Whenever I wake up with an idea I've to realize someone on the internet beat me to it ;)
So I was thinking about a karkand map too and found yours. I realize I'm late to the party and since the original download link doesn't work anymore I guess it's abandoned.
You've put a lot of effort it seems, the map feels big and contains already lots of models and details. Since I also planned to do something but probably won't since you already did it, I hope if it's OK to put forth my ideas; maybe it inspires someone, maybe not.
Nevertheless I played it a bit with a friend. Layout-wise the strict grid of the map didn't turn out to be very interesting for UrT. With that I mean the big street surrounding the inner buildings and such.
As someone else mentioned, somehow the scale doesn't work well. At least it didn't for us, play-wise. Some samples:
With that scale, for example the width of the street and few features on the wall, it's hard to proper make use of one of the core mechanics of UrT, wall-jumping. You can do it, but the benefits are too small.
One of the buildings you built outside the reachable space absolutely looks like it should be part of the map; it looks like a in-construction building and that would give nice movement for the different open-spaces floors:
Too bad you didn't include the other "floors" of city what makes karkand; you ended it with a tank but already did the slope:
I think continuing the map here would be perfect for UrT style.
Although I'm no one to judge anyone, here would be my suggestions .. or probably my take on it :)
- the mood of karkand was always this city in the desert somewhere; I'd continue that and lighting it up a lot more (but not to the point of casa/abbey; and IMHO it's good you didn't reused textures from them)
- to me the map looks 1/3 done. I'm saying this because I'd include the lower floors of the city too, i.e. continuing the map down the slope. Since that would probably give a disadvantage to the team start on the lower level, I'd suggest the part on the lower level is the "middle" of the map and probably mirror the part you did on the other side for the other team.
- Scale-wise I think I would reduce the space between the building and would make it more interesting to explore their first/second levels, i.e. build them taller. Especially some things like the iconic hotel would be great. With that, I would probably reduce the whole part you did to ... maybe half of it, or even a third and invest the rest of it into continuing down the slope and later going up again so it's more balanced. I realize the scale fits the Battlefield map (can be seen very good from the top of the building next to the market place with the ladder on the back)
- I probably would also include a back- and sea-side to provide alternative routes to the two ends of the map.
Thanks for reading ;)
MultiQuote
