A new map: ff_harbor. It's kinda like hunted.

o_nezumi · 03-31-2005, 12:05 PM

A while back I made, or started to make, this map for TFC. It stressed the limitations of the engine a bit too much (that is to say, I have no self controll when it comes to brushwork) so I had to shelve it. I recently began updating it for the source engine, in hopes that TF2/source would ever come out. Now that I've come across FF I suppose it'd be a good idea to make it for that.

This map is kinda like hunted, but with two teams of hunted and bodyguards.

Red team is one solo VIP, and yellow is his team of bodyguards. Blue is the other VIP and green is his team of bodyguards.

In this map, there is no 'goal' for either hunted to run to, but instead the last VIP alive wins along with his team of bodyguards.

Now, Red and Blue teams, the VIPs, aren't restricted to the civilian class. The only class restrictions in the map are that no one is allowed to be HW. Otherwise any class can be chosen by anyone on every team.

There is another twist, however! (Yes, this is one twisty mofo of a map). Neither team ever respawns in the same location every round. In this map, which is laid out like a beach-front city, there are 7 possible spawn locations. On a new round, both 'teams' (consisting of a VIP and his guards) spawn in a random one of these locations. No team ever spawns in the same place twice, and never in the same place as their enemies. When a VIP dies, of course, the round resets and new locations are chosen, but when a guard dies he always respawns at the same place he did at the begining of the round. This means that you'll always spawn inside your temporary 'base', and won't have to run across the level to get back to your VIP to protect him.

Of course, the VIP doesn't have to stay put. The final extra rules in this game are this: If a bodyguard kills his opposing VIP, then he gets 10 bonus frags, and his team and his VIPs team score goes up by 10. But if one of the VIPs kills the opposing VIP, then he gains 100 points, and his and his guards' team score goes up by 100. (The 10 and 100 points are arbitrary. I may tweak them for balance.)

The 7 locations are the lighthouse (1 in the picture), the trainstation (2), the boat in the harbour (3), an empty warehouse (4). The other three are another warehouse directly adjacent the the first warehouse with a bit more cover, and two smallish 2-story houses facing eachother across a street.

As you can imagine, some locations will be much harder to defend than others. The lighthouse is only accessed by a narrow winding stair or an elevator ride up from below the water. The warehouse in #4 is totally devoid of any sort of cover. Any unbalance created this way should be evened out by the switching of locations for each team each round.

Tah dah! I got it all to work in the original TFC, except that I couldn't get the game to award more points when one VIP killed another (see this post: http://forums.fortress-forever.com/viewtopic.php?t=1213). Also, the wpolies got up to around 4000 in some places, although this could be greatly reduced with some clever hint-brusing. Hopefully with some of the more advanced ways of economizing maps available in source, I can make this map run smoothly.

I'm imagining things like one VIP being a spy, and disguising himself like an enemy guard, then slipping a knife in the other VIPs ribs, or a sniper VIP picking off an enemy VIP so foolish as to try to assault the lighthouse. Stuff like that.

I hope to have it retexture soon, and a lot of updated entities in place before too long. After that I can start putting in source goodies like a 3D skybox (which this map desperately needs) and the like.

o_shaggy · 03-31-2005, 12:49 PM

Hrmm have a few questions about this map. Is the VIP distinguished from the rest. I ask this because he's allowed to be any class. I believe if you dont make it apparent, the map would get quickly annoying, as you are forced to try and kill everybody to get lucky and kill the VIP. If the VIP is distinguished from the rest I do also see a problem with him being a spy. If he is a spy, can he disguise himself. If so, is it still apparent that he's the VIP? If not, then the spy has a huge advantage. Also I'm wondering will there be gernade packs. Since this seems to be a total dming map, I'd think gernade packs would be a bad thing. Anyways, it's a very unique idea, i hope it's as fun as it is creative.

o_zsleek7 · 03-31-2005, 02:11 PM

I've always wanted to play a map like this! Sounds like alot of fun and I cant wait to play it! I hope you continue to make more maps like this one.

trepid_jon · 03-31-2005, 05:34 PM

Sounds like an interesting concept and I'm curious how it would play. It sounds kinda like a mix between hunted and murderball, which I bet would be a lot of fun.

