banksy, on 26 June 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:
I hope that you at least make it look accessible other than a by the use of ladders. Like I said in the other thread, he map needs to look real. What building in the real world would you see that is 2-3 stories with the top story only being accessible via a ladder.
I am aware that the room on top of the laundromat doesn't make much sense but it's such a key element of uptown's gameplay, I won't remove it or change it's layout. Nevertheless, I'm trying to make it look as realistic as possible, to make the room look like it has some function or reason to be there. I'm not 100 % sure yet what the real life purpose of such a room might be but we'll see.
banksy, on 26 June 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:
Or even, scrap the room, and just have it as roof top obstacles, like vents/electrical boxes, with a pergola over them, with would replace the roof of the third story.
That's an interesting idea but having vents/electrical boxes arranged in exactly that pattern to recreate the current layout seems even more unrealistic to me.
banksy, on 26 June 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:
I love uptown, but the map just doesnt make sense.
Agreed :)
banksy, on 26 June 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:
Like the elevator shaft. If there were an elevator there, all it does is takes you to an empty room... Who makes buildings that have no purpose.
That's one of the harder buildings to "fix". I'm not sure yet how to give that a purpose but I'll come up with something more or less realistic.
banksy, on 26 June 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:
Its things like this that set aside good maps from great maps.
I disagree. If that was true uptown shouldn't be as popular as it is. Gameplay is king, not realism. After all our motto is fun over realism. :)
banksy, on 26 June 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:
You never see maps in mass produced games that include random buildings purely for gameplay.
Yeah, not in most of today's shooters because they all go for realism. Quake on the other hand had lots of maps which favored gameplay over realism. Other more "fun" games like Portal and Team Fortress 2 come to mind which have very unrealistic map layouts.
cessquill, on 26 June 2014 - 05:18 PM, said:
my personal icing on the cake is about consistency in design. Across one map and all maps.
You should either be able to climb all drainpipes or none at all. If a block is within grabbing and climbing distance, you should be able to grab it and climb up.
Good point. That's also something I've tried to implement by making it more clear on the buildings which ledges you can only grab and on which ledges you can actually stand by using two clearly different widths of the ledges.
cessquill, on 26 June 2014 - 05:18 PM, said:
To have clipped areas suggests to me that the level could be designed better.
That might be true most of the time but there are always areas you just have to clip off to prevent players from getting there. Take the buildings in uptown for example. I have to add a ceiling at some point and prevent the player from getting on top of the buildings that surround the map even if it would be possible to reach them with some fancy jumps or the help of several team mates. As long as it's pretty clear for the player that he can't get there before he tries the jump it's ok in my opinion. Players do know that there has to be an end to the map at some point.
Lecter2142, on 26 June 2014 - 08:23 PM, said:
Well it's not only about spectator. It's just that in any view you are you can move through walls (/clip and you can move through them, etc).
For your information, it is not convenient in terms of performance. The fact that the map is not closed is one of the reasons why some people are experiencing low FPS and a low game quality.
I don't really know what you are referring to. Are you talking about some console command to let you fly through walls? If so, that won't inherently affect performance at all. Only when you are inside/between the walls larger parts of the map might be rendered which of course leads to poorer performance but that's just the way this stuff works.