
I would not have changed it for the simple fact that is a remake - but you do have some creative control since its a remake. I agree that ladders should be phased out in new maps for the aforementioned reasons, but a quality map is being seriously changed.
It removes playable area. Some of the places you have made into winding staircases are places where I used to put sentry guns. I can no more, and thus gameplay takes a big hit (for engineers) because sentry gun placement is pivotal.
It's also cramped to go up the stiars and they look odd. It can also be a serious pain to navigate up them, while ladders were easy, and are found in most maps (and still will be).
Visibility is about nonexistent (you said you can navigate and shoot while using them, but the ones I ran around in your map are way too cramped to look around and shoot people).

That's my 2 cents, and why I'm keeping ladders in 2morforever.

[mervaka]

ladders work great in BF2 :D but i guess thats a slower game

[Jiggles]

Originally Posted by Mervaka

ladders work great in BF2

If by "great" you mean "I'm a sitting duck!"

Originally Posted by Imbrifer

It removes playable area. Some of the places you have made into winding staircases are places where I used to put sentry guns. I can no more, and thus gameplay takes a big hit (for engineers) because sentry gun placement is pivotal.

I'd say most sg positions won't be affected. The map is full of spots to stick sgs, I'm sure you'll find some replacement spots that work fine.

It's also cramped to go up the stiars and they look odd. It can also be a serious pain to navigate up them, while ladders were easy, and are found in most maps (and still will be).

Just because other people use them doesn't mean ladders are a good idea :P Ladders themselves are a pain to navigate, and since you can only go up or down, a brain-dead monkey could kill you on one.

Visibility is about nonexistent (you said you can navigate and shoot while using them, but the ones I ran around in your map are way too cramped to look around and shoot people).

The staircases provide more cover, but nothing a grenade won't fix.

That's my 2 cents, and why I'm keeping ladders in 2morforever.

Your call, of course. I honestly don't remember many ladders in 2morefort, so they must not have been too important.