I don't really think disabling HWGuys is needed in a map like this though, because I doubt they'd ruin the game or anything like that. In fact, I bet it'd be fun to be an HW in this kind of map.

Defrag · 03-31-2005, 10:16 PM

If your map got up to 4000 wpolies, that's not really an engine limitation -- it'll chug on whatever engine you care to make it for :/ Try to think of ways to seperate the open areas with solid visblocking.

The actual concept sounds very interesting

o_nezumi · 03-31-2005, 11:04 PM

As for the 4000 wpolys, I'm sure I'll be able to reduce this enormously. A hint brush across the top of the level would stop the game from rendering things on the other side of tall buildings you can't see. There are a ton of fixes that the source engine allows for too (like areaportals)

Also, a lot of the balance issues have yet to be worked out, like class limits. I wanted to disable HWs because getting mown down by one if you're an attacking VIP would discourage VIPs attacking, which I don't want to do. Maybe VIPs could be allowed to be HWs because they're not that hard to kill

As for your question, shaggy, the VIPs will normally be different colors than everyone else. Red and blue are VIPs, green and yellow are bodyguards. Yes, if a VIP is a spy he has a great advantage. He could disguise himself as anyone on any team. He could even hide as one of his bodyguards to look inconspicuous. Perhaps in that case one of his bodyguards could be a spy disguised as him, then lead eveyone else on a wild goose chase.

Jiggles · 04-01-2005, 01:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nezumi

Yes, if a VIP is a spy he has a great advantage. He could disguise himself as anyone on any team. He could even hide as one of his bodyguards to look inconspicuous. Perhaps in that case one of his bodyguards could be a spy disguised as him, then lead eveyone else on a wild goose chase.

Damn, I so want to play this map now! (not sarcasm)

o_racer · 04-01-2005, 02:08 AM

I love the idea and just mad i hadnt thought of it first.

Im skeptical of the huge points advantage cause that seems to maake that one kill so huge it baiscally is the match. Maybe double points for a pres on pres kill.

About the Pres being a spy, omg that could be so fun or it could be so annoying in a pub when team work and communication is rare.
I say let the pres be a civilian or give him a pistol only. Or maybe let him be one class like HW so he hard to kill.
So many variations could work, either way will be a map i will try for sure.

o_nezumi · 04-01-2005, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nezumi

The 10 and 100 points are arbitrary. I may tweak them for balance.

C'mon people, I know it's a long post but you can read the whole thing. I believe in you. Lolz. I do however appriciate the support, guys.

o_racer · 04-11-2005, 04:48 AM

Yep , why i gave you my feedback to help you tweak them, I read the whole post.

mirvin_monkey · 04-11-2005, 02:54 PM

I love the idea, I really hope you manage to pull this off. We'll do what we can to make sure that your concept can be realised through the FF entity system.

o_hypnotoad · 04-11-2005, 09:46 PM

Are you planning on putting healt/armor/bags on this map

o_deadeh · 04-12-2005, 10:01 AM

Id really love to play this

sounds like fun

how is the work progressing on it these days

?

keep it up and all that

o_sensai · 04-12-2005, 03:10 PM

Look at the wall with the Red Tower in it... YES!!! OMG the walls of TFC. Let's go play xover2 and badlands now.

o_nezumi · 04-18-2005, 08:32 PM

Update: This map compiles like a train wreck! Porting geometry from .map to .vmf takes a lot of work. For one thing, you have to remake ALL of the entities (they show up as solid black. If anyone has a better fix for this than to simply remake them all, I'd appriciate the info). The vising is terrible, although I can fix this with some better sky box construction and hints and area portals. I'm finding some pretty tricky ways of making it seem like more of the map is visible than really is, like putting a simplified duplicate of things in the 3D skybox. (don't worry, none of that is anyplace a player can be. That is to say, you'll never look down on a place and not see someone who should be there because it's drawing the skybox version instead of the real version.)

The MAIN problem I'm having is the water. Ther is no 'func_water' in HL2DM, nor any substitute, as far as I can tell. I've had to make some complicated water geometry to fit around the boad (so that you can be below decks on the boat without being underwater), but with no func_water in hl2dm...
Perhaps the boat could be up on a drydock so it's completely out of the water.

Anyway, I'm holding off on making more of this untill perhaps I can see what FF entities I can use. It looks good though, and i'm expanding some areas so there's more playable game space, moving the lighthouse so it's not in such an awkward place, etc. Basically a lot of changes the source engine affords me.

As for backpacks, yes, if all goes as planned there will be packs. I'm hoping that I can make team specific packs that switch which team can use them depending on who's spawning where and that dissapear entirely if no one spawns at their location (think 'portable resupply').

P.S. A question for the Devs: Will entites have a 'SetTeam' input? Please say yes. Please.

o_nezumi · 08-29-2005, 10:34 AM

Yay, the map has an official name: ff_harbor.

I changed the title of the thread to reflect this.

o_etzell · 08-29-2005, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaggy

Hrmm have a few questions about this map. Is the VIP distinguished from the rest. I ask this because he's allowed to be any class. I believe if you dont make it apparent, the map would get quickly annoying, as you are forced to try and kill everybody to get lucky and kill the VIP. If the VIP is distinguished from the rest I do also see a problem with him being a spy. If he is a spy, can he disguise himself. If so, is it still apparent that he's the VIP? If not, then the spy has a huge advantage. Also I'm wondering will there be gernade packs. Since this seems to be a total dming map, I'd think gernade packs would be a bad thing. Anyways, it's a very unique idea, i hope it's as fun as it is creative.

*COUGH* TEAMCOLORS! *COUGH*

Except for spies. That'd be a PITA.

o_sizeablessonic · 08-29-2005, 10:11 PM

A very intresting idea. and it sounds cool ill be sure to try it out.

o_robg · 08-30-2005, 09:07 AM

Yeah I like the sound of this...I was always a Hunted fan (who wasn't?)

o_nezumi · 08-30-2005, 10:38 AM

I'll get some screenshots of the source version up soon.

03-31-2005, 12:05 PM	#1
o_nezumi Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Peoples Republic of Harmfull Free Radicals Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	A new map: ff_harbor. It's kinda like hunted. A while back I made, or started to make, this map for TFC. It stressed the limitations of the engine a bit too much (that is to say, I have no self controll when it comes to brushwork) so I had to shelve it. I recently began updating it for the source engine, in hopes that TF2/source would ever come out. Now that I've come across FF I suppose it'd be a good idea to make it for that. This map is kinda like hunted, but with two teams of hunted and bodyguards. Red team is one solo VIP, and yellow is his team of bodyguards. Blue is the other VIP and green is his team of bodyguards. In this map, there is no 'goal' for either hunted to run to, but instead the last VIP alive wins along with his team of bodyguards. Now, Red and Blue teams, the VIPs, aren't restricted to the civilian class. The only class restrictions in the map are that no one is allowed to be HW. Otherwise any class can be chosen by anyone on every team. There is another twist, however! (Yes, this is one twisty mofo of a map). Neither team ever respawns in the same location every round. In this map, which is laid out like a beach-front city, there are 7 possible spawn locations. On a new round, both 'teams' (consisting of a VIP and his guards) spawn in a random one of these locations. No team ever spawns in the same place twice, and never in the same place as their enemies. When a VIP dies, of course, the round resets and new locations are chosen, but when a guard dies he always respawns at the same place he did at the begining of the round. This means that you'll always spawn inside your temporary 'base', and won't have to run across the level to get back to your VIP to protect him. Of course, the VIP doesn't have to stay put. The final extra rules in this game are this: If a bodyguard kills his opposing VIP, then he gets 10 bonus frags, and his team and his VIPs team score goes up by 10. But if one of the VIPs kills the opposing VIP, then he gains 100 points, and his and his guards' team score goes up by 100. (The 10 and 100 points are arbitrary. I may tweak them for balance.) The 7 locations are the lighthouse (1 in the picture), the trainstation (2), the boat in the harbour (3), an empty warehouse (4). The other three are another warehouse directly adjacent the the first warehouse with a bit more cover, and two smallish 2-story houses facing eachother across a street. As you can imagine, some locations will be much harder to defend than others. The lighthouse is only accessed by a narrow winding stair or an elevator ride up from below the water. The warehouse in #4 is totally devoid of any sort of cover. Any unbalance created this way should be evened out by the switching of locations for each team each round. Tah dah! I got it all to work in the original TFC, except that I couldn't get the game to award more points when one VIP killed another (see this post: http://forums.fortress-forever.com/viewtopic.php?t=1213). Also, the wpolies got up to around 4000 in some places, although this could be greatly reduced with some clever hint-brusing. Hopefully with some of the more advanced ways of economizing maps available in source, I can make this map run smoothly. I'm imagining things like one VIP being a spy, and disguising himself like an enemy guard, then slipping a knife in the other VIPs ribs, or a sniper VIP picking off an enemy VIP so foolish as to try to assault the lighthouse. Stuff like that. I hope to have it retexture soon, and a lot of updated entities in place before too long. After that I can start putting in source goodies like a 3D skybox (which this map desperately needs) and the like.

03-31-2005, 10:16 PM	#5
Defrag Retired FF Staff Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Scotland Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	If your map got up to 4000 wpolies, that's not really an engine limitation -- it'll chug on whatever engine you care to make it for :/ Try to think of ways to seperate the open areas with solid visblocking. The actual concept sounds very interesting __________________ Fortress Forever. Level Designer, Gameplay Dude and whatnot.

03-31-2005, 12:49 PM	#2
o_shaggy Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Hrmm have a few questions about this map. Is the VIP distinguished from the rest. I ask this because he's allowed to be any class. I believe if you dont make it apparent, the map would get quickly annoying, as you are forced to try and kill everybody to get lucky and kill the VIP. If the VIP is distinguished from the rest I do also see a problem with him being a spy. If he is a spy, can he disguise himself. If so, is it still apparent that he's the VIP? If not, then the spy has a huge advantage. Also I'm wondering will there be gernade packs. Since this seems to be a total dming map, I'd think gernade packs would be a bad thing. Anyways, it's a very unique idea, i hope it's as fun as it is creative.

03-31-2005, 02:11 PM	#3
o_zsleek7 Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Modesto, CA Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	I've always wanted to play a map like this! Sounds like alot of fun and I cant wait to play it! I hope you continue to make more maps like this one.

03-31-2005, 05:34 PM	#4
trepid_jon Fortress Forever Staff Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Dallas, TX Class/Position: D Civilian Gametype: Rocket Jousting Affiliations: EAFD Posts Rated Helpful 78 Times	Sounds like an interesting concept and I'm curious how it would play. It sounds kinda like a mix between hunted and murderball, which I bet would be a lot of fun. I don't really think disabling HWGuys is needed in a map like this though, because I doubt they'd ruin the game or anything like that. In fact, I bet it'd be fun to be an HW in this kind of map. __________________ Support FF: Trepid steamcommunity.com/id/trepid_jon/

03-31-2005, 11:04 PM	#6
o_nezumi Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Peoples Republic of Harmfull Free Radicals Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	As for the 4000 wpolys, I'm sure I'll be able to reduce this enormously. A hint brush across the top of the level would stop the game from rendering things on the other side of tall buildings you can't see. There are a ton of fixes that the source engine allows for too (like areaportals) Also, a lot of the balance issues have yet to be worked out, like class limits. I wanted to disable HWs because getting mown down by one if you're an attacking VIP would discourage VIPs attacking, which I don't want to do. Maybe VIPs could be allowed to be HWs because they're not that hard to kill As for your question, shaggy, the VIPs will normally be different colors than everyone else. Red and blue are VIPs, green and yellow are bodyguards. Yes, if a VIP is a spy he has a great advantage. He could disguise himself as anyone on any team. He could even hide as one of his bodyguards to look inconspicuous. Perhaps in that case one of his bodyguards could be a spy disguised as him, then lead eveyone else on a wild goose chase.

04-01-2005, 02:08 AM	#8
o_racer Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	I love the idea and just mad i hadnt thought of it first. Im skeptical of the huge points advantage cause that seems to maake that one kill so huge it baiscally is the match. Maybe double points for a pres on pres kill. About the Pres being a spy, omg that could be so fun or it could be so annoying in a pub when team work and communication is rare. I say let the pres be a civilian or give him a pistol only. Or maybe let him be one class like HW so he hard to kill. So many variations could work, either way will be a map i will try for sure.

04-11-2005, 04:48 AM	#10
o_racer Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Yep , why i gave you my feedback to help you tweak them, I read the whole post.

04-11-2005, 02:54 PM	#11
mirvin_monkey Fortress Forever Staff Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Cape Town, SA Posts Rated Helpful 8 Times	I love the idea, I really hope you manage to pull this off. We'll do what we can to make sure that your concept can be realised through the FF entity system.

04-11-2005, 09:46 PM	#12
o_hypnotoad Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Are you planning on putting healt/armor/bags on this map

04-12-2005, 10:01 AM	#13
o_deadeh Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Id really love to play this sounds like fun how is the work progressing on it these days ? keep it up and all that

04-12-2005, 03:10 PM	#14
o_sensai Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Look at the wall with the Red Tower in it... YES!!! OMG the walls of TFC. Let's go play xover2 and badlands now.

04-18-2005, 08:32 PM	#15
o_nezumi Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Peoples Republic of Harmfull Free Radicals Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Update: This map compiles like a train wreck! Porting geometry from .map to .vmf takes a lot of work. For one thing, you have to remake ALL of the entities (they show up as solid black. If anyone has a better fix for this than to simply remake them all, I'd appriciate the info). The vising is terrible, although I can fix this with some better sky box construction and hints and area portals. I'm finding some pretty tricky ways of making it seem like more of the map is visible than really is, like putting a simplified duplicate of things in the 3D skybox. (don't worry, none of that is anyplace a player can be. That is to say, you'll never look down on a place and not see someone who should be there because it's drawing the skybox version instead of the real version.) The MAIN problem I'm having is the water. Ther is no 'func_water' in HL2DM, nor any substitute, as far as I can tell. I've had to make some complicated water geometry to fit around the boad (so that you can be below decks on the boat without being underwater), but with no func_water in hl2dm... Perhaps the boat could be up on a drydock so it's completely out of the water. Anyway, I'm holding off on making more of this untill perhaps I can see what FF entities I can use. It looks good though, and i'm expanding some areas so there's more playable game space, moving the lighthouse so it's not in such an awkward place, etc. Basically a lot of changes the source engine affords me. As for backpacks, yes, if all goes as planned there will be packs. I'm hoping that I can make team specific packs that switch which team can use them depending on who's spawning where and that dissapear entirely if no one spawns at their location (think 'portable resupply'). P.S. A question for the Devs: Will entites have a 'SetTeam' input? Please say yes. Please.

08-29-2005, 10:34 AM	#16
o_nezumi Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Peoples Republic of Harmfull Free Radicals Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Yay, the map has an official name: ff_harbor. I changed the title of the thread to reflect this.

08-29-2005, 10:11 PM	#18
o_sizeablessonic Join Date: May 2005 Location: Somewere in Nevada Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	A very intresting idea. and it sounds cool ill be sure to try it out.

08-30-2005, 09:07 AM	#19
o_robg Join Date: May 2005 Location: Nottingham Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	Yeah I like the sound of this...I was always a Hunted fan (who wasn't?)

08-30-2005, 10:38 AM	#20
o_nezumi Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Peoples Republic of Harmfull Free Radicals Posts Rated Helpful 0 Times	I'll get some screenshots of the source version up soon.

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